RE: tompaine.com
Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied, in part because he's never really read it. Doug Good for him. I keep reading many postmodernists almost daily. They are here: http:\www.gazetem.net My favorite two are these: http://www.gazetem.net/ahmetaltan.asp http://www.gazetem.net/mehmetaltan.asp They are brothers. The older one, Ahmet, wrote the first postmodernist novel in Turkish: Sudaki Iz/The Trace on Water at a time when the concept of postmodernism did not exist. It was about two men, a revolutionary and an individualist. Don't remember much after 18 years or so but what I vaguely remember was that the individualist was his hero with great sexual powers, under whom a woman died of a heart attack beacuse of sexual excitement, whereas the revolutionary was a pathetic, sick, miserable, insincere man with serious sexual problems. In those days, a Leninist by the name of Yalcin Kucuk used to call Ahmet and a few of his likes, like the former President Turgut Ozal, Septemberists, after the September 12, 1980 coup. He used this term because he thought they came to where they were not because they deserved it but because the September 12, 1980 military coup helped them to get there. They are now called postmodernists. They say, there is no reality, nothing is knowable and everything is relative. Their message is as simple as this: If the rape is inevitable, lie back an enjoy it or, put another way, resistance is futile. In these days they are after inventing a new concept: liberal-social synthesis, whatever that means. The younger one's, Mehmet's, most recent book is entitled Marksist-Liberal/Marxist-Liberal. I haven't read it yet but I will, when I get there. It is not that they are wrong all the time but that their basic premises, the ones above, are false. I don't really know why I keep reading such garbage. Curiosity I suppose. Sabri
Re: lobal unequal exchange
At 12/06/02 23:20 -0400, Melvin P wrote: There is not unequal exchange of values in the world capitalist system. Price is not value. Agreed Price existed before commoditification. The credit system is a form of pricing and not a form of value-ing. I hope Myachi will respond to this. The early industrial capitalist had an edge over the capitalist using superior methods of manufacture in selling their product, although they could command the same price - or a lower price, for the same product produced by them and the manufacturer and accumulate more wealth. Price and cost is not value. A singular commodity can fetch different prices in the world market, although the socially necessary amount of labor in its production - in the totality of social capital, is constant or socially necessary. This is the core of my focus. My focus is about the effects of equal exchange in a world in which the socially necessary labour time differs vastly because of enormous differences in the means of production in different geographical areas. This is related to the centralisation of capital. The centripetal forces outweigh the centrifugal forces: although capital would like to exploit cheap labour in the third world, investment in the developed world is stronger. I suppose in marxist terms we are looking at different forms of relative surplus value. This has become much more important since Marx's day because of the acceleration of technological change. Capital can get relative surplus value by buying labour time that is cheap in third world countries and making the same product. Or it can invest in new technology which allows a commodity to be made with less labour time, although that labour time is skilled and relatively well paid on a global scale. There is at present something like a 30 fold difference in wages across the world - a much bigger difference than in the era of rising capitalism. The capitalist advocates of globalisation imply that that difference will narrow, but it could well widen, and if the trends I am pointing to prevail, it will widen still further. Melvin's formulation above begs the question of how that difference works out in practice. Perhaps I am merely saying that there is an unequal exchange of labour time in the world on a massive scale. But I want to say more than this in marxist terms. Marx's use of the concept of socially necessary labour time, relates to an abstract uniform society and economy. But the global economy is at once unified and at the same time lumpy. There are sub economies, partly geographical and partly to do with the different speed of circulation of different components of the economy. At least a trillion dollars moves around the foreign exchange terminals a day, but it takes determination, courage, endurance, and luck for someone to sell his/her labour power in a society in which its price is high if he/she is born in a society in which the price (and *local* value of labour power) is low. Is it an interaction between the facts that capital not only centralises but has to compete over relative surplus value, that gives the edge to capital investing in new technology which cuts the necessary labour time usually in favour of more skilled labour with a higher cultural value, relative to the emerging capital in for example the carpet making sweat shops of Pakistan exploiting child labour with largely traditional means of production for a global market. Melvin, your assertion that there is no unequal exchange of value in the world when there is clearly unequal exchange of labour time, depends on your restatement of the proposition about socially necessary labour time in a way that ignores these gross technological inequalities. If you accept that there is unequal exchange of labour time in the world, and it is a capitalist world, are we not close to saying there is unequal exchange of value? My hunch, like yours, is that the workings of capitalism are going to become more and more transparent. In this common cause, can I invite you to comment? Chris Burford The unfolding crisis is going to flush all the basic laws of capital out into the open for every one to see and this confusion between prices and value is going to be resolved on the side of Marx. Melvin P.
Re: Frappacinos and the law of value: a reply to the Post review of Empire
At 12/06/02 16:04 -0700, Steve Diamond wrote: Does that mean that the billions who live outside the core countries are irrelevant? I would argue for their relevance not on the basis of some kind of third worldist viewpoint about the countryside overtaking the cities (a perspective still to be found in various anti-globalization circles among others). Rather, it is because I think the law of value functions at a global level. The concentration of accumulation in the core triad also means that the tendency of the rate of profit to decline hits those countries as well. Thus, capital must find new sources of surplus value. Much of it is found in greater accumulation through technological advances, speedup, and other forms of restructuring. But an important source of that surplus value comes from the toil of the billions in poor countries that is then fed into the global system. Some of this is obviously an extension of Post's aside about the reserve army but the absence of any discussion about the dynamic NB dynamic impact of the law of value makes me doubt that this is critical to Post's thinking or to the politics of Solidarity and Labor Notes. Further, the problems associated with declining profits are often solved on the backs of the masses in poor countries. The need for a dynamic interpretation of the workings of the law of value is why a correct but purely abstract or dogmatic statement about the law of value on a world scale is quite inadequate, and even misleading. Only an analysis which examines the global process of value creation and destruction in all its complexity can account for today's capitalism. My sentiments entirely. See my post to Melvin P. Chris Burford
Fw: Chossudovsky on Rwanda and the coffee battle
In 1987, the system of quotas established under the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) started to fall apart. World prices plummeted, the Fonds d'egalisation (the State coffee stabilisation fund) which purchased coffee from Rwandan farmers at a fixed price started to accumulate a sizeable debt. A lethal blow to Rwanda's economy came in June 1989 when the ICA reached a deadlock as a result of political pressures from Washington on behalf of the large US coffee traders. At the conclusion of a historic meeting of producers held in Florida, coffee prices plunged in a matter of months by more than 50%. For Rwanda and several other African countries, the drop in price wreaked havoc. With retail prices more than 20 times that paid to the African farmer, a tremendous amount of wealth was being appropriated in the rich countries. Stephen F. Diamond School of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: lobal unequal exchange
Title: Re: [PEN-L:26827] Re: lobal unequal exchange To Chris Burford Some quality of commodity is abstracted from before real exchange This abstraction result from in brain,rather in social process, This analytical method Marx used is from Hegel's logics Firstly, concrete labor produce different product. In this process yet abstraction Happened Social abstraction cause in value-form, in other words, in at least two Different commodity are needed. You seems to confuse abstractive labor and use-value labor MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department Komaki municipal hosipital 1-20.JOHBUHSHI KOMAKI CITY AICHI PREF. 486-0044 TEL:0568-76-4131 FAX 0568-76-4145 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: sign of the times
Michael Perelman wrote: A Medical Journal Eases Conflict Rule The New England Journal of Medicine is relaxing its strict conflict-of-interest rules for authors of certain articles because it cannot find enough experts without financial ties to drug companies. I just read an article on Medscape that explained why no new anti-depressants have come out for several years. A number have been developed, but the drug firms are waiting until they've milked the current SSRIs for as much as possible before releasing new drugs. Why release a drug with fewer side effects if you are currently making millions out of an old drug! And of course there are probably thousands of drugs out there which would probably prove useful for other illnesses, but they are no longer covered by patent so no one profits by exploring new uses for them. Carrol
Displacing Europe as the source of capitalism
EPW Book Review June 01, 2002 Role of Revisionism in History Trade in Early India: Themes in Indian History edited by Ranabir Chakravarti (Oxford in India Readings); Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001; pp 506, Rs 650. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, AD 300-900 by Michael McCormick; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001; pp 1130, £ 40. Nigel Harris Ranabir Chakravarti has collected here some of the most significant articles of the past half century on trade in Indian history Shereen Ratnagar (1994) and Maurizio Tosi (1991) on Harappan trade; Romila Thapar (1976) on Dana and Dakshina as exchanges; Ivo Fiser (1954) on Setthi in Buddhist Jatakas; B N Mukherjee (1996) on pre-Gupta Vanya and Kalinga; Lionel Casson (1990) on maritime loans; D D Kosambi (1959) on feudal trade charters; Chakravarti (1990) on northern Konkan (AD 900-1053); Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (1985) on early medieval Rajasthan; Jean Deloche (1983) on ancient seaports; R Champakalakshmi (n d) on south Indian guilds; V K Jain (1989) on merchant corporations; R S Sharma (1983) on usury in early medieval times; John S Deyell (1990) on the Gurjara-Pratiharas; and S D Goitein (1980) on trans-Arabian Sea trade. The editor provides a masterly long overview of the field in the introduction and a most useful annotated bibliography at the end. The book nearly 500 pages is excellent, consistently stimulating, judicious and throughout most scholarly. The detail and the detective work are impressive. Michael McCormicks book is both narrower (in time period) and, given its great length (1,101 pages), much denser. His is a grand attempt to put together from many different sources a picture of the emergence of the European economy in what used to be the Dark Ages. He uses a great diversity of sources most creatively documents (including those from the Baghdad Caliphate), coin hoards, the provenance of holy relics, etymology, early medieval monastic medical recipes, archaeological sites (the location and residues of toll posts, industrial waste sites, sunken ship contents, as well as the remains and sources of cargo). It is, of course, difficult to identify what is commercial trade in all these sources, but he is adept at rigorous inferences from limited data. As he notes, those who wrote the records disdained trade and merchants in favour of kings, officials and prelates, so trade is least documented. Nonetheless, he has identified a wealth of evidence to contradict earlier notions that Europe in these times had very little trade. McCormick begins with an attempt to assess what of the late Roman empire economy survived as the polity disintegrated, concentrating on the persistence or change in routes of communication (of pilgrims, prelates, diplomats and rulers as well as traders) from the beginning of the revival in the seventh century. He plots the creation of new clusters of economic activity, urbanisation, in the Mediterranean, the Frankish and Carolingian empires, as well as the peripheral areas (Britain, eastern Europe and the far north). Out of this, he identifies in response to the major expansion of the richer and more advanced Islamic world (up to the tenth century) the remarkable rise of Venice and the north Italian cities, the revival of river trade and development of new trade points. It is an impressive and fascinating compilation, a masterly summing up of the point we have reached in the enquiry, a benchmark for further explorations. What is the justification for putting together these two works? It is to consider the essence of historical research, revisionism. The perception of the past is continually changing and must do so as evidence accumulates and new sources become available. Yet revisionism is in principle always a challenge for governments and the intelligentsia, for settled ways of considering the past and thus our present. What makes history important outside the ranks of historians is thus its impact on the present, how we see ourselves and our times. Historians, whether they know it or not, are thus continually undermining the present, subverting our comfortable assumptions that we know who we are. It is not just more immediate questions as with the work of Israels revisionist historians [Morris1987, Silberstein 1999], to the violent protests of the government, showing that the official account of the foundation of the state in 1948 is remote from the truth and this bears directly upon the appalling conflicts in the Occupied Territories at the moment (no less, the myth of the lands of the ancient Israelites is a powerful if in principle absurd moral element in present Israeli claims). The revision of Irish history [Boyce and ODay 1996] has less painful relevance but is no less upsetting for the ruling order. A recent London satire on the performance of British generals in 1914 produced strong protests from the Conservative backbenches, and one
child poverty in the U.S.
Title: child poverty in the U.S. New York TIMES/June 13, 2002 A Rise in Child Poverty Rates Is at Risk in U.S. By JEFF MADRICK THE sharp cut in welfare caseloads in recent years has forced many skeptics to acknowledge that the controversial reforms of 1996 had some merit. In addition to reducing the welfare rolls, one of the legislation's objectives was to raise the standard of living of poor children. The poverty rate of children has indeed dropped substantially as their parents have found work. But many, if not most, of these surprisingly good results were a consequence of the economic boom of the late 1990's, which created so many jobs. And now a rise in child poverty rates is again a risk. The unemployment rate is up. The House has just passed a tougher welfare reform proposal requiring still more hours of work for aid recipients, even as the job market softens. The Senate also faces renewal of two important family welfare programs and is not likely to expand benefits significantly. In the meantime, states are likely to cut back on social programs now that the recession has seriously strained their finances. In truth, not enough progress was made during the boom years. Over all, the official child poverty rate has fallen to 16 percent, but it is still well above the lows of the late 1960's and 1970's of around 14 percent, and the rate probably moved up in 2001. Child poverty for blacks and Hispanics, also down, is still an unconscionable 30 percent and 28 percent, respectively. But the financial state of America's children becomes a stark national embarrassment when we compare it with that in other rich nations. Timothy Smeeding of Syracuse University, based on work done in collaboration with his Harvard colleague Lee Rainwater, has completed probably the most comprehensive study to date on the subject. Because poverty rates are measured differently across nations, they are not typically comparable. To adjust for this, Mr. Smeeding draws a poverty line at a specific percentage of a nation's median income (including government cash and near-cash transfers, like America's food stamps). In Europe, official poverty lines are typically about 50 percent of median income, or even higher. In the United States, it is somewhat above 40 percent. Based on a poverty line of 40 percent, Mr. Smeeding calculates that America still has a child poverty rate of 14.8 percent, the highest among the 19 rich members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for which he has data. Only Italy comes close, at 14.6 percent. The next closest is Canada at 9.6 percent, then Britain at 8.4 percent. France's child poverty rate is only 2.9 percent, Taiwan's is 2 percent, and Sweden is at the bottom of the list, at 1.3 percent. The American data is updated through 1997, but the fall in the poverty rate since then does not alter the national relationships because the differences are so large. Mr. Smeeding also adjusts these income levels for what they can actually buy in each nation, or purchasing power parity. By doing this, he can estimate the actual standard of living of children in different countries. It turns out that America's poorest children -- say, those in the bottom 10 percent -- have a lower standard of living than those in the bottom 10 percent in any of the other nations measured except Britain. Moreover, the gap from rich to poor is far higher in the United States than anywhere else. In America, he finds, a child in the 90th percentile -- one whose income is higher than 90 percent of all children -- has an adjusted income five times that of one in the 10th percentile. In all other nations, it is an average of three times. The United States also has the greatest gap between the child in the middle of the pack -- the median -- and the poor child in the 10th percentile. Guy Stevens, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve until his recent retirement, supplements income data with an analysis of a couple of dozen noneconomic indicators of childhood well-being. He finds that the state of America's poor children is every bit as bad as the low incomes suggest. Infant mortality rates in America are only slightly better than in Cuba, Mr. Stevens notes, making it 33rd in the world. Eighteen percent of American women have minimal or no prenatal care, higher than in any other rich nation. Fourteen percent of children have no health insurance. Only 60 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds go to child care, well below the European rate, and many of those go to centers that are inadequate. [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/business/13SCEN.html] JD
Re: Frappacinos and the law of value: a reply to the Post reviewof Empire
I don't think anyone in Solidarity, Kim Moody included, would deny that accumulation is global, that the effects of events in all parts of the global economy have to be understood holistically, that analyses of the sort presented below about coffee and Rwanda are useful and necessary, and that the struggles of the people in the South/Third World matter, and not just because they serve as a reserve army of labor (though they do that). The idea that militant trade unionism is a good idea here in the advanced countries, and important to engage here for US radicals, doesn't seem to me inconsistent with this. Nor does the fact that globalization, though real, has limits. So the swipes at Soli--and I should say we are really more diverse in view thatn Steve suggest--are gratuitious here. Let's stick to the issues. jks Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 16:04:52 -0700 Charlie Post's review makes a number of excellent points in his critique of Hardt and Negri's Empire. However, his attempt to use Kim Moody's lean production model to explain globalization, or should I say explain away, globalization seems fundamentally flawed to me. It is not surprising to see Post attempt this approach since it is consistent with the pseudo-syndicalist point of production view of capitalism that predominates inside the Solidarity milieu, especially those close to the Labor Notes organization. This perspective often provides helpful insights on the shortcomings of business unionism, though it blinds the follower of this viewpoint to the larger dynamic of global capitalism. For example, since LN and Solidarity put huge emphasis on an attempt to revive some form of militant trade unionism as the core of their politics, they clearly want to find that the dynamic of global production chains is the key that can unlock our understanding of global capitalism. But that leads Post into problems. For example, he mentions briefly the masses of the developing world but only to suggest that they serve as a reserve army of labor. Instead he thinks the key is in the core of the accumulation process found in the most developed economies. It is certainly true that as one measures capital flows, most are found to go back and forth between Europe, Japan and the United States with some additional flows growing up in the key peripheries around those three countries in southern Europe, Mexico and south and southeast Asia. But so what? Does that mean that the billions who live outside the core countries are irrelevant? I would argue for their relevance not on the basis of some kind of third worldist viewpoint about the countryside overtaking the cities (a perspective still to be found in various anti-globalization circles among others). Rather, it is because I think the law of value functions at a global level. The concentration of accumulation in the core triad also means that the tendency of the rate of profit to decline hits those countries as well. Thus, capital must find new sources of surplus value. Much of it is found in greater accumulation through technological advances, speedup, and other forms of restructuring. But an important source of that surplus value comes from the toil of the billions in poor countries that is then fed into the global system. Some of this is obviously an extension of Post's aside about the reserve army but the absence of any discussion about the dynamic impact of the law of value makes me doubt that this is critical to Post's thinking or to the politics of Solidarity and Labor Notes. Further, the problems associated with declining profits are often solved on the backs of the masses in poor countries. Sociologist David Smith has written about the impact that U.S. backing of the coffee buyers' cartel (centered in the US) against high coffee prices had on countries like Rwanda. His careful research demonstrates that the IMF then forced the Rwandans to impose a coercive labor regime to squeeze more production out of overworked coffee fincas to make up for lost profits and government revenues. Hence, cheaper coffee from Rwanda helped resolve the profit squeeze on U.S. coffee buyers. The result was a social revolt that the government eventually suppressed through the 1994 genocide. Only an analysis which examines the global process of value creation and destruction in all its complexity can account for today's capitalism. Think about that next time you order a frappacino at the local Starbucks. Stephen F. Diamond School of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Radio Henwood
Today, on my radio show, (WBAI, New York, 99.5 FM and http://www.2600.com/offthehook/hot2.ram, 5-6 PM NYC time): * Robert Brenner, lbo-talk lurker and author of The Boom and the Bubble, just out from Verso http://www.versobooks.com/books/ab/brenner_r_boom.shtml, talking about the book and his interpretation of current economic news. * Gilberto Buenano, Vice Minister of Planning and Regional Development in the Chavez government in Venezuela, talking about the coup, its aftermath, and the general political situation (including what Chavez Co. are up to). Doug
Re: RE: tompaine.com
Sabri Oncu wrote: Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied, in part because he's never really read it. Doug Good for him. Attacking people you haven't read and/or barely understand isn't my idea of what intellectuals are supposed to do, but your support for him does explain some of your previously inexplicable sympathies. Doug
The sour SP 500
The sour SP 500 Market watchers said it couldn't happen, but index is heading for its 3rd straight down year June 12, 2002 BY SUSAN TOMPOR FREE PRESS COLUMNIST Now, another bitter pill to chew: The Standard Poor's 500 index is on course to book a three-year losing streak. SENSIBLE ADVICE FOR INVESTORS Boring is back. Think about paying down your credit card debt, making extra payments on the mortgage, putting more money into U.S. savings bonds and certificates of deposit, using coupons. Stocks might not get much worse, but they might not get much better soon. Most market watchers warn that you should not expect to see 20-percent gains on the Standard Poor's 500. If we're lucky, we'll get back to days of 7-percent or 8-percent gains. Diversify, diversify, diversify. Nobody wants to own all stocks and no bonds. Or all growth-oriented mutual funds and no value. The stocks-will-save-all mantra has to go. It's not a comforting thought. Especially when you realize that the index -- which is made up of 500 major U.S. companies -- hasn't seen three down years in a row in 61 years. The last batch of consecutive losers: 1939, 1940 and 1941. And market watchers said it couldn't happen again. Earlier this year, many of them tried to comfort investors by throwing around historical bromides. They kept telling us that the SP 500 index hadn't seen three bad years in decades. Some told us, that the odds were in our favor. After all, the SP 500 was down 10.1 percent in 2000 and down 13 percent in 2001. What were the odds of a third crummy year? Well, with only six months to go, the odds are looking increasingly higher. We saw a broad sell-off on Tuesday -- and the major stock indexes are nearer to the lows made following the terrorist attacks. Things are grim and grimmer. Investors have had their fill of stocks. They've watched terrorist attacks, bankruptcy filings at big-name companies, the threat of nuclear war erupting between India and Pakistan, the lack of corporate and accounting ethics. You name it, investors have a dozen reasons to worry about losing money on stocks. Buying on the dips? If you've been buying on the dips, you've been burned, said Robert Bosart, first vice president of McDonald Investments in Birmingham. Now, many folks won't touch stocks -- plain and simple. People are pretty much like deer looking in the headlights. They're pretty much frozen, said George Abel, managing partner for Meadowbrook Investment Advisors in Livonia, which manages $180 million in assets. Even the professionals are having a hard time watching. When you watch this day in and day out, it's very demoralizing, said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer for First Albany Corp., a brokerage and investment adviser in Albany, N.Y. Oh, yes, there are still optimists. Abby Joseph Cohen, the stock market soothsayer at Goldman Sachs, declared this week that she expects the economic recovery to continue -- and says the fair value of the SP 500 is 1300. And based on her estimates, the index could soar about 25 percent in the next 12 months. Nonetheless, she wrote, investors continue to focus on a list of potential liabilities, several of which are difficult to quantify. These include: accounting confusion, low CEO confidence and concerns about the state of global affairs. Will we see a turnaround in six months? It depends on the stock index that you watch. The Nasdaq index -- the tech-heavy index -- already has its obituary written. Unless we see a miracle cure, the Nasdaq will post its third consecutive down year. The Nasdaq was down about 23 percent so far this year through Tuesday. The Nasdaq would have to gain more than 450 points -- or about 30 percent -- just to end the year flat and close at the 1950.40 mark where we ended 2001. The Dow has the best chance of avoiding the loser's label. The index of 30 industrial companies would have to gain more than 500 points -- or 5 percent -- by year end to close at the 10,021.50 mark reached at year-end 2001. But the fate of the SP 500 is looking worse by the day. David Sowerby, portfolio manager for Loomis, Sayles Co. in Bloomfield Hills, says it's possible for the SP 500 to avoid what he calls a 3-D year. But he acknowledges it won't be easy. We do have some wood to chop for the last six months of the year. The SP 500 index would have to gain nearly 135 points -- or about 13 percent -- between now and the end of December just to be even with last year's close. The index closed at 1148.08 at year-end 2001. The SP 500 index closed at 1013.60 on Tuesday -- down nearly 12 percent for the year. Bear markets, of course, do not last forever. And Sowerby says when things do turnaround, they will turnaround quickly. He notes that the SP 500 rebounded 13.6 percent in just 20 days between the market low on Sept. 21 and Oct. 11. David Blitzer, chief investment strategist for Standard
Inheritance tax is Marxist
Inheritance tax is Marxist by Ian Murray 12 June 2002 19:09 UTC Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848 http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. ABOLITION OF ALL RIGHTS OF INHERITANCE ( emphasis added -CB) = The philosophical and legal arguments for abolishing inheritance had been around before KM was even born. CB: You provided the heading - Inheritance tax is _Marxist_. What is the significance of it being Marxist, since, no doubt, the inheritance tax was around before KM was born , too ?
Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
- Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:45 AM Subject: [PEN-L:26838] Inheritance tax is Marxist Inheritance tax is Marxist by Ian Murray 12 June 2002 19:09 UTC Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848 http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. ABOLITION OF ALL RIGHTS OF INHERITANCE ( emphasis added -CB) = The philosophical and legal arguments for abolishing inheritance had been around before KM was even born. CB: You provided the heading - Inheritance tax is _Marxist_. What is the significance of it being Marxist, since, no doubt, the inheritance tax was around before KM was born , too ? Because Phil Gramm, incorrectly, asserted it was a Marxist idea. That Marx was even mentioned by a major US politician in the 21st century is interesting no? Ian Ian
WTO loophole[s]
[NYTimes] June 13, 2002 W.T.O. Loophole Allows a Surge in Protectionism By ELIZABETH OLSON GENEVA, June 12 - The safeguard exception was supposed to be a small, minor loophole in global trade rules, allowing a country to head off a sudden wave of imports without having to wait for the slow, cumbersome trade dispute resolution process to do its work. Then the Bush administration invoked it in March to justify selective tariffs on imported steel, and the European Union in turn invoked it to justify countermeasures. The dispute highlighted what experts say is a developing stampede to stretch and exploit the loophole for protectionist ends, putting at risk decades of progress in liberalizing world trade. In 1995, the first year that the safeguard agreement was in effect, the provision was used in two cases. Last year, there were 53, according to Mayer, Brown, Rowe Maw, a Chicago-based law firm specializing in trade matters, and the trend is upward again this year. But this surge comes despite the fact that the World Trade Organization, the global arbiter of trade disputes, has yet to bless a single safeguard measure that has been challenged before it. Many experts say the Bush steel measures will not pass muster either. There's a view right across the globe now that there is a place for protective trade measures, said Cliff Stevenson, an economist with Mayer, Brown's London office. And that's a change in attitude. All 144 members of the trade organization pledged to keep their markets open when they joined the group. But nearly all of them also look for ways to run interference for domestic industries struggling to adjust to liberalized trade. The W.T.O. is not a free trade steamroller, explained David Woods, a former W.T.O. employee who runs the Geneva-based consulting firm, World Trade Agenda, defending safeguard provisions. It gives you an escape door, he said. More than one, in fact. Besides safeguard measures, there are also antidumping measures, which countries can impose to ward off foreign products sold in their markets below cost, and there are countervailing duties to protect against subsidized goods. Mayer, Brown found that two dozen countries initiated a total of 348 antidumping actions last year involving nearly 140 products. But widespread use of safeguard measures is a newer and more worrisome phenomenon, free trade advocates say, because the vague wording of the agreement is being stretched to justify protective tariffs in almost any circumstances. The United States has been by far the most active of the 21 countries that have invoked the safeguard agreement so far; from 1995 to 2001 it did so 42 times. But Chile and India have also been frequent users, Mayer, Brown found. Nations like India, with limited resources and few trade experts, are turning to safeguards as an easier and cheaper alternative to other measures. Pursuing an antidumping case, for example, requires sending officials abroad to investigate the true cost of manufacturing the goods in question; data to support a safeguard action is mainly concerned with injury to domestic industry and can be gathered at home. You have to go through burdensome procedural hoops in antidumping cases compared to safeguards, said Scott D. Andersen, a lawyer in Sidley, Austin, Brown Wood's Geneva trade law practice. Safeguard measures usually apply across the board to all exporters of a given product, though the Bush administration has exempted many countries from the steel tariffs, to the European Union's intense irritation. The rules permit nations to claim compensation for their injured industries rather than have to retaliate against imports, which many smaller countries lack the market power to do effectively. Their beauty is that you can give a lot more protection to your industry, Mr. Stevenson said of safeguard actions, adding that he expects them to keep proliferating. But he noted that so far, the trade organization panels that hear challenges to safeguard actions have found all of them to be W.T.O.-inconsistent - meaning impermissible under global trade rules. The safeguard agreement - part of the package of accords that created the trade organization in 1995 - set no specific criteria, leaving the precise circumstances under which safeguards could be applied open to interpretation. Since then, dozens of the measures have been challenged, and 11 cases have been heard and decided, according to the trade group's statistics. Five of those were brought against the United States, challenging restrictions on imports of wheat gluten, lamb, cotton yarn, underwear and steel piping. All were thrown out. Other nations have had no better luck. South Korea failed to persuade a W.T.O. panel that its dairy products safeguards were justified; Argentina lost on shoes. The accumulating case law is doing what the diplomats who drafted the agreement did not, setting specific limits on when safegaurds can be applied - and narrowing them
Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Recall that when Marx knew that his newspaper was doomed, he printed a red headline in his last edition, calling for an end to tax payments. The Repugs. are nothing but a continuation of that vile communist conspiracy. Anyone seen the Manchurian Candidate recently. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: coffee cartel
It got much worse for the coffee producers. The World Bank made big loans to increase coffee production in Vietnam, now the world's 2nd largest coffee producer. This added to the world-wide glut and has driven farmers in Central America, Mexico, Brazil and in Africa to desperation. Roanld Reagan's drive for free markets played a big part in killing the ICA. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: Bounced from Steve Diamond In 1987, the system of quotas established under the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) started to fall apart. World prices plummeted, the Fonds d'egalisation (the State coffee stabilisation fund) which purchased coffee from Rwandan farmers at a fixed price started to accumulate a sizeable debt. A lethal blow to Rwanda's economy came in June 1989 when the ICA reached a deadlock as a result of political pressures from Washington on behalf of the large US coffee traders. At the conclusion of a historic meeting of producers held in Florida, coffee prices plunged in a matter of months by more than 50%. For Rwanda and several other African countries, the drop in price wreaked havoc. With retail prices more than 20 times that paid to the African farmer, a tremendous amount of wealth was being appropriated in the rich countries. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Castro: US imposing Nazi concepts on world
Castro: US imposing Nazi concepts on world AFP (with additional material by AP). 8 June 2002. Washington imposing Nazi concepts on world: Castro. SANTIAGO DE CUBA -- Cuban President Fidel Castro on Saturday called on the US public to halt fanatics of war in the US government, stating that since the September 11 terror attacks Washington has imposed Nazi methods and concepts upon the world. The US people are the only ones who can brake and put in a straitjacket the fanatics of power ... and war, Castro said in a speech to some half a million Cubans gathered in Santiago de Cuba, the country's second largest city, located some 770 kilometers (480 miles) south-east of Havana. Castro said that Washington is beginning to run the world with Nazi methods and concepts, as many world governments cower in silence. The power and prerogatives of that country's president are too extensive, and the economic, technological and military power network in that nation is too pervasive, Castro said of the United States. Bush has ignored the United Nations in his declared war against terrorism, assuming the role of world master and policeman, Castro told hundreds of thousands of people gathered for the early morning rally in this eastern provincial capital. It is no coincidence that at the same time right-wing fascism is increasing its power in several European countries, he added. As for Bush's May 20 statements on U.S. policy toward Cuba, he went too far, Castro said. He was rude. He insulted, he lied, and he threatened.
Re: Re: coffee cartel
The disastrous price slump for coffee demonstrates the need for alternative arrangements for southern producers. One alternative that is being trumpeted is the alternative or fair trade, which is most developed, at least in terms of primary goods, in the coffee market. Does anyone have any thoughts on this as a alternative? Ian Hudson Department of Economics University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB Canada ph. 204-474-9676
Free market, enslaved people
Free market, enslaved people by Zbigniew Baniewski 12 June 2002 22:39 UTC Zbigniew, Those of us living in capitalism have some bad news for you. Real world capitalism is not like it is in the textbooks, a free market. It inevitably becomes monopoly capitalism, with the market controlled by the biggest businesses , the small businesses in a jungle, and the state manipulating things in favor of big businesses. On an international level, it is the richer countries controlling and exploiting the poorer countries. The bad things you describe in Poland _are_ real capitalism. To reverse what you say, capitalism is socialism for the rich and market discipline for everybody else. Charles ^ I asked: is it democracy on the work-place level? Zbigniew answers:there is less democracy at workplace, because the people are afraid to lose their jobs. That's capitalism! (see Marx's concept of the reserve army of labor.) I cannot agree. That's just one of the capitalism's features (the one less beloved by the people ;). The market for final commodities may not be free, but it hardly ever is, even in the U.S. Anyway, it's not the free market that defines capitalism. is it democracy on the state level that actually can change the _status quo_? Zbigniew answers: Yes. YES! I can assure you, that if you can only persuade some millions of people, you can really change the status quo... but first you should additionally persuade about 50% of very disappointed electors, that they should took their part in the election. and: There is really full democracy on the state level - but people, tired and very disappointed with s.c. [so-called?] capitalism Yes. So called, because capitalism works in our country as diagnose for current troubles (partially even in official propaganda) - although we cannot see the capitalism here. As I wrote, capitalism means for me free market first.
Inheritance tax is Marxist
Inheritance tax is Marxist by Michael Perelman 12 June 2002 22:19 UTC Why are the Repugs so brilliant in framing issues? The Death Tax wording is a stroke of genius. ^^^ CB: I'm a vulgar materialist on this. The Repugs aren't more clever at developing slogans than we are. They just have several orders of magnitude more $$$, control of the mass media, etc., to saturate the mass consciousness with the lies they come up with. We could ahve a left poet or lyricist make a catchy version of The rich don't work for most of the money they have. There could even be a song, movie or tv show with that as its title, but that won't happen.
Re: Free market, enslaved people
On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Charles Brown wrote: Those of us living in capitalism have some bad news for you. Real world capitalism is not like it is in the textbooks, a free market. It inevitably becomes monopoly capitalism, with the market controlled by the biggest businesses , the small businesses in a jungle, and the state manipulating things in favor of big businesses. I realize that - but do you agree, that it can't be called a real capitalism? It's exactly what I'm - for my private use - describing as banana republic syndrome. The rich companies are sponsoring some politicians, which are forcing the law, which makes living of that companies much easier... Of course I realize, that it's hard to achieve the ideal - but shouldn't we go for it? So, in conclusion, we (in Poland) have just a bit of capitalism, you, in US, much more - and (as I understand) none of us is living in truly capitalists conditions. After lecture of some books (f.e. Free to choose M. Friedman or The Road to serfdom F.A. von Hayek - and others), in my opinion, the real (it doesn't mean in it's every aspect ideal) capitalism was - as perhaps the best example - United States before 1913. On an international level, it is the richer countries controlling and exploiting the poorer countries. I understand that; of course it depends on the quality of the government of that poorer countries. And, unfortunately, we've got an very uninteresting one. The bad things you describe in Poland _are_ real capitalism. To reverse what you say, capitalism is socialism for the rich and market discipline for everybody else. I read several things, how Ronald Reagan f.e. broke the unofficial agreements among the airline companies, which was resulting in the tickets cheaper 5-7 times than earlier... so, it's possible anyway? pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
Re: Re: Sokal and Bricmont
From the French version of Sokal's and Bricmont's book, I got the same interpretation than Sabri from the Turkish one. The authors only denounce abuses committed by some French people labelled as intellectuals. Actually, it is not simply matter of mistakes, in using some physics principles unsufficiently mastered, but indeed hoaxes to hide intellectually empty discourses. Sokal and Bricmont do not go so far in the criticism. They are remarkably measured in their judgment, with respect to the dishonesty of people they criticize. In my (non humble) opinion, an intellectual is someone who is intested in UNDERSTANDING the world, not in playing an in-fashion and well paid character. RK
Re: Re: Re: Sokal and Bricmont
From the French version of Sokal's and Bricmont's book, I got the same interpretation than Sabri from the Turkish one. The authors only denounce abuses committed by some French people labelled as intellectuals. Actually, it is not simply matter of mistakes, in using some physics principles unsufficiently mastered, but indeed hoaxes to hide intellectually empty discourses. Sokal and Bricmont do not go so far in the criticism. They are remarkably measured in their judgment, with respect to the dishonesty of people they criticize. In my (non humble) opinion, an intellectual is someone who is intested in UNDERSTANDING the world, not in playing an in-fashion and well paid character. RK Unfortunately, the science wars pits postmodernists against a group whose Marxist credentials are dubious at best. In the initial euphoria over seeing hot-air artists like Stanley Aronowitz and Jacques Derrida getting their comeuppance, it was assumed (including by me) that Sokal was some kind of Marxist. In reality, his understanding of the role of science comes straight out of the liberal marketplace of ideas arena. By his own admission, he has never read Gramsci, Richard Lewontin or Richard Levins. Lewontin has a superb essay in the issue of Social Text that contained Sokal's spoof. For those who want to understand how Marxists understand science, I strongly recommend Helena Sheehan's Marxism and the Philosophy of Science, parts of which are online at: http://www.comms.dcu.ie/sheehanh/mxphsc.htm. I posted this to Marxmail shortly after the last Socialist Scholars Conference: While strolling through the vendor displays at the Socialist Scholars Conference yesterday, I was pleased to discover that Humanities Press was back in business, under the Prometheus imprint. This is one of the finest publishers of serious Marxist scholarship in the world. Among the titles that will now be available once again are LeBlanc-Wald's Trotskyism in the USA and Lowy's Marxism in Latin America. But I was particularly pleased to see that they have made Helena Sheehan's Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: a Critical History available in paperback. This book is an exhaustively researched, but eminently readable, study of how Marxists have tried to apply their method to the natural world, starting with Marx and Engels themselves. Parts of Sheehan's book are online at: http://www.comms.dcu.ie/sheehanh/mxphsc.htm. I have referenced them in the past to demonstrate how the early Soviet Union attempted to integrate scientific research into the overall revolutionary project. Here's a brief excerpt from the introduction to chapter 4, which is online: Because of his concern for winning over the existing intelligentsia and because of his special interest in the philosophy of science, Lenin was particularly interested in gaining the support of natural scientists. When the distinguished biologist K.A. Timiriazev announced his fervent loyalty to the new regime, Lenin was overjoyed. The bolsheviks received him with open arms and named a research center after him: the State Timiriazev Scientific Research Institute for the Study and Propaganda of Natural Science from Point of View of Dialectical Materialism (mercifully reduced to Timiriazev Institute in all but the most formal references to it). Another success was the N.I. Vavilov, who was put in charge of a whole network of biological institutions. The physicist A.F. Joffe had actually joined the anti-bolshevik exodus of scholars to the Crimea in 1917, but returned to Petrograd, resolved to connect his fate with that of the land of the Soviets, although it was by any means clear that the civil war would be won. He became a member of the Leningrad soviet and doyen of soviet physicists, although it was not until 1942 that he joined the party. There was a concerted campaign to win working natural scientists over to a materialist position in the philosophy of science. Through such agencies as Union of Scientific Workers, the All-Union Association of Workers Science and Technology for Assistance to the Construction of Socialism (VARNITSO), and the Central Commission for Improving the Condition of Scholars, various societies for materialist natural scientists corresponding to various scientific disciplines, the bolsheviks fought to win their hearts and minds. While Sheehan's book makes no reference to the Sokal affair, it clearly illustrates that revolutionary socialism has an entirely agenda than Alan Sokal and his tutor Norman Levitt (who organized a science wars conference at NYU using Olin Foundation money), and much of the anti-pomo left. For Sokal, science is a kind of ivory tower pursuit that should be protected from meddlers who haven't been initiated into its sacred rites, especially the postmodernists who don't know the difference between a quark and a quirk. For reasons too complicated to go into now, Sokal was assumed to be speaking in the name
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Free market, enslaved people
On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, Devine, James wrote: the NYT article suggests that the Polish recession was due to the slowdown of the world economy, the central bank's keeping of the zloty high, etc., not due to high taxes. Of course, it's very comfortable explanation for our government; I understand, that Poland isn't in vacuum, and the reason you mentioned has it's influence. But the very bad things are done by bad quality of our domestic law, and systematic limitation of free market, done since 1989 until today. Just one example: do you know, that every company owner should pay a social insurance for every of his workers, which is at the level of almost 50% of that workers salary? Because it's obligatory, it's just hidden tax. payroll taxes aren't especially hidden, but it's true that employers pass the burden on to employees. In our country it's hidden, because it's called as insurance contribution, not tax. Although it is an ordinary tax, because it's obligatory. Whether the social insurance tax is too high or not depends on what kind of benefits are received from it. Just basic (really basic) medical service and very low retiring-pension. It's too much to write; for comparison I'll tell you, that more you can have paying much lower (several times lower) monthly contribution to Commercial Union or similar company. But - whether you'll pay this, or not - you must pay that social insurance tax. Quick and dirty comparison: average payment in our country is about 2000,- zloty. The company owner should additionally pay almost 1000,- more (50% of that salary) to state social insurance company. Although the worker could have better conditions for just 100,- zloty paid to Commercial Union by himself... It's the thing, that makes worker costs very high in our country. Unemployment is the result. In Argentina, they set the market free and it seems to have been a disaster. My comparison to Argentina was mostly in terms of that country's international economic dependence, its obedience to the IMF and the orthodox financial interests, and its committment to keeping its currency high no matter what. I didn't think of Poland as bankrupt (yet). But the Argentina problem was AFAIK mainly keeping its currency high no matter what. The zloty's rate of exchange is floating (yet) pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Democratic foes of repeal advocate the redistribution of wealth, ``an old Marxist idea that has been rejected everywhere in the world but still has appeal'' in the United States, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said Tuesday as debate began. Good old Gramm, past master in the uses of the Big Lie in political rhetoric. Gramm's comment is, of course, stunningly and redundantly contrary to fact, most obviously because most other developed countries engage in much more redistribution of wealth than the US (though I was distressed to learn that Italy has repealed its inheritance tax). Second, redistribution of wealth is not only not a specifically Marxist idea (much too timid a social change from a Marxist standpoint), but it's one that obviously precedes Marx (e.g., an article in the most recent American Prospect notes that pre-Marxist James Madison wrote in favor of progressive redistribution to combat social stratification). Propagandist Gramm has also been flogging the death tax chestnut, even arguing the immorality of taxing death, oblivious to the fact that although 100% of the U.S. population (eventually) die, only 2% pay the inheritance tax. And yet Democrats largely cede the moral high ground to reactionary ideologues like Gramm by not challenging such absurd claims. Gil
Re: re: Free market, enslaved people
On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, Devine, James wrote: [..] What defines capitalism is not really unemployment, but the class system, i.e., existence of proletarianization, in which the vast majority lack the bonds of feudalism or slavery and also lack direct control over the means of subsistence and production. Isn't it a bit (or a lot) marxist-like definition? Perhaps we can define capitalism in economic way: the conditions are more capitalistic, when the amount of national product, which is redistributed by government, is low. More redistribution - less capitalism (100% redistribution = pure communism). My impression is that the non-Jewish industrialists still had a lot of power in Nazi Germany, while some Nazis became capitalists. But this argument is getting too far away from the thread, so I'll drop it. Just for ending: owners of big companies had excellent times before 1937 (when Schacht was german minister of industry), but in the following years, the needs of the german war machine made big industry almost completely state-dependent (at 1937 the taxes ate 60-70% of the netto income of that big industry companies). Nazi regime it's biggest support got from small business owners. ... capitalism works in our country as diagnose for current troubles (partially even in official propaganda) - although we cannot see the capitalism here. As I wrote, capitalism means for me free market first. Then we're using the term differently. I don't see much point in arguing about the meaning of the word capitalism, so I won't. Perhaps my proposal (redistribution-related definition) could be accurate. It's always a mistake to quote Friedman, since he's so often wrong. Why? Wasn't Chile his (and his Chicag boys) big success? He didn't realize (or rather, he didn't include in his presentation) that if Poland followed that strategy, it would be competing with South Korea and a lot of other countries. Good example! In 1985 national income per capita in South Korea was a half of today's in Poland (they had about 36 millions population in 1985, today in Poland we have about 37 millions). But today average income per capita in Korea is about two times higher than we have in Poland. So, in 17 years they made 4x multiplication of their income per capita, although their today's population is about 47 millions. And it's the result of setting their market still more and more free. Their government is redistributing about 25% of their national income. Our polish government - about 43%. Do you see the difference? pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Let us not neglect the fact that the *Estate* tax (there is no inheritance tax) collects about $30b a year right now, so it isn't doing much in the way of redistributing wealth. What's more, regressive loopholes in the income tax are huge compared to Estate tax revenue. I even surprized myself when I did this: http://www.epinet.org/webfeatures/snapshots/archive/2002/0417/snap04172002.h tml mbs Democratic foes of repeal advocate the redistribution of wealth, ``an old Marxist idea that has been rejected everywhere in the world but still has appeal'' in the United States, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said Tuesday as debate began. Good old Gramm, past master in the uses of the Big Lie in political rhetoric. Gramm's comment is, of course, stunningly and redundantly contrary to fact, most obviously because most other developed countries engage in much more redistribution of wealth than the US (though I was distressed to learn that Italy has repealed its inheritance tax). Second, redistribution of wealth is not only not a specifically Marxist idea (much too timid a social change from a Marxist standpoint), but it's one that obviously precedes Marx (e.g., an article in the most recent American Prospect notes that pre-Marxist James Madison wrote in favor of progressive redistribution to combat social stratification). Propagandist Gramm has also been flogging the death tax chestnut, even arguing the immorality of taxing death, oblivious to the fact that although 100% of the U.S. population (eventually) die, only 2% pay the inheritance tax. And yet Democrats largely cede the moral high ground to reactionary ideologues like Gramm by not challenging such absurd claims. Gil
CEPR: The Relative Impact of Trade Liberalization on Developing Countries
- Original Message - From: Robert Naiman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:27 PM Subject: [j2000-policy] CEPR: The Relative Impact of Trade Liberalization on Developing Countries [more on what Uncle Whiskers called that unconscionable freedom, 'Free Trade'] --- The Relative Impact of Trade Liberalization on Developing Countries By Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker June 11, 2002 [full text at www.cepr.net] Executive Summary In recent years, new trade agreements have often been promoted on the basis of their potential benefit to developing countries. Political leaders, international financial institutions, and even advocacy groups have argued that rich countries such as the United States have an obligation to expand trade in order to help poorer countries grow and develop. These claims are often grossly exaggerated, as can be seen from an examination of the economic literature on trade. Furthermore, there are costs associated with trade liberalization in the developing countries, and with the changes required by such agreements as the WTO's TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). When the benefits and costs of continued liberalization along the lines set out in these agreements are evaluated according to standard economic research, it is not clear that the developing countries as a group are facing a net gain. Regarding the gains from increased access to the markets of rich countries: The removal of all of the rich countries' barriers to the merchandise exports of developing countries-including agriculture, textiles, and other manufactured goods-would result in very little additional income for the exporting countries. According to the World Bank's estimates, when such changes were fully implemented by 2015, they would add 0.6 percent to the GDP of low and middle-income countries. This means that a country in Sub-Saharan Africa that would, under present trade arrangements have a per capita income of $500 per year in 2015, would instead have a per capita income of $503. Some of the most widely used economic models show that many developing countries will actually lose from trade liberalization in important sectors, such as agriculture and textiles. There are three reasons for this outcome. First, some countries will be hurt by the elimination of quotas that now allow them to sell a fixed amount of exports at a price that exceeds the competitive market price. Second, trade liberalization changes the relative prices of various goods, and some countries will find that their export prices fall relative to the price of imports (the terms-of-trade effect). Third, some developing countries currently benefit from access to cheap, subsidized agricultural exports from the rich countries. In standard trade models, the gains to developing countries from removing their own barriers are much greater than the gains from increased access to the markets of rich countries. However, developing countries also incur substantial costs from opening their markets, which are often overlooked: Developing countries incur substantial problems from reducing their trade barriers. In many developing countries, tariff revenue accounts for 10-20 percent of government revenue, and in some cases considerably more. If tariffs are reduced or eliminated, these countries will have to impose large increases in other taxes in order to keep their budgets in line. The distortionary effect of these tax increases, as well as the costs and problems associated with collecting taxes from other sources, are generally ignored in economic models that project gains from eliminating trade barriers. The removal of trade barriers is also likely to lead to large disruptions in agriculture. In most developing countries, a large portion of the population is still tied to the agricultural sector. If barriers to agricultural imports are removed too quickly, it can lead to large-scale displacement of the rural population. Standard economic models implicitly assume that these people are re-employed in other sectors of the economy, but rapid import liberalization can lead to substantial unemployment and underemployment, as well as dangerous levels of social and economic instability. There are two other sets of costs that have been attached to trade liberalization that must also be taken into account: Recent trade agreements, such as the TRIPS provisions in the WTO, have sought to impose U.S.-style patent and copyright protections in developing countries. This will lead to the transfer of billions of dollars from developing to high-income countries in the form of royalties and licensing fees. In addition, the efficiency loss resulting from higher prices of patented and copyrighted items is likely to be even larger. The World Bank's estimates indicate that the cost of TRIPS to developing countries is likely to be comparable to any gains
Re: Re: Free market, enslaved people
On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 08:48:42PM +0200, Zbigniew Baniewski wrote: in my opinion, the real (it doesn't mean in it's every aspect ideal) capitalism was - as perhaps the best example - United States before 1913. By the late nineteenth century, strong competitive forces were destroying US capital, so just before that time, corporations began to amalgamate to negate competition. I read several things, how Ronald Reagan f.e. broke the unofficial agreements among the airline companies, which was resulting in the tickets cheaper 5-7 times than earlier... so, it's possible anyway? I don't know if you mean the deregulation of the airlines, but Doug Henwood on our list had an excellent study in his newsletter. Prices were already falling before that. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: coffee cartel
Lou responded with the Oxfam proposal, but fair trade coffee is the sort of coffee that Global Exchange promotes -- it promises a 'fair' return to the workers and small farmers. On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 12:41:20PM -0500, Ian Hudson wrote: The disastrous price slump for coffee demonstrates the need for alternative arrangements for southern producers. One alternative that is being trumpeted is the alternative or fair trade, which is most developed, at least in terms of primary goods, in the coffee market. Does anyone have any thoughts on this as a alternative? Ian Hudson Department of Economics University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB Canada ph. 204-474-9676 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
still another Enron scandal
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0613-05.htm -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
academic labor markets
Studying Ourselves: The Academic Labor Market RONALD G. EHRENBERG ILR-Cornell University National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) NBER charges $5 for this article. You can get if free at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/studyingourselves.pdf It looks very interesting so far -- half way through it. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Rich Are Less Revolutionary
The Impact of Income on the Taste for Revolt BY: ROBERT MACCULLOCH London School of Economics Political Science (LSE) Department of Economics Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=307423 Paper ID: London School of Econ. STICERD Working Paper No. 30 Date: 2002 Contact: ROBERT MACCULLOCH Email: Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Postal: London School of Economics Political Science (LSE) Department of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE,UNITED KINGDOM Phone: +44 20 7955 6960 Fax: +44 20 7955 6951 ABSTRACT: A fundamental question for economists is whether more income reduces the chance of revolt. To provide answers a large literature has used aggregate level data on actual conflict. This paper takes a different approach by using micro-data sets based on surveys of revolutionary support across one-quarter of a million people. This makes it possible to differentiate, for the first time, between the effects of a person's relative income position within a country and the level of average GDP per capita on the taste for revolt. Studying preferences rather than outcomes helps overcome several empirical problems. These include collective action problems that may lead to no large-scale conflict despite a public taste for revolt and endogeneity problems that exist when actual conflict affects income levels. Controlling for personal characteristics, country and year fixed effects, as well as country-specific time trends, a higher level of average GDP per capita and being relatively high in the income distribution within a country both reduce revolutionary tastes. Keywords: Preferences, Property Rights, Income, Revolts JEL Classification: D74, H53, H55, J65 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Abolition of private property and free market, enslaved people
Marx refer about tax as below in Communist manifest MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department Komaki municipal hosipital 1-20.JOHBUHSHI KOMAKI CITY AICHI PREF. 486-0044 TEL:0568-76-4131 FAX 0568-76-4145 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
Re: Re: RE: tompaine.com
Attacking people you haven't read and/or barely understand isn't my idea of what intellectuals are supposed to do ... Doug Unless, that is, what is not understood is not understandable. The following is from volume three of Robert Skidelsky's bio of John Maynard Keynes: Keynes's 'blind spot' about Marxism remained. A few days' holiday gave him time to read Joan Robinson's short book An Essay on Marxian Economics. 'I found it fascinating,' he wrote to her. 'This in spite of the fact that there is something intrinsically boring in an attempt to make sense of what is in fact not sense I am left with the feeling ... that he [Marx] had a penetrating and original flair but was a very poor thinker indeed' Carl _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Costly privatizing of firefighting
Interesting article on Slate http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066948 Privatizing firefighting was supposed to cut costs. But it has done nothing of the sort. Last summer, which was an average fire season, was the most costly on record. Nearly $700 million was spent fighting fires$230 million more than budgeted. . . . During the 2001 fire season it cost an average of $1,340 per acre to fight fires on the national forests270 percent more than it did in 2000. Eric Nilsson Economics CSUSB
Re: Re: Re: RE: tompaine.com
Carl Remick wrote: Attacking people you haven't read and/or barely understand isn't my idea of what intellectuals are supposed to do ... Unless, that is, what is not understood is not understandable. by which token sokal is as much a fool as those he ridicules, for i am sure i will find his papers in theoretical physics forever incomprehensible, whatever preparation i might undergo. chomsky, in these matters, sincerely suggests that in the hard sciences he can ultimately learn how to understand a theory - there are people who can teach him how to do that (presumably starting from some simple rational axioms that chomsky comprehends). chomsky of course is being too kind in assuming the same is true for all humans. even if every human being, in theory, can understand and accept the results of quantum physics, in reality the complexity of the process, the years of preparation needed for it, makes it possible only for a select few. until sokal and chomsky are willing to subject themselves to that sort of training (that the layperson would need to understand theoretical physics or linguistics) their comments, based on this particular line of reasoning, are premature (at best). of course sokal will respond that he understands and refutes the theories of the postmodernists. i understand neither, and as a lay person all i see is a turf war, with the confusions of the postmodernists matched by the childishness of sokal, and note the anti-democratic nature of sokal and levitt's defense of their particular brand of activity from outside criticism (i started my life on pen-l with a response to a post on these matters, pointing out levitt's opinion that democracy had outlived its use and your regular joe is not equipped to participate in making decisions, that activity now being best performed by utilizing the results of complex science. michael pugliese responded to my post with a set of links, one of which was a page that reported levitt to have said that he was being facetious, or something of that sort). --ravi
Re: Re: Re: RE: tompaine.com
Robinson, along with Meek, did to Marx what Samuelson did to Keynes -- show how his work could be interpreted in terms of respectable economics by removing much that is valuable. I doubt that either felt that they were violating the work that they were interpreting. I spent an afternoon with Robinson in the late 60s. She seemed like a wonderful woman, enthusiastic about Mao, disdainful of some of the profs. in the Berkeley econ dept. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Costly privatizing of firefighting
Does anybody know of any examples where privatization has created any efficiencies other than attacking wages and working conditions? Does anyone know of any case where it has not increased overhead and administrative bloat? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Re: re: Free market, enslaved people
Title: RE: [PEN-L:26857] Re: re: Free market, enslaved people I wrote: What defines capitalism is not really unemployment, but the class system, i.e., existence of proletarianization, in which the vast majority lack the bonds of feudalism or slavery and also lack direct control over the means of subsistence and production. Zbigniew Baniewski writes: Isn't it a bit (or a lot) marxist-like definition? Yes. Since the pen-l list is mostly a Marxist group of people, it shouldn't suprise you. However, there are people who use the (non-Marxist) definition, seeing capitalism as simply involving the prevalence of markets. Perhaps we can define capitalism in economic way: the conditions are more capitalistic, when the amount of national product, which is redistributed by government, is low. More redistribution - less capitalism (100% redistribution = pure communism). There's a basic problem with this: capitalism inherently involves a redistribution from workers to capitalists, as the capitalists control the means of production (capital goods) and means of subsistence (consumer goods) so that workers have to pay profits+interest+rent (surplus-value) to the capitalists in return for being allowed to survive. You're only talking about a secondary redistribution, by the government, which only sometimes involves a redistribution from capitalists to workers. Mostly, it's like unemployment insurance, which (in the United States) involves a redistribution from employed workers to unemployed workers or social security which (again, in the U.S.) redistributes from currently-working individuals to the retired, dependents, etc. Mostly, the government uses its resources to preserve the power of the capitalists. ... I wrote: It's always a mistake to quote Friedman, since he's so often wrong. Zbigniew: Why? Wasn't Chile his (and his Chicag boys) big success? I don't consider the forced abolition of democracy (using bayonets murder torture), the forced imposition of free markets, and the extreme increase in the inequality of income along with a totally inhumane system to be a big success. It's true that Friedman and his boys endorsed this success, but the real victors were the U.S. power elite and its CIA, the transnational corporations that were operating in Chile (ITT, Kennakott, etc.), General Pinochet, and the local groups of rich folks. Further, Friedman and his boys also lied about the true nature of this success and the nature of their involvement, avoiding any kind of responsibility for the costs of the imposition of their program. I wrote that MF didn't realize (or rather, he didn't include in his presentation) that if Poland followed that strategy, it would be competing with South Korea and a lot of other countries. Good example! In 1985 national income per capita in South Korea was a half of today's in Poland (they had about 36 millions population in 1985, today in Poland we have about 37 millions). But today average income per capita in Korea is about two times higher than we have in Poland. So, in 17 years they made 4x multiplication of their income per capita, although their today's population is about 47 millions. And it's the result of setting their market still more and more free. Their government is redistributing about 25% of their national income. Our polish government - about 43%. Do you see the difference? I don't know where you get the percentage of redistribution (25% for South Korea). Is it simply the percentage of taxes in their GDP? In any event, it's silly to over-emphasize that percentage, especially since a lot of it (such as military spending or spending on education) isn't really redistribution as most people use that term. What's important is that the SK government used its taxes intelligently to promote economic development (within the context of capitalism). They pursued a non-market/non-free-trade strategy of subsidizing private busineses in a way that would allow them to eventually beat foreign competition, at the same time they invested in education and land reform (so that the program ended up being They also got a lot of help from the United States, because SK had to look good in comparison to North Korea and China as part of the Cold War. It also helped that the U.S. pumped a lot of money into SK as part of having a lot of troops there. Further, during the crucial years from the 1950s to the 1970s, the world economy was growing, along with the U.S. market for SK goods, allowing that country to escape its previous poverty. the MF is saying that Poland can simply imitate SK, without any of the historical conditions listed above being present. He also is wrong to see SK as a free-market success, even though it is a capitalist success (until 1997 or so). regards/pozdrawiam, Jim Devine
Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Title: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist BTW, maybe the title of this thread should be the inheritance tax is pro-capitalist. After all, I remember reading something by arch-capitalist Andrew Carnegie that argued for taxing inheritances. Inheritances lead to spoiled scions of great wealth, who spend all their time snorting cocaine, etc. BTW, what's the difference between the estate tax and the inheritance tax? JD -Original Message- From: Ian Murray To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 6/13/2002 9:52 AM Subject: [PEN-L:26839] Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist - Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:45 AM Subject: [PEN-L:26838] Inheritance tax is Marxist Inheritance tax is Marxist by Ian Murray 12 June 2002 19:09 UTC Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848 http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. ABOLITION OF ALL RIGHTS OF INHERITANCE ( emphasis added -CB) = The philosophical and legal arguments for abolishing inheritance had been around before KM was even born. CB: You provided the heading - Inheritance tax is _Marxist_. What is the significance of it being Marxist, since, no doubt, the inheritance tax was around before KM was born , too ? Because Phil Gramm, incorrectly, asserted it was a Marxist idea. That Marx was even mentioned by a major US politician in the 21st century is interesting no? Ian Ian
Re: Sokal and Bricmont
Unfortunately, the science wars pits postmodernists against a group whose Marxist credentials are dubious at best. In the initial euphoria over seeing hot-air artists like Stanley Aronowitz and Jacques Derrida getting their comeuppance, it was assumed (including by me) that Sokal was some kind of Marxist. In reality, his understanding of the role of science comes straight out of the liberal marketplace of ideas arena. By his own admission, he has never read Gramsci, Richard Lewontin or Richard Levins. Well Louis, I had not even known about Lewontin and Levins until about a year ago or so (How would I have? They are some American scientists whom I came to know about only after my participation in some American lists) and am not that worried about Sokal's Marxist credentials. I don't even like the term Marxism for the same reason I wouldn't have liked the term Newtonism, although I tried to understand the methods and philosophies of both and still do, keeping in mind that there are other methods and philosophies too. I find using these terms unfair to all the others who contributed to Marxism and/or Newtonism. Whether Sokal's understanding of the role of science comes straight out of the liberal marketplace of ideas arena or not, as Romain was saying, their remarkably measured judgement with respect to the dishonesty of people they criticize deserves respect. At least, they were brave enough to transgress the boundaries. This is how I see it. Best, Sabri
RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
The former taxes the dead donor. The latter taxes the recipient. The difference could be huge, depending on the details. mbs BTW, what's the difference between the estate tax and the inheritance tax? JD -Original Message- From: Ian Murray To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 6/13/2002 9:52 AM Subject: [PEN-L:26839] Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist - Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:45 AM Subject: [PEN-L:26838] Inheritance tax is Marxist Inheritance tax is Marxist by Ian Murray 12 June 2002 19:09 UTC Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848 http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. ABOLITION OF ALL RIGHTS OF INHERITANCE ( emphasis added -CB) = The philosophical and legal arguments for abolishing inheritance had been around before KM was even born. CB: You provided the heading - Inheritance tax is _Marxist_. What is the significance of it being Marxist, since, no doubt, the inheritance tax was around before KM was born , too ? Because Phil Gramm, incorrectly, asserted it was a Marxist idea. That Marx was even mentioned by a major US politician in the 21st century is interesting no? Ian Ian
Re: Re: Costly privatizing of firefighting
- Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:23 PM Subject: [PEN-L:26871] Re: Costly privatizing of firefighting Does anybody know of any examples where privatization has created any efficiencies other than attacking wages and working conditions? Does anyone know of any case where it has not increased overhead and administrative bloat? -- How is attacking wages and working conditions efficient? Corporatizing the public sector [which is really just shifting from one mode of publicness/accountability to a different mode of publicness/accountability] is simply asset stripping dressed up in fancy rhetoric. Ian
Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
- Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:37 PM Subject: [PEN-L:26874] RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist The former taxes the dead donor. The latter taxes the recipient. The difference could be huge, depending on the details. mbs == Well that is why we should be calling it an inheritance or chance tax on undeserved income to the recipient -- lottery winners are taxed no? How can one tax the dead? Yes the $ difference is very huge and intergenerational is going to continue to grow for the next 50 or so years according to the projections I've seen Ian
RE: Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Title: RE: [PEN-L:26876] Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist here's a topic for a University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation: How the 'Death Tax' Increases the Incentive to Die. (Of course, as many have pointed out, the fact that the Death Tax is reinstated in full 9 years or so from now, after being cut for several years, increases the incentive for presumptive heirs to kill granny before the tax goes up. Or she may want to off herself.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Ian Murray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26876] Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist - Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:37 PM Subject: [PEN-L:26874] RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist The former taxes the dead donor. The latter taxes the recipient. The difference could be huge, depending on the details. mbs == Well that is why we should be calling it an inheritance or chance tax on undeserved income to the recipient -- lottery winners are taxed no? How can one tax the dead? Yes the $ difference is very huge and intergenerational is going to continue to grow for the next 50 or so years according to the projections I've seen Ian
RE: RE: Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Actually there is a serious paper to this effect by my friend Joel Slemrod of U/Mich. It got him the Ig Nobel prize, which he accepted with great delight. In his acceptance speech he said he had proven that some people will do anything for money. mbs here's a topic for a University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation: How the 'Death Tax' Increases the Incentive to Die. (Of course, as many have pointed out, the fact that the Death Tax is reinstated in full 9 years or so from now, after being cut for several years, increases the incentive for presumptive heirs to kill granny before the tax goes up. Or she may want to off herself.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Ian Murray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26876] Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist - Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:37 PM Subject: [PEN-L:26874] RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist The former taxes the dead donor. The latter taxes the recipient. The difference could be huge, depending on the details. mbs == Well that is why we should be calling it an inheritance or chance tax on undeserved income to the recipient -- lottery winners are taxed no? How can one tax the dead? Yes the $ difference is very huge and intergenerational is going to continue to grow for the next 50 or so years according to the projections I've seen Ian
Fw: ESTATE TAX REPEAL DEFEATED!
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 4:21 PM Subject: ESTATE TAX REPEAL DEFEATED! Friends, The Senate voted a resounding NO on permanently repealing the Estate Tax last night (6/12). The final vote on the Gramm/Kyl amendment was 54 for and 44 against, failing the 60 vote requirement. This really is a big victory. The proponents of repeal had lots of money to throw at this issue, and still we won. This is due to the hard work of all of you who made phone calls and wrote letters to your papers and Senators. Both Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell voted against the amendment to entirely repeal the estate tax. There were also two amendments voted on to reform the estate tax in order to protect small farms and businesses (raising the exemption to $3.5 or $4 million per person, and other protective provisions), which received a lot of Democratic support. Sen. Cantwell supported one of these amendments, Sen. Murray supported neither and stated publicly that the estate tax does still need to be repealed entirely, we just cannot afford to now. This shows that we still have work to do educating Senator Murray. Please make a call today to the Senators thanking them for their votes against permanent repeal (the Gramm/Kyl amendment). Also, thank Senator Cantwell for her vote on the Doran amendment to responsibly reform the estate tax. Remind Senator Murray that responsible reform of the estate tax can protect the small family-owned businesses and farms she is concerned about. This is not the end of the estate tax debate. Thank you for working to protect it, and stay tuned for future efforts to reform it reasonably. See below for a short history of the fight to repeal the estate tax, and a message from Chuck Collins, co-founder of United for a Fair Economy. Lois Canright United for a Fair Economy 1712 32nd Ave S Seattle, WA 98144 206/322-1517 [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** We Won! Once again, we have stopped the estate tax from being permanently repealed. Thanks to all of you who worked on this effort. The Gramm-Kyl repeal amendment need 60 votes to pass in the Senate, but they only got 54 votes. We held almost all our original supporters and were able to shift the votes of several Senators to vote against repeal, including: Sen. Feinstein (D-CA). Check out our web site Thursday for final results. (www.faireconomy.org) We have begun to turn the tide. We intend to advance a reform agenda. But before I describe our next steps, I¹d like to take a moment to briefly look back at this intense struggle. Ten years ago, a group of very wealthy families, including the heirs of the Mars candy and Gallo wines, started to donate millions of dollars to an organized effort to kill the estate tax. They waged a ten-year battle, largely without opposition. They deployed millions of dollars in media spin and campaign contributions to influence Congress. They actually won repeal in the summer of 2000, but we organized to ensure we had the votes in the House to prevent an override of President Clinton¹s veto. Estate tax repeal was included in the 2001 Bush Tax Cut bill, but it was not permanent. As each day passed last year, we were able to chip away at the opposition¹s case for wholesale repeal. Now we have stopped their effort to make repeal permanent. This is a major blow to pro-repeal forces, as the financial and political cost of repeal will only continue to rise in the coming years. We do not think they will try to move it again in 2002 (but we shall remain vigilant!). Over the last year, we have helped build an effective coalition of organizations and individuals to oppose wholesale repeal. United for a Fair Economy and Responsible Wealth helped convene ³Americans for a Fair Estate Tax,² a coalition of religious, charities, labor and business groups. We have a field organization with organizers working in 12 swing states. We bought advertising in national and local media. We booked talk radio programs and placed op-eds in key newspapers. The coalition recently conducted polling and found out that Americans support reforming the tax, but not repealing it. Today, we had a press conference in Washington, D.C. to publicize this poll. See information at http://www.responsiblewealth.org. We know the forces committed to repeal aren¹t going to take our victory lying down. That¹s why we are ready to advance our REFORM agenda. In the coming months, we will work to advance proactive reform proposal and win co-sponsors in the House and Senate. We will wage a multi-year effort to win reformwith research, media, grassroots advocacy and popular education. This includes efforts to educate the public and key constituencies about the negative aspects of complete estate tax repeal. A popular book, Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Needs to Tax Accumulated Wealth, co-authored by William H.
RE: Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
Well that is why we should be calling it an inheritance or chance tax on undeserved income to the recipient -- lottery winners are taxed no? How can one tax the dead? Yes the $ difference is very huge and intergenerational is going to continue to grow for the next 50 or so years according to the projections I've seen Ian Lottery winnings are taxable as income, not inheritance. Inheritances are not taxable income. One person's estate could be six persons' inheritances. At either (or both) ends the money could be taxed in light of other income, or not. Put it this way -- do you think it makes a difference if a worker pays a payroll tax, or an employer pays a VAT, the base of which includes payroll? The dollar proceeds do not depend on which type of tax is employed. You can squeeze as much as you like at either end, if you'll pardon the expression. mbs
Re: Re: Costly privatizing of firefighting
According to this guy privatisation increases efficiency in Swedish health care. I have been looking for a critique of these reforms but can't find any. Does anyone have URLs pointing to such a critique? I do know that the re-introduction of copays has increased usage of the system byt he better off compared to the less well off. Before copays there was little difference It is interesting that at least some unions support the changes. Also, the principle of universal coverage is not being challenged. What is happening is that more and more the system is opening up as an outlet for private capital and for profit health care and justified in terms of choice and efficiency. The state is able to serve private capital without challenging the principle of universal coverage. Cheers, Ken Hanly SWEDISH HEALTH-CARE REFORM: FROM PUBLIC MONOPOLIES TO MARKET SERVICES by Johan Hjertqvist* For 500 years Sweden has been a uniform and centralized country. Today it is on the road to pluralism and stronger regional governments. Often the leader of new trends in Europe, Swedes are making it clear to their politicians that they want public policies which cater better to individual needs and preferences. You can notice this change in the labour markets. Collective bargaining is in retreat, and Manpower, a temporary-help agency, is now the second-largest employer in Stockholm. In the education industry, privately operated schools are doubling their market share every year (though from a low base), and competitors who offer e-learning solutions for workplace education are booming. Signs of change are also apparent in the health-care industry: privatized hospitals, clinics and medical practices of all kinds; increasing numbers of private insurance companies; Internet-based patient information and a profusion of well documented opinions in favour of free choice, competition and diversity. Underlying this change of opinion is the success of public policy experiments that have embraced the principles of competition and choice. In 1992-94, the Greater Council of Stockholm launched a number of competitive initiatives whose success is now apparent. Competition in public transportation in the metropolitan area has reduced taxpayer costs by 600 million SEK, or roughly 25 percent. In one blow, with competitive contracting, the Greater Council reduced the yearly cost of ambulance service in the Stockholm region by 15 percent. In all areas service quality has increased noticeably. The results in health care have been just as startling. For example, privatized nursing homes have reduced costs by 20-30 percent. Or again, a recent evaluation has shown that private medical specialists are more efficient than their colleagues in public service. They focus on with-patient time, which results in more patient value. Publicly employed doctors, in contrast, have more staff, spend more of their time on paperwork and ask for 10-15 percent higher budgets to provide the same treatment levels. By 1994, when the centre-right regional coalition lost the election, 100 small and medium-size health-care contractors had been established, all of which had previously worked within the public system. All except one remain active. The change in government slowed, but did not stop, the process. In 1998, the centre-right grouping returned to power, and they picked up new steam. They have wide public support in the urban areas, including that of the largest health-care unions, and plan to turn most of primary care into contracted services, an irreversible major step. Right now, about another 100 health-care units are in the process of leaving public ownership to become private companies. The Greater Council lends significant support in the form of free training and start-up consultants. In general, the new contractors run local health-care stations, GP group practices, treatment centers for mothers and infants, laboratories and psychiatric out-of-hospital clinics. When (and if) the Council completes this transformation, private GPs and other contractors will deliver around 40 percent of all health-care services, and about 80 percent of all primary health-care in the metropolitan area. In 1999, a private company, Capio Ltd., bought one of Stockholm's largest hospitals, the St. George, from the Greater Council. Since the early 1990s, Capio has run a hospital in Gothenburg as well as X-ray clinics, laboratory services and other infrastructure. The St. George operates at a cost level 10-15 percent below its most efficient public counterpart in Stockholm, the South Hospital. Compared with the average of public hospitals, the margin is 15-20 percent. According to Greater Council evaluations, the St. George is well known for implementing new, efficient organizational structures and treatments. This success portends similar changes for the remaining six emergency hospitals in the Stockholm region. Two have already been turned into commercially viable, and
Japanese Automakers Plunge Into Chinese Market
The Hindustan Times Tuesday, June 11, 2002 CORPORATE Japanese Automakers Plunge Deeper Into Chinese Market Tokyo, June 10: Production plans may still be small and substantial profits years away, but Japanese automakers, having got their feet cautiously wet, are now wading into the Chinese auto market. The past week has seen a rash of announcements and reports out of the Beijing International Auto Show, mostly on Japanese automakers' plans or possible plans for new factories to provide vehicles for the world's most populous nation. What's clear is that Japanese automakers have made China their next strategic focus, said Mr Ryuichiro Inoue, Asia auto analyst at the Mitsubishi Research Institute. For many of them the initial stage of just penetrating the market is over and they are moving on to expansion. The lowering of tariffs and the lifting of restrictions on models sold that have come with China's entry into the World Trade Organisation have given Japan's car companies the green light they needed to plunge deeper. Like other automakers they face fierce price wars, small sales volumes and a lack of financing for consumers. But although Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co have lagged automakers like General Motors Corp and Volkswagen AG in establishing a manufacturing presence in passenger cars, Japanese automakers are, in time, expected to have an edge. Chinese consumers place a lot of value on fuel economy, which Japanese automakers excel at, and they like the fit and finish of Japanese-made cars as well as their reliability. There is open disdain for Japan from a historical context but Chinese consumers make a distinction when it comes to product. They like Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans, said Mr Michael Dunne, head of market research firm Automotive Resources Asia. Of Japan's big three automakers, second-largest Honda MotorCo was first off the blocks with a passenger car manufacturing base in China and is already profitable there. Turning around a plant it bought from PSA Peugeot Citroen in the late 1990s, Honda has received plaudits for the cautious and inexpensive way it entered the market. Analysts say the Japanese automaker has spent less than aquarter of the $1.5 billion that US giant General Motors first invested when it came to China. In partnership with the Guangzhou Automobile Group, owned by Hong-Kong listed Denway Motors, Honda builds 55,000 units a year - the Accord sedan and from this year the Odyssey minivan - and plans to expand capacity to 120,000 vehicles. Honda is already earning substantial profits there, has experienced substantial growth and is going from strength to strength, said Mr Takaki Nakanishi, auto analyst at Merrill Lynch. A Japanese media report last week said Honda's plans included a second factory in the southern city of Ghangzhou with capacity for 100,000 units. It would probably build subcompacts and export some vehicles, the report said. Honda declined comment. Toyota, even more cautious than its rival, is now following in Honda's footsteps. Japan's largest automaker will start making compact cars from October with Tianjin Automotive, building some 30,000 a year, and has been reported to be in final talks with China's top automaker, First Automotive Works (FAW), to make luxury vehicles. The new factory would have an annual output target of 50,000 to 60,000 units with a long-term goal of 200,000, the report said. Tianjin Automotive and FAW are in merger talks. Toyota said no decision had been made and declined further comment. Analysts worry that Tianjin in northern China is still very much a state-enterprise-oriented region and may prove a less fertile ground for sales and Toyota's production methods than the wealthier and more free-market Ghangzhou. But they are still upbeat that, over time, Chinese consumers' enthusiasm for the Toyota brand will offset any problems. Similar enthusiasm for Nissan's cars including its Bluebird sedan and Cefiro sedan will also stand it in good stead as it seeks to close a deal with Dongfeng Motor Corp, China's second biggest auto group, to make a wide range of vehicles.China today is our number one geographic priority in terms of market development, Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters at the Beijing Auto Show, although he acknowledged that Nissan was a late starter due to its restructuring efforts. (Reuters) © 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world.
Re: Re: Re: Costly privatizing of firefighting
The "best case" scenario is supposed Indianapolis under Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. For an overview of the whole issue, see Elliot Sclar, You Don't Always Get What You Pay For, Cornell University Press, 2001. Joel Blau Ian Murray wrote: 001c01c2132c$1aaf9ac0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]"> - Original Message -From: "Michael Perelman" [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:23 PMSubject: [PEN-L:26871] Re: Costly privatizing of firefighting Does anybody know of any examples where privatization has created anyefficiencies other than attacking wages and working conditions? Doesanyone know of any case where it has not increased overhead andadministrative bloat? -- How is attacking wages and working conditions efficient? "Corporatizing" the public sector [which isreally just shifting from one mode of publicness/accountability to a different mode ofpublicness/accountability] is simply asset stripping dressed up in fancy rhetoric.Ian
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist
- Original Message - From: Max B. Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 5:37 PM Subject: [PEN-L:26881] RE: Re: RE: Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist Well that is why we should be calling it an inheritance or chance tax on undeserved income to the recipient -- lottery winners are taxed no? How can one tax the dead? Yes the $ difference is very huge and intergenerational is going to continue to grow for the next 50 or so years according to the projections I've seen Ian Lottery winnings are taxable as income, not inheritance. Inheritances are not taxable income. One person's estate could be six persons' inheritances. At either (or both) ends the money could be taxed in light of other income, or not. = My analogy to the lottery was that it's a matter of chance as to the asset portfolio of the family one is born into. It is a matter of what legal theorists and political philosophers call brute luck as 'opposed' to option luck. There's been tons of discussion on those and related issue surrounding liberal and libertarian notions of responsibility and agency in the excellent journals Philosophy and Public Affairs and Ethics. My point is inheritances ought to be taxable income; how can my folks pay a tax on their estate when they die? It's a matter of a temporal 'fault line' and the legal transfer of responsibility for the assets. The argument should simply update Jefferson's letter to Madison: I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living' that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. That portion occupied by an individual ceases to be and reverts to society and Blackstone: For naturally speaking, the instant a man ceases to be, he ceases to have any dominion; else if he had a right to dispose of his aquisitions one moment beyond his life, he would also have a right to direct their disposal for ages after him; which would be highly absurd and inconvenient. Or SC justice Roger Taney on the issue of an inheritance tax: [N]othing more than an exercise of the power of which every state and sovereignty possesses of regulating the manner and term upon which property real or personal within its dominion may be transmitted by last will and testament; and of prescribing who shall and shall not be capable of taking itWe can see no [constitutional] objection to such a tax, whether imposed on citizens [or] aliens. [Mager v Grima 49 US 490, 1850] Max I already gave you a list of texts, here's one more which has an excellent critique of inheritance; The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel [Oxford Univ. Press 2002] It was reviewed in the NY Times just a few weeks ago. Finally, Knut Wicksell: From [the social] point of view the main thing to do would be to take energetic measures to prevent the unearned accumulation of riches (and with it mostly also their uneconomic use) which is now encouraged by law and custom. The only practical way to reach this goal appears to me to lie in the recognition that any right of inheritance, bequest or gift necessarily lies in two parts. There is the right to give and the right to receive. These must be strictly distinguished and each treated on its own merit. To restric the right to give more than is absolutely necessary even now often runs counter to our ideas of justice and equity and also may be seriously questioned on economic grounds. The right of inheritance taken in the second, and more proper, sense of the word as the unlimited right to receive must, if at all be justified in quite different terms. Unless I am much mistaken, it rests *on a now obsolete conception of social and family relationships.* [quoted on Murphy and Nagel 160-161] Put it this way -- do you think it makes a difference if a worker pays a payroll tax, or an employer pays a VAT, the base of which includes payroll? The dollar proceeds do not depend on which type of tax is employed. You can squeeze as much as you like at either end, if you'll pardon the expression. mbs === Ah but when we think intertemporally and intergenerationally it has a massive impact on the distribution of incentives and our normative concerns with good old fashioned equality of opportunity.. Here's the link to the numbers I mentioned in my previous post: http://www.nptaxpolicy.com/Research/Millionaires%20and%20the%20Millennium.pdf Ian
another Soros mission
Soros calls Big Oil to account Terry Macalister and Charlotte Denny Friday June 14, 2002 The Guardian Billionaire financier George Soros yesterday called on Britain, the US and France to force oil companies to disclose payments to governments as part of a global campaign to stamp out widespread corruption in developing countries with vast mineral resources. Backed by a range of non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty, Christian Aid and Save the Children, Mr Soros claimed $1bn a year of Angolan oil revenues had gone missing from government coffers since 1997 and it was up to western regulators to step in. They [oil majors] need to have their arms twisted for their own good, he argued. Last night British groups moved to head off the criticism from the speculator-turned- philanthropist, saying they would gladly disclose more details of payments to foreign governments in the developing world - if required by stock exchanges. Shell admitted that few such payments were made public but insisted it had no difficulty with transparency as long as it did not conflict with confidentiality clauses in contracts. BP said it had already been open about payments it had made to governments in countries such as Angola, although it was roundly criticised by ministers there. US-based oil groups are said to have already expressed their concern about Mr Soros's initiative. Campaigners are calling on finance ministers in leading industrial countries to introduce changes in stock market regulations to require resource companies to report payments to governments as a condition of being listed. This, they argue, would improve competitiveness, preventing more principled and transparent companies from being undercut by less scrupulous rivals. It would eliminate concerns about confidentiality clauses and address the problem of non-transparency in all countries of operation. Secrecy over state revenues encourages ruling elites to mismanage and misappropriate money rather than invest it in long term development, argued Mr Soros, launching the campaign at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Re: another Soros mission
When we discussed Soros before, I mentioned that I thought that some of his work is very positive; other efforts are bad. He has been excellent on prison reform, for example. This is another example. I don't think that anyone has to buy into the whole Soros package to appreciate the positive efforts. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Krugman on Phillips
[when Phillips was on local talk radio in Seattle last week a caller asked him what he thought of the Santa Clara case through to Buckley v Valeo. KP replied the whole history of it and related corporate governance issues are an outrage, thank god people are finally talking about it and corps need to be completely redesigned] June 14, 2002 Plutocracy and Politics By PAUL KRUGMAN Kevin Phillips's new book, Wealth and Democracy, is a 422-page doorstopper, but much of the book's message is contained in one stunning table. That table, in the middle of a chapter titled Millennial Plutographics, reports the compensation of America's 10 most highly paid C.E.O.'s in 1981, 1988 and 2000. In 1981 those captains of industry were paid an average of $3.5 million, which seemed like a lot at the time. By 1988 the average had soared to $19.3 million, which seemed outrageous. But by 2000 the average annual pay of the top 10 was $154 million. It's true that wages of ordinary workers roughly doubled over the same period, though the bulk of that gain was eaten up by inflation. But earnings of top executives rose 4,300 percent. What are we to make of this astonishing development? Stealing (and modifying) a line from Slate's Mickey Kaus, I'd say that an influential body of opinion has reacted to global warming and the emergence of an American plutocracy the same way: It's not true, it's not true, it's not true, nothing can be done about it. For many years there was a concerted effort by think tanks, politicians and intellectuals to deny that inequality was increasing in this country. Glenn Hubbard, now chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is a highly competent economist; but he demonstrated his fealty during the first Bush administration with a ludicrously rigged study purporting to show that income distribution doesn't matter because there is huge income mobility - that is, that this decade's poor are likely to be next decade's rich and vice versa. They aren't, of course. Even across generations there is a lot less income mobility than the folk wisdom about shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations would have it. Mr. Phillips shows that tales of downward mobility in once-wealthy families are greatly exaggerated; the descendants of 19th-century robber barons are still quite different from you and me. But the Gilded Age looked positively egalitarian compared with the concentration of wealth now emerging in America. Pretty soon denial will no longer be possible. What will the apologists say next? First we will hear that vast fortunes are justified because they are the reward for vast achievement. Here's where that table comes in handy, because it tells you what achievements actually get rewarded. Only one of the 10, Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, has actually been indicted. But of the rest, three - four, if you count John Chambers of Cisco - were Andy Warhol C.E.O.'s: their companies were famous for 15 minutes, just long enough for the executives to cash in their stock options. The list also includes Gerald Levin, who engineered Time Warner's merger with AOL at the top of the Internet bubble; even at the time it seemed obvious that he was trading half his original shareholders' birthright for a mess of cyber-pottage. We'll also hear that in any case nothing can be done to limit the accumulation and inheritance of vast wealth. We'll be told, for example, that reinstating the estate tax would have devastating economic effects - even though the great boom of the 1990's took place with a 55-percent tax on the largest inheritances. I've even been assured by some correspondents that inheritance taxes on the very rich are impractical, that they will always be evaded - this in spite of the fact that in 1999 the estate tax raised about $15 billion from estates worth more than $5 million. But it's not just a matter of collecting taxes. Mr. Phillips, a lifelong Republican, is most concerned not by economics per se but by the political consequences of wealth concentration. He warns that the imbalance of wealth and democracy is unsustainable, at least by traditional yardsticks. How will this imbalance be resolved? The economists Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have dubbed the narrowing of income gaps that took place under F.D.R. the Great Compression; if I read Mr. Phillips right, he thinks something like that will happen again. But he also offers a bleak alternative: Either democracy must be renewed, with politics brought back to life, or wealth is likely to cement a new and less democratic regime - plutocracy by some other name. Apocalyptic stuff. But Mr. Phillips has an impressive track record as a political visionary. What if he's right?
