Re: RE: Re: The size of the bubble?
From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 09:16 AM 07/30/2002 -0400, you wrote: 4] To what degree has the bubble (aka new) economy been nothing more than an elaborate and calculated scheme to steal money from employees and middle class investors, or was it more fortuitous accident of history for those who got rich at every one else's expense? ach. Was it Phineas T Barnum who pointed out that you can't con an honest man, or someone else? ... If charging $300 for VA L:inux stock, or giving eToys a larger market cap. than Toys-R-Us, were con games, they weren't exactly subtle ones. At the end of the day, the worst you can accuse the dot.com billionaires of is George Washington Plunkitt's epitaph He Seen His Opportunities, And He Took' Em. Ah, the magic of the marketplace! First you're swindled, then you're ridiculed for being a fool. In all of human progress, has there ever been a more inspiring or consoling sentiment than that of caveat emptor? Carl _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: The new EU
Having dealt with the question of fact I return to this theme because the post has the merit of counterposing two political positions fairly clearly At 24/07/02 09:40 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Chris Buford: snip But most importantly, geopolitically, it is necessary now to call into existence the Old World to redress the balance of the New. I have no idea what this means. I would suggest that the meaning is clearly against US hegemonism. I would ask other US members of the list, and not just Louis Proyect, to consider the possibility that this might be an important political task now on the global level. After the fall of the state socialist bloc, it is not easy to see how we can oppose US hegemonism. All the more reason to think about it and discuss the basis for such cooperation. (Concerning the phrase, I had forgotten the original quotation and perhaps it would not be familiar on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a statement by the British foreign secretary, George Canning in the middle 1820's that he was calling in the new world to redress the balance of the old. It was actually a declaration of the intention of British imperialism to extend its influence particularly in Latin America. Louis Proyect has written a lot about how in the 19th century Latin America became a semi-colony of British imperialism, and certainly that is well known. It might appear a Freudian slip that I should allude to a British imperialist to argue that Europe is now an important ally of the people of the world against US hegemonism, but I have always been explicit, to the point of tedium, in conscientiously acknowledging the imperialist nature of contemporary Britain and Europe, so I am happy to make the point explicit yet again. ) There is a sometimes a counterposed symmetry in the positions of Louis Proyect and mine. I regard it as the first international duty of any citizen of the USA to oppose US hegemonism, and to pay due attention to all the rival forces in the world, including the other imperialisms in order to have a realistic chance of doing so. I tend to assume that Louis Proyect would regard the first duty of a citizen of a western European country to oppose their own imperialism and the new European imperialism, and I have to concede there are quite a number of Lenin quotations to this effect. I wish you would post them to the list. They would have a less deleterious effect than genuflections to the Euro-Zone. Obviously in arguing that the potential divisions between Europe and the USA should be exploited by the progressive working people of the world, I am not genuflecting. Nor do I see the policy I am adopting is deleterious. I am surprised on the other hand that left-wingers in the USA may not apparently see the deleterious nature of deflecting attention away from the urgent task of opposing US hegemonism. I see the development of a more diversified world in which power is struggled over between imperialist blocs, so long as they do not go in for war, as favourable to the interests of the working people of the world, and to the development of world unity and world government on the basis of some relative justice. For the workers, the choice between US imperialism and European imperialism is like the choice between cyanide and arsenic. Or so Louis Proyect thinks they should believe. But confident assertions do not always determine reality, as we saw with the citation. Besides the issue is more whether for the people of the rest of the world, the choice between US imperialism and European imperialism is like the choice between cyanide and arsenic. I think the Arab people would not say this. I think that the Argentinian people would have have been given more help in recovering from their financial crisis. I think the people of Africa would do better with the sort of international development proposals put forward by Gordon Brown than by George Bush. I think the people of the world would do better with Europe's approach to global pollution than that of the Bush administration. That will make it easier, not more difficult, to move on to the struggle for socialism. IMO. I see. The triumph of Euro-Zone neoliberalism, which will prevail over the smoldering ruins of the Social Democratic welfare state, will bring us closer to socialism. This dialectical insight takes my breath away. I certainly agree with Louis Proyect that the Maastricht convergence criteria for the EU and in preparation for the Eurozone, were heavily neo-liberal, as that was the trend at the time. European imperialism has a lot to gain by freeing up the capital market and rationalising production in the whole of Europe by take-overs. Nevertheles the social democratic trends in Europe are far deeper and stronger than in the USA, and the term smoldering ruins is a great distortion of what is probably going to happen. Even five years from now, there will still be
Reply to Chris Burford
Your argument, in short, is that progressive, perhaps even critical, support for the EU project is necessary to counter the growth of US hegemony and that this is more true to the spirit of Lenin than blindly quoting him *out of context*. I am sure that Louis properly understands this position. In order to properly think one's way through this, it is necessary to see exactly what you are proposing. An example where I might agree might be support for France in its battle to save the CAP against US dominated GATT reforms (although these are actually being forced through by an EU). An example where I mightn't agree would be supporting the development of a EU wide Rapid Reaction Force (which far from counterweighting the US will become an instrument to complement NATO). What should be clear here is that taking a position on this requires more concrete analysis. The problems are precisely those identified by Louis (that the EU is an imperialist comglomerate and that it has an over-riding neo-liberal agenda). Let me add a few other concrete examples to his list: EU directives forcing the 'liberalisation' of the Transport, Energy Generation and Supply and Water Supply Sectors. The EU also has directives which prevent State involvement (shareholdings) in the more mainstream production sectors. Balancing this, the EU have implemented the mealy-mouthed Social Chapter. The real problem with the EU is not that it has a life of its own but that it is reflecting the state of play among the Governments (not the peoples) throughout Europe - all of whom, even the old French Socialist Party/PCF coalition, had acquiesced to the neo-liberal agenda of competing for inward investment and profit-funding local capitalists. To top this off, the loss of national control over interest rates will also have an impact - particularly given the EU limitations on Debt and Governmental Spending. Effectively, Governments will be forced to choose between increasing tax or cutting-back on state sector involvement. We can all guess which they will choose given that virtually every Government is Thatcherite in its economic ideology. The EU will act as a servant for finance capital to tear back the remaining state sector gains from the 40s-60s eras in all EU states. The task for progressive EU groups is to unite around these issues. Indeed, I think that the EU will offer us a great opportunity to link up across Europe in fighting these assaults - because they are being coordinated on a pan-EZ scale. The 'liberalisation of Energy/Water' will effect all EU states around the same time so I could envisage us calling pan-EZ protests on similar days even. There are some large socialist parties left out there willing to fight on this and I think that this fight will further radicalise them. It is in that context that I make my commentary: Obviously in arguing that the potential divisions between Europe and the USA should be exploited by the progressive working people of the world, I am not genuflecting. Nor do I see the policy I am adopting is deleterious. I am surprised on the other hand that left-wingers in the USA may not apparently see the deleterious nature of deflecting attention away from the urgent task of opposing US hegemonism. First, the EU is more likely to become a strong arm of the US than anything else. The WEU is effectively controlled by NATO. Even PfP is a NATO construct bringing in Russia. Second, you need to concretise your balancing act. What elements of the EU would you support in order to counter-balance the US - the Euro/the European Rapid Reaction Force?? Besides the issue is more whether for the people of the rest of the world, the choice between US imperialism and European imperialism is like the choice between cyanide and arsenic.I think the Arab people would not say this. I think that the Argentinian people would have have been given more help in recovering from their financial crisis. I think the people of Africa would do better with the sort of international development proposals put forward by Gordon Brown than by George Bush. I think the people of the world would do better with Europe's approach to global pollution than that of the Bush administration. This sounds like the classical 'good cop, bad cop' routine. The PLO or the Chavistas are fully entitled to balance off one imperialist bloc (if that's the right word) against the other to get the best deal. What's not correct is for progressive movements to identify with their local imperialism because it's slightly better in terms of working conditions, minimum pay or in terms of only exploiting countries by 80% instead of 90%. That's why some British Socialists supported Britain in WWI against the 'undemocratic' German Empire of the time. It's not an exact parallel, I'll admit, but it makes the point. I think what's needed is a progressive critical engagement with the EU and then to see how that will fit into
Pak court awards death sentence for blasphemy
The Times of India SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2002 Pak court awards death sentence for blasphemy PTI ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani man, who once worked for the husband of noted human rights activist Asma Jahangir, has been sentenced to death by a court in Lahore for making derogatory remarks about Islam. Besides the death penalty, Additional District and Sessions Court judge Sardar Ahmed Naeem imposed a fine of Rs 2.70 lakh on Wajih-ul-Hassan, 26, on Saturday after upholding charges against him that he made derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammad. In Islam, there are clear rules and regulations to check every kind of mischief and the Shariah (law) shows no leniency to those whose evil and malicious conduct tarnishes the dignity and honour of the Ummah, the judge said. Hassan, who was arrested on May 25, 2001, in Iqbal Town, was convicted even though he denied the charges levelled against him by the complainant Ismail Qureshi, a lawyer. He also denied that he was a converted Christian saying he is a Muslim and all the allegations levelled against him are false. Hassan claimed that Qureshi nursed a grudge against Jahangir and her associate Hina Jilani after they registered a police complaint against him. Hassan said since he and his father previously worked in the office of Jahangir's husband he has been framed up in the case. Hassan was convicted on the grounds that he made an extra-judicial confessional statement before prosecution winesses Waseem and his friend Naveed, that he had been converted to Christianity. He also confessed before them that he wrote letters to Qureshi in which derogatory language was used against the Prophet, The News daily reported today. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
Re: Re: The new EU
Chris Burford: Most relevantly on this particular debae, I think Lenin was wrong at Zimmerwald, and I appreciate Louis Proyect highlighting this issue some years ago and arguing that Lenin was correct. Karl Marx and other socialists formed the first Socialist International in 1864. Rivalry between Marxists and anarchist supporters of the Russian Mikhail Bakunin caused it to collapse. Engels and a newer generation of Marxists founded the Second Socialist International in 1889. Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue told the assembled delegates that their flag was the red flag of the international proletariat. Also, they were coming together as brothers with a single common enemy...private capital, whether it be Prussian, French, or Chinese. In Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28 1914, Serb nationalists assassinated the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. On July 28, Austria declared war on Serbia and the war became generalized within a few short months. On August 4 1914, while Russian troops prepared for an assault into East Prussia, German armies invaded Belgium and swept toward France. That day, August 4, was also the day that socialist members of the French and German parliaments voted to support emergency war appropriations. These socialists became known as 'defensists'. They wanted to postpone socialism until their own armies had successfully defended their own nation against the barbarians of the opposing nation. In reality, the socialist labor leaders and parliamentarians had become completely bourgeoisified. They failed to defend the interests of the working-class against the nationalist fury whipped up by the warmakers in each nation. The capitulation to war-fever threw social democracy into a crisis. Antiwar socialists held a number of meetings in Switzerland in order to develop a strategy. Zimmerwald, a small rustic town, became the center of the antiwar opposition. The antiwar opposition split into two camps. One camp was centrist. It opposed the war but advanced a strategy that was not revolutionary. It sought to mobilize public pressure in the various warring countries in order to force an early peace. The leader of this grouping was Robert Grimm, a Swiss socialist. Vladimir Lenin led the Zimmerwald left. It advocated a defeatist policy of revolution and civil war inside each warring country. Other socialists, including Trotsky, considered Lenin extreme at first, but events conspired to make Lenin look reasonable. Germany pushed into France and the armies of the two nations fought along the Meuse River over a 6-month period in 1916, while more than a million soldiers died. On July 1, the British and French launched a counteroffensive on the Somme River in Belgium. In their initial assault some 60,000 soldiers perished in a single day, a sum equivalent to all of the US deaths during the 8-year Vietnam war. While the blood-letting continued apace, Lenin sat down and wrote Imperialism the Final Stage of Capitalism. This work is not mainly an economic dissertation. It is rather a foundation for the political line defended by the Zimmerwald left. Lenin zeroed in on the bankruptcy of social democratic reformism, the existence of an objectively revolutionary situation in the warring nations, the relationship of the World War to the crisis of imperialism, the link between struggles for national self-determination and socialism, and, finally, the need for a Third International. full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/zimmerwald.htm
Industrial farming
Village Voice, July 31 - August 6, 2002 How Big Business Feeds You Hazardous Food Toxic to the Tongue by Lenora Todaro Frontier communities had a quick and certain remedy for anyone who poisoned the town's well: they hanged the son-of-a-bitch. Today, though, when the ag economists draw up their efficiency equations, well poisoning is not even marked down as a cost charged to the poisonersinstead, it's dismissed as an externality. Did people get breast cancer? Did the pesticides run off into the bay and shut down the fishing industry? Was a farmworker's baby born with birth defects? Hey, pal, stuff happens, life ain't fair, not our fault, get out of the way of progress . . . and if you're so prissy about poisons, maybe you oughta start boiling your water. Texas radio commentator Jim Hightower, from Fatal Harvest To step into the gallery of photos in Fatal Harvest, a most unusual coffee-table book, is akin to spiraling downward into Dante's nine circles of hell. Avarice and deceit take on the characters not of Dante's Malacoda or Geryon, but of industrial agriculture's multinational corporations: Monsanto, Philip Morris, Archer Daniels Midland. The book tells the story of how in the years after World War II, food-producing corporations found a renewed purpose for the noxious chemicals developed to protect soldiers from insects (including DDT and malathion): As pesticides, they would expand industrial agriculture. For decades these corporations doused the soil on massive farms with these toxins, with the aim of growing more food, more efficiently, and reaping vast profits. In the meanwhile, they have often knowingly and gradually poisoned countless generations of plants, animals, and humans. Fatal Harvest is an oversized handbook for those who would fight back. Packed with statistics and anecdotes, both verbal and visual, this collaboration between design and prose makes concrete the problems of industrial agriculture, and dramatizes the disconnect between what we eat and how it is created. There is some fine writing here, with essays by prominent environmental thinkers such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Jerry Mander, and Vandana Shiva. The essays are short, but not light; some are preachy, some shocking. But Fatal Harvest is not merely strongly worded. The 11 3/4-inch by 12 1/4-inch book literally illustrates America's current food crisis, with some 250 sweeping photographs of pesticide-soaked industrial farms, rivers filled with chemical runoff, and the like. And it contrasts those bleak images with more familiar coffee-table farelushly diverse organic farms, the 50-odd types of tomato you'll never see at Food Emporium. That the politics of food, and in particular, the organic food movement, are moving steadily forward into the mainstream consciousness is evidenced by the bestseller status conferred upon two excellent recent books, The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, and by the decisions of a growing number of supermarket chains to offer organic foods. Fatal Harvest is divided into seven parts. Of particular interest is Part Two, which provides a rousing response to myths perpetuated by multinational agricultural corporations. A sample: Large-scale industrial farms help feed the nearly 800 million people who go hungry each day. No, argues Fatal Harvest. World hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial food is safe, healthy, and nutritious. No, argues Fatal Harvest. Since 1989, overall pesticide use has risen by about 8 percent, or 60 million pounds . . . in 1998, the FDA found pesticide residues in over 35 percent of the food tested . . . the average hamburger . . . may receive the equivalent of millions of chest X rays in an attempt to temporarily remove any potential bacterial contaminants. Biotechnology will solve the problems of industrial agriculture. No, argues Fatal Harvest. Genetically modified foods and high-tech, pesticide-resistant crops will consolidate control of the world's food supply in the hands of a few large corporations . . . destroy biodiversity and food security; and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land. Part Three of Fatal Harvest speaks to the eyes with large-format pictorials that document the illusion of choice (you can buy beefsteak tomatoes at the supermarkets, but how about fresh-picked Golden Pandoras and Early Girls?) and contrast the appearance of industrial and organic farms. To emphasize the difference, two odd but effective postage-stamp-sized graphic eyeballs look back at the reader from sidebars on the outer edges of each page. In the iris of the industrial eye, one sees long, deep straight lines of a one-crop field; in the other, the agricultural eye, one sees zigzag patches and tufts of a
Ohioan arrested by Israeli military - press release
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 16:08:55 -0400 From: T P [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Ohioan arrested by Israeli military- press release Ohioan Arrested by Israeli Military 7-29-02 For Immediate Release [NABLUS] Travis Lee Pugh, a U.S. citizen from Columbus, Ohio, was arrested July 28 by Israeli soldiers and later released. He is in Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement, an organization committed to non-violent direct action aimed at preventing atrocities being carried out by the Israeli military. An Israeli army bulldozer accompanied by an armored personnel carrier today attempted to dig trenches in the road that leads from the Palestinian city of Nablus to the neighboring village of Salem. This morning international activists and Palestinians worked to remove roadblocks that had been placed by the military on the road to Salem, obstructing Palestinian movement and blocking the delivery of food and water. Yesterday internationals and local Palestinians successfully removed roadblocks on the road from Nablus to Iraq Bureen, opening the road to Palestinian traffic and much needed water and delivery trucks. Soldiers have blindfolded, handcuffed and thrown in an armored personnel carrier 3 American citizens, Jonathen Mello, Travis Lee Pugh, and David Yee. Other internationals are currently sitting in the road, still trying to block the bulldozer from tearing up the road. All film and cameras from the internationals have been confiscated by Israeli soldiers. Travis stated before leaving for Palestine We must provide the Palestinians with the resources they need to stop the injustices and create a situation where the rights and lives of all people are protected. As international citizens we are an incredible resource that can build understanding of the Palestinian cause throughout the world, while at the same time, through non-violent direct action, actively prevent the Israeli armed forces from committing crimes against the Palestinians. I am going to Palestine to be that resource. To contact Travis Pugh and his supporters: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more information, please call in Nablus: Susan: +972(0)55-829-680 Merna : +972(0)67-429-686 For more information on the International Solidarity Movement: Huwaida: +972(0)52-642-709 or +972(0)67-473-308 Ghassan: +972(0)2-277-2018 ISM office: +972-(0)2-626-4844 -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
Re: Re: liberalism
Justin Schwartz wrote: As I said before, almost everyone here--you too--favors univ. suffrage --- Yes extensive civil rights and liberties Yes representative govt - NO This form of democracy has never produced democracy -- and it never will. It's replacement will have to be worked out in practice -- not from a blueprint I or anyone else can provide at this time. Representative Government can only be a dictatorship of the Capitalist Class. As I said, almost everyone. jks _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Re: Reply to Chris Burford
At 31/07/02 11:56 +, you wrote: Your argument, in short, is that progressive, perhaps even critical, support for the EU project is necessary to counter the growth of US hegemony and that this is more true to the spirit of Lenin than blindly quoting him *out of context*. I am sure that Louis properly understands this position. I am probably not going to have time to do full justice to your reply and to Louis Proyect's, but although you are not far from the mark I am not specifically arguing we should support the EU. I certainly think it is in the interests of the international working people that Britain enters the euro, but my main point is that that the EU has some progressive features compared to the US, and is a major ally in an alliance against US hegemonism. It aslo has reactionary features, that will continue to have to be combated, and I would not trust it to lead an international campaign. Nevertheless progressives should note the contradictions and take advantage of them. Chris Burford
Palestinian resistance
Title: Palestinian resistance from SLATE's news summary:In a story that has been slowly percolating in the papers since Monday, the [Washington POST] fronts news that Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus have been defying the Israeli army's near 24-hour curfew. The Post calls the curfew-strike the boldest demonstration of civil disobedience since the Intifada II started nearly two years ago. An Israeli government spokesman said the army isn't planning to intervene. this isn't just bold, but a tactic (or strategy) that should be applied _all_ through Palestine. The Israelis can usually deal with suicide bombing and the like and when they can't, it just makes things worse, by given fodder to the Sharons of the world (who then give fodder to Hamas and the like). But they can't deal with mass civil disobedience. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: The new EU
I believe that the statement by Chris Burford is worth examining. But most importantly, geopolitically, it is necessary now to call into existence the Old World to redress the balance of the New. I have no idea what this means. I would suggest that the meaning is clearly against US hegemonism. I would ask other US members of the list, and not just Louis Proyect, to consider the possibility that this might be an important political task now on the global level. After the fall of the state socialist bloc, it is not easy to see how we can oppose US hegemonism. All the more reason to think about it and discuss the basis for such cooperation. (Concerning the phrase, I had forgotten the original quotation and perhaps it would not be familiar on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a statement by the British foreign secretary, George Canning in the middle 1820's that he was calling in the new world to redress the balance of the old. It was actually a declaration of the intention of British imperialism to extend its influence particularly in Latin America. Louis Proyect has written a lot about how in the 19th century Latin America became a semi-colony of British imperialism, and certainly that is well known. It might appear a Freudian slip that I should allude to a British imperialist to argue that Europe is now an important ally of the people of the world against US hegemonism, but I have always been explicit, to the point of tedium, in conscientiously acknowledging the imperialist nature of contemporary Britain and Europe, so I am happy to make the point explicit yet again. ) Reply Old World and New world are terms whose meaning acquire life in the context - timeframe, of their use. Further, these concepts are imbued with a class meaning and standpoint. "US hegemonism" has given way to the hegemony of speculative capital as the dominant sector of the total world social capital and within this relationship, what was once simply USNA financial-industrial capital remains the dominant player. Old World and New world from the Marxist standpoint, would in my opinion speak of a transition from something to something. This "something" is riveted to the productive forces. Old World in the era of 1820's meant the defeat of feudal economic and social relations and the ascendancy of capital, especially as applied to "Latin America." There is a sometimes a counterposed symmetry in the positions of Louis Proyect and mine. I regard it as the first international duty of any citizen of the USA to oppose US hegemonism, and to pay due attention to all the rival forces in the world, including the other imperialisms in order to have a realistic chance of doing so. I believe you pose the question concerning the "first international duty of any citizen of the USA incorrectly." The first international duty of the citizens of the USNA - the working class, is to wage the epochal battle to organize itself as a class at home - in its own country, as the first and immediate arena of struggle. The working class today is an interactive world class configuration and fully conforms to Marx description of such a configuration in section 1:5 of the Critique of the Gotha Program. Counterpoising fighting "US hegemonism" as the "first international duty of any citizen of the USA, in the framework of consolidating the market in the EU, would tie the working class of the US to a sector of capital. Marxist must draw a clear line of distinction between opposing hegemony as the "first international duty of any citizen" and settling matters with their own bourgeoisie. The former formulation leads to and call for international brotherhood against imperialism and the latter leads to international organization of a class in all its historically evolved national formations. National in form and international in content is the Marxist approach to the class struggle and not the fight against "US" or any "hegemony." Chris Burford states: But confident assertions do not always determine reality, as we saw with the citation. Besides the issue is more whether for the people of the rest of the world, the choice between US imperialism and European imperialism is like the choice between cyanide and arsenic. I think the Arab people would not say this. I think that the Argentinian people would have been given more help in recovering from their financial crisis. I think the people of Africa would do better with the sort of international development proposals put forward by Gordon Brown than by George Bush. I think the people of the world would do better with Europe's approach to global pollution than that of the Bush administration. Reply Slow death and fast death or fast death and faster death are not options for anyone desiring to be a spokesperson of their class. It is true that the world working class has varying opinions concerning whether it is better to live on ones knee or die standing and fighting on
RE: Re: Re: liberalism
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28943] Re: Re: liberalism Justin Schwartz wrote: As I said before, almost everyone here--you too--favors univ. suffrage --- Yes [Carrol's response] extensive civil rights and liberties Yes [ditto] representative govt - NO [ditto] Carrol continues: This form of democracy has never produced democracy -- and it never will. It's replacement will have to be worked out in practice -- not from a blueprint I or anyone else can provide at this time. Representative Government can only be a dictatorship of the Capitalist Class. As I said, almost everyone. jks so you're not going to respond to Carrol's critique? it has been one thread of the Marxian tradition for a long time (though not part of the Stalinist or social-democratic traditions and the like) to want to get rid of representative government, to replace it with more profound democracy. What is your response, Justin? JD
Re: Re: Re: Re: Fed on preventing parallels to Japanese deflation
joanna bujes wrote: I'm confused. The Federal Reserve, despite its name, is very much a private concern, right? So, why should it not buy equities? Not very much a private concern. It's a mixed bag. The Board of Governors, based in Washington, are appointed by the pres and confirmed by the Senate. The twelve regional branches are owned by their member banks, and their senior officers are chosen by the bank owners with Washington's approval. The whole system is self-financing, meaning they don't have to worry about getting appropriations from Congress; the Fed turns over a $20-25 billion annual profit to the Treasury every year. Doug
RE: Re: Re: liberalism
As I said, almost everyone. jks Almost everyone is right; as far as I can tell, yer man Posner is not in favour of representative government or of extensive civil rights and liberties in as much as these can't be derived from property rights. What's your argument against his utopia of a small system of autarchic medieval Icelandic households living without any laws and arbitrating their disputes privately? I only ask because this particular version of libertarian society seems quite close to the aspirations of some of the Left. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication may contain confidential or privileged information and is for the attention of the named recipient only. It should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. (c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates. Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
FW: [baker-data-commentary] GDP Byte, 7/31/02
Title: FW: [baker-data-commentary] GDP Byte, 7/31/02 Does the story below fit with the predictions of Stephen Roach about the revision of GDP data? It sure doesn't look good for the US's ability to avoid the second dip of the Dubya-shaped recession. This is also not so good for the rest of the world, which has been so dependent on the US as the consumer of last resort. -- JD Inventories Keep [U.S.] GDP Growing By Dean Baker July 31, 2002 THE REVISED DATA PAINT A MUCH WORSE PRODUCTIVITY PICTURE OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS. [U.S.] GDP rose at a 1.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, as a sharply slower pace of inventory depletion added 1.2 percentage points to GDP growth. Final demand, which excludes inventories, actually declined at a 0.1 percent annual rate, as most sectors showed very weak growth. Consumption grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate, with medical care and furniture accounting for most of the growth. Non-residential investment dropped a modest 1.6 percent, as a sharp decline in structure investment offset the first positive showing for the equipment and software category since the third quarter of 2000. While the information processing category is now showing modest growth, there is still considerable weakness in other categories of equipment spending. Spending on transportation equipment fell at a 21.6 percent annual rate and is now 28.2 percent below its peak in the third quarter of 1999. Residential construction remained strong, growing at a 5.0 percent annual rate. The net contribution of the government sector continues to be positive, with strong growth in federal spending offsetting declines at the state and local level. A sharp rise in the trade deficit slashed 1.8 percentage points off the growth rate, as a 23.5 percent rise in imports swamped the effect of an 11.7 percent increase in exports. The trade deficit hit 4.2 percent of nominal GDP in the second quarter, the highest share ever. This release also included revisions to the last three years' data. These revisions were mostly downward and painted a sharply different picture of the economy during this period. The revised data show the economy shrinking for the first three quarters of 2001. [so it's official -- it was a recession following the standard rule of thumb.] While it shows stronger growth for the 4th quarter, the growth rate in the first quarter of 2002 was revised down to 5.0 percent. This downward revision will knock approximately one percentage point from the annual rate of productivity growth reported since the onset of the recession, which will now be placed at the beginning of 2001. This undermines the view that productivity growth has held up well in the recession. Productivity growth for the current quarter, which is reported next week, is likely to be negative. The measure of net domestic product, which excludes depreciation, shows an even worse picture. This has risen at just a 0.1 percent annual rate over the last two years. Since wages and profits must be paid out of net product, this is arguably a more relevant measure than GDP. The revisions also took a sharp bite out of reported profits in the last three years. The revision was largest for the year 2000, with domestic profits revised downward by 12.8 percent. The sharpest decline in percentage terms occurred in the transportation and public utilities category, a sector that includes WorldCom. There is some evidence in this report that inflation may be edging higher. While the GDP price index increased at just a 1.2 percent annual rate, the index for gross domestic purchases rose at a 2.1 percent rate, the highest since the first quarter of 2001. The difference is attributable to rising import prices, one consequence of the falling dollar. This report must be seen as bad news on several accounts. The economy is currently quite weak, with final demand essentially flat. More importantly, the prospects are for slower growth in the immediate future. Consumers are stretched very far with debt at record levels, and little wage and employment growth to raise incomes. Equipment investment may edge higher, but at best this will balance declines in structure investment, which will not be reversed soon. Federal spending has increased at a 7.3 percent rate over the last year, but this will slow in the quarters ahead. With state and local governments forced to make budget cutbacks as a result of budget deficits, the government sector will likely be a drag on growth for the rest of the year. With the housing bubble near the breaking point, this sector cannot be counted on to sustain growth much longer either. Finally, the negative news on productivity in the revised data must dispel many of the remaining illusions about a new economy.
Re: RE: Re: Re: liberalism
As I said, almost everyone. jks Almost everyone is right; as far as I can tell, yer man Posner is not in favour of representative government or of extensive civil rights and liberties in as much as these can't be derived from property rights. That's unfair to Posner. His notion of what a desirable set of rights would be is less expansive than ours, but P is well within the range of responsible non-authoritarian conservatism that counts as supporters of a variant of liberalism. He has a new book on democracy in manuscript that he gave me. Some of hsi views are set forth in his book on Bush v. Gore, if you want to see what they are. What's your argument against his utopia of a small system of autarchic medieval Icelandic households living without any laws and arbitrating their disputes privately? Just because he discusses this, reviewing Miller's book, doesn't mean it's his utopia. In fact he notes that the system fell apartw ith increasing inequality of the sort that he favors. I only ask because this particular version of libertarian society seems quite close to the aspirations of some of the Left. Yes. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: FYI: Review on Chinese economy in Dissent
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28933] FYI: Review on Chinese economy in Dissent Well, Walzer certainly hasa "just war" viewpoint - but fortunately I wasn't asked to endorse his line when I submitted the review! They have moved well away from their old Irving Howe style - with for example some interesting debates on Seattle etc. with younger activists. So I viewed this as an experiment. Stephen F. DiamondSchool of Law Santa Clara University[EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 8:39 AM Subject: RE: [PEN-L:28933] FYI: Review on Chinese economy in Dissent Steve, isn't DISSENT pretty pro-war these days? (I know that they were pretty much in favor of the US war against Vietnam back in the 1970s, while Doug Henwood's LBO has reported on their current attitudes.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Steve Diamond [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 10:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28933] FYI: Review on Chinese economy in DissentA book review on Chinese economy in current Dissent: Stephen F. Diamond on Joe Studwell's The China Dream and Azizur Rahman Khan and Carl Riskin's Inequality and Poverty in China in the Age of Globalization http://www.dissentmagazine.org/ Stephen F. Diamond School of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
liberalism
representative govt - NO [ditto] Carrol continues: This form of democracy has never produced democracy -- and it never will. It's replacement will have to be worked out in practice -- not from a blueprint I or anyone else can provide at this time. Representative Government can only be a dictatorship of the Capitalist Class. As I said, almost everyone. jks so you're not going to respond to Carrol's critique? it has been one thread of the Marxian tradition for a long time (though not part of the Stalinist or social-democratic traditions and the like) to want to get rid of representative government, to replace it with more profound democracy. What is your response, Justin? JD I have already responded noless dogmatically. I see no reason why representative govt is incompatible with public ownership of productive assets, workers' control of production, or even central planning. I can't even see the argument that it is not. Why the associated producers cannot elect representatives to administer the public property is hard grasp. Please explain, those who think this is a serious point. Btw, theargument for represenattive ratherthan direct democarcy is that with a large state that has a lot to administer, and a big population, and a lot of rather technical rules and regulations to made and enforced, it is utterly impracticable to carry this out in a ny other way than a representative one. If the worry is that the representatives will become a special class arrogating privileges to themselves in an unjustified manner, that is a problem. The solution is of course elections--democracy's natural term limits. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Potential for Struggle within EU
This is the plane on which this discussion needs to proceed. There are contradictions, that's why I have spent a while replying. I just don't think that they lie at the point where you are making the call. First, you support British entry into the Euro. Aside from it's short-term benefits to British manufacturing and long-term benefits to travellers changing their money, I don't see too much good about it. For a start, you would lose control over your monetary policy and be tied even tighter to ECB borrowing and spending limits. The ECB itself is run by avowedly monetarist economists who are more concerned with sustaining current levels of exploitation than with addressing problems like unemployment. While the British Government is currently more right wing than the EU, that may not be the situation in 5 of 10 years time. Besides any left opposition can still make credible arguments based on monetary flexibility right now (I can't see the ECB backing down to Keynesians?). Once you go into EMU it will be hugely difficult to ever pull back. In effect, I would argue that entry into EMU would represent an anti-democratic move, one which reduces whatever control the British people have over their own economy. If the Euro Parliament had any power, then it might be reconsidered; however, I would have serious difficulties in terms of the equitability of tying all Governments into a unity monetary (and progressively, a unity fiscal policy). By extension areas on the periphery would suffer relative disadvantage and would need proactive redistributive measures to even out development. Those are just some bourgeois liberal criticisms. From a socialist viewpoint, Brown giving away interest varying powers (justified by preventing neo-Thatcherite playing with the measure in order to secure short-term advantages before elections) was also a retrograde step. This power must be exercised by representatives of the people not economists focussed on maintaining capital exploitation. An example of their twisted logic is the notion that there is an acceptable level of unemployment...In short, giving up your currency would be both short and long-term folly. but my main point is that that the EU has some progressive features compared to the US, and is a major ally in an alliance against US hegemonism. The EU may be progressive compared to the US but that doesn't mean it's a potential ally. It aslo has reactionary features, that will continue to have to be combated, and I would not trust it to lead an international campaign. I'm not sure your vision of support for the EU structures will work. My tendency is to use the structures to try to advance a united programme across Europe. They have some use as an organisational and propaganda tool. Nevertheless progressives should note the contradictions and take advantage of them. First we need to analyse those contradictions more extensively. Sé _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: liberalism
Justin Schwartz wrote: I have already responded noless dogmatically. No Sir, I am not dogmatic, I am deliberate. Samuel Johnson :-) Carrol
Re: Re: RE: Re: The size of the bubble?
Worth remembering: 1) 55% of the population never owned stock - throughout the bubble. 2) Of those who did - the vast majority owned less than 25,000 in stock - purchased through the 401 K plans they were given in place of pensions, or via IRAs they were told to use in place of pensions. And every place they could go for advice, they were told that stocks were the best long term investment. ironyAh, the fools, how could they make such a mistake?/irony Carl Remick wrote: From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 09:16 AM 07/30/2002 -0400, you wrote: 4] To what degree has the bubble (aka new) economy been nothing more than an elaborate and calculated scheme to steal money from employees and middle class investors, or was it more fortuitous accident of history for those who got rich at every one else's expense? ach. Was it Phineas T Barnum who pointed out that you can't con an honest man, or someone else? ... If charging $300 for VA L:inux stock, or giving eToys a larger market cap. than Toys-R-Us, were con games, they weren't exactly subtle ones. At the end of the day, the worst you can accuse the dot.com billionaires of is George Washington Plunkitt's epitaph He Seen His Opportunities, And He Took' Em. Ah, the magic of the marketplace! First you're swindled, then you're ridiculed for being a fool. In all of human progress, has there ever been a more inspiring or consoling sentiment than that of caveat emptor? Carl _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Expertise
Bounced from Hari ORIGINAL: I wasn't talking about the author. But the book is about ol' Norman, if I recall. jks Reply: Yes of course you are right. I was just suggesting if anyone wanted to find said book - NB was not the target. By the way your cataloguing of Let me count the ways of being misunderstood (or whatever label people wish to attach) was rather funny in my view. To the anti-experts: A scenario: You have headaches: You take aspirin; Fails; You ask your neighbour who says ask the pharmacist - the pharmacist says go to the doc as you have started having eye aches; You delay; and you delay; then your eyesight becomes hemianopic (for the non-expert that is half-vision of your full visual fields); You see the GP/Primary care physician - AN expert that woudl be acknowledged by all the discussants. However, the Expert ...does not refer you on says there there - have a little stress pill - it was your trauma at being rejected at play school. How many of the non-expert camp would accept that? How many of the non-expert camp would prefer their brain tumour possibility being ruled out or in, by a combination of a neurologist/neurosurgeon/CT scanner/? how many will prefer the ministrations of the janitor? What is the point of all that long tale? I agree it was long, but: i) No one denies that there are differing levels (or even types) of expertise - but, surely for specific matters you want the most relevant set of expertises possible? ii) No one denies that the para-medical staff have crucial insights. But most people would argue that (Whether one has a communist mentality, or even a Christian/Hindu/Muslim - respectful humane mentality) -ALL people have a set of additional crucial insights. But, given a concrete set of scenarios, not all cannot make the necessary mental connections etc - in order to make a diagnosis. That this is achieved usually (regretabbly in my view) with a traingin tha encoruages rote learning - that does not invlaidate the acieved expertise requisite to make siad diagnosis. By the way I have participated in ward rounds in the former PSR Albania- I can assure you that while nurses and ward clerks were treated with utter dignity the drs did sweep the wards - decisions as to very complex medical decisions were made by those competent to do so. The complexity of the human emotional response of the patient - was ( is in most systems) certainly radically differently interpreted by the nurses. That is why even under capitalism, it is a very foolish dr that ignores what the whole team tells her/him (Over 50% of docs in my teaching hospital are women). Sorry to be so long winded. But this long spiel on how bad expertise is - was becoming very ridiculous in my view. I view it as not the central matter anyway, the central matter is the control of power. In a capitalist system, this is unlikely to favour the masses. Hari Kumar -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: FYI: Review on Chinese economy in Dissent
Steve Diamond wrote: Well, Walzer certainly has a just war viewpoint - but fortunately I wasn't asked to endorse his line when I submitted the review! They have moved well away from their old Irving Howe style - with for example some interesting debates on Seattle etc. with younger activists. So I viewed this as an experiment. The editors who brought in those younger voices - Rachel Neumann and Kira Brunner - have left. Walzer has repositioned Dissent as the battle magazine of the anti-Chomsky left, as he put it in a meeting (which was reported in LBO, thanks to a helpful spy). Word is that resources are dwindling, and the mag's future isn't so bright that they'll need to wear shades. Doug
Credit market
[anyone know what they mean in the last sentence, reduced supply of what? wider spreads with between corp bonds and treasuries? I just read today that spreads had tightened. I assume this announcement means the 30-yr will be back pretty soon. US Treasury has no plans to resume 30-yr bond; would take 'extreme situation' WASHINGTON (AFX) - Only an extreme borrowing need situation would cause the US Treasury Department to resurrect 30-year bond issuance, a Treasury official said. It would have to be a quite extreme situation, the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity about the Treasury's quarterly refunding announcement. There is no consideration (and) no need to bring back the 30-year bond, despite the marked deterioration in the federal budget to large budget deficits. Asked about projections for the federal government's debt level to next hit the statutory limit, the official said the ceiling will most likely be hit next March. In a worst case scenario, the 6.4 trln usd ceiling could be reached in December, he said. The Congress raised the limit by 450 bln usd earlier this year after a protracted political struggle. That increase did not end the situation, the official said, explaining that the vampires aren't dead: the sun just came up. Under the most optimistic scenario, the limit will not be reached until June. The official also said that Treasury's move to boost 10-year note issuance and end the re-opening policy for the 10-year security is not a sign that Treasury does not believe the budget will return to surplus in coming years. Some members of the Treasury's borrowing advisory committee, which is composed of representatives of the Bond Market Association, said the secondary Treasury market could be adversely affected by the additional new 10-year note issuance policy, because it could indicate Treasury believes deficits will be a longer-run phenomenon. Some members thought that a change in the 10-year re-opening policy at this point would lead some market participants to surmise that Treasury had pushed surplus projections further into the future, the group said in a letter to the Treasury. No, that is not an indication of that, the Treasury official said. Because of Treasury's increased 2-year note issuance, the Treasury could be hit with a sharp acceleration in borrowing costs if shorter-term interest rates rise from their current low levels, perhaps in response to signs of a strong economic recovery, the committee noted. The Treasury official explained that increased 10-year issuance would help balance the government's debt across the maturity curve. Higher liquidity in the 10-year note from increased issuance could also help give Treasury more advantageous pricing, the advisory group added. The advisory group did not see any need for Treasury to resume intermediate maturity issues or introduce new instruments, after it eliminated the 3-year note and other securities during the surplus years of 1998-2001. Separately, the borrowing advisory committee said it agreed with Treasury's decision to move announcements of auction sizes forward to 11.00 am, from the current practice of 2.30 pm. This should help bring more overlap with European credit markets, the Treasury official said. The advisory group said moving auction times forward would also provide greater convenience for European investors, but generally opposed moving auctions themselves forward from the current practice of 1.00 pm. This is because an earlier auction time leave less time for dealer underwriting, the panel said. Turning to the current state of financial markets, the advisory group said that conditions have worsened noticeably in recent months, with wider spreads and reduced supply, and that a higher level of volatility is probably a permanent feature of the credit markets.
Re: liberalism
It is interesting to look at the Jugoslav experience with representative vs direct democracy to show some light on this question. Direct democracy was just not feasible at the commune, republic or national level so the delegate system was used with elections conducted using constitutencies from work communities, local communities and political communities (at the local and republic level, there were three houses, at the national level two). Furthermore, more than one delegate was elected for each office so that individuals could specialize. i.e. when issues of education were to be discussed, the delegate who had a special interest in education would attend; when health was discussed, a different delegate might represent the community. Obviously, this was an attempt to get as close to direct democracy as possible at these levels. In the last stage of socialist self-management, at the enterprise level, the firms were broken up into BOALs (Basic Organizations of Associated Labour) approximating the departmental organization where the works council represented direct democracy. Support staff (e.g. clerical workers) formed work communities which were organized like the BOALS but negotiated with the BOALS to sell their collective administrative services to them. They also were organized with works councils. Social service agencies (schools, health organizations, etc.) had works councils composed both of workers and consumers to practice direct democracy. Unfortunately, the system had a surfeit of democracy and the workers, in many cases, petitioned to do away with the Boals and work communities in favour of enterprise works councils based on the delegate system. The direct democracy system just proved too onerous and ineffective a system of management. In fact, it was so cumbersome that it allowed the communist party, which had no official capacity, to gain control of the of both the political and the management system. In short, the scope for direct democracy in a complex industrial society is, I suggest, more limited than some on this list would suggest. Paul Phillips, Economics University of Manitoba On 31 Jul 02, at 16:32, Justin Schwartz wrote: I have already responded noless dogmatically. I see no reason why representative govt is incompatible with public ownership of productive assets, workers' control of production, or even central planning. I can't even see the argument that it is not. Why the associated producers cannot elect representatives to administer the public property is hard grasp. Please explain, those who think this is a serious point. Btw, theargument for represenattive ratherthan direct democarcy is that with a large state that has a lot to administer, and a big population, and a lot of rather technical rules and regulations to made and enforced, it is utterly impracticable to carry this out in a ny other way than a representative one. If the worry is that the representatives will become a special class arrogating privileges to themselves in an unjustified manner, that is a problem. The solution is of course elections--democracy's natural term limits. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Re: RE: Expertise
- Original Message - From: Justin Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please what? Ravi goes on about sort sort wierd context relative truth, so I just quoted Ari's old definition that no one has improved on these 2500 years. = Truth is more problematic than issues of representing form and we frankly have no decision procedure for determining whether or not there is only one form of truth because we have yet to achieve an exhaustive account of what is and surely an exhaustive account of what is not is not possible. I have no idea what this means. The only notion of truth I haveever been able to attach any sense to is this boring on Aristotlean notion, maybe as tarted up by Tarski and Davidson. = Plenty of critiques floating around of that way of approaching the problem. However, the issue - it seems to me - is not the role of truth in structuring descriptions of natural and social phenomena, but the prescriptive dimensions of social life and the manner in which accredited professionals, lawyers, accountants, economists, physicians etc. seek and sustain control over the prescriptive forms of speech and writing that allow them to secure relations of dominance and rent seeking vis a vis other citizens in the demos. And when those prescriptive assertions lead to the very debacles we see all around us, one has to wonder just where the demarcation between expertise and fraud lies and then open up the debate over who gets to determine the kinds of prescription to ameliorate the problems set off by the collapse of that distinction. That's why I posted the article that remarked on the Enron situation and the defense/evasion of those who were responsible when they asserted we relied on the advice of experts. How many iterations of experts using their advantages to defraud or, to borrow from Joanna, engage in orgainzed theft, do we have to endure? Surely myself and others can abrogate unto ourselves the ability to assert that the law's empire undermines it's own legitimacy when enough instances of history point out that the law is a veil for classes asserting dominance over other classes and that when they do so by conflating the distinctions between descriptions and prescriptions an even larger form of social fraud is occurring. However, the issue, with regards to law, is the ontic and epistemic status of *oughts*; the very stuff of politics. That's philosophy, not law. == That's an interesting way of attempting to maintain a disciplinary boundary. I don't buy it. To the extent that the law is constituted by a network of prescriptive commands backed by sanctions it remains an eternally open question over how societies shall determine and debate the status of the oughts/prescriptions by which they conduct their affairs. Those are philosophical disputes and the law and the legal profession has no place asserting a privileged perspective. The attempt of professionals to abrogate unto themselves the manners and fora by which those prescriptions are to be determined and diffused into the demos in order to secure advantages unto themselves necessitates that the demos continually assert that no such monopolies of control over the determination of prescriptions shall occur. Thus expertise must remain an essentially contested concept. Lawyers don't make these rules, legislators do. It's not our biz. Don't blame us for the stupid laws p[assed your democratically elected representatives. == They're your legislators too, and don't be patronizing to the demos. You know all too welll the issue of the tyranny of organized minorities that plague representative government in large societies. I would also note that many of those stupid laws are written by attorneys. One need only look at the 1996 Telecommunications act to see how the legal profession in concert with a bunch of CEO's defrauded the US public of billions of $. Who needs crime when you can get professionals to pull off something like that? Again the issue of just who is an expert in the realm of constructing and enforcing the forbidden in the absence of a platonic realm of noughts and oughts. Not at all. Legislation is politics, not technical expertise. Writing legislation in the 20th and 21st century required and requires extensive legal expertise, especially if it is to secure ever greater market niches for lawyers to ply their trade. It's not a mere folk legend that much of the legislation coming out of DC is called the lawyers and accountants full employment act of year X. Simply compare a piece of legislation from the 18th and 19th centuries with the stuff that's in the TPA legislation. Life is hard. That's what politics is for. *Should* insider trading *really be illegal? *Should smoking pot land you time in jail? These are questions for politics, not expertise. === Agreed. The problem is when experts use their class
self-congratulatory expertise
[problem solved; all is better now!] 'Political Market' Reigns When Business Scandals Hit, Reaction Was Swift By Steven Pearlstein Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 31, 2002; Page E01 There is nothing uniquely American about corporations that cook their books, or accountants and bankers who countenance it, or executives who use corporate treasuries as personal piggy banks. But it is probably only in the United States that a mere eight months after corporate scandal first made its way to the front pages, major corporations would be brought to their knees, rich and powerful people would face criminal charges and a president who once considered regulation a dirty word would preside proudly at a White House signing ceremony for one of most comprehensive pieces of economic regulation since the Carter administration. For all their faults, American markets demand performance, and our political market is no different, said Adam S. Posen, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Once problems become obvious, our pragmatic policymaking delivers results. That's why our economy cannot run too far off the rails. Posen and other analysts argue that it is the strength of this political market -- no less than the nation's flexible labor markets, open product markets and brutally efficient financial markets -- that helps explain why U.S. companies are so competitive and the U.S. standard of living is among the highest in the world. Consider, for example, that despite a decade of deep recession that has lowered the standard of living for its people and stripped it of its status as an economic superpower, Japan has yet to deal with the crippling bad-debt problem in its banking system that nearly every economist agrees is the necessary first step toward reviving its economy. In Japan, the ruling party is so entrenched and so dominated by special interests that are opposed to fundamental change that the economy is paralyzed, said Martin N. Baily, also a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Japanese refer to the past 10 years as the lost decade. But for the past two years, even a popular new prime minister backed strongly by Japanese voters has been unable to clean up the banking system or push through even modest economic reforms. Because of a similar political paralysis, Argentina over the past four years has gone from being the richest country in Latin America to a state of national bankruptcy. A succession of presidents and economic ministers proposed one economic reform plan after another over the past year in the hope of winning emergency financing from the International Monetary Fund. But each plan was rejected by parliament or withdrawn after violent street protests by Argentines who have concluded that they don't trust any politician to come up with a fair and effective solution. In Europe, meanwhile, scandals involving billions of dollars siphoned from government-controlled banks and political slush funds financed with corporate cash have largely been swept under the rug. Stonewalling and political pressure have prevented prosecutors from bringing charges while parliamentary committees have shown little, if any, interest in pursuing the allegations. The press has largely distinguished itself by ignoring the scandals. In terms of dealing with corporate corruption, the Europeans are light years behind us, said Lester Thurow, a professor of management and economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their scandals don't even surface. Contrast that with what has gone on here since the Enron scandal began last fall. Within months after its role in Enron Corp. was revealed, Arthur Andersen LLP, one of the world's leading accounting firms, was convicted of a felony and is melting into oblivion. The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who in his first months in office had talked of kinder and gentler regulation, responded to calls for his ouster with a flurry of new rulemaking and investigation that is forcing companies to review past financial statements and adopt more conservative accounting standards. And Republicans in the Bush administration and the House, who at first dismissed the idea of corporate and accounting reform legislation, by last week rushed to embrace such a plan, not because they agreed with it but because not doing so might well cost them control of both houses of Congress in the November election. In so doing, they were forced to turn aside the protests of traditional business allies who had given generously to their political campaigns. I don't think that in other countries there would be such a powerful or such a quick response, said Elhanan Helpman, an economist at Harvard University. The system here is much more flexible and practical, and certainly much more sensitive to political opinion. This is not to argue that the U.S. political system works perfectly -- far from it. After all, Posen noted, it
Re: self-congratulatory expertise
At 11:14 AM 07/31/2002 -0700, Ian wrote: [problem solved; all is better now!] There is nothing uniquely American about corporations that cook their books, or accountants and bankers who countenance it, or executives who use corporate treasuries as personal piggy banks. But it is probably only in the United States that a mere eight months after corporate scandal first made its way to the front pages, major corporations would be brought to their knees, rich and powerful people would face criminal charges and a president who once considered regulation a dirty word would preside proudly at a White House signing ceremony for one of most comprehensive pieces of economic regulation since the Carter administration. For all their faults, American markets demand performance, and our political market is no different, said Adam S. Posen, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Once problems become obvious, our pragmatic policymaking delivers results. That's why our economy cannot run too far off the rails. Thanks Ian...You betcha...nothing more to worry about. Hah! Chuck Grimes, had this to say about our swift response : ..there is more, a lot more yet to expose and lay bare. For example, the fraud as Doug says is not just that much of the New Economy (privatized energy utilities, and telecommunications) were not profitable enough to stand up on their own. The fraud is in their re-design as privatized schemes that produced no product in the first place. Many of these companies were simply legally de-regulated artifacts, in a much more artificial sense than the more usual corporation which theoretically is supposed to manage the production and delivery of tangible goods. Those companies that did manage to be profitable without creative bookkeeping are still frauds. The fraud is in the legal pretense that such organizations produce something of economic value when in fact nothing is produced, but is charged for anyway. And yet it still seems too early to write I told you so. Not because it isn't so, since it was so even before all this trumped up nonsense was rolled out as the New Economy. But because I don't think a significant number of the US population let alone policy makers understand that the fraud wasn't that neoliberal corporate culture lied about its profits, but that it bilked the once public commons of energy utilities, telecommunications, transportation (airlines, railroads) not to mention information, health care, and education. That most of these were not as profitable as was expected is hardly the fraud. Hell most of these economic activities were regulated and originally made into quasi-public systems because they were not easily converted into products in the first place. What's the big surprise? That the make believe didn't work? At any rate, some where in the next year or so, the whole conceptual system (neoliberal free market fundamentalism reigning over every socio-economic activity of life) has to trace a lot more figure eights like some dazed wagon train in the desert. In other words, there will be no relief, until there is a significant rise in understanding that this entire orientation is a mistake and doesn't work. Capitalism unchained is not a positively extensible, adaptable, and creative system. Given sufficient freedom of action, it simply devolves into blatant criminal activity. Nobody (public official) is calling for re-structuring entire sectors of the economy through re-regulation of public utilities, telecommunications, mass transportation under government controlled monopolies with strict price controls, unionized labor, and government supported infrastructure. And I don't hear much of connection being drawn between these current scandals and frauds and the IMF, WB, and WTO, which propose exactly the same sort of New Economy fundamentalism as the solution to development that has wrecked such havoc and chaos in the US. And furthermore, nobody is examining and then connecting the less spectacular but intimately related frauds and failures in the privatization schemes in mass transportation (airlines and railroads), education, healthcare and information (IP). ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Joanna
RE: liberalism
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28928] liberalism Justin:These (Manchester and New Deal liberalisms) are economic liberalisms. I'm a political liberal, like Mill and Rawls. me:please explain. Justin:OK. Manchester liberalism is what we now call libertarianism, favoring a nightwatchman state and unfettered free markets with private property. New Deal liberalism saved capitalism by creating an admistrative state, lots of regulation, and social supports for the less well off under capitalism. It's important to remember that the New Deal also had lots of support for businesses, too. (The NIRA was basically a pro-business plan which luckily had a pro-labor element.) Also, World War II helped save capitalism in the US, since the New Deal didn't pursue the Keynesian part of the New Deal liberal program except in a half-hearted way until the war. Of course, the anti-democratic Smith Act and the like also helped save capitalism. Further, the progressive -- or better, the democratic -- aspects of New Deal liberalism did NOT arise from liberalism as much as from mass struggles (the Veterans' march on Washington, the CIO sit-downs, etc., etc.) and elite fears of revolution or uncomfortable reforms (fascism, communism). When pressure from below weakened (in the 1940s, especially in the 1950s), the New Deal liberals shifted to the right, abandoning progressive New Dealism. Political liberalism [on the other hand] is neutral on the best economic form. Its key idea is that freedom is a good, as is self-government. Freedom is good? what kind of freedom? this word has many meanings and uses (and abuses). Usually, our fearless leaders use the word to refer to _laissez-faire_ (freedom for the wealth-owners). How did Mill use this word? did he include freedom from hunger as part of freedom? freedom from capitalist exploitation? If so, he went beyond the negative definition of freedom that characterizes actually-existing liberalism, except at the edges. from a different message I sent recently: I notice that often the _ambiguous_ nature of mental concepts ... can be quite important to society's _unity_. At a fourth of July celebration I went to recently, people on the stand (and tapes of Dubya) could speak of freedom and people of all walks of life could nod and say yup even though a worker's definition of freedom may be quite different from that of the capitalist. Self-government? this means profound democracy to me, where we go beyond parliamentary democracy and the like to make sure that the majority really rules. That would also go beyond standard liberalism. or do you mean _individual_ self-government? Accordingly it favors a limited representative government with elected officials chosen by univeresal suffrage and hedged in by extensive civil and political liberties. again, it's unclear what the content of these are. The official line in the US is that we have these already, but that depends on the definition of the key terms. Its classic statement is Mill's On Liberty, a defense of people's rights to live without oppressive social legislation or social pressure that disfavors experiments in living (in Mill's case, living openly with his girlfiend, lover, and collaborator Harriet Taylor), imposes orthodox beliefs such as a state religion or adherence to some required secular doctrine, and the like. so he would oppose the IMF, which uses its financial power to push the secular religion of _laissez-faire_? What about the socio-economic forces that prevent experiments in living? One reason why people can't set up worker-owned factories is that they lack the financial resources. They often end up dependent on one or two people for money -- and thus end up emulating capitalism -- or fall apart. Political liberalism takes no position on the so-called economic liberties defended so aggressively by the Manchesterians; Mill was a market socialist, personally. Was his market socialism similar to yours? I've noticed that many people equate socialism with a bigger role for government, so that it's quite possible that Mill would currently be termed a New Deal Liberal or some such even though at the time it was called socialism. (I'm no expert on Mill, as should be obvious. I also don't think quoting authorities is a useful intellectual activity if one can present the argument oneself.) ... I wrote: In any event, the distinction between political and economic is bogus and seems inappropriate to a political economy discussion list. JKS:It's not that there's no distinction, just that it's rough and ready and context specific. Here it signifies the neutrality of liberal governmental forms among different (socialist and nonsocialist) economic arrangements. The neutrality of governmental forms? having Congresscritters on the take to big corporations (raking in the campaign contributions) is something that will persist when socialism comes? We'll still be ruled by creeps like Gray Davis (the California governor)? As I
RE: Re: liberalism
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28960] Re: liberalism I don't know of anyone in favor of _direct_ democracy. I thought people were arguing for delegatory democracy, in which delegates can be recalled easily, fewer government officials are immune to democratic control, and there are clear limits on the income of the officials. Also, the problem of the BOALs seems to have been with excessive decentralization (going too far in the liberal direction) rather than with excessive democracy (which would emphasize individual and group responsibility to the democratically-organized whole). I like the reference to real-world events. That's good for getting away from excessive abstraction. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Paul Phillips [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 11:15 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28960] Re: liberalism It is interesting to look at the Jugoslav experience with representative vs direct democracy to show some light on this question. Direct democracy was just not feasible at the commune, republic or national level so the delegate system was used with elections conducted using constitutencies from work communities, local communities and political communities (at the local and republic level, there were three houses, at the national level two). Furthermore, more than one delegate was elected for each office so that individuals could specialize. i.e. when issues of education were to be discussed, the delegate who had a special interest in education would attend; when health was discussed, a different delegate might represent the community. Obviously, this was an attempt to get as close to direct democracy as possible at these levels. In the last stage of socialist self-management, at the enterprise level, the firms were broken up into BOALs (Basic Organizations of Associated Labour) approximating the departmental organization where the works council represented direct democracy. Support staff (e.g. clerical workers) formed work communities which were organized like the BOALS but negotiated with the BOALS to sell their collective administrative services to them. They also were organized with works councils. Social service agencies (schools, health organizations, etc.) had works councils composed both of workers and consumers to practice direct democracy. Unfortunately, the system had a surfeit of democracy and the workers, in many cases, petitioned to do away with the Boals and work communities in favour of enterprise works councils based on the delegate system. The direct democracy system just proved too onerous and ineffective a system of management. In fact, it was so cumbersome that it allowed the communist party, which had no official capacity, to gain control of the of both the political and the management system. In short, the scope for direct democracy in a complex industrial society is, I suggest, more limited than some on this list would suggest. Paul Phillips, Economics University of Manitoba On 31 Jul 02, at 16:32, Justin Schwartz wrote: I have already responded noless dogmatically. I see no reason why representative govt is incompatible with public ownership of productive assets, workers' control of production, or even central planning. I can't even see the argument that it is not. Why the associated producers cannot elect representatives to administer the public property is hard grasp. Please explain, those who think this is a serious point. Btw, theargument for represenattive ratherthan direct democarcy is that with a large state that has a lot to administer, and a big population, and a lot of rather technical rules and regulations to made and enforced, it is utterly impracticable to carry this out in a ny other way than a representative one. If the worry is that the representatives will become a special class arrogating privileges to themselves in an unjustified manner, that is a problem. The solution is of course elections--democracy's natural term limits. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Re: RE: liberalism
Devine, James wrote: Self-government? this means profound democracy to me I like the term profound democracy better than direct democracy, which (both in its positive and its negative aspects) is tied to specific social structures of the past. For that reason also it contributes to an artificial binary, direct democracy vs representative democracy, and implies that the future will merely be a reshuffling of elements already existing in past or present. The Soviets caught everyone by surprise -- and of course since then that surprise has been reduced to blandness by forcing them (at their various stages of growth and decline) into the straitjacket of direct versus representative. The living thing was clearly neither; they were only embryonic of a form that failed to mature. And we will not know until their equivalent again catches us by surprise in some future period what if anything they were embryonic of. We need to continue to criticize _what is_, and be aware that only as that criticism turns into practice under given (and now unknown) conditions will we have more than an inkling of what might be the positive results of that criticism. Carrol
: liberalism
We need to continue to criticize _what is_, and be aware that only as that criticism turns into practice under given (and now unknown) conditions will we have more than an inkling of what might be the positive results of that criticism. Let us criticize by all means, and experiment, and learn. In an off-list discussion Jim D accused me of being vague and ambiguous about liberal democracy, which I am not, but my conception is very minimal, and compatible with many implementations. Including a workers' council or soviet realization--in my view a form of representative govt. It involves representatives, doesn't it? jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Re: : liberalism
Justin Schwartz wrote: Let us criticize by all means, and experiment, and learn. In an off-list discussion Jim D accused me of being vague and ambiguous about liberal democracy, which I am not, but my conception is very minimal, and compatible with many implementations. Including a workers' council or soviet realization--in my view a form of representative govt. It involves representatives, doesn't it? Again I'm mystified. For a guy who frequently reminds us that you were trained in analytical philiosophy, you throw around concepts like intelligence, markets, liberal, and democracy rather recklessly, devoid of any definition or context. Of what use is a concept that includes the soviets of the revolutionary period and the U.S. Senate today under the same classification? Doug
convergence?
Title: convergence? [comments?] THE ECONOMIST / July 20, 2002 Convergence, period MOST people who have a view on the matter--regardless of whether they are critics of globalisation or advocates--accept that global inequality is getting worse. Most official agencies either say or seem to suppose that global inequality is rising. In a new paper* on the subject, Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University [who sometimes works with right-wing economist Robert Barro] quotes the typical and widely cited United Nations Human Development Report. In 1999 this said: In 1960, the 20% of the world's people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20%. In 1997, 74 times as much. This continues the trend of nearly two centuries. Some have predicted convergence, but the past decade has shown increasing concentration of income among people, corporations and countries. How does the UN know that global inequality has grown much worse? First, its economists say, inequality has worsened within countries. Second, inequality has worsened across countries. From these two things, the UN reckons, it follows, third, that inequality among the people of the world is rising as well. Mr Sala-i-Martin agrees that inequality has probably increased, on average, within countries. The picture is not clear-cut, however. Inequality has gone up in some countries and down in others. (Rapid globalisation does not push all one way: emerging-market globalisers such as South Korea and Indonesia have seen inequality fall.) On the whole, though, the author reckons that within-country inequality has most likely gone up during recent decades. What about inequality across countries? On this, the UN neglects an important point. If you measure incomes in terms of purchasing power rather than at market exchange rates, incomes are a lot more equal. (The reason is that the cost of living is lower in poor countries.) When the UN says that the incomes of the richest 20% were 30 times bigger than the incomes of the poorest 20% in 1960, and 74 times bigger in 1997, it is using market exchange rates. In purchasing-power terms, the corresponding ratios were 11 and 15. Despite the fall after 1980 (when the ratio was 16) the trend for the period as a whole is nonetheless up. Yet another measure (the cross-country variance of income per head) confirms this. Over the past 30 years, rich countries have grown richer and most of the very poorest have stayed very poor. This is the pattern that Harvard's Lant Pritchett referred to in the title of his well-known paper, Divergence, Big Time. But hang on. Given propositions one and two--rising within-country inequality, and rising across-country inequality--it does not follow, as you might suppose, that global inequality itself is rising. Why not? Mr Sala-i-Martin explains. Imagine that five-sixths of the world's population live in poor and stagnant economies, and one-sixth in rich fast-growing ones. In across-country terms, this gives you divergence, big time. Now imagine that one poor but very populous economy starts to grow very quickly. At the same time, inequality within this country worsens somewhat. Despite its size, this country is only one data-point in the across-country comparisons: its rapid growth is not enough to make any difference to divergence. So you have rising within-country inequality and rising across-country inequality. Yet one-sixth of the world's population, by assumption, is seeing its incomes rise rapidly towards those of the rich. Inequality measured across all the people of the world, therefore, may very well be falling. A far-fetched case? No, Mr Sala-i-Martin points out, this is exactly what has been happening. The big poor country growing very fast is China. (India has also been doing pretty well.) If you simply weight the across-country measures of divergence by population, you see not a rising trend of inequality, but the opposite: as the author puts it, not divergence, big time but convergence, period. Country variance weighted by population may be better than the unweighted sort, but still it ignores inequality within countries. Mr Sala-i-Martin therefore sets about combining both kinds of information, to see how income is distributed across the world's people. He finds that rising global inequality is nowhere to be seen. This is true on seven different measures: the Gini coefficient, the variance of log income, two Atkinson's indexes, and three generalised entropy indexes. So there. For those more interested in relieving poverty than in narrowing the gaps between rich and poor, the results from the estimated distribution are equally pleasing: the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day fell from 20% in 1970 to 5% in 1998; the proportion living on less than two dollars a day fell from 44% to 8%. The headcount of poverty worldwide has fallen by some 400m. The only bad news is that, after the respite provided recently by surging
Re: RE: liberalism
It's important to remember that the New Deal also had lots of support for businesses, too. Like I said, it saved c pitalism. Further, the progressive -- or better, the democratic -- aspects of New Deal liberalism did NOT arise from liberalism as much as from mass struggles (the Veterans' march on Washington, the CIO sit-downs, etc., etc.) and elite fears of revolution or uncomfortable reforms (fascism, communism). When pressure from below weakened (in the 1940s, especially in the 1950s), the New Deal liberals shifted to the right, abandoning progressive New Dealism. How tediously undialectical of you. Everything liberal or involved with liberalism is Bad. Political liberalism [on the other hand] is neutral on the best economic form. Its key idea is that freedom is a good, as is self-government. Freedom is good? what kind of freedom? this word has many meanings and uses (and abuses). Other thgings being equal, freedom is good. I follow theusual tripartite account, negativefreedom (from from interference), positive freedom (freedom to X based on access to resources and skills), and Marxian/Hegelian real freedom (obedience to the law one gives to oneself, disalienation) The matter is complex,and I refer you tomy papers on exploitationw here the issuesa re discussed in detail. You, Jim, have these. How did Mill use this word? Mostly in terms of negative freedom, but he was thinking of the freedom to engage in different forms of life andsay what you think, not tomake mucho pounds and pence. did he include freedom from hunger as part of freedom? freedom from capitalist exploitation? Sort of, not somuch in On Liberty. Hedidn't use the category exploitation, but herecognizedits content. Self-government? this means profound democracy to me, where we go beyond parliamentary democracy and the like to make sure that the majority really rules. That would also go beyond standard liberalism. or do you mean _individual_ self-government? Both. I don't know how you go beyound parlaimentary democarcy to ensure that the majoritry really rules. PD may not be sufficient for popular rule (n.b. unlike you I do NOT identify populat rule or democracyw ith majority rule), but it surely necessary for it. Accordingly it favors a limited representative government with elected officials chosen by univeresal suffrage and hedged in by extensive civil and political liberties. again, it's unclear what the content of these are. The official line in the US is that we have these already, but that depends on the definition of the key terms. We do have them in substantial part. These are precious victories. so he would oppose the IMF, which uses its financial power to push the secular religion of _laissez-faire_? Dunno. What about the socio-economic forces that prevent experiments in living? One reason why people can't set up worker-owned factories is that they lack the financial resources. They often end up dependent on one or two people for money -- and thus end up emulating capitalism -- or fall apart. I have a draft paper on Where Did Mill Go Wrong? About why cooperative ventures are not more prevelant.Mill expected taht theywould tend to crwod out capitalist firms. Was his market socialism similar to yours? Somewhat. He's a bit fuzzy on on the public ownership side. I've noticed that many people equate socialism with a bigger role for government, so that it's quite possible that Mill would currently be termed a New Deal Liberal or some such even though at the time it was called socialism. No. Mill wanted worker ownership and control of production. (I'm no expert on Mill, as should be obvious. I also don't think quoting authorities is a useful intellectual activity if one can present the argument oneself.) I never think for myself, personally.My mind is merely a collection of quottations. I forget who said this. The neutrality of governmental forms? having Congresscritters on the take to big corporations (raking in the campaign contributions) is something that will persist when socialism comes? We'll still be ruled by creeps like Gray Davis (the California governor)? There won't be big private corps. Probably socialist politicians will still be creeps. Sorry. As I said before, almost everyone here--you too--favors representative govt, univ. suffrage, extensive civil rights and liberties. In that sense we are all liberals. if you define your terms vaguely, any statement is true. You still have not said what is vague about my definition. BTW, I think that one thing we should do is to choose a definition of liberalism and stick to it (at least for this thread, since there are no true definitions). I have. I've used to for years. I follow the historian of political thought, George Sabine, who defines liberalism in utilitarianism, individualism, and the independence of private enterprise from political control, and consequently for freedom in exercising rights of
Re: Re: : liberalism
Of what use is a concept that includes the soviets of the revolutionary period and the U.S. Senate today under the same classification? Doug Well, they have this in common: they are both government institutions staffed by representatives who are elected by the people they are supposed to represent. You may think this is trivial, but the ptrinciple that govt officials ought to be accountable in this way was won in the course of 800 years of bloody struggle. It doesn't strike me as negligible. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
RE: Re: RE: liberalism
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28970] Re: RE: liberalism I wrote: It's important to remember that the New Deal also had lots of support for businesses, too. Justin: Like I said, it saved c pitalism. there's a difference: individual businesses often care about nothing but their own profit. It's only crises that encourage a more class-conscious approach. Further, the progressive -- or better, the democratic -- aspects of New Deal liberalism did NOT arise from liberalism as much as from mass struggles (the Veterans' march on Washington, the CIO sit-downs, etc., etc.) and elite fears of revolution or uncomfortable reforms (fascism, communism). When pressure from below weakened (in the 1940s, especially in the 1950s), the New Deal liberals shifted to the right, abandoning progressive New Dealism. Justin:How tediously undialectical of you. Everything liberal or involved with liberalism is Bad. This seems to be a willful misunderstanding of what I said. Liberalism is clearly an improvement over feudal conservatism or clerical fascism or nazism (to name a few), so it's clearly not all Bad. (Not being religious, I don't capitalize the word bad.) Justin had written:Political liberalism [on the other hand] is neutral on the best economic form. Its key idea is that freedom is a good, as is self-government. me:Freedom is good? what kind of freedom? this word has many meanings and uses (and abuses). Justin: Other thgings being equal, freedom is good. what if the increased freedom of the working class reduces the freedom of the capitalists? I follow theusual tripartite account, negative freedom (from from interference), positive freedom (freedom to X based on access to resources and skills), and Marxian/Hegelian real freedom (obedience to the law one gives to oneself, disalienation). The matter is complex,and I refer you tomy papers on exploitation... but if freedom includes the Marxian real freedom, that goes against liberalism. How did Mill use this word? Mostly in terms of negative freedom, but he was thinking of the freedom to engage in different forms of life andsay what you think, not tomake mucho pounds and pence. I don't see how a predominantly negative definition of freedom matches with an advocacy of market socialism. If Mill wanted to have workers controlling production, as you indicate below, how is he going to keep the capitalists from controlling production? it sounds as if their freedom will have to be violated. did he include freedom from hunger as part of freedom? freedom from capitalist exploitation? Sort of, not somuch in On Liberty. He didn't use the category exploitation, but he recognized its content. [edited for readability] If he acknowledged the role of capitalist exploitation of labor, then he wasn't a liberal. Self-government? this means profound democracy to me, where we go beyond parliamentary democracy and the like to make sure that the majority really rules. That would also go beyond standard liberalism. or do you mean _individual_ self-government? Both. I don't know how you go beyound parlaimentary democarcy to ensure that the majoritry really rules. PD [parliamentary democracy?] may not be sufficient for popular rule (n.b. unlike you I do NOT identify populat rule or democracy with majority rule), but it surely necessary for it. I don't identify democracy with majority rule. You forgot minority rights. Unlike classical liberalism (Locke, _et al_) I don't see rights as being natural. Rather, I know that people value them and will choose to allow them, if given a democratic chance. Marx's discussion of the Commune suggests some ways to make sure that the legislature is under popular control: limits on the incomes of the delegates, easy recall, subjection of more officials -- including administrators -- to democratic control. Accordingly it favors a limited representative government with elected officials chosen by univeresal suffrage and hedged in by extensive civil and political liberties. again, it's unclear what the content of these are. The official line in the US is that we have these already, but that depends on the definition of the key terms. We do have them in substantial part. These are precious victories. if you say so. They were victories _against_ liberalism in many cases. What about the socio-economic forces that prevent experiments in living? One reason why people can't set up worker-owned factories is that they lack the financial resources. They often end up dependent on one or two people for money -- and thus end up emulating capitalism -- or fall apart. ... About why cooperative ventures are not more prevelant. Mill expected taht theywould tend to crwod out capitalist firms. that hasn't worked out at all. That has a lot to do with the political power of the capitalists, the financial power of banking capitalists, and technical economies of scale, along with other advantages of large-scale companies (political clout, the ability
Re: convergence?
At 02:34 PM 07/31/2002 -0700, you wrote: [comments?] THE ECONOMIST / July 20, 2002 Convergence, period The Economist is the most loathsome economic periodical I have ever read. It is such a mass of confusion, legerdemain, prevarication, and obfuscation that I do not think it is worth wasting one single neuron on it. And so I won't. Joanna
query: George Bernard Shaw
Title: query: George Bernard Shaw does anyone know where I can find G.B. Shaw's theory of exploitation (based on rent theory)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: query: George Bernard Shaw
I think that I recall it being discussed in Wicksteed's Common Sense. Probably in Shaw: The Jevonian Criticism of Marx, 1885 http://www.econlib.org/library/Wicksteed/wkCS0.html On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 03:26:09PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: does anyone know where I can find G.B. Shaw's theory of exploitation (based on rent theory)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: query: George Bernard Shaw
Devine, James wrote: does anyone know where I can find G.B. Shaw's theory of exploitation (based on rent theory)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine If you want Shaw's own words, why not try The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). (He used the term Woman of course in a general sense to mean both women and men. There is also a Fabian pamphlet Socialism and Superior Brains which deals with this in passing, and also is an interesting anti-elitist argument from a very elitist point of view.
Re: Re: : liberalism
Is this discussion or the elitism thread going anywhere? On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 05:25:03PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Justin Schwartz wrote: Let us criticize by all means, and experiment, and learn. In an off-list discussion Jim D accused me of being vague and ambiguous about liberal democracy, which I am not, but my conception is very minimal, and compatible with many implementations. Including a workers' council or soviet realization--in my view a form of representative govt. It involves representatives, doesn't it? Again I'm mystified. For a guy who frequently reminds us that you were trained in analytical philiosophy, you throw around concepts like intelligence, markets, liberal, and democracy rather recklessly, devoid of any definition or context. Of what use is a concept that includes the soviets of the revolutionary period and the U.S. Senate today under the same classification? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jean Dreze: Ending destitution
The Hindu Monday, Jul 29, 2002 Ending destitution By Jean Dreze Food transfers to the destitute are a good way of using the surplus grain stocks. SAMRI DEVI is a 70-year-old widow who lives in Kusumatand, an impoverished hamlet in Palamau district, Jharkhand. Her son, Bhageshwar Bhuiya, suffers from TB and is unable to work. Her daughter-in-law has taken leave of this world. So the burden of looking after Bhageshwar and his seven children rests on Samri Devi's frail shoulders. She feeds the family, somehow, by gleaning leftover rice from a local rice mill, collecting wild foods and begging from time to time. The children are severely undernourished and none of them goes to school. Except for one cooking pot and a few rags, Samri Devi's family owns absolutely nothing not even a blanket or a pair of chappals. Samri Devi's is one among millions of households in rural India that might be described as destitute. These households typically have no able-bodied adult member and no regular source of income. They survive by doing a variety of informal activities such as gathering food from the village commons, making baskets, selling minor forest produce and keeping the odd goat. We met Samri Devi during a recent survey of destitution in five States (Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh), conducted by researchers from the Centre for Development Economics and the Centre for Equity Studies. We were shocked to find that even in prosperous villages some households lived in conditions of extreme poverty and hunger. A casual visitor is unlikely to notice them, as destitute households keep a low profile and are often socially invisible. But if you look for them, you will find them, quietly struggling to earn their next meal or patiently starving in a dark mud hut. From this, one point is clear: destitute households cannot rely on spontaneous community support. Social security arrangements are needed. As things stand, however, destitute households are beyond the pale of most development programmes and welfare schemes. They are unable to participate in rural employment programmes, if available. Getting a bank loan is for most of them beyond the realm of possibility. Even self-help groups tend to shun them. Some destitute households are able to take advantage of pension schemes such as those meant for widows and the aged, but the coverage of these schemes is very limited and the formalities involved often end up excluding the poorest of the poor. In this sea of neglect, an island of hope has recently emerged the Antyodaya Anna Yojana. This programme, introduced in early 2001 (despite predictable objections from the Finance Ministry), is addressed to the poorest of the poor, as identified by gram panchayats and gram sabhas. Antyodaya households have special ration cards and are entitled to 35 kg of grain a month at highly subsidised prices (Rs. 2 a kg for wheat and Rs. 3 a kg for rice). The survey mentioned earlier indicates that the programme is doing well, in sharp contrast with other components of the public distribution system (PDS). First and foremost, the selection of Antyodaya households appears to be quite fair: among the 450 Antyodaya households living in the sample villages, a large majority turned out to be very poor. Nearly two thirds of these households are constrained to skip meals from time to time. More than half do not own a single blanket or quilt. Only two per cent of the sample households lived in economic conditions described by the field investigators as better than average, compared with other households in the village. In other words, the community-based selection procedure is working. Antyodaya also seems to be reasonably successful in terms of the timely and effective distribution of food rations. This is particularly so in Andhra Pradesh, where most of the sample households had received their full quota every month since the programme was initiated. Taking the five sample States together, we estimated that the average Antyodaya household obtained close to 75 per cent of its full entitlement since the programme began. Regarding the quality of grain received, 85 per cent of the respondents described it as average or good. And while the prices charged to the Antyodaya households were occasionally higher than the official issue prices, the extent of overcharging is not very large about 13 per cent on average. This is not to say that the programme is flawless. In some areas (particularly in Jharkhand), we found that many Antyodaya households had been deprived of their entitlements, as ration-shop dealers took advantage of their powerlessness. Yet, the experience so far strongly suggests that these failures can be addressed and that the basic approach underlying the Antyodaya programme is quite sound. The main limitation of the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, seen as a social security programme, is its restricted coverage (less than 5 per cent of the rural population).
the raffle
KENNY A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died. Kenny replied, Well then, just give me my money back. The farmer said, Can't do that. I went and spent it already. Kenny said, Ok then, just unload the donkey. The farmer asked, What ya gonna do with him? Kenny, I'm going to raffle him off. Farmer, You can't raffle off a dead donkey! Kenny, Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead. A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, What happened with that dead donkey? Kenny, I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00. Farmer, Didn't anyone complain? Kenny, Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back. Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron
Re: convergence?
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Pen-l (E-mail) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28969] convergence? Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:34:29 -0700 [comments?] THE ECONOMIST / July 20, 2002 Convergence, period MOST people who have a view on the matter--regardless of whether they are critics of globalisation or advocates--accept that global inequality is getting worse. Most official agencies either say or seem to suppose that global inequality is rising. In a new paper* on the subject, Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University [who sometimes works with right-wing economist Robert Barro] quotes the typical and widely cited United Nations Human Development Report. In 1999 this said: In 1960, the 20% of the world's people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20%. In 1997, 74 times as much. This continues the trend of nearly two centuries. Some have predicted convergence, but the past decade has shown increasing concentration of income among people, corporations and countries. How does the UN know that global inequality has grown much worse? First, its economists say, inequality has worsened within countries. Second, inequality has worsened across countries. From these two things, the UN reckons, it follows, third, that inequality among the people of the world is rising as well. Mr Sala-i-Martin agrees that inequality has probably increased, on average, within countries. The picture is not clear-cut, however. Inequality has gone up in some countries and down in others. (Rapid globalisation does not push all one way: emerging-market globalisers such as South Korea and Indonesia have seen inequality fall.) The vagueness of globalisation makes for unclear arguments. On the whole, though, the author reckons that within-country inequality has most likely gone up during recent decades. What about inequality across countries? On this, the UN neglects an important point. If you measure incomes in terms of purchasing power rather than at market exchange rates, incomes are a lot more equal. (The reason is that the cost of living is lower in poor countries.) When the UN says that the incomes of the richest 20% were 30 times bigger than the incomes of the poorest 20% in 1960, and 74 times bigger in 1997, it is using market exchange rates. In purchasing-power terms, the corresponding ratios were 11 and 15. Despite the fall after 1980 (when the ratio was 16) the trend for the period as a whole is nonetheless up. This is an important point, but using PP certainly seems to have problems. There is no way to measure PP definitively just as there is no way to measure inflation definitively, is there? Anyway, if I have $100 in the bank and you have $100, then I am still richer if we´re both in the same country. AFAIK imported products do not cost less in poor countries (leaving out transportation costs and tarriffs). A Japanese VCR should cost the same in Pakistan as it does in the U.S. This does not impact costs of living but it does matter when we´re talking about inequality. Of course inequality in access to goods and services (not inequality in hypothetical capacity to buy) and unequal levels of unemployment, infrastructure quality etc. are not measured. Yet another measure (the cross-country variance of income per head) confirms this. Over the past 30 years, rich countries have grown richer and most of the very poorest have stayed very poor. This is the pattern that Harvard's Lant Pritchett referred to in the title of his well-known paper, Divergence, Big Time. But hang on. Given propositions one and two--rising within-country inequality, and rising across-country inequality--it does not follow, as you might suppose, that global inequality itself is rising. Why not? Mr Sala-i-Martin explains. Imagine that five-sixths of the world's population live in poor and stagnant economies, and one-sixth in rich fast-growing ones. In across-country terms, this gives you divergence, big time. Now imagine that one poor but very populous economy starts to grow very quickly. At the same time, inequality within this country worsens somewhat. Despite its size, this country is only one data-point in the across-country comparisons: its rapid growth is not enough to make any difference to divergence. So you have rising within-country inequality and rising across-country inequality. Yet one-sixth of the world's population, by assumption, is seeing its incomes rise rapidly towards those of the rich. Inequality measured across all the people of the world, therefore, may very well be falling. A far-fetched case? No, Mr Sala-i-Martin points out, this is exactly what has been happening. The big poor country growing very fast is China. (India has also been doing pretty well.) If you simply weight the across-country measures of divergence by population, you see not a rising trend of inequality, but the opposite: as the author puts it, not divergence,
The last of liberalism
My last word on this. It's obvious that Michael is predisposed to find nothing I say interesting, and to let you know that you shouldn't either. Justin: Other things being equal, freedom is good. what if the increased freedom of the working class reduces the freedom of the capitalists? Any decrease of freedom is a loss. Sometimes we have to decrease some freedoms to enhance others. My freedom to punch you out, for example. I follow theusual tripartite account, negative freedom (from from interference), positive freedom (freedom to X based on access to resources and skills), and Marxian/Hegelian real freedom (obedience to the law one gives to oneself, disalienation). The matter is complex,and I refer you tomy papers on exploitation... but if freedom includes the Marxian real freedom, that goes against liberalism. Sez who? Not Mill, and if he's not a liberal, no one is. If [Mill] acknowledged the role of capitalist exploitation of labor, then he wasn't a liberal. OK, I'm not a liberal either, because I acknowledge the existence of capitalist exploitation. I don't identify democracy with majority rule. You forgot minority rights. Unlike classical liberalism (Locke, _et al_) I don't see rights as being natural. Rather, I know that people value them and will choose to allow them, if given a democratic chance. You normally do forget minority rights, such as when I mention the tyranny of the majority, you start accusing me of being antidemocratic. If people will value and choose rights, they don't need to be legally protected. I am not so optimistic as you. That's why I support constitutional democracy, which insulates rights from majoritarian prejudices. I've heard that fuzzy was [Mill's] real middle name. You should be so fuzzy. No. Mill wanted worker ownership and control of production. _all_ of production? Yes. Probably socialist politicians will still be creeps. Sorry. that's why mechanisms have to be developed to get us beyond the weak kind of democracy that's called representative democracy, e.g., greater ability to recall the bums. That's still representative democracy. Personally I think that easy recalls are a bad idea. I'd argue against them. But if the people wanted that form of representative govt, it would be no worse than some. As I said before, almost everyone here--you too--favors representative govt, univ. suffrage, extensive civil rights and liberties. In that sense we are all liberals. if you define your terms vaguely, any statement is true. You still have not said what is vague about my definition. the individual terms seem to be infinitely elastic, so you can see them as applying under capitalism and with socialism, with no substantial change. Begs the question. I define them minimally, so I can see them applying under capitalism and socialism with no substantial change. You have not yourself indicated any substantial changes. Lower salaries and easier recalls do not strike me as substantial changes. BTW, I think that one thing we should do is to choose a definition of liberalism and stick to it (at least for this thread, since there are no true definitions). I have. I've used to for years. It differs from the usual. Actually, it does not. I am in fact an exoert on thsi; I was a professional political philosopher for years and have published and read extensively in the field, and my definition is absolutely 100% standard. Terms are contested, and othere definitions are possible. But my usage squares with Mill's and Rawls', to start with, and they basically define the range of liberalism. No more from me. I have nothing interesting to say, Just ask Michael. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Re: Re: Re: The new EU
I hope this helps to clarify the political and methodological differences between Louis Proyect and myself on the question of Europe and the struggle against US hegemonism. I hope it helps progressive people in the US to feel more confident in looking for international allies in this global struggle. Chris Burford London Reply I try and approach all social questions from the standpoint of the methodology of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, while taking into account the doctrine of the class struggle as it evolved during various stages in the development of capital. It was none other than Frederick Engels that reformulated the doctrine of the class struggle to include the use of the ballot box, while articulating why barricade fighting had been rendered obsolete. What distinguishes Vladimir Lenin in history is not his method, which was the standpoint of the science of society and the method of Marx and Engels, but rather his doctrine of the class struggle. I find it astonishing that a Marxist would speak of “progressive people in the US” repeatedly and our need to struggle against hegemony when the most urgent task of the working class in the continental United States is its organization into a class body politic. What's involved is - in my individual assessment, the evolution of the doctrine of the class struggle and not Lenin's method, which was the method of the founders of the science of society. The working class of America today has no ties to the farm or any dream of returning there. Our working class has no ties to Europe as in the past and consequently is not dominated by the ideology of the working class in Europe. Our ‘s is a native born, thoroughbred proletariat extracted from all nationalities, colors and countries on earth. It is the abstraction of the working class Marx wrote about. Today– at this very hour, our working class is undergoing a deep polarization that expresses changes in the material power of the productive forces on the one hand and the evolution of capital's mode of accumulation on the other. Capital that becomes increasingly separate from direct investment in the productive forces – speculation, engenders a sector of the working class that becomes increasingly separated from direct laboring in the productivity infrastructure. This proposition represents the emergence of a new doctrine of the class struggle based on the method of Marx and Lenin. One can of course speak of “progressive people” but this begs the question “progressive in relationship to what?” I assert that “progressive” is a category that can be qualified in relationship to the new features in the working class movement. Actually, the question of hegemony and the fight against US hegemony is a class question pure and simple and not a question of tactical maneuvering between various imperialist blocks. In the previous configuration of history the question of maneuvering between various imperialists blocks appeared on a planetary scale as the anti-colonial struggle. The doctrine of that era produced another path to power for revolutionaries based in the economically backwards colonial and semi-colonial world. This was the path of civil war. This was different from the path to power of the Russian revolutionaries and consequently birthed a new doctrine. Soviet experience regarding the revolutionary process could be summed up as a detailed preparation of the masses for an uprising as the path to power. This detailed preparation includes wining the vanguard of the proletariat to the cause of a society of associated producers, imbuing the masses with the idea of social revolution, and assisting the masses in perfecting their revolutionary institutions – teaching them on the basis of their own experience. The struggle against all forms of deviations from the class formation of the proletariat and popular masses was of cardinal importance. This was necessary because the seizure of power rested on the mass uprising. Hence, propaganda among the masses was of critical importance. This doctrine of the class struggle was perfected by the Russian revolutionaries led by Lenin and establishes Lenin as a doctrine – Leninism. Leninism as a doctrine can be further summed up as clarifying the revolutionary process to consist of an era of the masses rebelling against the state authority, until it is weakened disorganized and begins turning upon itself producing a certain polarization and paralysis. It is this paralysis that sets the stage for the seizure of power by revolutionaries. During the last configuration of history and the revolutionary process the path to power for revolutionaries was that of civil war – with the exception of the Ethiopian revolution. In Ethiopia the “men in uniform” overthrew the remains of the “old world.” What is the path of civil war? Basically, the revolutionaries form an army that is essentially the party. This army, closely tied to and supported by the people learns war
Re: Re: query: George Bernard Shaw
Devine, James wrote: does anyone know where I can find G.B. Shaw's theory of exploitation (based on rent theory)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine If you want Shaw's own words, why not try The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). (He used the term Woman of course in a general sense to mean both women and men. There is also a Fabian pamphlet Socialism and Superior Brains which deals with this in passing, and also is an interesting anti-elitist argument from a very elitist point of view. Also, and crucially, look at the section on *Das Rheingold* in The Perfect Wagnerite. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner)
