Re: LOV and LTV

[Chris Burford]

At 06/02/02 20:10 -0800, you wrote:
>This definition of course does not capture the systemic and dynamic 
>features which Chris B is attempting to build into his definition.


"The law of value of commodities ultimately determines how much of its 
disposable working-time society can expend on each particular class of 
commodities."


V  Vol I  Ch 14Sec 4



And how could Marx define the "absolute general law of capitalist 
accumulation" in the way he does in Ch XXV if his theory of value was not
a) dynamic
b )systemic?



Mine is not an overimaginative reading of the overall thrust of Marx's 
approach, (although unimaginative readings of Marx's theory are more than 
possible).


Chris Burford

Re: LOV and LTV

[Chris Burford]

At 07/02/02 06:07 +, you wrote:

>>CB: In this sense, Marx's "value" is not heuristic, but a fundamental 
>>theoretical concept.
>
>I'm not persuaded.
>
>jks


Nobody has to be persuaded of anything.

But Justin, do you accept that what you criticise as being redundant some 
of us would merely call a labor theory of prices?

And from the perspective of it being an expanation of exploitation, some of 
us would say that childen notice there are grossly unfair and inexplicable 
differences in society. Some of us would say that the marxian theory of 
value is much bigger than an explanation of exploitation.

Without being persuaded by us, do you acknowedge that such different 
perspectives exist?

Chris Burford

RE: To DD:

[Davies, Daniel]

I'm attempting to precis the first chapter of "Soviet Planning Today" by
Michael Ellman, Cambridge University Press, 1972.

cheers

dd

-Original Message-
From: Hari Kumar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 06 February 2002 23:05
To: pen
Subject: [PEN-L:22487] To DD:


hi. You write:
"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), 
REFERENCE please?
hari Kumar


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Re: LOV and LTV

[Justin Schwartz]

> >CB: What's the difference between a lawful explanation and a lawlike
> >explanation ?  ( no fuzzy answers)
> >
>
>The explanations invoked in physics are lawful, i.e., they use preciselt
>formulated lawsto generate specific (if sometimes probabilistic)
>predictions.
>
>^^
>
>CB: Of course, admitting probablism admits the very fuzziness that this old 
>superiority complex of  "hard" sciences claims is its superiority to "soft" 
>social science.

Not at all. With quantum probabilities you can predict values down to as 
many decimal places as you care to write. Quantum is not riddled with 
exceptions and ceteris paribus clauses.

>Physics is now a contradictory unity of extreme precision and extreme 
>fuzziness, just as a dialectics of nature might have expected.

What are you talking about?

>>
>On the most charir=table interpretation of laws in social
>science, any lawlike generalizations that exist are not like this.
>
>
>
>CB: Naw. I overcame my social science inferority complex to physical 
>sciences long ago.

It's not superiority/inferiority thing, it's just different.

>This won't fly anymore with us social scientists.

I'm a Michigan=trained socisl scientists myself, Charles--my PhD is joint 
polisci and philosophy.

>Social scientist generalizations are very lawlike, in the original sense of 
>"law" , to which physics and certainly biology, have come full circle and 
>retuned to.

Some and some, but more like evolutionary biology, which hardly has any 
lawlike generalizations at all. That doesn't, I say again, make it worse or 
inferior.

>
>To paraphrase the leading anthropologist Leslie A. White (sort of opposite 
>to postmods) a main reason that social science is rendered "soft" and 
>impotent in the bourgeois academy is that the best social science today, 
>Marxism, would overthrow the existing order.

I said something like this in The Paradox of Ideology, by way of explaining 
why therre is no consenus in social science.

>
>Marxism makes very good and lawlike generalizations.
>

A few, but which are you thinking of?

>I'm mean you can say that the laws of history are not as mechanical as the 
>laws of mechanics, i.e. physics. But that's a tautology. So what ?
Physics is not the archtype model for all science.
>

You asked what the difference was. I never said social science should aspire 
to be like physics.

>
>  They are
>riddled with exceptions, burdened with ceteris paribus clauses, and
>generally fuzzy.
>
>^^^
>
>CB: There are lots of these in physics, chemistry and biology.
>

Biology, yes. Name a few in physics and chemistry.

>But that subjectivities play a bigger role in social science does not mean 
>there are not also objective exactnesses.

I agree.

There are subjectivities in law situations, but the law manages to put a 
very precise grid over social situations.  Social science can obtain a 
literally similar _lawlike_ precision.

Not a _very_ precise grid.

So, natural scientists need a new word. "Lawlike" is closer to what social 
scientists have.
>

That's what I said.
>
>But not only that, social science has identified satisfactorily , from the 
>standpoint of knowledge, many generlizations, and laws,that can guide 
>practice.  I reject the physical sciences claims to lawlike superority and 
>the like.

Me too.

>
>CB: In this sense, Marx's "value" is not heuristic, but a fundamental 
>theoretical concept.
>

I'm not persuaded.

jks


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Re: Re: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>The empirical equivalence thesis is part of Q-D, no? Wasn't meaning
>to suggest it was the whole shebang.

I don't think so. It's verificationist. Q-D is not. jks

>
>As we've all been remiss in pointing out until now, the most
>powerful critique of Capital -- in the last decade at the very
>least -- makes no use whatsoever of value theory. What is missing
>from that book."Wall Street", that value theory would
>make substantive improvements on?
>

well, we have it from very wise people that you can't begin to understand or 
explain capitalism without value theory, we're stucvk at the level of mere 
ecletic phenomenal static description. Sorry, Doug.

jks

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: : Value talk

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>>
>>You still don't get it. Even if there is enough demand takes up 100%
>>of the production, the profitability drops because the stuff can be
>>produced cheaper, but the firms who invested in the
>>oldertechnmologies have these huge sunk costs taht they cannot nake
>>back.
>
>Still don't understand how we move from the difficulties these
>backward firms face to a fall in the average rate of profit for
>capital-as-a-whole.

I don't know wwether the rate of profit does tend to fall. This is a vexed 
empirical question. But I can see an argument based on the above that it 
might, though it would take some additional assumptions.

>
>>  A degenerating research program often doesn't have a single fatal flaw. 
>>It
>>just runs out of steam, spends all of its time trying to fix up internal
>>problem, doesn't geberate new hypotheses and predictions and theories. I
>>think that is a pretty good description of what has happened in Marxian
>>value theory over the last century.
>
>
>You must realize that this is not an argument but an evaluation that
>comes across as an insult and fighting words.

Well, you can feel insulted if you like, but it's not meant as an insult, 
just as an evaluation.

I do think there has
>been progress in reworking official data from a value perspective
>(criticism of wage led profit squeeze thesis carried out by Shaikh
>and Moseley),

I have studied Shaikh's work, and I think some of his criticisms are valid, 
but can be expressed without the value theoretic commitments. I'm an 
overproductionist a la Brenner myself.

value theoretic analysis of the role of the
>interventionist state (Mattick, deBrunhoff),

I think you overrate Mattick, though he's not bad. I also don't think you 
need value theory to say what he says. Fisk's The State and Justice makes 
some of the same points without the value theory.

analyses of the world
>market and unequal exchange (Amin, Bettleheim, Sau, Dussel,
>Carchedi),

This stuff I don't know ell.

value based investigations of the labor process (Tony
>Smith),

You left out Braverman. But I think,a gain, that the argumebts do not 
require value theory.

attempts to undertand non commodity, fiat and near money
>(Foley, Gansmann),

I don't know this.

attempts to understand share capital (Hilferding,
>Henwood),

Henwood's not a value theorist, are you, Doug?

value based phenomenlogical studies of time (Lukacs,
>Postone),

I know Lukacs inside and out, and I think tahtw hile he is abstractly 
commited to the LTV, his analyses do not presuppose value theory at all.

clarification in differences of underconsumption,
>disproportionality and frop crisis theories, development of a theory
>of oil rent and rentier states (Bina).

Don't know this.
>
>I think Justin is making a strong evaluation without having carefully
>evaluated above work.
>

Some and some. On the whole, I stand my my claim. A lot of smart people have 
used the framework. I don't see that their best work depends on it.

jks


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Bushonomics

[Ian Murray]

< http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/pdf/2002_erp.pdf >

Economic Report of the President

Ron Reagan's birthday

[Eugene Coyle]

Don't overlook Ronald Reagan's birthday.  He's 91 and as sharp as ever.

Gene Coyle

Re: LOV and LTV

[Rakesh Bhandari]

As with most definitional debates or what seems futile hairsplitting 
and mere semantics, the hope is that clarity as to definitions will 
help prevent confusion and mutual incomprehension at a later stage in 
the debate. For example, I think much of the debate in value theory 
could be more productive if participants were clear about how surplus 
value is defined.

Let me try this definition (open to revision of course):

Value is the socially necessary abstract labor time which potentially 
objectified in a commodity has as its only and necessary form of 
appearance units of money.

I believe that this definition follows from the simple fact that in 
an atomized bourgeois society in which social labor is organized by 
private money-making units social labor time relations can only be 
regulated in and through the exchange of things, however value is in 
fact misrepresented by this mode of expression.

In capturing Marx's quantitative and qualitative sense, one should 
probably build money and fetishism into the very definition of value.

This will help to clarify that Marx is not simply qualifying 
Ricardo's definition of value but stipulating a new meaning.

This definition of course does not capture the systemic and dynamic 
features which Chris B is attempting to build into his definition.

Of course a serious problem with my definition is that it may imply 
that units of money come to define the objectified social labor time 
that is socially attributed to a commodity, rather than money price 
being an expression of the socially necessary abstract labor time 
objectively needed for the reproduction of the commodity.

While I would agree that monetary measurement is not merely a passive 
ascertainment of a preexisting attribute and specifically that value 
is not actualized without successful money sale--that is a value must 
prove itself to be a social use value--the value that is expressed in 
exchange value is based on the objective social labor time that is in 
fact needed to reproduce the bulk of such commodities though as Marx 
emphasizes this value is in fact necessarily mis-represented in 
exchange.

rb

RE: Value talk

[Devine, James]

CB: We don't need new hypotheses and predictions and theories until we
finish the project of overthrowing capitalism and initiating socialism.
Theory for the sake of theory, generation of theory for only the sake of
theory is an especially bad idea in the historical sciences.

Charles, that's ridiculous. We clearly don't have all the answers to a lot
of questions. Some of those answers may help us bring about socialism. 

For example, Marx didn't study psychology (it didn't really exist at the
time). But maybe the issues of (social) psychology could someday become
clear in a way that would help people deal with the issue of working class
consciousness, e.g., the inadequate appreciation of capitalist exploitation.


Jim D.

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Michael Perelman]

The measurement of the capital stock is in impossibility.  Franklin Fisher
once worked up the requirements for aggregation.  Can't be done!

The inability to calculate real depreciation presents another barrier.

I mentioned this in passing before in questioning how seriously we should
take estimates of profit rates as anything more than a rough rule of
thumb.

On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 04:59:36PM -, Davies, Daniel wrote:
> 
> >I don't accept GET. I'm basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian institutionalist 
> >with a large dash of Austrian thrown in for spice.
> 
> Must make for some interesting dinner parties 
> 
> But I don't see how saying "I'm an institutionalist" gets you off the hook
> here.  That's not a value theory, and neither Robinson nor Kalecki have
> either a way of telling us how to measure the capital stock without a value
> theory, or a value theory which is not fundamentally the equivalent of the
> LTV (I accept your point about a glass being half-empty or half full, but
> surely to heavens, any theory which accepts that value is only produced by
> labour is a labour theory of value; I've never understood why Robinson
> claimed that she didn't accept LTV).
> 
> And in the context of capital and value theory , "Austrian" isn't a dash of
> spice; it's arsenic soup.  It's a marginal theory of value, which hangs you
> right back on the hook that you got off with general equilibrium.
> 
> I'm sure I don't understand your position properly, and I bet that reading
> those two papers will help.  But I think it's clear that there are many good
> technical reasons to suppose that economics needs *some* value theory, and
> the labour theory of value shapes up pretty well compared to the
> competition.
> 
> 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
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> The information on which this communication is based
> has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable,
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> All expressions of opinion are subject to change
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> are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes.
> ___
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

love-in at 1600 Penn

[Ian Murray]

White House love-in under pressure

The relationship between the White House and Enron, the doomed
energy company, focuses attention on the very ways in which the US
is run, writes Julian Borger

Wednesday February 6, 2002

Washington this week is staging its own version of Kabuki theatre,
otherwise known as congressional hearings. Like the highly-stylised
Japanese dramas, the sets will be familiar, the characters will
wear fixed expressions and the plot will follow rigidly traditional
lines. But beneath the masks, themes of universal significance will
unfold.

It does not take a seer to predict that the Enron hearings will
become emblems of the Bush administration. The themes explored in
the cut and thrust of the multi-pronged enquiries go to the very
heart of how the US is being run: the function and dysfunction of
twenty-first century capitalism, the interplay between big business
and government, and the executive's prerogative to conduct its
dealings in secret.

All those issues intersect in the Bush-Cheney White House. In
drawing up its flagship energy plan, a task force run by Dick
Cheney, the vice-president, consulted an array of experts and
interested parties. Enron executives are believed to have played a
significant role in drafting the plan which favoured the energy
trader in general. The plan emphasised production over conservation
and deregulation over control. In particular, the final version
included language which boosted an Enron project in India.

Furthermore, it has emerged that Enron was allowed to suggest
candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the
government body that was supposed to police companies like Enron,
and two of those candidates, including the chairman, were
ultimately selected by the Bush administration.

Just how intimate Enron and Cheney were in those early months of
the year remains unclear, because the White House has refused to
disclose any details of the meetings, despite calls from both
Democrats and Republicans to come clean.

As a result of the impasse, congressional auditors in the General
Accounting Office, are taking the administration to court for the
first time in GAO history.

As both Cheney and Bush have accurately pointed out, the battle is
about much more than the energy plan. It addresses the
constitutional balance of power between executive and legislative
in the US political system. The current administration has made a
fetish of secrecy and portrayed it as an overdue attempt to reverse
the steady erosion of executive power which began during he Vietnam
era, continued through the Iran-Contra affair and culminated in
Bill Clinton's multiple embarrassments.

The heart of the administration's argument is as follows: if it
cannot seek outside guidance in confidence, then it can never hope
to receive unvarnished, truly honest advice, to the detriment of
good governance. That argument may play well in the courts,
particularly if the matter reaches the conservative-dominated
Supreme Court, which was after all instrumental in resolving the
2000 election in Bush's favour.

The backdrop also favours the administration. It is a time of war
when most Americans would like to see a strong executive. The
opinion polls show that the voters make a distinction between
management of war and management of the economy, with the president
receiving much better marks for the former. But there is still a
spill-over effect. Bush's ratings on domestic issues have been
buoyed by the fervently patriotic mood since September 11.

Nevertheless, the Enron scandal is likely to inflict more damage
before it is finished. The Bush administration could afford to be
so cosy with big business as long as most Americans shared their
view of corporate titans. Kenneth Lay was seen as a hero of the
free market, who had gone into battle against the slings and arrows
of supply and demand and emerged victorious. They were as wise as
they were battle-hardened, and their advice would considerably
outweigh schoolbook suggestions offered by civil servants.

But it turns out that "Kenny Boy," as Bush used to call Lay when
they were still chums, was not such a genius after all. The
administration had put its faith in a corporation that was little
more than a pyramid scheme, riding on hot air on the boundaries of
fraud. Lay now insists he did not really know what was being done
in his name, but the fact is he has single-handedly made it far
more difficult for Bush, his former protege from Texas, to appear
to be on the side of the both the fat cats and the regular Joes at
the same time. A majority of Americans, asked in a recent Time/CNN
poll, agreed that "George W Bush cares more about big business"
than "people like you".

Even if the White House thinks it can win the battle over secrecy
in court, and call it a triumph for the institution of the
presidency, the administration will sustain political wounds in
combat. In almost every presidential scandal in recent history, the
cover-up 

Re: value vs. price

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message -
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 9:09 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:22467] value vs. price


value vs. price
by Ian Murray
05 February 2002 17:09 UTC



=

Ok but surely we can understand Capital systemically without value
conepts? I was introduced to systems theory before I read KM and it
was easy to see the consonances but value theory didn't do a
friggin' thing for me. Apparently I'm not alone, so maybe it's just
a matter of taste?

^^

CB: But of course Marx's theory on value was invented as a way of
understanding capitalism before system's theory was. Of course, if
you learn system's theory first, and it has substituted other words
to correspond to all the concepts in Marx's value theory, it might
seem like there is no need for "value theory" . But that is just a
sort of plagerism resulting in ...bingo !.. anti-Marxism, or more
Justin's undemonstrated ( merely asserted without proof) "mooting"
out of Marxism's value theory

The important issue is that Marx's theory has more than value
theory in it, and the revolutionary aspects of Marx's overall
approach can get lost easier if some "system's " theory abstracts a
part Marx's theory to use.

This is a widespread technique in the vast institutions of
anti-Marxist social science.   Anthropology has a number of
materialist schools that clearly have their logical roots in
Marxism, but since it would be politically problematic in bourgeois
academe to claim Marx as their daddy, new terminologies are
invented to present the same or very similar concepts as those in
Marxism, Engels books, etc.

==

You're right, there is no new thing under the Sun of Marx. It's
just silly to say ST reduces to KM's stuff and vice versa. Not all
non-Marxian social theory is ant-Marxian. Are you arguing for a
Marxian monopoly?

Ian

Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message -
From: "Davies, Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 7:57 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:22460] RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism




>>If the main results of the
>>LTV and or the LoV whether in a quantitative-qualitative
>>combination or relying singly on quantitative or qualitative
>>approaches adds nothing to what can be achieved in terms of
>>*explanation* without them, then why shouldn't Ockam's razor
>>apply--to concepts, not entities?

>Quite.

But this is a perfect example of a fallacy of marginalism.  I think
the
strongest anti-LTV/LOV case that you could make in this direction
would be
that LTV/LOV don't "add anything to what can be explained by"
neoclassical
marginal/general equilibrium theory.  But even that would be open
to the
objection that it was also true that NC theory didn't "add
anything" to
LTV/LOV.  It all depends where you start from ...

=
Nah, the big reason we all like Marx vis a vis NC GET etc. is that
he saw Capitalism as a system of power and domination exercised via
money, technology, property etc and that it contradicts everything
we think we know about freedom, co-operation, beneficence and other
human traits that make us potentially different from crocodiles.


And in any case, LTV has the considerable technical merit over NC
theory
that it offers a non-circular method to measure the capital stock.
It also
gives some hope of an explanation of the empirical fact that
increases in
productivity do not, in general, lead to a shortening of the
working day,
which would be a prediction of utility theory given any sensible
assumption
about preferences regarding leisure.

dd

=
As Blaug and others have pointed out, the LTV has circularities of
it's own.

Ian

Re: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message -
From: "Justin Schwartz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 7:48 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:22458] Re: Re: Historical Materialism


>Q-D underdetermination asserts that if two theories are equivalent
>in their empirical entailments then some other criteria needs to
be
>used to compare explanatory virtues etc.

No, that's Q's empirical equivalence thesis. The Q-D thesis just
holds that
theories are interconnected networks of propositions, and you can
hold true
any one of them (even in the face of empirical "refutation") by
making
appropriate adjustmemnts elsewhere.



The empirical equivalence thesis is part of Q-D, no? Wasn't meaning
to suggest it was the whole shebang.

As we've all been remiss in pointing out until now, the most
powerful critique of Capital -- in the last decade at the very
least -- makes no use whatsoever of value theory. What is missing
from that book."Wall Street", that value theory would
make substantive improvements on?

Ian

"Few economists pay much attention to corporations, or how they're
owned and run" [DH]

Re: Value talk

[Michael Perelman]

A few quick notes on value theory

To begin with, the major insight from value theory comes from understanding
social relations.  Direct authority relations exist in feudal societies.
The value relations control behavior under capitalism.  I agree with what I
think Rakesh means in saying that moral depreciation alters social
relations.

Firms have to adapt to the law of value, of course.  But algebraic estimates
of underlying values may not be particularly helpful.

Rakesh Bhandari wrote:

> In response to Christian:
>
> >  >As a result of moral depreciation, the older means of production as
> >use values have not changed; nor has the concrete labor embodied
> >therein changed. What changes is the the aliquot of homogeneous,
> >social, and abstract labor time represented by those means. The key
> >here is the duality of labor--Marx's key discovery.

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901

Re: Re: Value talk

[Rakesh Bhandari]

In response to Christian:

>  >As a result of moral depreciation, the older means of production as
>use values have not changed; nor has the concrete labor embodied
>therein changed. What changes is the the aliquot of homogeneous,
>social, and abstract labor time represented by those means. The key
>here is the duality of labor--Marx's key discovery.
>
>Actually, the abstract labor time hasn't changed either. What's 
>changed are the means to realize or represent that time--which is 
>now wasted or sunk.

I would argue that the value of the morally depreciated means has 
itself changed, which does not mean of course that the sum of money 
that the capitalist class laid out for them has changed.


>  The terms for that realization are wages and debt.


don't understand yr point. Are you saying that wages and credit lines 
have to be sufficient for the surplus value that has been produced to 
be realized? Are you saying that the full value of older equipment 
can be realized if demand is strong enough? Are there any limits on 
the autonomous creation of demand? And  even if value and surplus 
value are fully realized, profitability can still founder due to more 
fundamental difficulties in the very production of sv, and firms may 
then not make use of the lines of credit that they have and in this 
uncertain environment workers will not use their available credit 
either. The problem would then not be insufficient credit and 
purchasing power. The problem would be that there would be no use of 
the credit and purchasing power that are already available. We can 
explore the connection between this critque of underconsumption with 
Keynes' liquidity trap, along with the relation between Marx's 
falling profit rate and Keynes' marginal efficiency of capital and 
the relation between Marx's theory of accumulation and Keynes' 
effective demand.

Of course our bourgeois Macroeconomic textbooks don't do us the 
favor. Even the radical Keynesian ones.


At any rate, I would think a Marxist would keep the analytical focus 
on growing problems in production and the class struggle therein 
rather than in difficulties in the realization of surplus value in 
terms of inadequate market based demand. Why would we want to give an 
analytical focus to our theory that complements bourgeois economics' 
obsession with exchange relations. Luxemburg made a  mistake, I 
think, in seeking the limits of capital in the market.

>But you can explain this without reference to values, can't you?

maybe, i am asking how.



>  If you begin with money (as below), there's no reason to keep value 
>in the equation, unless you (a) buy into Marx's moral taxonomy of 
>credit money ("fictitious capital"--"the mother of all insane 
>forms," "a fetish," "money breeding money," etc.)

don't follow.



>  or (b) reserve value as a ground for the class-existential analysis 
>of capital's limits.

the system finds its historic limits in workers' turning their 
resistance to the extraction of their surplus labor time in the 
process of production to a revolutionary struggle. It is possible 
however that the system will annihilate both classes or (I suppose) 
that a managerial mode of production could replace the capitalist one.


>Neither of these seem necessary to get at the baleful effects of 
>capital, which seem pretty evident even in the enchanted world we 
>live in.

Though not properly recognized in equilibrium theories.


>
>As per the crisis thing: I'm not quite sure I get why Marxists think 
>it's an accomplishment to predict repeated crises.

because it provides an explanation unlike GET?



>  Anybody can do that--in fact, most leftists--save maybe Doug and 
>Anwar Shaikh--have been predicting recession, depression, or 
>financial calamity for the past 5 years. So what?

We are talking about the underlying explanation, not reading tea leaves.



>  As a defense of a theoretical model, this seems pretty weak, since 
>(a) hardly anyone gets the timing of the crisis right (ie Brenner, 
>whose (great) work has been pointing to the big one since 1997),

it's not possible to do so. a theory can be explanatory while not 
being predictive in the strict sense that you indicate.


>  and (b) in the absence of that what you give is the stern policy 
>advice to flush the whole system, cause capital will always produce 
>crises.

who's advising policy makers?



>  Again, so what? At least in theory, what social dems like Godley 
>and Izuretia have going for them is that they think there are ways 
>of mitigating, though not preventing, crises.

If they think the major problems in the capitalist system 
(unemployment, intensification of labor, wipe outs of workers' 
savings) will be solved once we social democrats convince US policy 
makers to run up the federal debt to 50 or so % of GDP (unlikely that 
we could; and surely counterproductive if we were successful), they 
are no less crackpot realists than those who imagine that we will 
indeed live in 

where is the power?

[Devine, James]

The following comment could easily be written about the United States and
other countries under the neo-liberal sway, with some modification for
institutional and historical differences. 

Where the real power is
Corporations could get what they wanted even if they never gave Labour a
penny

George Monbiot

Tuesday February 5, 2002
The Guardian

Just as the government struggles to shake off one scandal, it is entangling
itself in several more. Almost every day for the past fortnight, Labour has
been embarrassed by new revelations about the favours it has exchanged with
the disgraced companies Enron and Andersen. And almost every day for the
past fortnight, the government has been stocking up future trouble by
granting companies even more extravagant concessions.

On Sunday, Tony Blair spoke of his determination to continue bringing
corporations into government by means of the private finance initiative,
which has already become the occasion for most of the trouble about
Andersen's role. One of the Sunday newspapers claims that the government
will announce its decision to part-privatise the London underground on
Thursday. Stephen Byers, the transport secretary, appears to be preparing
his case: on Saturday he sought to dismiss comparisons between the
privatisation of the railways and "public private partnerships". Other
government spokespeople were forced, last week, to pour scorn on similar
comparisons between the break-up of the railways and the rushed
privatisation of the Post Office.

On Thursday, Greenpeace released a leaked summary of the government's energy
review, which shows that Labour, despite manifesto promises to the contrary,
will not now rule out the construction of new nuclear power stations. On the
same day, the government announced 44 new trials of genetically engineered
crops, which will be planted so close to fields of conventional crops that
the further contamination of the food chain is guaranteed. Today, parliament
will debate the varied and fascinating career of John Birt, the government's
transport adviser, who turns out to be working for one of Britain's major
transport operators, Richard Branson. The government seems to be looking for
trouble.

So what on earth is going on? Given that the government's love affair with
big business provides the substance of all the major scandals it has
suffered since taking office, why does it keep hopping into bed with
corporate power?

The commonest explanation is encapsulated in a phrase which has been used
liberally over the past fortnight: cash for access. The Labour party's
admission at the weekend that it now has an overdraft of £6-10m reinforces
the impression that Tony Blair will do anything for money. Last week Polly
Toynbee argued on these pages that "only an absolute ban on any donations,
in cash or kind, will have the public impact to repair Westminster's sleazy
reputation".

Her proposal makes sense, but I fear that the problem runs much deeper than
that. Corporations in Britain could get what they wanted from the government
even if they never gave the Labour party a penny.

Labour is the rope being yanked in a woefully uneven tug of war. On one end
are some of the trades unions, such as Unison and the GMB, led by the people
whom Blair attacked on Sunday as "small 'c' conservatives who believe the
old ways will do". Alongside them are a handful of pressure groups, such as
Corporate Watch, the World Development Movement, Friends of the Earth and
Greenpeace, and some tens of thousands of enthusiastic but disorganised
protesters. On the other end is just about every institution and individual
wielding real power in the United Kingdom.

The anchorman at the end of the rope is the corporate sector and its
well-resourced and effective lobby groups. His constant traction results
from his adherence to the oldest rule of the game: however much rope you are
given, you must always demand more. Blair's government, in response to
pressure from the CBI, has granted British companies the lowest corporation
tax in the rich world, a planning system which prevents citizens from
challenging corporate developers and the most lax environmental standards in
Europe, yet still the lobby group bellows that the government is creating a
hostile climate for business.

Clinging to the anchorman's thigh, so tightly that it is sometimes hard to
tell where the corporations end and the party begins, is the parliamentary
opposition. Along the line, less consistent in its force, is the civil
service and the quangocracy [???]. There are at least 40 senior civil
servants and taskforce chairs who are charged with regulating companies
which once employed them to fight the very measures they are now supposed to
enforce.

The result is a creeping deregulation of business, despite consistent public
demands for the better protection of workers, consumers and the environment.
Beside them are some of the most powerful European commissioners, as well as
the heads of foreign gov

RE: theoretical soup

[Forstater, Mathew]

Lowe had an interesting little paper on value theory where he asked,
"Suppose a universal amnesia were to wipe out the knowledge of all
present prices, would there be a rule for reestablishing them?" He then
looked at both neoclassical marginalist (utility) theory and
classical/Marxian (labor theory of) value theory and concluded that
there is neither case any way to establish prices without reference to
*history*.  This does seem to put a bit of a historical
school/institutionalist what jim called 'empiricist' slant on it.*

mat

*a former student at the New School who shall remain nameless told me
that Lowe had bumped his head in an accident and then wrote this paper.
I have no idea if that is true or what the implications are supposed to
be.

DD continues:>But I don't see how saying "I'm an institutionalist" gets
you
off the hook here.  That's not a value theory, and neither Robinson nor
Kalecki have either a way of telling us how to measure the capital stock
without a value theory, or a value theory which is not fundamentally the
equivalent of the LTV (I accept your point about a glass being
half-empty or
half full, but surely to heavens, any theory which accepts that value is
only produced by labour is a labour theory of value; I've never
understood
why Robinson claimed that she didn't accept LTV).<

etc.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: : Value talk

[Rakesh Bhandari]

>
>You still don't get it. Even if there is enough demand takes up 100% 
>of the production, the profitability drops because the stuff can be 
>produced cheaper, but the firms who invested in the 
>oldertechnmologies have these huge sunk costs taht they cannot nake 
>back.

Still don't understand how we move from the difficulties these 
backward firms face to a fall in the average rate of profit for 
capital-as-a-whole.

>  A degenerating research program often doesn't have a single fatal flaw. It
>just runs out of steam, spends all of its time trying to fix up internal
>problem, doesn't geberate new hypotheses and predictions and theories. I
>think that is a pretty good description of what has happened in Marxian
>value theory over the last century.


You must realize that this is not an argument but an evaluation that 
comes across as an insult and fighting words. I do think there has 
been progress in reworking official data from a value perspective 
(criticism of wage led profit squeeze thesis carried out by Shaikh 
and Moseley), value theoretic analysis of the role of the 
interventionist state (Mattick, deBrunhoff), analyses of the world 
market and unequal exchange (Amin, Bettleheim, Sau, Dussel, 
Carchedi), value based investigations of the labor process (Tony 
Smith), attempts to undertand non commodity, fiat and near money 
(Foley, Gansmann), attempts to understand share capital (Hilferding, 
Henwood),value based phenomenlogical studies of time (Lukacs, 
Postone), clarification in differences of underconsumption, 
disproportionality and frop crisis theories, development of a theory 
of oil rent and rentier states (Bina).

I think Justin is making a strong evaluation without having carefully 
evaluated above work.

Rakesh

Re: Value talk

[christian11]

>As a result of moral depreciation, the older means of production as 
use values have not changed; nor has the concrete labor embodied 
therein changed. What changes is the the aliquot of homogeneous, 
social, and abstract labor time represented by those means. The key 
here is the duality of labor--Marx's key discovery.

Actually, the abstract labor time hasn't changed either. What's changed are the means 
to realize or represent that time--which is now wasted or sunk. The terms for that 
realization are wages and debt. 
But you can explain this without reference to values, can't you? If you begin with 
money (as below), there's no reason to keep value in the equation, unless you (a) buy 
into Marx's moral taxonomy of credit money ("fictitious capital"--"the mother of all 
insane forms," "a fetish," "money breeding money," etc.) or (b) reserve value as a 
ground for the class-existential analysis of capital's limits. Neither of these seem 
necessary to get at the baleful effects of capital, which seem pretty evident even in 
the enchanted world we live in.

As per the crisis thing: I'm not quite sure I get why Marxists think it's an 
accomplishment to predict repeated crises. Anybody can do that--in fact, most 
leftists--save maybe Doug and Anwar Shaikh--have been predicting recession, 
depression, or financial calamity for the past 5 years. So what? As a defense of a 
theoretical model, this seems pretty weak, since (a) hardly anyone gets the timing of 
the crisis right (ie Brenner, whose (great) work has been pointing to the big one 
since 1997), and (b) in the absence of that what you give is the stern policy advice 
to flush the whole system, cause capital will always produce crises. Again, so what? 
At least in theory, what social dems like Godley and Izuretia have going for them is 
that they think there are ways of mitigating, though not preventing, crises. That 
seems a lot more realistic than imagining that someday we'll live in some complex 
social system that is immune to crisis. 

Christian


>Let me  say as a side note that Marx begins with inputs as neither 
physical goods nor values. He begins with invested money capital, the 
money invested as constant and variable capital, and refers to that 
monetary sum as the cost prices of commodities. Marx's theory is thus 
closer to Keynes' monetary theory of production than it is to 
Sraffa's technical input-output matrix.

theoretical soup

[Devine, James]

[was: RE: [PEN-L:22466] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism]

Justin writes:>>I don't accept GET [general equilibrium theory]. I'm
basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian institutionalist with a large dash of
Austrian thrown in for spice.<<

Daniel Davies writes: > Must make for some interesting dinner parties <

He can have interesting dinner parties all alone with himself, if Justin's
self-description fits. (There is an old popular song titled "you're never
alone with a schizophrenic," though of course they confused schizophrenia
with multiple personality disorder. Of course, humor aside, Justin's
self-description isn't really either of these. It's eclecticism.) 

DD continues:>But I don't see how saying "I'm an institutionalist" gets you
off the hook here.  That's not a value theory, and neither Robinson nor
Kalecki have either a way of telling us how to measure the capital stock
without a value theory, or a value theory which is not fundamentally the
equivalent of the LTV (I accept your point about a glass being half-empty or
half full, but surely to heavens, any theory which accepts that value is
only produced by labour is a labour theory of value; I've never understood
why Robinson claimed that she didn't accept LTV).<

If I remember correctly, Robinson interpreted Marx's law of value as a
Ricardian labor theory of price. Given that assumption (i.e., that the point
of values was to explain price), _of course_ she should have rejected it.
That's an important reason to reject that misinterpretation, the basis of
almost all criticisms of Marx's heuristic. (Weirdly, that misinterpretation
is shared both by most critics of Marx's law of value and also by many
"fundamentalists." They then feed each others' misconceptions.)

Robinson's perspective is fundamentally empiricist -- as is that of the
institutionalists. She wrote a bunch of papers and books with abstract
economic analysis, graphs, and even math, but always says "this is just a
game, unrelated to the real world" (to paraphrase). (In the edition of her
article on "rising supply price" that I read in grad. school, the editor
relegated this comment to a footnote.) One of the great things that Robinson
did was to trash the neo-Ricardians  for using totally anti-empirical
concepts such as the "wage-profit frontier" (or "factor price frontier")
because the kind of steady-state equilibrium that is assumed to exist at
each point on that frontier could never exist in the real world. Empiricism
is a great acid for dissolving excessively rationalist (formalist) thinking,
but it doesn't seem enough to me. 

I don't know about Kalecki, but his analysis was based on Marx's to a large
degree, which was in turn developed using the law of value (which I
interpret as a true-by-definition accounting framework used to get beyond
commodity fetishism in the analyis of capitalist society). Kalecki doesn't
present his own value theory. (He wrote very short and terse math-oriented
papers which left out a lot of explanation of not only his methodology but
of the economics behind his equations.) Like Robinson, all he does is to
present a theory of prices (based, in part on Robinson-Chamberlin
monopolistic competition theory) rather than a theory of value. 

As I said, institutionalists are very empiricist, rejecting neoclassical
theory (e.g.) as unreal. They tend toward holistic explanations which
(natch) emphasize the role of human-made institutions. Some even see markets
as artificial institutions. (Marx, in this sense, is an institutionalist,
since he sees the class system as artificial.[*]) Because of their
empiricism or anti-high-theoretical leanings, they really don't have a
theory of value at all. Empiricism unfortunately leads to mere description,
which doesn't satisfy me...  

DD:>And in the context of capital and value theory , "Austrian" isn't a dash
of spice; it's arsenic soup. It's a marginal theory of value, which hangs
you right back on the hook that you got off with general equilibrium.<

The Austrians hate general equilibrium, but they are extremely subjectivist
and philosophically idealist. That is a fundamentally flawed vision. (I
don't think marginalism is as important as subjectivism and idealism, BTW.
Marx was "marginalist" when it came to the issue of differential land-rent.)


I think that Justin is refering to the fact that the Austrians -- such as
H*yek -- put a lot of emphasis on stuff like the inability for central
planners to have enough information to actually plan an economy (a simple
empirical observation as far as I'm concerned). The problem with this is
that they totally ignore the fact that the markets they glorify (worship!)
are really poor at conveying information, too. Market prices convey
information about how to allocate resources to serve consumer wants in an
efficient way -- except when they don't, which is most of the time. 

The Austrians try to measure the aggregate stock of capital (or what they
call "roundaboutness") inde

To DD:

[Hari Kumar]

hi. You write:
"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), 
REFERENCE please?
hari Kumar

LOV and LTV

[Charles Brown]

 LOV and LTV
by Justin Schwartz
05 February 2002 20:05 UTC  


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.
>
>^
>
>CB: What's the difference between a lawful explanation and a lawlike 
>explanation ?  ( no fuzzy answers)
>

The explanations invoked in physics are lawful, i.e., they use preciselt 
formulated lawsto generate specific (if sometimes probabilistic) 
predictions. 

^^

CB: Of course, admitting probablism admits the very fuzziness that this old 
superiority complex of  "hard" sciences claims is its superiority to "soft" social 
science. Hawking is oh so fuzzily dialectical. Physics is now a contradictory unity of 
extreme precision and extreme fuzziness, just as a dialectics of nature might have 
expected.

Even many of physics' laws now remind of jurisprudential laws ( as I mentioned to you 
in correspondence ten or so years ago, before you were in law) - probablistic and 
tendencies. 

^^^




On the most charir=table interpretation of laws in social 
science, any lawlike generalizations that exist are not like this.



CB: Naw. I overcame my social science inferority complex to physical sciences long 
ago. This won't fly anymore with us social scientists. Social scientist 
generalizations are very lawlike, in the original sense of "law" , to which physics 
and certainly biology, have come full circle and retuned to. 

To paraphrase the leading anthropologist Leslie A. White (sort of opposite to 
postmods) a main reason that social science is rendered "soft" and impotent in the 
bourgeois academy is that the best social science today, Marxism, would overthrow the 
existing order.

Marxism makes very good and lawlike generalizations. 

I'm mean you can say that the laws of history are not as mechanical as the laws of 
mechanics, i.e. physics. But that's a tautology. So what ? Physics is not the archtype 
model for all science. 

^^



 They are 
riddled with exceptions, burdened with ceteris paribus clauses, and 
generally fuzzy. 

^^^

CB: There are lots of these in physics, chemistry and biology. 

But that subjectivities play a bigger role in social science does not mean there are 
not also objective exactnesses.  There are subjectivities in law situations, but the 
law manages to put a very precise grid over social situations.  Social science can 
obtain a literally similar _lawlike_ precision. So, natural scientists need a new 
word. "Lawlike" is closer to what social scientists have.




Moreover many social scientific explanations are, like the 
explanations in evolutionary biology, entirely nonwalike, but instead 
proceed by giving a specific sort of narrative. Darwinian explanations are 
generally like this. However, there sre some more or lessrobust explanatory 
generalizations that are like laws, if not ful--fledged laws like the laws 
of physics. Precise enough for you? Books have been written on this; I could 
give you cites.

^^

CB: See my discussion above. I have been studying and essaying this issue for over 30 
years.  I have concluded that the claims of physics to being more "lawlike" is 
ironically upside down. But not only that, social science has identified 
satisfactorily , from the standpoint of knowledge, many generlizations, and laws,that 
can guide practice.  I reject the physical sciences claims to lawlike superority and 
the like.   




>CB: Is exploitation a heuristic ?   Does the other way of showing that 
>exploitation is going on use heuristic devices ?
>

No, exploitation is a fundamental fact. And yes my way of proceeding does 
use heuristics; there's nothing wrong with using heuristics, as long as you 
remember they are not fundamental theoretical concepts that describe the Way 
Things Are. (I was a graduate student of Prof. Mary B. Hesse, author of the 
pioneering study "Models and Analogies in Science," still the place to start 
in thinking about this stuff.)




CB: In this sense, Marx's "value" is not heuristic, but a fundamental theoretical 
concept.

RE: value vs price

[Devine, James]

Charles wrote:
> > On exploitation, my take is that he noticed that in FACT, 
> > throughout history, exploited and oppressed classes struggle 
> > against their exploitation and oppression.  Opposition to 
> > exploitation is a human natural ethical project ; the "is" of 
> > history and the "ought" of what is to be done are united in 
> > the class struggle of exploited classes. 

I responded:
> Accepting the FACT of exploitation doesn't autonomatically 
> mean that one
> should side with the exploited. Many -- including many members of the
> working class -- have concluded that backing the (currently) 
> winning side is
> the best strategy. 

Charles ripostes:
> CB: Marx and Engels' theory of historical materialism by 
> which history is understood as a history of class struggles 
> between oppressor and oppressing classes ( nutshelled in _The 
> Manifesto_, but underpinning even _Capital_ and their whole 
> approach) cognizes that every member of every oppressed class 
> is not class conscious all or even most of the time. 
> 
> Note that revolutions are rare occurrences in the total time 
> of history in Marx and Engels schemes. In most of the actual 
> time of history society is not in revolution, and most 
> oppressed workers don't have the consciousness of their class 
> , class consciousness. So, it is normal for there to be many 
> or most of the oppressed class going along to get along, 
> failing in rebellion, fighting each other more than the 
> ruling class, no ? This paradox is implicit in Engels and 
> Marx's approach. If the most of the oppressed classes of 
> history were not confused on the issue of class most of the 
> time , ruling classes couldn't rule, because the latter are 
> always tiny elites oppressing mass majorities.
> 
> Revolutions are like plate tectonic shifts in geology. They 
> occur rarely , but their potential and tension are constant 
> even through the normal times of  small earthquakes ( That's 
> dialectics)

yes, but your geology is wrong: tectonic shifts happen all the time, while
it's earthquakes that are rare (or at least big ones). 

> So, of course, there are specific moments when groups ,even 
> generations of workers are on the wrong side in the class 
> battles ( Engels wrote of bourgeosification , or something 
> like that, of some British workers).
> 
>  Marxism's founders' writing doesn't make all "what is to be 
> done" decisions easy. Marxists don't claim that. Only those 
> who want  to misrepresent Marxism as simplistic claim that 
> sort of "yea, yea, or nay, nay" for Marxism.

I don't disagree with what you say above. Instead, my point was as follows:
> It's not easy to derive a clear and unambiguous "ought" out 
> of an "is." 

to which Charles responds:  
> CB: It is true that Marxism is a combination of clarity and 
> ambiguity of concepts that are not clearly defined, i.e. 
> rigid  binaries.  Part of this is because everything is in 
> motion, even "ethics". This is difficult for all of us 
> because we all have some sense that ethics ,of all things, is 
> a system of eternal , unchanging principles. 
>
>  I say all of us because we all have some influence of 
> metaphysical ethics on us through religion or something; Note 
> that Engels cleverly ( double entendre) in _Anti-Duhring_ 
> uses a quote from Jesus as the main metaphysical ethicist 
> (for the masses in England and Europe then) who thinks in 
> binaries: "yea, yea or nay, nay" ( see below). This is a 
> poetic uniting of an analysis of  the "is " and of the 
> "ought" by Engels.  

I think the main thing is that for Marx & Engels, ethics/morality was a
subject to be studied (and a force which affects people's actions)  but not
something that they worked on developing. As I said in another message,
neither was an ethicist (deriving principles of ethics, etc.), despite their
obvious prior ethical committments.
JD

Re: Value talk

[miyachi]

on 2/7/02 05:34 AM, Charles Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Justin: A degenerating research program often doesn't have a single fatal
> flaw. It 
> just runs out of steam, spends all of its time trying to fix up internal
> problem, doesn't geberate new hypotheses and predictions and theories. I
> think that is a pretty good description of what has happened in Marxian
> value theory over the last century.
> 
> 
> 
> CB: We don't need new hypotheses and predictions and theories until we finish
> the project of overthrowing capitalism and initiating socialism. Theory for
> the sake of theory, generation of theory for only the sake of  theory is an
> especially bad idea in the historical sciences.
> 

Sir Charles Brown
MIYACHI TATSUO
PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT
KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
KOMAKI CITY
AICHI Pre.
JAPAN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For young Marx, theory was considered as below.
He noticed that" we shall simply show the world why it is struggling, and
consciousness of this is a thing it must acquire whether it wishes or not"


"Nothing prevents us, therefore, from lining our criticism with a criticism
of politics, from taking sides in politics, i.e., from entering into real
struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we
shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here
is the truth, on your knees before it! It means that we shall develop for
the world new principles from the existing principles of the world. We shall
not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you
with true campaign-slogans. Instead, we shall simply show the world why it
is struggling, and consciousness of this is a thing it must acquire whether
it wishes or not. 

The reform of consciousness consists entirely in making the world aware of
its own consciousness, in arousing it from its dream of itself, in
explaining its own actions to it. Like Feuerbach's critique of religion, our
whole aim can only be to translate religious and political problems into
their self-conscious human form.

Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by
analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in
religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has
long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious
for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is
not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future, but to complete the
thought of the past. Lastly, it will becomes plain that mankind will not
being any new work, but will consciously bring about the completion of its
old work. 

We are therefore in a position to sum up the credo of our journal in a
single word: the self-clarification (critical philosophy) of the struggles
and wishes of the age. This is a task for the world and for us. It can
succeed only as the product of untied efforts. What is needed above all is a
confession, and nothing more than that. To obtain forgiveness for its sins,
mankind needs only to declare them for what they are." 

Re: Re: Re: : Value talk

[miyachi]

on 2/7/02 04:37 AM, Justin Schwartz at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> 
> 
> 
>> From: Rakesh Bhandari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Subject: [PEN-L:22469] Re: : Value talk
>> Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:46:46 -0800
>> 
>> Justin writes:
>> 
>>> . Or (2) (as Rakesh suggests) there is athe moral deprecaition line,
>>> the idea that value explains crisis.
>> 
>> 
>> Crisis is  explained on the basis of the law of value, not by
>> reference to moral depreciation at all. In fact I did not suggest
>> that moral depreciation explains crisis at all. I underlined that it
>> helped to explain why machinery has not seemed to fufill its task of
>> reducing the torment of labor. You simply are not reading carefully.
>> And you haven't yet proposed an alternative set of concepts by which
>> to understand moral depreciation.
> 
> No doubt I am careless and illiterate, also lazy and stupid. I do see how
> moral depreciation offers a theory of crisis. I don't seewhat value talk
> adds to it.
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>>> As I have shown here by restating the argument without reference to
>>> value, and as Brenner has shown in greater length, value does no
>>> work in this story.
>> 
>> Have you followed any of the criticism of Brenner's theory?
> 
> No. I have a full time nonacademic job and a family. Value theory, and
> indeed crisis theory, is a distinct sideline interest for me. I'd rather
> think about legal positivism, democracy, or, closer to home, judicial
> admissions under a 12(b)96) motion to dismiss. There may be problems with
> Brenner's view, and it no doubt doesn't explain everything. same with many
> views of Marx or anyone else. Still, I think it is basically right. As I
> say,I'm lazy and illiterate and careless when I do read, so I'm going to go
> on thinking that until something large hits me on the head. Fortunately, you
> are here to keep the rest of the world on track.
> 
> jks
> 
>>> 
> 
> 
> _
> MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
> http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

 MIYACHI TATSUO
PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT
KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
KOMAKI CITY
AICHI Pre.
JAPAN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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,
labour -- 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 

: LOV and LTV

[Charles Brown]

: LOV and LTV
by Justin Schwartz
05 February 2002 19:49 UTC  


>
>Charles writes:
> > Can we get into a little more what a heuristic is ?  Seems to be a sort 
>of
>ok device for guiding scientific enquire, but sort of not a fulfledged
>...what ? Theoretical concept ?   What is the term for other types of ideas
>( that are more than heuristic ) that are used in scientific or economic
>theories ?

"Theory," "law," "variable," etc.

^^^

CB: Marx's "value" is more precise than your "exploitation", because it is the 
specific form of  exploitation in capitalism, differentiated from the exploitation in  
feudalism and other exploiting systems. Thus, the AM effort ends up with  less 
precision than Marx had, when AM claims to be bringing more exactness.





"Heuristic devices" seem to be tools used in a scientific or
>knowledge process, but not the ultimate theoretical concepts. <

Could not have said it better myself. jks

>



CB: "Value" is an ultimate theoretical concept in Marx's theory, not a heuristic.  
Your removal of it impoverishes Marx's theory of capitalism.

value vs price

[Charles Brown]

 value vs price
by Devine, James
05 February 2002 19:46 UTC  

 
> On exploitation, my take is that he noticed that in FACT, 
> throughout history, exploited and oppressed classes struggle 
> against their exploitation and oppression.  Opposition to 
> exploitation is a human natural ethical project ; the "is" of 
> history and the "ought" of what is to be done are united in 
> the class struggle of exploited classes. 

Accepting the FACT of exploitation doesn't autonomatically mean that one
should side with the exploited. Many -- including many members of the
working class -- have concluded that backing the (currently) winning side is
the best strategy. 

^
CB: Marx and Engels' theory of historical materialism by which history is understood 
as a history of class struggles between oppressor and oppressing classes ( nutshelled 
in _The Manifesto_, but underpinning even _Capital_ and their whole approach) cognizes 
that every member of every oppressed class is not class conscious all or even most of 
the time. 

Note that revolutions are rare occurrences in the total time of history in Marx and 
Engels schemes. In most of the actual time of history society is not in revolution, 
and most oppressed workers don't have the consciousness of their class , class 
consciousness. So, it is normal for there to be many or most of the oppressed class 
going along to get along, failing in rebellion, fighting each other more than the 
ruling class, no ? This paradox is implicit in Engels and Marx's approach. If the most 
of the oppressed classes of history were not confused on the issue of class most of 
the time , ruling classes couldn't rule, because the latter are always tiny elites 
oppressing mass majorities.

Revolutions are like plate tectonic shifts in geology. They occur rarely , but their 
potential and tension are constant even through the normal times of  small earthquakes 
( That's dialectics)


So, of course, there are specific moments when groups ,even generations of workers are 
on the wrong side in the class battles ( Engels wrote of bourgeosification , or 
something like that, of some British workers).

 Marxism's founders' writing doesn't make all "what is to be done" decisions easy. 
Marxists don't claim that. Only those who want  to misrepresent Marxism as simplistic 
claim that sort of "yea, yea, or nay, nay" for Marxism.


^^^


It's not easy to derive a clear and unambiguous "ought" out of an "is." 
Jim Devine



CB: It is true that Marxism is a combination of clarity and ambiguity of concepts that 
are not clearly defined, i.e. rigid  binaries.  Part of this is because everything is 
in motion, even "ethics". This is difficult for all of us because we all have some 
sense that ethics ,of all things, is a system of eternal , unchanging principles. 

 I say all of us because we all have some influence of metaphysical ethics on us 
through religion or something; Note that Engels cleverly ( double entendre) in 
_Anti-Duhring_ uses a quote from Jesus as the main metaphysical ethicist (for the 
masses in England and Europe then) who thinks in binaries: "yea, yea or nay, nay" ( 
see below). This is a poetic uniting of an analysis of  the "is " and of the "ought" 
by Engels.  

^

"To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to 
be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of 
investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable 
antitheses. "His communication is 'yea, yea; nay, nay'; for whatsoever is more than 
these cometh of evil." [Matthew 5:37. — Ed.] For him a thing either exists or does not 
exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and 
negative absolutely exclude one another, cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis 
one to the other.

At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of 
so-called sound common sense. Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, 
in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he 
ventures out into the wide world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, 
justifiable and even necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies 
according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later 
reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in 
insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things it forgets the 
connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the 
beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It 
cannot see the wood for the trees.

For everyday purposes we know and can say, e.g., whether an animal is alive or not. 
But, upon closer inquiry, we find that this is, in many cases, a very complex 
question, as the jurists know very well. They have cudgelled their brains

BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002:

RELEASED TODAY:  The seasonally adjusted annual rates of productivity change
in the fourth quarter and the annual average changes in productivity --
preliminary data measured by output per hour of all persons -- were 3.4
(fourth quarter) and 1.8 (annual averages 2000-2001) for the business
sector.  In the non-farm business sector, those changes were  3.5 (fourth
quarter) and 1.8 (annual averages 2000-2001), respectively.  In the
manufacturing sector, increases in productivity for the fourth quarter were
3.5 and increases in the annual averages 2000-2001 were 1.0.  Breaking the
manufacturing down to durable and nondurable goods manufacturing, the fourth
quarter changes were 2.3 for durable goods and 4.3 for nondurable goods.
Changes in annual averages 2000-2001 were 0.5 for durable goods and 1.5 for
nondurable goods. 

Worker productivity increased in the fourth quarter by the largest amount in
more than a year, as businesses cut worker hours and eliminated jobs to cope
with the ailing economy.  Productivity -- the amount of output per hour of
work -- increased at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the October-December
quarter, a big improvement over the 1.1 percent growth rate in the previous
quarter, the Labor Department reports.  Businesses responded to slumping
sales by sharply cutting back on their payrolls.  That caused the total
number of hours worked to drop at a faster pace than output, thus creating a
rise in productivity (Jeannine Avers, Associated Press,
http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/241551p-2295861c.html).

Unemployment continued to worse in nearly all metro regions in December,
though there were a few bright spots in the monthly report from the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.  Of 331 metro regions tracked by the agency, 305 had
higher unemployment in December, compared with December 2000 (The Wall
Street Journal, page B13).

Business activity in the nonmanufacturing sector dropped slightly in
January, according to the Institute for Supply Management, which found that
the level of new orders dropped, while exports and imports increased.  After
registering slight growth in December, the index dropped to 49.6 percent in
January, from 50.1 percent in December, ISM found. "Consideration of
December's and November's indexes of 50.1 and 49.8 respectively, indicates
that the nonmanufacturing economy has been seesawing over the
expansion/contraction mark for the past 3 months, said Ralph G. Kauffman,
chair of ISM (Daily Labor Report, page A-7; The New York Times, page C11;
Chicago Tribune).

A key index measuring the vast services sector of the economy retreated
slightly in January, a report Tuesday showed, casting doubt on hopes for a
quick rebound from recession.  The Institute for Supply Management said its
monthly nonmanufacturing index, which measures everything from
transportation to legal and financial services, edged lower to 49.6 percent
in January from a revised 50.1 in December.  That followed two straight
rises and bucked economists' forecasts for a rise to 52.0 percent.  A
reading above 50 percent indicates growth (Reuters,
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2002-02-05-services.htm; USA Today,
page 1B).

The U.S. economy is poised for recovery this year, led by consumer spending
and business investment, the Bush administration says in the "Economic
Report of the President".  The report also sets out long term policy for
improving economic institutions and highlights the benefits of
globalization.  It also elaborates on the economic assumptions used in the
fiscal year 2003 budget and analyzes special topics (Daily Labor Report,
page A-13; The Wall Street Journal, page A2).

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. says 2002 began with a
huge increase in layoff announcements that included the auto industry as
well as several retailers. Corporate layoffs announced in January jumped to
a total of 212,704, a 32 percent increase over the December level, the firm
said.  It was the fourth time in 7 months that job cuts exceeded 200,000.
"January tends to be a heavy month for layoffs as corporations assess
year-end balance sheets" and plan cost-cutting moves, said John Challenger,
chief executive officer of the firm, based in Northbrook, Ill (Daily Labor
Report, page A-11; The Washington Post, page E2; The New York Times, page
C11; http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/240854p-2290347c.html).

Consumer confidence increased nationally for the second straight month in
January, with all regions showing higher levels than in November 2001.
Rocky Mountain states, buoyed in part by the Winter Olympics, remained the
most upbeat, as they were for most of the '90s. The East South Central
region showed the biggest jump, with confidence levels 27 percent higher
than in November as its manufacturing sector stabilized, though the region
remained below the national average.  West South Central states recorded the
smal

Re: Re: Re: Re: : Value talk

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>Cmon Justin, you spent years thinking through value theory, and you
>have very strong opinions. In fact one could easily have the
>impression that you think value theorists are desperate and inward
>turning.

True, I did, and I came to certain conclusions, expressed here and in my 
published work. I also don't read much if any philosophy of mind any more, 
having made up my mind about certain things I thought I';d worked though.


>
>Well these are all debates we had on LBO long before all the
>published critiques by Glick, Dumenil and others.  You were then on
>LBO; check the archive. We had this argument.

I'm not sure we are much further along.

>
>Upon first reading, I was saying very loudly and in no uncertain
>terms that Brenner was wrong to make competition the explanatorily
>fundamental variable;

I think you misread Brenner. It is a common mistake, but it is still a 
mistake. Profitability is the f.v. for Brenner, in a competitive context. 
Right, Bob?


>I said then that Brenner had no theory of why effective demand had
>proven insufficient for the realization of commodities at value. He
>won't take the underconsumption line from Bauer to Sweezy to Robinson
>to Devine.

You still don't get it. Even if there is enough demand takes up 100% of the 
production, the profitability drops because the stuff can be produced 
cheaper, but the firms who invested in the oldertechnmologies have these 
huge sunk costs taht they cannot nake back.

>>I'm going to go on thinking that until something large hits me on
>>the head.
>
>How will you know when you have been so hit?
>
>

When, as they say, the house falls around my ears. I do read a bit in 
theare, NLR, MR, D&S, , S&S, maybe someone will say something that changes 
my mind. It has happened before.

jks

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Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: HistoricalMaterialism

[Rakesh Bhandari]

>
>No doubt I am unclear. However, it is possible to accept some of an 
>author's views without accepting all of them. I urge this in the 
>case of Robinsin, marx, and Brenner. jks

Urge all you want. It does not mean that they can be coherently put 
together. And Michael P: please note that I did not myself call 
Justin Schwartz illiterate, stupid or lazy. I did not flame him. He 
flamed himself after sending twice the number of messages to pen-l 
this week that I have.

rb

Value talk

[Charles Brown]

Justin: A degenerating research program often doesn't have a single fatal flaw. It 
just runs out of steam, spends all of its time trying to fix up internal 
problem, doesn't geberate new hypotheses and predictions and theories. I 
think that is a pretty good description of what has happened in Marxian 
value theory over the last century.



CB: We don't need new hypotheses and predictions and theories until we finish the 
project of overthrowing capitalism and initiating socialism. Theory for the sake of 
theory, generation of theory for only the sake of  theory is an especially bad idea in 
the historical sciences.

Re: LOV and LTV

[Carrol Cox]

Charles Brown wrote:
> 
>  Myself, I would not give dialectics a lesser status than full theoretical concepts. 
>I was edified by THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST , well, sort of as a heuristic in coming 
>to an understanding of dialectics as more than a heuristic , as Marx , Engels and 
>Lenin use dialectics.

Charles, some where in Anti-Duhring Engels says that dialectics neither
proves anything nor discovers anything new. Sorry I can't quote it
exactly or give you an exact cite. Some writer used that as a text on
the basis of which he rejected dialectics completely.

Carrol

LOV and LTV

[Charles Brown]

LOV and LTV
by Devine, James
05 February 2002 19:08 UTC  

Charles writes: 
> Can we get into a little more what a heuristic is ?  Seems to be a sort of
ok device for guiding scientific enquire, but sort of not a fulfledged
...what ? Theoretical concept ?   What is the term for other types of ideas
( that are more than heuristic ) that are used in scientific or economic
theories ? "Heuristic devices" seem to be tools used in a scientific or
knowledge process, but not the ultimate theoretical concepts. <

you've got it. A heuristic is a device for guiding thought or inquiry. One
example is the dialectical way of thinking, which does not give answers as
much as tell you what questions to ask: how does the whole affect the parts?
how do the parts affect the whole? how does the dynamic interaction between
these work? (cf. Lewontin & Levins, THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, last
chapter.)
JDevine

^^

CB: Yes, Stephen Jay Gould the biologist terms dialecticts a heuristic also. Myself, I 
would not give dialectics a lesser status than full theoretical concepts. I was 
edified by THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST , well, sort of as a heuristic in coming to an 
understanding of dialectics as more than a heuristic , as Marx , Engels and Lenin use 
dialectics. I agree that dialectics brings our attention to the relationship between 
the part and the whole ( although I don't read Lewontin and Levin to quite give such 
an  symetrical version of the relationship. The give priority to the whole over the 
parts, emergence, etc.). but also all the aspects that Engels summarized in his notes 
for the book that others compiles as THE DIALECTICS OF NATURE. I guess THE DIALECTICAL 
BIOLOGIST is dedicated to Engels, "who didn't always get it right, but got it right 
when it counted".  I agree. The critical thing about dialectics is that it is an 
effort to  understand the logic of change. Formal logic help!
s with snapshots, statics. We need both. Part of the reason dialectics gets fuzzy is 
the same reason sometimes a camera picture of something in motion is fuzzy. The motion 
of something _is__ the thing, the substance of it. So, dialectics is the goal, the 
full concept. The snap shots of formal logical analysis are more the heuristic.

Anyway, I would give both "value" in Marx's theory and "dialectics" in theories of 
theories higher status than "heuristic" as that is comonly understood. "Value" and 
"dialectics" are vital , critical for scientific understanding,not heuristic.

 

Re: Re: Re: : Value talk

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Justin wrote

>
>No doubt I am careless and illiterate, also lazy and stupid. I do 
>see how moral depreciation offers a theory of crisis.

yes you are right. It can play a role in a theory of crisis. But it 
not what I was trying to explain in terms of it if you are interested 
in conversing with me.



>  I don't seewhat value talk adds to it.

I don't understand how else to conceptualize moral depreciation. 
Perhaps the tradition to which you are committed does a good job by 
dealing with fixed capital as a joint product? I don't know. It is a 
genuine question.


>
>
>>
>>
>>>As I have shown here by restating the argument without reference to
>>>value, and as Brenner has shown in greater length, value does no
>>>work in this story.
>>
>>Have you followed any of the criticism of Brenner's theory?
>
>No. I have a full time nonacademic job and a family. Value theory, 
>and indeed crisis theory, is a distinct sideline interest for me.

Cmon Justin, you spent years thinking through value theory, and you 
have very strong opinions. In fact one could easily have the 
impression that you think value theorists are desperate and inward 
turning.


>  I'd rather think about legal positivism, democracy, or, closer to 
>home, judicial admissions under a 12(b)96) motion to dismiss. There 
>may be problems with Brenner's view, and it no doubt doesn't explain 
>everything. same with many views of Marx or anyone else. Still, I 
>think it is basically right.

Well these are all debates we had on LBO long before all the 
published critiques by Glick, Dumenil and others.  You were then on 
LBO; check the archive. We had this argument.

Upon first reading, I was saying very loudly and in no uncertain 
terms that Brenner was wrong to make competition the explanatorily 
fundamental variable; that fraticidal competition, break down of 
co-respective competition had to be explained in terms of 
difficulties in the production of surplus value for capital as a 
whole for that is what would slow down the rate of accumulation and 
therewith effective demand such that there would be violently 
competitively exclusive attempts to realize the surplus value that 
had been produced. Competition was result, not cause.

I said then that Brenner had no theory of why effective demand had 
proven insufficient for the realization of commodities at value. He 
won't take the underconsumption line from Bauer to Sweezy to Robinson 
to Devine.I (unsurprisingly) took a straight Grossmann line. Tony 
Smith recognized the force of such an argument a year later in 
Historical Materialism. Even Glick and Dumenil who had in their 
earlier work taken competition to be explanatorily fundmanetal found 
themselves challenging Brenner. Bonefeld, Lebowitz and many others 
have recognized the same problem.



>  As I say,I'm lazy and illiterate and careless when I do read, so 
>I'm going to go on thinking that until something large hits me on 
>the head.

How will you know when you have been so hit?

RB

Re: Re: : Value talk

[Justin Schwartz]

>From: Rakesh Bhandari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: [PEN-L:22469] Re: : Value talk
>Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:46:46 -0800
>
>Justin writes:
>
>>. Or (2) (as Rakesh suggests) there is athe moral deprecaition line,
>>the idea that value explains crisis.
>
>
>Crisis is  explained on the basis of the law of value, not by
>reference to moral depreciation at all. In fact I did not suggest
>that moral depreciation explains crisis at all. I underlined that it
>helped to explain why machinery has not seemed to fufill its task of
>reducing the torment of labor. You simply are not reading carefully.
>And you haven't yet proposed an alternative set of concepts by which
>to understand moral depreciation.

No doubt I am careless and illiterate, also lazy and stupid. I do see how 
moral depreciation offers a theory of crisis. I don't seewhat value talk 
adds to it.


>
>
>>As I have shown here by restating the argument without reference to
>>value, and as Brenner has shown in greater length, value does no
>>work in this story.
>
>Have you followed any of the criticism of Brenner's theory?

No. I have a full time nonacademic job and a family. Value theory, and 
indeed crisis theory, is a distinct sideline interest for me. I'd rather 
think about legal positivism, democracy, or, closer to home, judicial 
admissions under a 12(b)96) motion to dismiss. There may be problems with 
Brenner's view, and it no doubt doesn't explain everything. same with many 
views of Marx or anyone else. Still, I think it is basically right. As I 
say,I'm lazy and illiterate and careless when I do read, so I'm going to go 
on thinking that until something large hits me on the head. Fortunately, you 
are here to keep the rest of the world on track.

jks

>>


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Mike's latest

[Forstater, Mathew]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/2002_0129.html

Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>>>  >I don't accept GET. I'm basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian 
>>>institutionalist
>>>  >with a large dash of Austrian thrown in for spice.
>
>In her essay on Marxian economics, Joan Robinson attempts to point
>Marx's crisis theory in the direction of the kind of
>underconsumptionism that Sweezy was developing and Devine would later
>elaborate. You should understand that Brenner is a forceful critic of
>such underconsumptionism. So what it is that you are saying, Justin,
>is really not quite clear at all.
>

No doubt I am unclear. However, it is possible to accept some of an author's 
views without accepting all of them. I urge this in the case of Robinsin, 
marx, and Brenner. jks


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Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Rakesh Bhandari]

>>  >I don't accept GET. I'm basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian institutionalist
>>  >with a large dash of Austrian thrown in for spice.

In her essay on Marxian economics, Joan Robinson attempts to point 
Marx's crisis theory in the direction of the kind of 
underconsumptionism that Sweezy was developing and Devine would later 
elaborate. You should understand that Brenner is a forceful critic of 
such underconsumptionism. So what it is that you are saying, Justin, 
is really not quite clear at all.

rb

Re: : Value talk

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Justin writes:

>. Or (2) (as Rakesh suggests) there is athe moral deprecaition line, 
>the idea that value explains crisis.


Crisis is  explained on the basis of the law of value, not by 
reference to moral depreciation at all. In fact I did not suggest 
that moral depreciation explains crisis at all. I underlined that it 
helped to explain why machinery has not seemed to fufill its task of 
reducing the torment of labor. You simply are not reading carefully. 
And you haven't yet proposed an alternative set of concepts by which 
to understand moral depreciation.


>As I have shown here by restating the argument without reference to 
>value, and as Brenner has shown in greater length, value does no 
>work in this story.

Have you followed any of the criticism of Brenner's theory?

There may be a great loss in moving from value theory's explanatory 
focus on the vertical relations of production, the relation of dead 
to living labor in the abode of production, to a focus on the 
horizontal relations among capitals in the realm of circulation;

there have been questions whether Brenner's repudiation of the wage 
squeeze explanation is consistent with his Okishio-inspired argument 
that a falling rate of profit does in fact require an increase in the 
real wage;

it's not clear that Brenner has been able to explain why 
overcompetition reduced mark ups more than costs;

it's not explained why effective demand becomes too weak for all 
commodities to be realized at value (again it seems to me that 
Brenner is implying that as a result of international competition the 
commodities of weaker capitals could not be realized at value, which 
seems to point in the way of protectionism, not workers' revolution; 
and leaves open the question of whether there are limits to 
accumulation even on the assumption that all commodities can be 
realized at value);

it's not sufficiently elaborated why the exit of inefficient capitals 
has been so prolonged ; the US competitive position--especially in 
those industries that James Galbraith defines as high value, that is 
a high ratio of profits, wages, and salaries to worker--was 
maintained or regained with the dollar picking up and wages high 
(especially in those high value industries), so there are empirical 
problems with Brenner's account of the sources of the renewed 
strength of US capital in particular.

This is just what I remember from our previous exchanges. I am not 
even looking at the file I have on this second Brenner debate.


rb

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>
> >I don't accept GET. I'm basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian 
>institutionalist
> >with a large dash of Austrian thrown in for spice.
>
>Must make for some interesting dinner parties 
>
>But I don't see how saying "I'm an institutionalist" gets you off the hook
>here.  That's not a value theory, and neither Robinson nor Kalecki have
>either a way of telling us how to measure the capital stock without a value
>theory, or a value theory which is not fundamentally the equivalent of the
>LTV (I accept your point about a glass being half-empty or half full, but
>surely to heavens, any theory which accepts that value is only produced by
>labour is a labour theory of value; I've never understood why Robinson
>claimed that she didn't accept LTV).

I haven't worked it out--I'm not an economist, and I'm not even an academic 
any more, I'm just a lawyer--but I have a sketch of a two-factor theory, 
recognizing labor contribution and demand as dual sources of value.

>
>And in the context of capital and value theory , "Austrian" isn't a dash of
>spice; it's arsenic soup.  It's a marginal theory of value, which hangs you
>right back on the hook that you got off with general equilibrium.

No, no. It's institutionalist and realistic.

>
>I'm sure I don't understand your position properly, and I bet that reading
>those two papers will help.

Maybe. They onlya ddress VT by the by, WWWE is more on point.

But I think it's clear that there are many good
>technical reasons to suppose that economics needs *some* value theory, and
>the labour theory of value shapes up pretty well compared to the
>competition.

Humnph.

jks

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value vs. price

[Charles Brown]

 value vs. price
by Ian Murray
05 February 2002 17:09 UTC  



=

Ok but surely we can understand Capital systemically without value
conepts? I was introduced to systems theory before I read KM and it
was easy to see the consonances but value theory didn't do a
friggin' thing for me. Apparently I'm not alone, so maybe it's just
a matter of taste?

^^

CB: But of course Marx's theory on value was invented as a way of understanding 
capitalism before system's theory was. Of course, if you learn system's theory first, 
and it has substituted other words to correspond to all the concepts in Marx's value 
theory, it might seem like there is no need for "value theory" . But that is just a 
sort of plagerism resulting in ...bingo !.. anti-Marxism, or more Justin's 
undemonstrated ( merely asserted without proof) "mooting" out of Marxism's value theory

The important issue is that Marx's theory has more than value theory in it, and the 
revolutionary aspects of Marx's overall approach can get lost easier if some "system's 
" theory abstracts a part Marx's theory to use.

This is a widespread technique in the vast institutions of anti-Marxist social 
science.   Anthropology has a number of materialist schools that clearly have their 
logical roots in Marxism, but since it would be politically problematic in bourgeois 
academe to claim Marx as their daddy, new terminologies are invented to present the 
same or very similar concepts as those in Marxism, Engels books, etc.

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Davies, Daniel]

>I don't accept GET. I'm basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian institutionalist 
>with a large dash of Austrian thrown in for spice.

Must make for some interesting dinner parties 

But I don't see how saying "I'm an institutionalist" gets you off the hook
here.  That's not a value theory, and neither Robinson nor Kalecki have
either a way of telling us how to measure the capital stock without a value
theory, or a value theory which is not fundamentally the equivalent of the
LTV (I accept your point about a glass being half-empty or half full, but
surely to heavens, any theory which accepts that value is only produced by
labour is a labour theory of value; I've never understood why Robinson
claimed that she didn't accept LTV).

And in the context of capital and value theory , "Austrian" isn't a dash of
spice; it's arsenic soup.  It's a marginal theory of value, which hangs you
right back on the hook that you got off with general equilibrium.

I'm sure I don't understand your position properly, and I bet that reading
those two papers will help.  But I think it's clear that there are many good
technical reasons to suppose that economics needs *some* value theory, and
the labour theory of value shapes up pretty well compared to the
competition.

dd



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value vs. price

[Charles Brown]

value vs. price
by Waistline2
05 February 2002 16:09 UTC  


Charles: West was on television for about three hours a few weeks back. I watched 
some. He declared there that he identified with the Council Communist movement, which 
I believe has one propoent or so on this list.

West's religiosity and theological base fits with his pragmatism. 

^^^
I have no comments on the substance of this discussion. Cornel West? It is true that 
he is an intelletcual giant by any standard. However, as a follower of his writing - 
of which he decidated Chapter 4 of his first book almost two decades ago to a 
blistering criticism of me, which I actually love to disagree with, he might not be 
the man for ascertain a materialist conception of morality and its conversion into 
ethics under the impact of the division of labor. 

Mr. West viewpoint is crystallized through the lens of Jesus the Christ and redemption 
- which is an inseparable part of my heritage never denied, and this in my opinion 
prevents him from grasping the transition of morality into ethic and its future 
negation. This does not in any way diminish this theoretical contributions - which in 
my opinion are immense. In other word my own particular conception of morality and 
ethics is no different from the relationship of value to price; the polarization of 
the reflection or rather manifestation of value as price and their movement in 
antagonism based on class society. 

Pardon my ramblings but life circumstances have tended to prevent me from engaging 
Marx conception of alienation, man as self, its polarizations and processes, all of 
which are lements of the theory of value - in as much as value is collective human 
activity, measurable on the basis of the socially necessary labor in the prodution of 
commodities. 

Is there an emial list that Mr. West writes on. We haven't spent any time together 
since trhe 1980s and it was a blast. If so please forward.

Cornel West !!!   - you guys going to make me go to Church - regularly. 

JJJeeesszus.


Melvin P. 

Re: Re: Argentina and money/reform

[Waistline2]

Dialectics of Reform and Revolution in Argentina

Melvin P



Marx standpoint, or rather vision has always been that of man in his actual 
or apparent circumstances of life, his pains, suffering, longings, material 
activity and spiritual dimensions. Man dominates Marx vision from beginning 
to end and Marx speaks of man in the material activity of reproducing himself 
and his conceptions of reproducing himself and the conceptions. Marx calls 
the methodology of Marx dialectics - in contradistinction to ontology and 
heuristic frameworks outside "method," no matter how "deep rooted," 
"inspired" or "ideologically thick." The word "dialectic" is not the method 
but rather a sound construct used to describe a qualitatively distinct thing. 


Contrary to the historical assertions, Marx cast man center stage in the life 
of society and as the axis on which revolves activity riveted to the 
individual as man. Karl Marx material activity as individual furnishes 
authenticity to his conception of the authenticity of the individual. The 
power of the individual or "one" consists not in their connection with 
others, but in the impossibility of the existence of "one" outside "others" - 
even when "others" become fragmented and recreated as the philosophic 
"other." 

Marx cast man center stage in man existence as material activity, distinct 
from his growing insight into the scope, depth and boundaries of material 
activity. The recognition of "fundamentality" - even when its disclosure has 
not met what every the standards of the day consist, predates Marx. Since 
Marx pioneering work all heuristic constructs generally concede that when 
something fundamental changes in an equation or process, (here the nature of 
society is isolated), everything dependent upon that which is fundamental for 
relative stability is altered, reformulated and or reconstituted. Marx 
individuality consists in his pioneering work on that which is fundamental to 
societal changes and redefining that, which constitutes fundamental change. 
Some who adopt the method of Marx calls his achievement the "science of 
society." 

By "science" is meant the isolation of the general processes that constitutes 
fundamentality. Process is understood to mean a series of events that 
complete and repeat themselves and it is this repetition that allows 
disclosure. What constitutes the science of "the science of society" is 
isolation of that which constitutes fundamentality and compels change, 
reformation or reconstitution of material activity. What constitutes 
"society" is the existence of a discernible framework of material activity 
that distinguishes and shows men in the reproduction of themselves has passed 
to associations riveted to instruments and labor divisions establishing the 
meaning of the word society. The "law system" that governs society and 
societal change implies knowledge of that, which is fundamental and produces 
historical consequences or irreversible societal change when viewed from the 
historical totality of progression. 

>From this standpoint "reform" - as in the social movement in Argentina, is 
examined.  A reform movement in any society at any historically specific 
stage of development is a movement by a portion of society to alter its 
relationship within the components of society. The quantitative and 
qualitative dimensions of "portion of society" are not yet isolated. However, 
one must concede that "portion" as a magnitude is the individual and it is 
individuality that gives voice and articulates what is to be altered. To 
realize that, which is to be altered may or may not require an alteration in 
fundamentality. Thus, the question posed for social revolutionaries aspiring 
to use the methodology of the individual Marx is not "reform or revolution" 
but first a description of the boundaries of a historically specific period 
and of its fundamentality. After the boundaries of fundamentality have been 
ascertained an assessment of the human material that creates fundamentality 
has to be made. In other words the individual human mind - the subjective 
factor. Contrary to the historic assertion that Marx method is deterministic 
(economic determinist) the human mind remains the most powerful force in 
society. This includes the individual human minds seeking alterations and 
those opposed to alterations. 

Not "reform or revolution," but a specific description of the boundaries 
wherein reform movements become the historical consequence that alters 
fundamentality. If anything the direction is social revolution on the basis 
of a qualitative reformation of the articulating feature(s) fundamentality. 
Much of the following has been stated before but edited with new features at 
the endings.  
 
Society moves in class antagonism. "At a certain stage of their development, 
the material forces of production in society come into conflict . . . with 
the property relations . . .  From forms of development of the force

Re: RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Justin Schwartz]

>But this is a perfect example of a fallacy of marginalism.  I think the
>strongest anti-LTV/LOV case that you could make in this direction would be
>that LTV/LOV don't "add anything to what can be explained by" neoclassical
>marginal/general equilibrium theory.

I don't accept GET. I'm basically a Robinsonian/Kaleckian institutionalist 
with a large dash of Austrian thrown in for spice.

But even that would be open to the
>objection that it was also true that NC theory didn't "add anything" to
>LTV/LOV.  It all depends where you start from ...

No, I think the LTV fails on its own terms. We do not have empirically 
equivalent theories. We have a theory that points us in the direction of 
some good expalantions that can be stated with its apparatus.

>
>And in any case, LTV has the considerable technical merit over NC theory

No doubt. That's not the only alternative.

jks

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Re: Re: Re: LOV and LTV

[Justin Schwartz]

> > I discuss this is What's Wrong with Exploitation?, look it up, and see 
>if
> > you disagree. jks
>
>What is wrong is endegenous accumulation which is enabled by "exploitation"
>as the profit source. And if endogenous accumulation is possible, 
>capitalism
>can not experience crises. Rosa Luxemburg understood that, ninety years 
>ago.
>


Say more, I don't understand this.

jks

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Re: Value talk

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>Justin writes in regard to moral depreciation:
>
>>. I don't see why the LTV has to be true to explain this. I have
>>never denied, nor does the the most orthodox bourgeois economist,
>>that if you can save labor costs by adopting a new production
>>technique, that people who have sunk costs in onld labor intensive
>>production techniques are going to have trouble making money. But we
>>don't have to talk about value, least of do we have to say that
>>value is a quantity measured by SNALT.
>>
>>
>
>But you just described the whole loss from moral depreciation in
>terms of labor, though not SNALT.

This is short hand. What capitalists pay for in labor costs is (as Marx 
showed) labor power expended over a period of time. They seek to reduce the 
amount of time by technological improvement and enhance theactual labor 
output from the laobor power they purchase by increasing exploitation. I 
don't think, apart from the use of the word "exploitation," that Friedman or 
Hayek or Samuelson would raise an eyebrow at this formulation. And why does 
it concede the LTV to say this?

jks



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RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Davies, Daniel]

>>If the main results of the
>>LTV and or the LoV whether in a quantitative-qualitative
>>combination or relying singly on quantitative or qualitative
>>approaches adds nothing to what can be achieved in terms of
>>*explanation* without them, then why shouldn't Ockam's razor
>>apply--to concepts, not entities?

>Quite.

But this is a perfect example of a fallacy of marginalism.  I think the
strongest anti-LTV/LOV case that you could make in this direction would be
that LTV/LOV don't "add anything to what can be explained by" neoclassical
marginal/general equilibrium theory.  But even that would be open to the
objection that it was also true that NC theory didn't "add anything" to
LTV/LOV.  It all depends where you start from ...

And in any case, LTV has the considerable technical merit over NC theory
that it offers a non-circular method to measure the capital stock.  It also
gives some hope of an explanation of the empirical fact that increases in
productivity do not, in general, lead to a shortening of the working day,
which would be a prediction of utility theory given any sensible assumption
about preferences regarding leisure.

dd


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: Value talk

[Justin Schwartz]

>Karl: Dountlessly Justin can say what he likes. However that is neither 
>here nor there and of no political or ideological significance. That Justin 
>thinks otherwise is neither here nor there too.  . . . >It is not enough to 
>claim that capitalism is exploitative. It must be explained how it is 
>exploitative. Marx did just that. By establishing the limits of the value 
>form itself and the value form in the specific form of capital he made a 
>great contribution to the development of communism.
>

I agree, but he didn't need to use value to do it, or, if he did, that is a 
ladder we can now kick away (and should). We should because, as I have 
explained, value is a fifth wheel, we can say that cap is exploitative, 
i.e., explain why, without using the LTV, and, moreover, we cannot really 
explain why it is using the LTV, because of the well-known problems with 
that theory.

The defenses I have seen here mainly amount to two sorts: either (1) acking 
off from the specific quantitative commits and saying that the LTV is just a 
way of reminding us that commodities are the products of labor. That is true 
and important, but we don't needto posit a quantity that (on this approach) 
has no determinate value (i.e., value in the sense of being able to put a 
number on it) to say say this. Or (2) (as Rakesh suggests) there is athe 
moral deprecaition line, the idea that value explains crisis. As I have 
shown here by restating the argument without reference to value, and as 
Brenner has shown in greater length, value does no work in this story.

It is of course of no political significance what I say. Nor you, Karl 
Carlile, nor any of us, singlely. Many stones can build an arch, singlely 
none, singlely none.

jks

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Re: Re: Historical Materialism

[Justin Schwartz]

>Q-D underdetermination asserts that if two theories are equivalent
>in their empirical entailments then some other criteria needs to be
>used to compare explanatory virtues etc.

No, that's Q's empirical equivalence thesis. The Q-D thesis just holds that 
theories are interconnected networks of propositions, and you can hold true 
any one of them (even in the face of empirical "refutation") by making 
appropriate adjustmemnts elsewhere.

If the main results of the
>LTV and or the LoV whether in a quantitative-qualitative
>combination or relying singly on quantitative or qualitative
>approaches adds nothing to what can be achieved in terms of
>*explanation* without them, then why shouldn't Ockam's razor
>apply--to concepts, not entities?

Quite.



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The Plight of Enron's Employees: A Larger Lesson

[Charles Brown]

The Plight of Enron's Employees: A Larger Lesson

>From LA Daily News, 2/5/02, p. 13:



By Daniel J.B. Mitchell*

The Enron bankruptcy has focused media attention on stock
market losses suffered by Enron employees.  Recent
revelations indicate that Enron executives - despite
knowledge of their firm's shaky financial situation -
encouraged employees to hold Enron stock in their
tax-subsidized 401k retirement accounts.  Many employees
lost the bulk of their retirement savings as a result.

Less attention has been paid to the fact that as Enron
employees lose their jobs, their other employer-provided
benefits - such as health insurance - are also at risk.
Indeed, employees at any firm - whether properly managed or
not - risk losing benefits if they are laid off or if the
firm goes bankrupt.  Even apart from layoffs and
bankruptcies, employers have great latitude to change their
benefit policies or to terminate benefit programs.
Benefits can be here today, gone tomorrow.

So, are there any benefits NOT at risk for Enron employees,
or employees at any other firm?  The most important such
benefit is Social Security - which provides pension,
disability, and retiree health care to most American
workers.  Employees who are laid off and find jobs
elsewhere take their Social Security eligibility with them.
Employers do not determine Social Security benefit policies
- that is left to Congress.  Social Security, in short, is
portable from job to job and unaffected by the fate or
actions of any one company.

The Enron saga thus points to a larger lesson.  Much of
America's social welfare system was built up soon after
World War II on the basis of tax incentives to employers.
Employers were thereby encouraged to provide
company-by-company benefits.  These tax incentives have
become among the most costly to the federal Treasury.  Yet
the postwar system was premised on an employment
relationship that no longer is relevant: a male breadwinner
working an entire career for a large employer.  If the
breadwinner were a professional or managerial employee, it
was assumed that the employer would take a paternal
interest in his welfare.  And if he were a blue-collar
worker, it was assumed that a union contract would protect
him.

Today, few professional and managerial employees expect to
work 30-40 years at a single firm.  And unionization in the
private sector has fallen below 10% of the workforce.  All
workers must worry about the impact of job mobility,
company bankruptcy, or simply changes in employer policy on
their job-based benefits.

Given these changes in the employment relationship, social
welfare concerns - pensions, health care, life and
supplementary disability insurance - ought not to remain
the responsibility of individual employers.   Social
Security - while it will need reforms as the retirement of
the baby boomers nears - must retain a central role in
national retirement policy.  Individual saving accounts -
independent of any one employer -are another important
element.  More complicated, but no less essential, is the
creation of a core health insurance system that is portable
from job to job.

And what about the job-based stock ownership and stock
option plans that were the rage of the 1990s and that
figured so prominently in the Enron fiasco?  If employers
want to subsidize such plans on the assumption that they
enhance employee motivation, they can continue to do so.
After all, employers have long used other incentives, such
as factory piece rates and sales commissions, as
motivational tools.  But stock-based incentive plans have
little to do with retirement and should not continue to
enjoy tax subsidies.

*Ho-su Wu Professor, Anderson Graduate School of Management
and School of Public Policy and Social Research, UCLA.
Address: c/o Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA,
Los Angeles, CA. 90095-1481, phone 310-825-1504; fax
310-829-1042, e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
==
-

After Enron, debt stalks corporate world seeking new victims

[Ulhas Joglekar]

Hindustantimes.com

February 05, 2002

After Enron, debt stalks corporate world seeking new victims

AFP
London , 04-02-2002

To be or not to be? Debt is the question.

For many corporate giants wondering if they will survive the downturn or go
the way of US energy titan Enron, debt is emerging as the
be-all-and-end-all, a little word--but a big problem on the balance sheet.

>From telecoms giants such as France Telecom, to troubled airlines such as
BA, from equipment outfits like NTL and Marconi, to other more staid,
venerable concerns like chemicals group ICI, intimidating debt levels have
already spooked investors and savaged share prices.

Economists note that this is not unusual for this period in the economic
cycle: a long boom encouraged companies seduced by fat returns to borrow
heavily, but then a sharp turnaround and wretched market conditions have
weakened prospects and exposed critical debt levels.

The fear is that the debt issue could ripple through the financial system,
causing a major headache for the banks and bondholders sitting on the loans,
and turning investors jittery once more.

"We have seen the headline cases coming through, and there will be lots of
ones beneath that," 7im fund manager director, Justin Urquhart-Stewart said.

"What you are going to see now is that all of those who can't justify their
current debt position coming out and saying 'that's it--we can't carry on
like this'," he told AFP.

Some have already admitted as much. Cable group NTL last week launched talks
with bankers to restructure its imposing $17 billion (19-billion-euro) debt
mountain.

Equipment group Marconi and Energis have also had to work at keeper their
bankers sweet, as debt levels tower above their market capitalisation.

The problem has been aggravated by the failure of Enron, the US energy giant
which collapsed last year, much to the embarrassment of analysts who had
failed to point out the black hole at the heart of its finances.

Because of this, ratings agencies such as Moody's and Standard and Poor's
are expected to take a tough approach towards debt-laden companies. And a
ratings downgrade can cost a debt-laden company tens of millions of dollars
annually in higher interest charges--compounding the debt problem.

France Telecom, which at last count was nursing debts of some 65 billion
euros drummed up during the heady quest for third-generation mobile assets,
is already counting the cost. Its rating outlook was notched downward on
Friday and its share price has slumped.

"This has reminded people that their debt is a problem," said a Paris-based
equities broker. "And if Moody's has done this to France Telecom, which is
backed by the French government, then they might have to look at Deutsche
Telekom, BT and all the telecom groups."

Deutsche Telekom is grappling with a similar debt mountain, but BT has
managed to massage its borrowing down to a more manageable 16.5 billion
pounds thanks to an exercise that others may well resort to: a rights issue.

This method of drumming up cash from existing shareholders in return for new
stock is rarely popular, but can help a company pay down unacceptable debt
levels.

ICI became the latest to go down this route, when it announced a cash call
to raise 800 million pounds. The market's response? A 22 per cent slump in
share price last week.

"There are plenty of other companies out there itching to announce rights
issues and waiting for the first one to gauge the response," said Neil
Bennett of the Sunday Telegraph. "Now they have seen how ICI has been torn
to shreds, they may wait longer.

"The fund managers are going to have a great many calls on their cash," he
wrote. "Some of the supplicants in the queue will be disappointed."

This could leave some indebted companies with few options to pay their way:
profits are under pressure during a time of economic downturn and growth in
many sectors is unrealistic because of a glut of capacity and weak demand.

"You are going through a period of natural selection and we are seeing
various types of beasts fall away because they can't survive," said
Urquhart-Stewart, adding as a crumb of comfort:

"This is better news for those that are left, those that have been able to
adapt to the new circumstances. If you've got cash and a good 'story' and
can manage your debt, you'll be all right."

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prior permission. For reprinting rights, please write to us

debt & slow US recovery

[Devine, James]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-020502debt.story 

Corporate Debt Drags on Economy [L.A. TIMES, 2/5/02]

By TOM PETRUNO

Times Staff Writer

February 5 2002

A new wave of corporate bankruptcies is reminding workers and investors that
the fallout from the recession isn't over.

A major problem remains with the huge debt load U.S. companies took on
during the late 1990s. In some industries--particularly
telecommunications--the debt mania at its peak rivaled the stock mania in
the dot-com sector.

Corporations, excluding banks and other financial companies, have more than
$4.9 trillion in bond and bank debt, up a trillion dollars just since 1998.
Now, some analysts believe high corporate debt could keep any economic
recovery in low gear for the next few years.

"Unless you see a rapid turnaround in profit growth, [many companies] are
going to be financially strapped" by debt, said Paul Kasriel, economist at
Northern Trust Securities in Chicago. That, in turn, could limit businesses'
ability to spend on new equipment or on workers.

Even as key economic indicators suggest a rebound, the failures in recent
weeks of Enron Corp., Kmart Corp. and Global Crossing Ltd., among others,
have pointed up the threat companies still face from heavy debt burdens.

The boom times of the late 1990s encouraged companies to borrow
aggressively, particularly via long-term bonds.

The total amount of corporate bond debt outstanding rose just 25% from the
end of 1990 to the end of 1994, according to credit-rating firm Moody's
Investors Service. But as the economy grew rapidly from 1995 to 1999,
corporate bond debt rocketed 125%, to $2.59 trillion by the end of 1999,
Moody's said.

Perhaps more striking, even as the economy slowed in 2000 and 2001,
corporate bond debt continued to grow, reaching $3.39 trillion by the end of
last year, according to Moody's.

Most of those corporate borrowers continue to pay their lenders the interest
they're owed, and aren't in danger of insolvency. Still, the interest costs
that companies bear have helped cause a plunge in corporate earnings over
the last year that has been far more severe than the modest decline in U.S.
gross domestic product would imply.

For example, paper and forest products giant International Paper Co.
borrowed heavily in recent years to acquire several major rivals. The deals
have nearly doubled the company's long-term debt burden since 1996, to $13.3
billion now. The company's interest bill on its debt totaled $929 million
last year, which helped to reduce its net income for the year to $214
million, a 78% drop from 2000.

Of course, debt often serves a useful purpose, analysts note. Just as a
mortgage allows a family to buy a home that may appreciate in value in the
long run, bonds allow companies to make investments that ultimately may
produce generous returns for shareholders.

But debt costs that seemed manageable in an economic boom quickly can become
onerous in an economic bust, as companies' sales and earnings decline--and
in some cases their assets, as well-- while their debt expense stays level.

"Debt only becomes a problem when a company isn't generating enough cash
flow to meet" interest and principal payments, said John Lonski, economist
at Moody's in New York.

That predicament has befallen many more companies over the last year,
resulting in the highest rate of bond defaults--missed interest payments--in
a decade.

Moody's said 253 companies worldwide defaulted on $110.2 billion of bonds
last year, compared with 167 companies defaulting on $49.2 billion of bonds
in 2000.

The firm expects defaults to continue to rise in the first half of this
year, even if the economy grows.

Indeed, January saw a record 41 companies default, according to Standard &
Poor's, another debt-rating firm. For example, Houston-based Kaiser Aluminum
Corp., the nation's second-largest aluminum company, last week missed a
$25.5-million interest payment due some of its bondholders.

The number of U.S. public companies filing for bankruptcy protection topped
240 last year, according to the Boston-based Turnaround Letter. The
companies listed total assets of more than $250 billion, by far a one-year
record.

Historically, it isn't unusual for corporate failures to continue to rise at
the start of an economic recovery, as companies that had been barely hanging
on find they can't keep going. The question is whether this time will be
worse because of the level of debt.

Some analysts worry that the Federal Reserve, in slashing short-term
borrowing costs to 40-year lows, is in effect supporting many companies that
ought to be allowed to fail--or that at least should be encouraged to shed
debt.

"Usually recessions are a time when you repair your balance sheet," Kasriel
said. But he fears that too few companies have taken meaningful steps in
that direction, which could mean prolonging the process of weeding out weak
firms.

Others argue the financial system is in fact repai

URSZULA WISLANKA TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN PRISONERS AT MARXIST SCHOOL OF SACRAMENTO

[Seth Sandronsky]

February 6, 2002
News Release
For more information:
Call John Rowntree,((916) 446-1758
P.O. Box 160406
Sacramento, CA 95816
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



URSZULA WISLANKA TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN PRISONERS AND RADICAL THOUGHT AT THE 
MARXIST SCHOOL OF SACRAMENTO

Urszula Wislanka, author and activist, will give a talk "The I That Is We" 
on Thursday, February 21 at 7 p.m. in the Green Room at the Sierra 2 Center, 
2791 24th Street, Sacramento.

Wislanka’s talk is part of the Point of View: Challenging Perspectives on 
Current Issues speaker series sponsored by The Marxist School of Sacramento.

Wislanka will look at the thinking of women prisoners on freedom and the 
"social individual."  She will also talk about a philosophy of liberation in 
the ideas of Hegel and Marx.

Urszula Wislanka is the editor of "The Fire Inside," published by the 
California Coalition for Women Prisoners.  She is also the author of a 
widely read article titled "Revolutionary Activity of Polish Women."

This event is free and open to the public.  Donations are welcome.  For more 
information call John Rowntree at (916) 446-1758.

###








_
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Tue., Feb. 19: _Children of the Camps_ (Panel Discussion afterthe Screening)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Progressive Film Series:
Critical Perspectives on Wars, Classes, & Empires

Screening: _Children of the Camps_
Dir. Stephen Holsapple/Project Dir. Satsuki Ina, 1999

Date: Tuesday, February 19
Time: 7:30 p.m. (Refreshments Provided)
Location: 264 MacQuigg Lab, OSU
105 W. Woodruff Ave., Columbus, OH

More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned behind barbed wire 
during World War II . . . over half were children.  The documentary 
_Children of the Camps_ captures the experiences of six Americans of 
Japanese ancestry who were confined as children to internment camps 
by the U.S. government during World War II.  The film vividly 
portrays their personal journey to heal the deep wounds they suffered 
from this experience.

"I remember the soldiers marching us to the Army tank and I looked at 
their rifles and I was just terrified because I could see this long 
knife at the endŠ" (_Children of the Camps_).

Dr. Judy Tzu-Chun Wu (OSU Dept. of History) will introduce the 
documentary, and a panel discussion with internment survivors will 
follow the screening.

Sponsors: the Student International Forum and Social Welfare Action Alliance.
Co-sponsor: Asian American Student Services.
OSU campus map: .
For more info, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or 
614-668-6554; or Keith Kilty at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or 614-292-7181.

The flyer for the event is available at 
.  The flyer for other 
upcoming SIF/SWAA events is available at 
.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 

* Anti-War Activist Resources: 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 

(Fwd) jobs

[TERRENCE JOHN MCDONOUGH]

Applicants from ecological economics or other heterodox 
perspectives
welcome. You do not have to speak Irish to apply

National University of Ireland, Galway

Lectureships in Economics

Applications are invited for two permanent, full-time posts, to be 
filled
at either the Junior or College Lectureship level.  The appointees are
expected to contribute to the general teaching of the Department,
including graduate programmes in Economic Policy Evaluation and 
Planning
and Rural Development.  They will also contribute to the research 
activity
of the Department through linking into existing projects, for example, 
in
the Environmental Change Institute, the Centre for Innovation and
Structural Change and/or developing new lines of research.

Post 1:   The Department would like, in particular, to attract candidates
who have research interests in Environmental Economics or Natural Resource
Economics.

Post 2:  The Department would like, in particular, to attract candidates
who have research interests and experience in modelling aspects of Rural
Development and Regional Development.  The ability to provide support at
departmental level for survey-based projects in these two fields would
also be desirable.

For both posts a good knowledge of the EU economy and EU policy and
practice in these areas is considered desirable, while specific experience
in project funding under EU Research Programmes would be an asset.

Applicants should normally have a Ph.D. in Economics (or where Economics
forms a major part of the training), have good communication skills and
demonstrated teaching and research capacity.

Although it is desirable that the successful candidates take up their
appointments at the earliest possible date, the starting date and terms
are negotiable with the Department Head (up to a maximum of one year from
the date of appointment.

Current salary scales are as follows:

College Lecturer: ¤49,537.43 - ¤65,546.68
Junior Lecturer: ¤29,619.31 - ¤42,010.37

Further information on the posts and the Department of Economics may be
obtained from:

Professor Michael Cuddy
Tel. 353-91-750324; Fax: 353-91-524130;
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or from the
Department of Economics Web Page at: www.economics.nuigalway.ie

Candidates should submit six copies of their Curriculum Vitae with the
names and addresses of at least three and not more than five referees to:

The Personnel Office,
National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
Tel: 353-91-512069; Fax: 353-91-750523
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website: http://www.nuigalway.ie/news

Further information may be obtained  from the Personnel Office, NUI,
Galway, Ireland.

Closing date for receipt of applications is Friday, 8th March 2002.




Claire Noone
Department of Economics
National University of Ireland, Galway
Galway
IRELAND

Tel: +353-91-524411 ext 2177
Fax: +353-91-524130

email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

web: http://www.nuigalway.ie/ecn/

Re: Re: Re: Re: Value talk

[miyachi]

on 2/6/02 04:02 AM, Karl Carlile at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> JKS: Rubbish. We can say, as I do, that capitalsim is exploitative, unfair,
> and 
> unnecessary, and needs to be replaced, without adiopting a value framework.
> Not adopting that framework does not stuck us with demanding only higher
> wages.
> 
> Karl: Dountlessly Justin can say what he likes. However that is neither here
> nor there and of no political or ideological significance. That Justin thinks
> otherwise is neither here nor there too. Marx through the value form was able
> to establish the historical limits of capital and the historical need for
> communism. Capital is an exposition of the historical obsolesence of
> capitalism. It is this that means the conditions for communism exist. With
> Capital Marx demonstrated the objective necessity of capitalims. He
> demonstrated that the struggle for communism is not a merely subjective
> crusade based on subjectivist ethics and morality.
> 
> It is not enough to claim that capitalism is exploitative. It must be
> explained how it is exploitative. Marx did just that. By establishing the
> limits of the value form itself and the value form in the specific form of
> capital he made a great contribution to the development of communism.
> 
> Regards
> Karl Carlile (Global Communist Group)
> Be free to join our communism mailing list
> at http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/


> Sir Karl Carlile


MIYACHI TATSUO
PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT
KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
KOMAKI CITY
AICHI Pre.
JAPAN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



Marx proved not only exploitative, but also ability of working class to
abolish civil society. exploitation existed every times. But in capitalist
exploitation, characteristic is growing opposite power to build.
Below is from "Capital" In this line, later Marx overcame "crisis theory"
and became close to ongoing social movements itself.
"How it is exploitative" is not problem. It was already explained in capital
production. 


"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 of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages
of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression,
slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of
the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined,
united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist
production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of
production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it.
Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last
reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist
integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist
private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.
"
And In Capital?

$B!I(JThis surplus-labour appears as surplus-value, and this surplus-value
exists as a surplus-product. Surplus-labour in general, as labour performed
over and above the given requirements, must always remain. In the capitalist
as well as in the slave system, etc., it merely assumes an antagonistic form
and is supplemented by complete idleness of a stratum of society. A definite
quantity of surplus-labour is required as insurance against accidents, and
by the necessary and progressive expansion of the process of reproduction in
keeping with the development of the needs and the growth of population,
which is called accumulation from the viewpoint of the capitalist. It is one
of the civilising aspects of capital that it enforces this surplus-labour in
a manner and under conditions which are more advantageous to the development
of the productive forces, social relations, and the creation of the elements
for a new and higher form than under the preceding forms of slavery,
serfdom, etc. Thus it gives rise to a stage, on the one hand, in which
coercion and monopolisation of social development (including its material
and intellectual advantages) by one portion of society at the expense of the
other are eliminated; on the other hand, it creates the material means and
embryonic conditions, making it possible in a higher form of society to
combine this surplus-labour with a greater redu

Thu., Feb. 14: Ikechukwu Okafor-Newsum on Frantz Fanon

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Critical Perspectives on Wars, Classes, & Empires

Teach-in: "Against the Empire: Frantz Fanon & Pan-Africanism"

Speaker: Ikechukwu Okafor-Newsum

Date: Thursday, February 14
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Location: 115 Stillman, OSU
1947 College Rd., Columbus, OH

About the Speaker: Ikechukwu Okafor-Newsum is a professor of 
literature and political economy in the African-American and African 
Studies at the Ohio State University.  (Dr. Newsum is adjunct 
associate professor in the Department of English and faculty 
associate in the Centers for African Studies and Folklore Studies and 
in the Department of Women's Studies at the Ohio State University as 
well.)  His publications include _Class, Language and Education: 
Class Struggle and Sociolinguistics in an African Situation_ (1990), 
_The Use of English_ (with Adebisi Afolayan, 1983), and _United 
States Foreign Policy Towards Southern Africa: Andrew Young and 
Beyond_ (with Olayiwola Abegunrin, 1987).  He serves as the principal 
editor of _Working Papers: The Black Woman, Challenges and Prospects 
for the Future_ (with Carlene Herb Young et al, 1991).  His work as a 
visual artist has been widely acclaimed.

***  Devastating critique of the violence of colonialism.  Searching 
examination of the master-slave dialectic.  Fierce commitment to 
anti-colonial struggles.  Prophetic analysis of the pitfalls of 
national consciousness.  The revolutionary theory and practice of 
Frantz Fanon constitute an essential part of the rich and complex 
political and intellectual legacies of the Left that we seek to 
reclaim today, as we confront both explicit and implicit calls for a 
"new colonialism" -- a "humanitarian imperialism" -- issued by 
liberals and conservatives alike.  ***

Cf. Frantz Fanon on the Net: .

Sponsors: the Student International Forum and Social Welfare Action Alliance.
OSU Campus map: .
For more info, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or 
614-668-6554; or Keith Kilty at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or 614-292-7181.

The flyer for the teach-in is available at 
.  The flyer for other 
upcoming SIF/SWAA events is available at 
.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 

* Anti-War Activist Resources: 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: