Re: question on finance capital
Can you point me to the source, please. I remember you mentioning this before. Was it in LBO? Doug Henwood wrote: michael wrote: Business Week describes GM becoming almost entirely dependent on its finance unit. I recall seeing something similar about Ford. A few years ago, Ford was making money on its finance division and breaking even on cars. But the finance division was almost exclusively devoted to financing the purchase of Ford vehicles. So, they were capturing a business formerly engaged in by bankers, and their finance business was dependent on what they manufactured (which undermines the usual postindustrial story). Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Isaac Deutscher's anecdote about the readership of Marx's Capital in the ...
I missed this the first time, but this Hitler stuffdoes not belong here. On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 11:24:44PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 8/6/03 5:06:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You seem to be trying out your little Marxist Hitler style again ! Prove that the main source of difference was over democracy or shut up. What sort of language is this ? How can you expect people to debate with you on this basis ? So my working class politics are fascist. Great. I seek no debate. I assure you that is nothing fascistic about my particular form of Marxism. My political culture is and has always been based on the specific of electoral politics in a union setting. You may scream Stalin until you are blue in the face, makes me no difference. Melvin P -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:31:32PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Mises main target was Marx and the Marxists. Maybe, but the Austrians also opposed the plannist schools that were popular between the two world wars in Europe. There were leftist non-Marxists such as the followers of Edward Bellamy and rightist plannists such as Stackelberg. 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: Euro Tigers
Wow, this is in sharp contrast to the front page feature story in today's WSJ which argued that Europe was on the fast track to expansion, along with the USA and Japan. Is the glass half-assed? Gene Coyle Eubulides wrote: New tigers bare their teeth As Europe's traditional economic success stories struggle, seven countries in the east of the continent are forging ahead. Mark Tran explains Tuesday August 12, 2003 The Guardian The first estimates of economic growth in Germany and euroland for the second quarter, due this week, are likely to make bleak reading. Both are expected to show very subdued activity, in line with the weak survey numbers and industrial production figures that have already appeared. With Italy also in recession, countries that account for 60% of eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) were probably stagnant in the second quarter. So euroland is doing a poor job of picking up the slack at a time when the world's traditional economic locomotive, the US, is having difficulty picking up steam. However, while Europe's traditional economic powerhouses are barely ticking over, the continent is not entirely without its success stories. To find them, you need to look east, to the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in the north, through Slovakia in central Europe, to the Balkans in south-east Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania). In a report by HSBC, released last week, the seven countries are given a catchy name: new Europe's new tigers. The new tigers should all record growth of more than 4% in 2003, according to economic experts. To put that into perspective, the UK, western Europe's fastest-growing economy, will be lucky to grow by 1.7% this year. The figure is well short of the chancellor, Gordon Brown's, forecast of between 2% and 2.5%. Latvia and Lithuania are likely to match or outstrip even China's impressive growth this year. Admittedly, the new tigers started from a low base, emerging from inefficient, centrally-planned systems, so there was plenty of untapped potential. Still, their success should not be underestimated. The Baltic states, after breaking away from the former Soviet Union, had to set up public institutions from scratch, while having to overcome the collapse of Russian markets. Meanwhile, Croatia was coping with the aftermath of the bloody Bosnian conflict of 1991-1995, and Bulgaria and Romania were weak states. HSBC attributes the success of the new tigers to their zeal for economic reform. While central European countries such as Poland showed a diminishing appetite for reform, a byword for austerity programmes, the new tigers have yet to hit the wall. The prospect of EU membership also acted as a spur to whip their economies into shape. Only Estonia received an invitation to open negotiations for EU accession in 1997, giving the others had plenty of incentive to put their economic houses in order to prepare the ground for entry into the EU club. The reward for economic reform has been increasing direct foreign investment at the expense of central european countries such as Hungary and Poland. This not only provides a short-term stimulus for growth, but implies expanding manufacturing capacity, which is why we believe that this region will continue to grow rapidly over the medium term, says HSBC in a research note. Another key advantage the new tigers have enjoyed is that they did not hitch their economic wagons to the stagnant German economy. Instead, the Baltic states trade much more with Scandinavia. Italy, which should escape recession this year, is an important market for the Balkan countries, which also export heavily to the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. In addition, the new tigers have all benefited from exports to Russia, which is currently enjoying an economic rebound. But - and there is usually a but - the new tigers suffer from big current account deficits (the broadest measure of trade). This is something of particular concern to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF warns that they have to carefully watch government spending and tax cut commitments in order to meet balanced budget targets, as these are key to retaining investor confidence. However, HSBC takes a bullish attitude even here, arguing that these current account deficits have been caused largely by the private sector: namely, equipment imported by private companies. Since such imports will eventually boost exports growth, they should be viewed as positive in the long run, it argues. In a continent marked by lacklustre economic performance, new Europe's new tigers provide about the only bright spot. Maybe their vigour will rub off on the larger euroland economies. · Mark Tran is Guardian Unlimited's business editor Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: quote du jour
It's from the movie Pumping Iron, as quoted by MS SLATE. The film also shows Ah-nold smoking pot. -- Jim -Original Message- From: Max B. Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon 8/11/2003 5:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] quote du jour source, please. max -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Devine, James Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 8:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: quote du jour I was always dreaming about very powerful people, dictators, people like Jesus, being remembered for thousands of years. -- Arnold Schwartzenegger Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: The Road to Serfdom
JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Rather, it was that real-world markets do not correspond to the textbook ideal of markets, which doesn't exist in reality, while real-world markets have a large number of imperfections that prevent them from serving socialist-democratic goals. It's the pro-market socialism side that puts forth that markets are good, or at least better than central planning, which is BAD. Frankly, I think that the whole plan vs. market discussion misses the point (i.e., the need for democracy as part of the abolition of class and to avoid the inequality-generating characteristics of both markets and central plans). Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I don't want to get into defending Charlie Andrews' concepts (since I don't agree with them completely). But the idea involves not profit-max but minimization of costs, subject to constraints imposed by the democratically-run government and the system of enterprise governance that Charlie describes. If I were to point to an analogy, it wouldn't be China but to the non-profit foundation sector in the US. Obviously, that sector serves those who donate money, but in Charlie's scheme, that sector is different. Jim -Original Message- From: Martin Hart-Landsberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 1:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Jim, the notion of competing enterprises was precisely at the heart of the Chinese position in the early days of reform. But how do you promote competition, well you need some sort of profit inducement. So, early on the Chinese encouraged firms to operate independently and pursue profits. But, competition also means change and response to market needs. Thus, critical to the entire process is labor market flexibility, or the freedom for management to hire and fire workers. In fact, the Chinese state encouraged foreign investment at each stage of the reform process, including joint ventures pretty early in the process, because it saw foreign capital as setting the basis for capitalist labor relations and encouraging profit maximizing in the state sector. In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... Marty Quoting Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim
Two new books of note
The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich By Max Wallace ISBN: 0312290225 Format: Hardcover, 416pp Pub. Date: July 2003 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Barnes Noble Sales Rank: 341,138 Kirkus Reviews Whisper an antiwar sentiment today, and you're branded a traitor. Hinder the Allied war effort and champion the Nazi cause, as did a captain of industry and a pioneer of aviation, and you'll be remembered as a hero. So Wallace, a researcher for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Project, demonstrates in this eye-opening if sometimes circumstantial account of automaker Henry Ford's and pilot Charles Lindbergh's multifaceted dealings with the Hitler regime. Ford was singularly instrumental, Wallace charges, with Hitler's rise; not only did Hitler and other Nazis credit their conversion to anti-Semitism in part to Ford's scurrilous The International Jew, but Ford also funded the early Nazi party unstintingly and, knowingly or not, gave Nazi operatives access to manufacturing specifications and other documents at least until America entered the war. Hitler himself said, I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration, not least for providing a model of mass production for the Nazi killing machine. Direct evidence of Ford's financial role in bringing Hitler to power is scanty, Wallace writes, a significant amount of the [Ford Motor] company's early days-particularly material pertaining to Ford's anti-Semitism having been carefully discarded. Lindbergh, famed for his transatlantic solo flight, brought pseudoscientific theories of eugenics to his own admiration for the Nazi regime, and the Nazis reciprocated by depicting the blond, blue-eyed Lindbergh as the exemplar of Aryan manhood. Strangely, by Wallace's account, both men seemed mystified when the Roosevelt administration did not court their services at the outbreak of WWII, on which occasion Ford remarked, The whole thing has just been made up by Jewbankers. Though Lindbergh served as a consultant to Ford in the development of the B-24 bomber, he was unable to gain a military commission-and for good reason, inasmuch as even in 1945 he was publicly lamenting the destruction of Germany, a civilization that was basically our own, stemming from the same Christian beliefs. A finely wrought, careful, and utterly damning case that ought to prompt a widespread reevaluation of both Ford and Lindbergh. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest By Matthew Restall ISBN: 0195160770 Format: Hardcover, 218pp Pub. Date: July 2003 Kirkus Reviews Provocative if dry essay in New World historiography, gainsaying a large body of received wisdom. Over the last half-century, many writers on the Spanish conquest of the Americas have confronted such thorny problems as the Black Legend and the demography of the pre-Columbian hemisphere, dispelling once-prevailing notions about, for example, why Coronado found so few Indians on his trip across the Great Plains and why Montezuma's Mexico fell so quickly to Cortez and company. But many of those notions remain, writes Restall (History/Penn. State Univ.), even in such contemporary texts as the supposedly iconoclastic works of Tzvetan Todorov and Kirkpatrick Sale. Using the word loosely enough to give folklorists fits, Restall brands as myth the idea, for instance, that a mere handful of conquistadors took down Mexico and Peru, and the concomitant canard that the Indians thought that the Spanish were strange gods from across the sea. The Spanish were indeed few, he acknowledges, but backed by great numbers of Indian allies and, more to the point, by non-Spanish conquistadors, particularly black Africans like Juan Garcia, who hauled a comfortable amount of gold to Spain from Peru and lived well thereafter. There was no apotheosis, he adds, no 'belief that the Spaniards are gods,' and no resulting native paralysis. Some of these myths, Restall holds, came from the pens of Columbus and certain of his contemporaries, who had an understandable interest in promoting themselves as lone heroes; others came from the likes of Washington Irving, whose romantic views of Columbus the visionary entered the historical record in the 19th century and have been hard to root out ever since. Restall's alternative history of the Conquest emphasizes the multiethnic nature of the newcomers and the practicality of those who ceded land and wealth to them. For specialists, mainly, though useful to those interested in how empires-and myths-are made. Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Devine, James wrote: what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? Moral masochism? Self-denial, self-marginalization, and love of suffering?
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Devine, James wrote: I wrote: what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? Doug: Moral masochism? Self-denial, self-marginalization, and love of suffering? strength of character, an unwillingness to sacrifice principle to the demands of the moment? an ability to understand that even though the world as we know it is a bucket of sh*t, it could be better? commitment to working together with others rather than succumbing to narrow-minded greed or narcissistic depression? Probably both Doug I are right. We both are. I was just being gloomy.
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: ravi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 9:27 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1017505,00.html Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve Julian Borger in Washington Wednesday August 13, 2003 The Guardian A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity. As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction. All of them preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality. Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance. This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes, the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin. One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for closure could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false. Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study is not critical of conservatives at all. The variables we talk about are general human dimensions, he said. These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal. But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses.
Re: split in the humanitarian imperialist camp
you're right, but it's quite possible that the growing quagmire in Iraq (and Afghanistan) will make any further interventions very expensive. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Carrol Cox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 8:51 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] split in the humanitarian imperialist camp Devine, James wrote: Iraq has wrecked our case for humanitarian wars The US neo-cons have broken the Kosovo liberal intervention consensus David Clark As long as US power remains in the hands of the Republican right, it will be impossible to build a consensus on the left behind the idea that it can be a power for good. Those who continue to insist that it can, risk discrediting the concept of humanitarian intervention and thereby render impossible the task of mobilising the international community to act in the future. But after a Democratic victory in the U.S. in 2004 or 2008, and this same aggressive policy is carried out with more sophisticated rhetoric and a visible blunting of brutality _on the surface_ (I am thinking partly of the use to which Carter's campaign for human rights was put), _then_ these temporary opponents of humanitarian intervention can once more happily and contentedly rally around the flag. Carrol Indeed, the backlash has already started. At last month's conference on progressive governance, the assembled leaders rejected the section of Blair's draft communique supporting the principle that the responsibility to protect trumps state sovereignty. The problem is this: the interventionists who supported the Iraq war want those of us who didn't to believe that George Bush is a useful idiot in the realisation of Blair's humanitarian global vision. We can only see truth in the opposite conclusion. * David Clark is a former Foreign Office special adviser.
Re: Buffett joins team Terminator
I have believed from Day 1 that the White House is involved [in organizing the recall against California Gov. Davis], long-time Davis adviser Garry South said. No one can convince me that if Karl Rove did not want it to happen that he couldn't call off the dogs, he said, referring to Mr. Bush's political adviser. This ignores the fact that the GOP in California has a big component of ultra-rightists who may be ideologically pleasant to Rove, Cheney, and their Bush, but is self-destructive and therefore pragmatically unacceptable. I don't think Darrell Issa -- the guy who got this circus started -- was responding to the White House's instructions. Jim
a thought
pen-l is pretty quiet today, so: If Cher were to marry U-2's Bono, together they'd make a complete person. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1017505,00.html Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve Julian Borger in Washington Wednesday August 13, 2003 The Guardian A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity. As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction. All of them preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality. Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance. This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes, the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin. One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for closure could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false. Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study is not critical of conservatives at all. The variables we talk about are general human dimensions, he said. These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal. But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses.
Re: Michael Yates on Orthodox Economics vs Marxism, and more
Sounds really great... if only I could get my PC speakers to work again... J. - Original Message - From: Sasha Lilley [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 12:15 AM Subject: [PEN-L] Michael Yates on Orthodox Economics vs Marxism, and more Michael Yates was interviewed today on our program Living Room -- the archived audio can be found at www.livingroomradio.org -- on why Marxism has greater explanatory power than neoclassical economics (see below). And although he was on NPR's Talk of the Nation last week, we had booked him long before that! Other currently archived shows that might interest people are programs on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's organization of agricultural labor in Hawaii; Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling on Israel and Ariel Sharon; Bertolt Brecht; Marx and Freud; the Jewish and Palestinian editors of Between the Lines on what's wrong with the Left in Israel and Palestine; Robin DG Kelley on his book Freedom Dreams; myths about the decline of the family; limiting the work week; and much more. Wed 8.13.03| Orthodox Economics vs. Marxism Neoliberal prescriptions applied around the globe have left many progressives skeptical of orthodox economic theory. And yet what alternative theories exist? Labor economist Michael Yates argues that Marxism provides us with a means of understanding our world, with all its poverty and inequality, in a way that isn't abstracted from reality Sasha Lilley Producer, KPFA's Living Room 510/848-6767 x209 www.livingroomradio.org __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Kosovo/Iraq
A pattern of aggression Iraq was not the first illegal US-led attack on a sovereign state in recent times. The precedent was set in 1999 in Yugoslavia writes Kate Hudson Kate Hudson Thursday August 14, 2003 The Guardian The legality of the war against Iraq remains the focus of intense debate - as is the challenge it poses to the post-second-world-war order, based on the inviolability of sovereign states. That challenge, however, is not a new one. The precursor is without doubt Nato's 1999 attack on Yugoslavia, also carried out without UN support. Look again at how the US and its allies behaved then, and the pattern is unmistakable. Yugoslavia was a sovereign state with internationally recognised borders; an unsolicited intervention in its internal affairs was excluded by international law. The US-led onslaught was therefore justified as a humanitarian war - a concept that most international lawyers regarded as having no legal standing (the Commons foreign affairs select committee described it as of dubious legality). The attack was also outside Nato's own remit as a defensive organisation - its mission statement was later rewritten to allow for such actions. In Yugoslavia, as in Iraq, the ultimate goal of the aggressor nations was regime change. In Iraq, the justification for aggression was the possession of weapons of mass destruction; in Yugoslavia, it was the prevention of a humanitarian crisis and genocide in Kosovo. In both cases, the evidence for such accusations has been lacking: but while this is now widely accepted in relation to Iraq, the same is not true of Yugoslavia. In retrospect, it has become ever clearer that the justification for war was the result of a calculated provocation - and manipulation of the legitimate grievances of the Kosovan Albanians - in an already tense situation within the Yugoslav republic of Serbia. The constitutional status of Kosovo had been long contested and the case for greater Kosovan Albanian self-government had been peacefully championed by the Kosovan politician, Ibrahim Rugova. In 1996, however, the marginal secessionist group, the Kosovo Liberation Army, stepped up its violent campaign for Kosovan independence and launched a series of assassinations of policemen and civilians in Kosovo, targeting not only Serbs, but also Albanians who did not support the KLA. The Yugoslav government branded the KLA a terrorist organisation - a description also used by US officials. As late as the beginning of 1998, Robert Gelbard, US special envoy to Bosnia, declared: The UCK (KLA) is without any question a terrorist group. KLA attacks drew an increasingly heavy military response from Yugoslav government forces and in the summer of 1998 a concerted offensive against KLA strongholds began. In contrast to its earlier position, the US administration now threatened to bomb Yugoslavia unless the government withdrew its forces from the province, verified by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The US was now clearly determined to remove Milosevic, who was obstructing Yugoslavia's integration into the western institutional and economic framework. Agreement was reached in October 1998 and 1,000 OSCE observers went to Kosovo to oversee the withdrawal of government troops. But the KLA used the pullback to renew armed attacks. In January 1999 an alleged massacre of 45 Kosovan Albanians by Yugoslav government forces took place at Racak. Both at the time and subsequently, evidence has been contradictory and fiercely contested as to whether the Racak victims were civilians or KLA fighters and whether they died in a firefight or close-range shootings. Nevertheless, Racak was seized on by the US to justify acceleration towards war. In early 1999, the OSCE reported that the current security environment in Kosovo is characterised by the disproportionate use of force by the Yugoslav authorities in response to persistent attacks and provocations by the Kosovan Albanian paramilitaries. But when the Rambouillet talks convened in February 1999, the KLA was accorded the status of national leader. The Rambouillet text, proposed by the then US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, included a wide range of freedoms and immunities for Nato forces within Yugoslavia that amounted to an effective occupation. Even the former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, described it as a provocation, an excuse to start bombing. The Yugoslavs refused to sign, so bombing began on March 24 1999. Despite claims by western leaders that Yugoslav forces were conducting genocide against the Kosovan Albanians, reports of mass killings and atrocities - such as the supposed concealment of 700 murdered Kosovan Albanians in the Trepca mines - were often later admitted to be wrong. Atrocities certainly were carried out by both Serb and KLA forces. But investigative teams did not find evidence of the scale of dead or missing claimed at the time, responsibility for which was attributed
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Devine, James wrote: what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? self-importance? determinism? is that a neurosis? --ravi When I told my psychiatrist I was having an identity crisis, he said, Just who in the hell do you think you are? Dan Scanlan
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? - we are not worthy, we are not worthy J.
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Jim wrote: Hmm... how would Lenin score? Any guy allowing himself to be photographed scratching a cat, with his legs crossed, is flexible on your F-scale. Ken. -- The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements (as well as one's deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity. -- Paul Tillich
Unique tobacco co. sales channels -- part II
Ottawa back in court against tobacco firms By KIM LUNMAN Globe and Mail Update Aug. 14, 2003 OTTAWA The federal government resurrected its legal battle against Big Tobacco yesterday to recover $1.5-billion in taxes it claims it lost to a cigarette smuggling scam during the early 1990s. We allege [the tobacco companies] devised and implemented a scheme to make illicit profits out of the smuggling trade, said Gordon Bourgard, a Justice Department spokesman. The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto, alleges that R.J. Reynolds and Japan Tobacco groups of companies were behind the scheme. The companies named as defendants include: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco International Inc., JTI-Macdonald Corp., Northern Brands International Inc., Japan Tobacco Inc., JT International SA, JTI-Macdonald TM Corp., JT Canada LLC II Inc., JT Canada LLC Inc., JT International Holding B.V., JT International B.V. and JT International (BVI) Canada Inc. In a statement issued last night, JTI-Macdonald Corp. called the government's latest lawsuit ill conceived, noting that it had already spent $20-million on a similar claim in the United States that was dismissed. These worn-out allegations are being pumped up by an overzealous antitobacco lobby whose very existence depends on repeatedly attacking the Canadian tobacco industry. In December of 1999, Ottawa filed a lawsuit in the United States against RJR-Macdonald Inc., claiming $1-billion (U.S.) in lost tax revenue stemming from alleged cigarette smuggling by RJR affiliates. The U.S. Federal Court dismissed the suit, stating that U.S. courts can't be used to collect taxes for another country. A U.S. appeals court later declined to hear the case and a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected last November. The new lawsuit alleges that the defendants used the St. Regis Mohawk/Akwesasne reserve on the Canada-U.S. border as a funnel for the smuggling of RJR-Macdonald's tobacco products. The conspirators [RJR-Macdonald and RJR International] agreed and conspired together to implement an unlawful scheme, the purpose of which was to injure the plaintiff, deprive the plaintiff of excise and import tax revenues and force the rollback of Canadian excise taxes and duties. In the early 1990s, increased taxes in Canada doubled the price of cigarettes. Tobacco products cost half as much in the United States, creating a huge black market for the product. This is good news, said Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, which has been lobbying the government to pursue the case. The health community is extremely pleased the Attorney-General has filed this lawsuit. In March, eight top tobacco executives with JTI-Macdonald Corp. (formerly known as RJR-Macdonald) were charged in Toronto with fraud and conspiracy after a four-year RCMP investigation into what has been described as an unholy alliance between the tobacco giant and smugglers. Ottawa launched the first lawsuit with fanfare in late 1999, alleging that the company ran a vast illegal smuggling operation designed to thwart federal efforts to deter Canadian teens from smoking. According to court documents, Ottawa alleges that the tobacco company and related firms began extensive smuggling operations in the early 1990s that involved shipping products to the United States and then smuggling them into Canada through the St. Regis Mohawk reservation. Mohawk territory -- the St. Regis reservation in New York state, the Akwesasne reserve on the Canadian side -- straddles the international border and the Quebec-Ontario boundary.
more California mayhem
California investigates US banks' tax shelters David Teather in New York Friday August 8, 2003 The Guardian Some of the biggest banks in the US have avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax by shifting money into investment funds that did little more than provide shelters from the taxman, it was claimed yesterday. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, at least ten large financial institutions in 1999 and 2000 moved more than $17bn into the funds that did not sell shares but paid tax-exempt dividends back to the banks. Bank of America transferred at least $8bn into one fund, protecting $750m of income, the report said. Funds of this kind need at least 100 shareholders, according to securities and exchange commission rules. In an apparent effort to meet the obligation, the Bank of America subsidiary distributed shares to 125 charities. The banks argue that the funds were legitimate means of raising investment capital. Many of the funds have been closed and state officials in cash-strapped California are looking into whether they are owed back taxes. The funds came under the microscope after California officials received complaints, including an anonymous letter they believe came from within KPMG. In all but one case, the funds were set up on the advice of accounting firm KPMG, which is already under scrutiny by the inland revenue service for its tax shelter policies. A spokesman yesterday stood by the investment vehicles. California law fully supports the tax results associated with the planning involving regulated investment companies. He said an audit by the state of the funds is the appropriate forum to study the tax consequences of these legitimate business transactions. Ultimately the tax consequences associated with the transactions will be sustained. The other banks named in the Journal include Washington Mutual, Summit Bancorp, Zions First National Bank and East-West Bancorp. A spokesman for Bank of America said that its fund in question had been liquidated in the normal course of business and it had been a legitimate means of bank funding and a vehicle for public offerings. He also noted that the bank's 2002 tax bill in California was $180m, one of the highest in the state. California revenue officials said a sampling of tax returns from just a handful of the banks showed that the investment funds had cut their tax liability by $46m. California controller Steve Westly told the Guardian: We do not believe this is appropriate. This is something we need to fix.
Globalised shipping torpedoed by court
smh.com.au - The Sydney Morning HeraldBy John Garnaut August 8, 2003 Paying foreign shipping crews foreign wages while working Australian waters, a cost-cutting scheme defended by the Howard Government, was sinking fast after a union victory yesterday. In a unanimous decision, the High Court ruled that two Canadian-controlled, Bahamas-registered and Ukrainian-crewed ships working in domestic waters fall under the jurisdiction of an Australian tribunal. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission may now consider an application for the crews of the cement cargo vessel CSL Pacific to be protected by Australian pay and conditions. If the commission accepts the application - which lawyers yesterday said was likely - the ship's owner, CSL Group, could be forced to lift wages for its foreign workers from $19,600 to the local rate of $52,100 while carting cargo between domestic ports. * * * * CSL bought the two ships from the Government-owned shipping line ANL. The decision is the climax in a long-running controversy involving Canadian politics, Caribbean tax havens and international wage and safety standards. The CSL Group was owned by Paul Martin, a controversial former Canadian finance minister before he passed ownership to his sons earlier this year. * * * * Copyright 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald.
imf-usa 'consultation'
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2003/cr03244.pdf More at: http://www.imf.org/
Background of David Kay
Interesting that when it was announced that David Kay a former UN weapons inspector was hired by the US to look for weapons in Iraq there is zilch about questionable parts of his background. For one thing he has absolutely no training as a scientist. Secondly, he admitted in effect making a Faustian bargain with US intelligence sources. He was fired by Blix and consequently vilified him. Cheers, Ken Hanly http://www.wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2728
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Shit, Justin, if this keeps up, Condoleeza is going to throw her handbag at me. Point is, can we not find an axis of discussion (a mode of discussion) that would be amenable or palatable to Michael P. ? It's his list, I'm a guest, I don't want to piss him off, we need Michael P. But there may be another angle of discussing the topic, PEN-Lers are always so good at this, at a different take on the same subject? Yes, the weather is improving. There is a difference in the heterodox socialist lexicon between (1) Greenies, (2) Greens and (3) the Green Party (4) The Irish Republican Movement. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 3:28 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:42 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
Re: Martix for price discrimination
but there must be exceptions to that law or price discrimination wouldn't be so common. Perhaps the economist's definition of price discrimination differs from the lawyer's? the former would include senior discounts at movie theaters, coupons at grocery stores, etc., etc. Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Fri 8/8/2003 2:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Martix for price discrimination Price discrimination is an antitrust violation -- the statute is the Robinson-Patman Act -- that can expose the defendant to treble damages in a civil action, and even if you win you have to pay me, or someone like me, really godawful amounts of money to get you off. (This is in fact largely what I do for a living.) So, the citizen plaintiff is not without recourse! jks --- michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anon. 2003. Is Price Discrimination The Next Big Trend In Commerce? San Jose Mercury News (7 August). The Internet also gives sellers more information about consumers than ever before -- how many products they buy and when, perhaps even how many each can afford. Eventually, two people might get the same pop-up ad for the same Zippo lighter, but one ad pitches them for $15 while another says they're $10. This vision of the Internet is the basis of a new analysis from Andrew Odlyzko, a former Bell Labs mathematician now at the University of Minnesota's Digital Technology Center. Odlyzko expects price discrimination to become more pervasive not only because so much personal data is being collected in online commerce but also as technology, in the name of protecting copyrights, limits what people can do with online content. a few years ago, Coca-Cola Co. experimented with a vending machine that automatically raised prices in hot weather. the economy could suffer if technology helps suppliers engage in price discrimination against producers of important goods and services. http://www.dtc.umn.edu/7/8odlyzko/doc/privacy.economics.pdf -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: Martix for price discrimination
--- andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course there are ways around such laws. That's what they pay me all this money for! But they are not foolproof, and litigation is a cost (a very substantial cost -- they do pay us lots and los of money) ans also a risk. You might lose and get stuck with treble damages. That would be very bad. jks --- Found this: on the cost of litigating a price discrimination lawsuit. This is very low end. I will about $250/hr. Senior partners at my firm bill $500/hr+: http://www.lawmall.com/rpa/rpaexpen.html __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
'clean' diamonds
[Federal Register: August 11, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 154)] [Notices] [Page 47626-47627] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr11au03-109] [[Page 47626]] === --- DEPARTMENT OF STATE [Public Notice 4438] Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs; Participating Countries (Hereinafter Known as ``Participants'') Eligible for Trade in Rough Diamonds under the Clean Diamond Trade Act (Pub. L 108-19) and Section 2 of Executive Order 13312 of July 29, 2003 AGENCY: Department of State. ACTION: Notice. --- SUMMARY: In accordance with Sections 3 and 6 of the Clean Diamond Trade Act (Pub. L. 108-19) and Section 2 of Executive Order 13312 of July 29, 2003, the Department of State is identifying all the Participants eligible for trade in rough diamonds under the Act, and their respective Importing and Exporting authorities. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jay L. Bruns, Special Negotiator for Conflict Diamonds, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, Department of State, (202) 647-2857. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 4 of the Clean Diamond Trade Act (the ``Act'') requires the President to prohibit the importation into, and the exportation from, the United States of any rough diamond, from whatever source, that has not been controlled through the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). Under Section 3(2) of the Act, ``controlled through the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme'' means an importation from the territory of a Participant or exportation to the territory of a Participant of rough diamonds that is either (i) Carried out in accordance with the KPCS, as set forth in regulations promulgated by the President, or (ii) controlled under a system determined by the President to meet substantially the standards, practices, and procedures of the KPCS. The referenced regulations are contained at 31 CFR part 592 (``Rough Diamond Control Regulations''). Section 6(b) of the Act requires the President to publish in the Federal Register a list of all Participants, and all Importing and Exporting Authorities of Participants. Section 2 of Executive Order 13312 of July 29, 2003 delegates this function to the Secretary of State. Section 3(7) of the Act defines ``Participant'' as a state, customs territory, or regional economic integration authority identified by the Secretary of State. Section 3(3) of the Act defines ``Exporting Authority'' as one or more entities designated by a Participant from whose territory a shipment of rough diamonds is being exported as having the authority to validate a Kimberley Process Certificate. Section 3(4) of the Act defines ``Importing Authority'' as one or more entities designated by a Participant into whose territory a shipment of rough diamonds is imported as having the authority to enforce the laws and regulations of the Participant regarding imports, including the verification of the Kimberley Process Certificate accompanying the shipment. The List of Participants will be updated periodically as additional entities meet the requirements of the Act. Pursuant to Section 3 of the Clean Diamond Trade Act (the Act), Section 2 of the Executive Order 13312 of July 29, 2003, and Delegation of Authority No. 245 (April 23, 2001), I hereby identify the following entities as Participants under section 6(b) of the Act. Included in this List are the Importing and Exporting Authorities for Participants, as provided in Section 6(b) of the Act. List of Participants Algeria--Ministry of Energy and Mines. Angola--Ministry of Geology and Mines. Armenia--Ministry of Trade and Economic Development. Australia--Export Authority--Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources; Importing Authority--Australian Customs Service. Belarus--Department of Finance. Botswana--Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources. Brazil--Ministry of Mines and Metallurgy. Burkina Faso--Importing and Exporting Authority not currently available. Cameroon--Importing and Exporting Authority not currently available. Canada--Natural Resources Canada. Central African Republic--Ministry of Energy and Mining. China--General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Democratic Republic of the Congo--Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons. Republic of the Congo--Ministry of Mines and Geology. Cyprus--Importing and Exporting Authority not currently available. Czech Republic--Ministry of Finance. European Community--DG/External Relations/A.2. Gabon--Ministry of Mines, Energy, Oil and Hydraulic Resources. Ghana--Precious Metals Marketing Company, Limited. Guinea--Ministry of Mines and Geology. Guyana--Geology and Mines Commission. Hungary--Ministry of Economy and Transport. India--The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council. Israel--The Diamond
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:36:51PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. Who thought that the plan should mimic market outcomes . . . On the basis of actual planning experience in postwar Poland, he later became much more of a market socialist. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: quote du jour
--- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4. No one could ever meet death for his country without the hope of immortality. - Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero), Tusculanarum Disputationum (I, 15) ** I remember Grace Slick singing: War's good business, so give your sons, but I'd rather have my country die for me. The lyrics were from a song which was on the Airplane's first or second albumn. Cheers, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
At 6:28 AM -0700 8/9/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote: That markets are BAD is axiomatic The Markets might be Good if they came without Pains of Bankruptcy and Unemployment. -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: The Road to Serfdom
S'all right, I haven't the time or energy for it either. jks --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:36:51PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. Who thought that the plan should mimic market outcomes . . . On the basis of actual planning experience in postwar Poland, he later became much more of a market socialist. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
query: credit rationing
what's a good data series that can be used to measure the degree of bank (non-interest) credit-rationing in the US? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Martix for price discrimination
Anon. 2003. Is Price Discrimination The Next Big Trend In Commerce? San Jose Mercury News (7 August). The Internet also gives sellers more information about consumers than ever before -- how many products they buy and when, perhaps even how many each can afford. Eventually, two people might get the same pop-up ad for the same Zippo lighter, but one ad pitches them for $15 while another says they're $10. This vision of the Internet is the basis of a new analysis from Andrew Odlyzko, a former Bell Labs mathematician now at the University of Minnesota's Digital Technology Center. Odlyzko expects price discrimination to become more pervasive not only because so much personal data is being collected in online commerce but also as technology, in the name of protecting copyrights, limits what people can do with online content. a few years ago, Coca-Cola Co. experimented with a vending machine that automatically raised prices in hot weather. the economy could suffer if technology helps suppliers engage in price discrimination against producers of important goods and services. http://www.dtc.umn.edu/7/8odlyzko/doc/privacy.economics.pdf -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
The Road to Serfdom
The real disagreement between Keynes and Hayek was identified by Keynes... (as being about) the question of knowing where to draw the line between intervention and non-intervention. Keynes's criticism of Hayek was that he accepted that the logical extreme of no intervention at all was not possible, but gave no guidance in The Road to Serfdom as to where the line should be drawn. This was the same criticism made later by the libertarians. But unlike them, Keynes thought that it was a matter of practical judgement, not principle. He acknowledged that Hayek would draw the line differently than he would, but criticized him for underestimating the practicability for a middle course. He also argued that since Hayek accepted that a line had to be drawn, it was disingenuous of him to imply that 'as soon as one moves an inch in the planned direction you are necessarily launched on the slippery path which will lead you in due course over the precipice... Keynes proposed his middle way as a means of harmonizing individualism and socialism'. - Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996, p. 159-160. Mises main target was Marx and the Marxists. In that sense, his original article was a further episode in the long-running Methodenstreit. Marx's refusal to speculate about the form a socialist society would take, struck Mises as a supreme evasion, and typical of historicism. Marx always refused to lay down blueprints in the manner of 'utopian socialists' like Owen and Fourier, on the grounds that principles of organisationwere intimately related to particular modes of historical organisation, which were always worked out practically and could only be understood theoretically in retrospect. This impeccable Hegelianism did not impress Mises, because it refused to consider the question of how the universal problems of any human society would be addressed, One consequence of this methodological gulf between the Austrian school and Marxism was that there was no Marxist response to Mises. His criticisms were regarded as irrelevant. Bukharin had already analysed the Austrian school and marginalism as a retreat from scientific analysis into ideology. Marginalism was dismissed as the ideology of the rentier class, because it regarded all incomes, including 'unearned incomes', as equally productive, and therefore legitimate, so long as they were generated through the market Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996, p. 63.
Re: Serfdom/China
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 8/9/03 1:22:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Dear PEN-Listers, I hate commodity production and I hate the marketplace of commodities. They have both outlived their usefulness. Controlled or planned commodity production only maintains the agony of wage-slavery. For the end of pre-history, Mike B) Most certainly a sentiment I deeply share. Under what conditions is it possible to render the commodity form of the social product obsolete? *** Primarily under conditions where the working class is the overwhelming majority and in that majority becomes class conscious enough to organise a social revolution for themselves. The industrial, productive capacity for this transition out of commodity production has been achieved by workers (under the political, physical and psychological lash of their masters) in many countries for many decades now. Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
--- Martin Hart-Landsberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... ta-da-doomthe coninuation of wage-slavery, classes, the State and all the undemocratic baggage that goes with that sort of political-economy. Not that the more Mao inspired system of State controlled commodity production didn't result in much the same system with, of course, variations on all the abovementioned themes. China is richer these days because the wage-slaves are more productive than ever. The same is true for the USA where according to the New York Times, The Labor Department reported that productivity -- the amount that an employee produces per hour of work -- rose at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the April to June quarter. That was the best performance since the third quarter of 2002. The question is, Who controls and owns the social product of labour, the marketeers or the producers? Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
A Cuban revolutionary writes to Joanne Landy
(Eloquent response by a revolutionary Cuban who knows, from his very own personal experience what democracy Washington offers to Cubans. (Particularly pointed for those people on the political left who also oppose the Cuban Revolution and advocate the overthrow of the government of Cuba, by the workers, of course.) July 15, 2003 Dear Ms. Joanne Landy: Being a Cuban revolutionary all of my life, having fought in Angola against the South African invasion and being, at the present time, incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison for protecting the Cuban people from the terrorist actions supported, encouraged and silenced by the United States government, I hope that - if being progressive is still to fight for a better world - I might be entitled to the benefit of being considered a progressive person. So, when I opened a magazine called precisely, The Progressive, and read an ad by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy requesting signatures in order to condemn Cuba for its alleged repression on dissidents, I was, at best, in disbelief. I can't imagine that somebody can consider himself a progressive person and then take at its word the endemic slandering and lies of the U.S. media in regards to Cuba. It would only take a little bit of intellectual honesty and some research to discover that the money to pay dissidents is appropriated, overtly and openly, by the U.S. authorities to be distributed through entities like NED and USAID among whomever, on the island, decides to make a living as a dissident. Who gives any moral authority to the American government to create a paid opposition in Cuba? What international principle of law applies to this behavior? Since when it is a role of a U.S. diplomat to tour the island organizing the opposition and giving out money? Whoever, in his country, receives money from a foreign power to undermine his government, is considered a traitor, be it in Cuba or in any other nation of the world, including the United States. These so-called dissidents have - contrary to what appears in the ad - all the right to express their opinions in Cuba. All they have to do is to stand up at a nomination meeting and explain to their neighbors that they want to take the country back to 1959, return the Cuban land to the United Fruit Company, recall the terrorists that now live in Miami to the island and give them their properties back, sell the country to the transnationals and become themselves the political class who will take care of all those people's petty interests. If their neighbors agree with them they will be nominated would happen to them for looking stupid while expressing their political platform in front of the electorate. But if they run into a revolutionary constituency - and their neighbors are committed to their country and support the government of the people, for the people and by the people; and having fought and died for their society, don't want to betray the memory of the patriots who have given their lives for the sovereignty and independence of Cuba - no dissident will be nominated nor will he obtain any vote. And if they don't deserve the confidence of their people, they don't have the right to go to the American embassy - the last place I would think of as a haven for democracy - to find a source of sovereignty that only lies in the Cubans. Cuba, for more than 40 years, has faced a state of hostility and war that has caused more than 3,000 deaths and more than 2,000 jured on account of terrorist and armed actions carried out by traitors paid, trained and supplied for by the U.S. government. Those mercenaries were dealt with through the legal system. They weren't arbitrarily declared enemy or illegal combatants, or disposed of through a drone-launched rocket so that Fidel could pose to the cameras declaring them no longer a problem, or subjected to secret military tribunals, nor were their families' homes demolished by the Cuban military. They were given sentences according to their involvement in their terrorist activities instead of the irrational punishment accorded here to the Puerto Rican patriots, just for their affiliation to a given organization, or the vindictive treatment given to me and my co-defendants for protecting Cuba from those mercenaries who now, with their money and connections to the U.S. administration, sponsor schemes like the one of the dissidents or the encouragement to illegal immigration from Cuba in order to justify the aggressive policy against Cuba. The Cuban people has had no other option than to take their losses and to keep building the socialist society that too many have fought for, leaving it to history to make us justice and relying on extreme patience and enormous courage. I don't know how many real progressive people are adhering to this campaign against Cuba, being things here so relative that somebody can be labeled as liberal
EU research: many workplaces are lethal
UTRECHT - 06/08/03 One in five workers in Europe are exposed in the workplace to cancer-causing substances. This finding resulted from research of the European agency for safety and health in the workplace. Cancers, asthma, eczema and neurological problems are said to be only some of the risks which could be caused by the 30,000 chemical substances most often used. About 21 percent of employees comes into contact with substances such as benzine, organic solvents, vapours which escape in welding projects, dyes, or crystalline silica which are contained in building materials. Nearly 22 percent of employees breathes in the mentioned substances, during at least a quarter of the time at work. Research shows that one-third of the asthma cases, and 45 percent of cancers, is work-related. The health problems caused by these substances are estimated to cost 3,5 billion euro. The substances are said to be the largest single cause of the 350 million sickdays which are taken annually in the EU. Translated from: http://www.tiscali.nl/content/article/bin/582602.htm
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Kenneth Campbell wrote: Lou -- I hesitate to write... but I must state... I know you are smart... But these ambush letters in which you ask a question and copy it to a list... is not right. Private is private. I assume that this was meant as a private communication, but I will answer it publicly since Ken should no better than to start up with me again. When I threw him off Marxmail for making fun of Mine Doyran's sig file (but did not do this to Mike Friedman, whose sig file also alludes to his abd status), he demanded that all his posts be removed from Marxmail archives. It turns out that he had no legal legs to stand on, but when he threatened to complain to U. of Utah, we decided to accomodate him. But to this day, as far as I know, the same stupid messages with all their smart-alec baiting, are on mail-archive.com. Ken won't waste time demanding that his messages be removed from that site, because the owners know their intellectual property law and can't be bothered by such petty harrassment. So, go to hell, Ken. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Andrew Johnson impeachment and the Nation Magazine
Have plowed through about 1000 pages of civil war history and plan to get through another 1000 before posting a reply to Charlie Post's article that I have been commenting on here occasionally. I have come to one conclusion already that I doubt any additional reading will budge me from. And that is the dubious character of the second American revolution, at least from the standpoint of the Northern ruling class being the agency of such an event. I am taking a close look at the close class affinities between the Northern bourgeoisie and its purported deadly enemy, the plantocracy, that is revealed in a number of places. At its best, the Northern elite had *no interest* in creating a class of yeoman farmers in the south from the emancipated African population. While swearing allegiance to free labor, free soil was another matter altogether. One of the most revealing aspects of this was the editorial footprints of the Nation Magazine, founded in 1865 by abolitionist E. L. Godkin. As I pointed out in an article I posted a while back on the Nation Magazine, Godkin was a *liberal* in the late 19th century sense. He was for free trade, competition and all the sorts of economic measures associated with people like Alan Greenspan today. He opposed slavery because it was inimical to his own economic philosophy. That being said, Godkin and his associates were not at all predisposed to an all-out assault on the plantation system, as long as it was based on *free labor*. In 1867, President Johnson had run into a conflict with the Radical Republicans in the Congress, who passed legislation to break the back of Southern reaction. When Johnson kept cutting deals to maintain white power in the South, he was impeached. In an December 5th 1867 editorial on the impeachment, the Nation spelled out its opposition to the impeachment: It must now be confessed those who were of this way of thinking [namely that the Radical Republicans were going too far], and they were many, have proved to be not very far wrong. It is not yet too late for the majority in Congress to retrace its steps and turn to serious things. The work before it is to bring the South back to the Union on the basis-of equal rights, and not to punish the President or provide farms for negroes or remodel the American Government. If the abolitionist Nation Magazine was opposed to providing farms for negroes [sic] and remodeling the US government, then which class was it speaking for? And what was its political and economic agenda? More to come... Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: hot enough for you?
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Global warming may be speeding up, fears scientist Alarm at 'unusual' heatwaves across northern hemisphere * Reminds me of an old Frank Zappa song quip: Do you like it? Do you hate it? There it is the way you made it? We produce Capital when we go to work each day and thus re-produce the power of our irresponsible ruling class. Meanwhile, the capitalist machine marches into the abyss. For the works! Mike B) = * A free life still remains for great souls. Truly, he who possesses little is so much the less possessed: praised be a moderate poverty! THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, Nietzsche http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Michael Yates on Talk of the Nation
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1388017 Unions and Politics Aug. 7, 2003 All nine democratic presidential hopefuls wooed the AFL-CIO convention this week, but union membership stagnates. Meanwhile, Verizon and its union workers struggle over job security and health care. Join Neal Conan for a look at the importance of unions in this economic and political climate. BR Guests: Michael Yates *Labor Economist *Author of Why Unions Matter (Monthly Review Press, 1999) Steven Greenhouse *Covers Labor and Workplace issues for The New York Times Aaron Bartley *Union Organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Chapter 615 (Boston Janitors Union) *Organized janitors at Harvard for better wages and benefits (1998-2001) -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Mike B writes:China is richer these days because the wage-slaves are more productive than ever. they're richer (per capita) partly because richer and productivity are measured in terms of GDP, which ignores non-market costs and benefits. Jim -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 2:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom --- Martin Hart-Landsberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... ta-da-doomthe coninuation of wage-slavery, classes, the State and all the undemocratic baggage that goes with that sort of political-economy. Not that the more Mao inspired system of State controlled commodity production didn't result in much the same system with, of course, variations on all the abovementioned themes. China is richer these days because the wage-slaves are more productive than ever. The same is true for the USA where according to the New York Times, The Labor Department reported that productivity -- the amount that an employee produces per hour of work -- rose at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the April to June quarter. That was the best performance since the third quarter of 2002. The question is, Who controls and owns the social product of labour, the marketeers or the producers? Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. Well yeah, but how? Suppose you were advising the S Korean government - what would you say? Or the Haitian government? Years ago, at a little roundtable on the World Bank organized by Susan George, a bunch of us were gassing on in our usual radical manner when a former official in Manley's finance ministry in Jamaica said, You have no idea what it's like to have to come up with $100 million in hard currency next week. I've never forgotten that. He's right - I had no idea, and still don't. But I think about it a lot. Doug
Re: Help California - Help. Place on the net.
Seeking help from anyone that knows anyone that could spring for room and board in California for at least 30 days and a maximum of 90 days for the up coming election. Travel is negotiable. The recall is significant and I want to help anyone do anything. Bags packed. Really know how to talk to people and conduct a campaign. Will commit to 1000 contacts once I hit the ground. Will work tirelessly. Do know the difference between a theory debate and getting that vote and fighting to win. Revolution and counterrevolution evolves as a unity. Dangerous situation has erupted. Has the potential to change history. It is that big. Hey, Larry Flynt and Arnold are running. Arnold - The Terminator, is big recognition factor but anyone can be beat. Arnold wants to Terminate all social programs for the poor. Melvin P (not real name)
Re: query
does anyone know how to get a complete list of the registered and announced candidates to replace Gray Davis as CA's guv? Look on the comics page.
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
And isn't time for us to ditch the epithet anti-globalization, to beat a dead horse already? absolutely! that's why I put that word in quotation marks when I posted the article by Fausto Bertinotti to pen-l. It's his mistake to use that term. Jim
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Hi Grant, Well there is a lot surrounding the issue but I would say first of all that the left should be careful to endorse a strategy of growth that promotes exports in one country at the expense of worker well-being in others. So, rather than just see China as practicing some wonderful economic strategy that other countries could adopt (and here the right might say that the strategy is free-market and the left might say state direction), we should see that China's exports are coming from FDI that is leaving Mexico because Mexican wages were starting to rise although they were still below their 1994 level, and being redirected away from ASEAEN countries where there is still great poverty as in Thailand and Indonesia. And the process is squeezing South Korean workers as well as China has become the favorite location for South Korean investors. Already about 55 percent of South Korean workers are now classified as daily or temporary, as opposed to regular. South Korea is not only losing FDI to China it is not getting much anymore from US and Japan. Thus the government is now seeking to restrict workers even more and open up new free investment zones with all sorts of benefits to foreign investors which domestic firms now want. So, the first point is that we need a broader frame to understand China's recent growth and that frame should make us realize that China's economic gains are not generalizable but rather are a reflection and in turn intensification of capitalist dynamics that work against workers. In China itself it appears that workers are increasingly not benefiting as the economy moves to export directed growth. Studies are showing that while wages are rising, workers have much greater costs for health care and housing which means that they are not getting ahead. Moreover urban unemployment is now approaching 13 percent and that does not include the hundred million peasants who are in the cities looking for work. Beyond that it is my impression that FDI flows are becoming increasing concentrated in fewer and fewer third world countries and not going to the poorest. And in many cases those countries that are joining in the process of export growth as part of transnational production networks are seeing no increase in their value added and thus no real development gains. That is not to say that at a given moment some countries are not increasing their exports and more workers are not gaining new wage jobs. But it does not appear that such activity is sustainable or bringing any lasting benefits to workers. You should see the Trade and Development Report 2002 for some really interesting stuff about the lack of value added for countries involved in export production organized by transnational corporations. So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. I hope I am addressing your question which is a good one and not talking past it. Marty Quoting Grant Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi Marty, The question is: helpful to whom? The case of Mexico is often raised when this question comes up, but the overall trend in terms of the flight of capital is from more developed countries to less developed (which, by definition, does not include S.Korea, Malaysia or Singapore). It's bad news for wage earners in developed and semi-developed countries. This includes me, but I find it hard and --- I would say futile --- to begrudge those in China, Kenya, Vanuatau, wherever. Regards, Grant.
Re: Green
Jim writes: is there a color which represents democracy? I'd prefer democracy to anarchism (which precludes democracy). Democracy would be the color of the ruling cohort. Everyone is a democrat, even Hitler. Anarchism is okay... if you have the other two sides of the flag supporting it. Ken. -- Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow -- T.S. Elliot
Re: Buffett joins team Terminator
I just read a story a few days ago (Buzzflash ???) detailing Rove's involvement. This time Rove's strategy is capable of uniting all the Repugs -- at least so far. On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 09:25:50AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: I have believed from Day 1 that the White House is involved [in organizing the recall against California Gov. Davis], long-time Davis adviser Garry South said. No one can convince me that if Karl Rove did not want it to happen that he couldn't call off the dogs, he said, referring to Mr. Bush's political adviser. This ignores the fact that the GOP in California has a big component of ultra-rightists who may be ideologically pleasant to Rove, Cheney, and their Bush, but is self-destructive and therefore pragmatically unacceptable. I don't think Darrell Issa -- the guy who got this circus started -- was responding to the White House's instructions. Jim -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
higher interest rates???
I just ran across this quote from Richard Clarida of the Treasury Dept. We tend to think of automatic stabilizers in textbook Keynesian terms, but a new automatic stabilizer for the United States is the interaction between long-term interest rates and mortgage refinancing. I wonder what he will think if the bond market continues to sag. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: question on finance capital
At 6:24 PM -0700 8/13/03, michael wrote: Doug Henwood wrote: michael wrote: Business Week describes GM becoming almost entirely dependent on its finance unit. I recall seeing something similar about Ford. A few years ago, Ford was making money on its finance division and breaking even on cars. But the finance division was almost exclusively devoted to financing the purchase of Ford vehicles. So, they were capturing a business formerly engaged in by bankers, and their finance business was dependent on what they manufactured (which undermines the usual postindustrial story). Doug Can you point me to the source, please. I remember you mentioning this before. Was it in LBO? * The New York Times December 15, 1996, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 3; Page 1; Column 3; Money and Business/Financial Desk LENGTH: 2908 words HEADLINE: Will Ford Become The New Repo Man?; Financial Powerhouse Takes Aim at Bad Credit Risks BYLINE: By ROBYN MEREDITH DATELINE: DEARBORN, Mich. BODY: HENRY FORD famously insisted that buyers could have any color of car they wanted, as long as it was black. But he was just as reluctant to offer them credit. Only in 1923, two decades after he began selling cars, did he begin to experiment, cautiously, with financing. Ford customers could buy a $265 Model T on layaway, paying $5 a week for a year. Only then were they allowed to drive the shiny black car home. (Not until four years later did Mr. Ford give in to demands for more colors.) Ford long ago overcame its founder's misgivings about making loans. With Americans now financing four-fifths of all new cars, the Ford Motor Company has earned more as a banker than as a car builder in five of the last six years. Its banking businesses had higher profits last year than all but two of the nation's commercial banks. And while Ford's automotive divisions are struggling to hold up against stiff competition worldwide, a subsidiary, the Ford Motor Credit Company, has become the biggest auto financing company in the world. In the third quarter, Ford Credit earned $299 million, compared with a paltry $15 million for the company's worldwide automotive operations. Now Ford Credit has an ambitious plan to extend its lending reach into an area that would have baffled Henry Ford: borrowers with proven records of not paying back their loans on time, a group collectively known as the subprime lending market. The lure is the $100 billion that people with flawed credit ratings borrow each year to buy new and used cars, and the interest rates of 18 percent and higher that Ford will be able to charge on loans to its share of that market. That is the equivalent of paying for a car at credit-card rates. Ford Credit's new business is risky on two counts. First, whether a company makes money depends on which loan applicants it decides to trust, and how far it trusts them before sending out the repo man to seize the collateral. Secondly, Ford's image could be damaged if the company is seen as profiting at the expense of the poor. Consumer advocates already say a Ford consumer lending unit, the Associates, charges unfairly steep interest rates and fees. That unit's target market is similar to that of the new subprime auto-finance operation, named Fairlane Credit after Henry Ford's gracious Fair Lane estate here. Ford Motor Credit doesn't want to be seen charging 40 percent interest rates or repossessing cars, said Jordan Hymowitz, an auto services analyst at Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. It is a potential public relations problem if the rates get too egregious. But at a time when profits are down and default rates are up at Ford Credit, the cornerstone of Ford's financial businesses, its executives say they have studied the companies in the subprime lending market, are proceeding cautiously and are confident they can make good money. Ford is also planning to move slowly to build its new business. We aren't going to make any big, bad boo-boos with Fairlane, William E. Odom, the chairman of Ford Credit, said. But he said he expected Fairlane's returns to be more volatile than its parent's. Fairlane must be tough enough to compete with the dozens of scrappy, small companies that dominate subprime auto lending. But Fairlane will be walking a tightrope, particularly on the repossessions that come after people stop making car payments. If we pull the trigger too quickly on a repo, the customer is going to be upset with us and with the Ford Motor Company, Jerry Heimlicher, president of Fairlane, said. Mr. Heimlicher said that Fairlane had not decided what interest rates it would charge, but that he expected them to be in a range of 18 to 22 percent, and perhaps higher. While other subprime lenders charge rates of 18 to 40 percent, where state laws permit, Mr. Heimlicher said Fairlane's rates will never get into the range of 40 percent. He added, We are going to charge the fairest rates that we can charge, and still make a fair
No napalm in Iraq just clean old Mark 77 firebombs
Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm By James W. Crawley UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER August 5, 2003 American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs - similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War - in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad. Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs. Mark 77 Firebomb We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches, said Col. James Alles in a recent interview. He commanded Marine Air Group 11, based at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, during the war. Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video. They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die, he added. How many Iraqis died, the military couldn't say. No accurate count has been made of Iraqi war casualties. The bombing campaign helped clear the path for the Marines' race to Baghdad. During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago. Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms firebomb and napalm. If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use. What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were Mark 77 firebombs. They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function remarkably similar to napalm weapons. Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene. Hundreds of partially loaded Mark 77 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas, Marine Corps officials said. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war. You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm, said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va. Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets. Incendiaries create burns that are difficult to treat, said Robert Musil, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Washington group that opposes the use of weapons of mass destruction. Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as pretty outrageous. That's clearly Orwellian, he added. Developed during World War II and dropped on troops and Japanese cities, incendiary bombs have been used by American forces in nearly every conflict since. Their use became controversial during the Vietnam War when U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft dropped millions of pounds of napalm. Its effects were shown in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Vietnamese children running from their burned village. Before March, the last time U.S. forces had used napalm in combat was the Persian Gulf War, again by Marines. During a recent interview about the bombing campaign in Iraq, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Jim Amos confirmed aircraft dropped what he and other Marines continue to call napalm on Iraqi troops on several occasions. He commanded Marine jet and helicopter units involved in the Iraq war and leads the Miramar-based 3rd Marine Air Wing. Miramar pilots familiar with the bombing missions pointed to at least two locations where firebombs were dropped. Before the Marines crossed the Saddam Canal in central Iraq, jets dropped several firebombs on enemy positions near a bridge that would become the Marines' main crossing point on the road toward Numaniyah, a key town 40 miles from Baghdad. Next, the bombs were used against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, in early April. There were reports of another attack on the first day of the war. Two embedded journalists reported what they described as napalm being dropped on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill overlooking the Kuwait border. Reporters for CNN and the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald were told by unnamed Marine officers that aircraft dropped napalm on the Iraqi position, which was adjacent to one of the Marines' main invasion routes. Their reports were disputed by several Pentagon spokesmen who said no such bombs were used nor did the United States have any napalm weapons. The Pentagon destroyed its stockpile of napalm canisters, which had been stored near Camp Pendleton at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station, in April 2001. Yesterday military spokesmen described what they see as the distinction between the two types of incendiary bombs. They said mixture used in modern firebombs is a less harmful mixture than Vietnam War-era napalm. This
Michael Yates on Orthodox Economics vs Marxism, and more
Michael Yates was interviewed today on our program Living Room -- the archived audio can be found at www.livingroomradio.org -- on why Marxism has greater explanatory power than neoclassical economics (see below). And although he was on NPR's Talk of the Nation last week, we had booked him long before that! Other currently archived shows that might interest people are programs on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's organization of agricultural labor in Hawaii; Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling on Israel and Ariel Sharon; Bertolt Brecht; Marx and Freud; the Jewish and Palestinian editors of Between the Lines on what's wrong with the Left in Israel and Palestine; Robin DG Kelley on his book Freedom Dreams; myths about the decline of the family; limiting the work week; and much more. Wed 8.13.03| Orthodox Economics vs. Marxism Neoliberal prescriptions applied around the globe have left many progressives skeptical of orthodox economic theory. And yet what alternative theories exist? Labor economist Michael Yates argues that Marxism provides us with a means of understanding our world, with all its poverty and inequality, in a way that isn't abstracted from reality Sasha Lilley Producer, KPFA's Living Room 510/848-6767 x209 www.livingroomradio.org __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: Background of David Kay
It might depend on your definition of finds. I bet that he finds something awful once the election starts to heat up. On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 01:21:08PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If he verifiably finds or meaningfully helps find whatever it is that also verifiably is confirmed to be WMD (however defined), what difference will his backgound have made? And to whatever if any exent that he will not have done this, why is it [i]nteresting what his background may be (WHATEVER his background is)? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Lou -- I hesitate to write... but I must state... I know you are smart... But these ambush letters in which you ask a question and copy it to a list... is not right. Private is private. Ken. -- Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once. -- Cyril Connolly
Re: What is to be done in Argentina
my feeling is that for a book to have a big impact, it has to fall on a fertile field. That is, the societal situation -- including the balance of class forces -- has to be such that people are looking for the kinds of ideas that the book presents. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Jurriaan Bendien [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 10:05 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] What is to be done in Argentina do you think that writing a book can have that big an effect? Whether or not a book has a big effect, depends I think on numerous factors, and a publisher would affirm this: - its content and form - who wrote it - the life and doings of the author - the specific context it is written in, or written for - who it is written for - how the book is marketed - whether it is bought in order to read it, or for some other reason or fashion (a book might have an effect which has nothing to do with its real content, or it might sell lots of copies without its content influencing anybody very much). I have commented on the anthropology of the uses of books as cultural artifacts already once before on Marxmail, referring to postmodernist culture. If you consider Marx's book Capital, it had very little readership in the 19th century, and if it did, this owed more to Marx's political engagements or reputation probably. It became a hit in, of all places, Russia. Pamphlets or short books by Kautsky, Lafargue, Engels, Mehring, Bebel, Jaures, Lenin etc. were far more popular, and there were literally hundreds in that genre. Rosa Luxemburg, Isaac Deutscher and Ernest Mandel all remarked upon the fact, that even among selfstyled Marxists in the 1920s, Marx's magnum opus had mostly not been read beyond the first volume or extracts thereof (it wasn't exactly holiday reading of course), never mind digested and understood. Only after the founding of the Marx-Engels Institute and subsequently the transformation of Marxism into a state ideology, were large quantities of the book sold. To this day, communication theory remains a very much under-researched topic in Marxist circles. References: Ernest Mandel, The place of Marxism in history Paul Dukes, October and the World (According to the Guiness book of records, the bestselling book of all time is the Bible, the highest circulation magazine is the US Parade, and the honour of the highest circulation attained by a newspaper went to Komsomolskaya Pravda selling just under 22 million copies in 1990.)
An economic indicator
When I pick up my WSJ from the lawn in the morning I find it very thin. Those big biznesses aint spending on print advertising. Gene Coyle
contradictions of EU Federalism
Economic dispatch Staying afloat on state life raft The French government's aid to a beleaguered engineering company has Brussels concerned, says David Gow Monday August 11, 2003 The Guardian Alstom, the French engineering group desperately trying to stay afloat, highlights the dilemma facing European governments when companies employing thousands of people or occupying a strategic role threaten to go under. In France, where a centre-right government is working frantically to introduce market reforms, including large-scale privatisations to meet a budget deficit that will bust the Maastricht rules, the state stepped in. Thirty thousand jobs were enough to persuade it to take almost a one-third stake in Alstom, undermining its core economic philosophy. In Britain, where Alstom employs 10,000, the government stood off as the group announced plans to close its train-making facility at Washwood Heath, near Birmingham, with the loss of up to 1,400 jobs - and said that it would effectively halve its British workforce. An entire set of new trains for the London tube's Victoria line is, instead, to be made in France or Spain. This has provoked outrage among trade unions and, at the very least, deep-seated concern among British industrialists. The Trades Union Congress and Confederation of British Industry are joining forces to press the government to re-think its manufacturing strategy. For, not only has Alstom UK underlined again the ease with which multinational groups can dismiss staff in Britain, it has also shown that the government's liberal economic policy - enabling foreign groups to buy up large swathes of manufacturing and then closing them when the going gets rough - is inadequate to protect strategic industries. Yesterday, the European commission said that the government of Jean-Louis Raffarin had not yet formally notified it of its plans to save Alstom from the knacker's yard - and the company is already receiving state aid under the terms of the emergency refinancing package announced last week. Another case has highlighted the vagaries of state aid. Almost a year ago, the UK government was forced to step in and set the pace on a bail-out for British Energy, the privately-owned nuclear operator that provides more than a fifth of UK energy. We now know via leaked papers from Brussels that the scale of the state aid, much of it hidden from the public, is between £4bn and £5bn. The UK government at least met the EU's strict timetable for giving the aid and submitting the required restructuring plan to Brussels for approval by the competition authorities - before paying the aid. And now an 18-month investigation is under way. France, which faces the same kind of investigation, has already paid out some of the aid and has yet to bother to fully notify the EU. We do not know why the UK government effectively let Alstom take its own commercial decision to semi-quit Britain - and it remains highly contentious why it committed so much public money to keep British Energy going. In a preliminary analysis, Brussels already has ruled that key elements of the British state aid are unlawful - and France, which normally escapes scot-free, may yet face a similar challenge over Alstom. Both these cases have illustrated a sharp contradiction at the heart of the EU's single market: the disruption to normal liberal policies caused by the perceived need to protect national champions or strategic industries from competition. Theoretically, state aid should be gradually run down: in practice, it is applied when political imperatives dictate it should be. · David Gow is the Guardian's industrial editor Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
weapons inspector's triumph
The Sacramento Bee reports that our friend, David Kay, the weapons inspector has already discovered that Saddam had ordered a weapons attack on the US soldiers, but his orders were not carried out. Boy that's quick. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Drug user for California governor?
The guy in the race to get behind is Jack Grisham, formerly with the Dead Kennedys. Drugs, feh. Doesn't everybody in California do drugs? max Kill the Poor (DKs) Efficiency and progress is ours once more Now that we have the Neutron bomb It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done Away with excess enemy But no less value to property No sense in war but perfect sense at home. The sun beams down on a brand new day No more welfare tax to pay Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light Jobless millions whisked away At last we have more room to play All systems go to kill the poor tonight Gonna Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor.Tonight Behold the sparkle of champagne The crime rate's gone Feel free again O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White Jane Fonda on the screen today Convinced the liberals it's okay So let's get dressed and dance away the night While they. Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor . . . Tonight -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bill Lear Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 8:49 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Drug user for California governor? It's all fine with me if Californians want to elect Schwarzenegger, a drug user, to be their next governor. But he's never come clean about his drug habit, only saying on the tonight show with Johnny Carson that he experimented with illegal drugs. Do you think Fox News will be conducting its standard Witch Hunt to find out the details of Arnold's drug habit? Bill
Re: The Road to Serfdom
JKS writesI concede it, marketsa re BAD, or maybe good in theory but BAD in practice, whatever. Democracy will make everything great. Efficiency is a bourgeois notion. I never said that anything was BAD. In fact, that was the point of what I said, i.e., that I never said that markets were bad. And I NEVER said that democracy will make everything great. Rather, the only legitimate way to run a country -- or the world -- has to be based on the active democratic consent of the governed (and NOT the tacit consent so loved by Locke and his followers). Rule by elites or markets must be subordinate to democratic principles. If markets undermine democracy, that's a point against them. Further, I NEVER said that efficiency was a bourgeois notion. One thing I do know is that markets do not encourage efficiency, except following the narrowest definition fo efficiency, i.e., minimum _private_ cost, where private cost is cost to the decision-maker (the wealth controller). That definition of efficiency is part and parcel of bourgeois propaganda. A more sophisticated and more complete definition of efficiency has been used as part as critique of markets (cf. Albert Hahnel). Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 4:02 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Right here, right now, Mike Ballard. Look, are you trying to provoke me into participating in this discussion? You know that Micahel P is going to shut it down immediately. Besides, I am too tired and busy to do this now. I concede it, marketsa re BAD, or maybe good in theory but BAD in practice, whatever. Democracy will make everything great. Efficiency is a bourgeois notion. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Leave me alone. jks Rather, it was that real-world markets do not correspond to the textbook ideal of markets, which doesn't exist in reality, while real-world markets have a large number of imperfections that prevent them from serving socialist-democratic goals. It's the pro-market socialism side that puts forth that markets are good, or at least better than central planning, which is BAD. Frankly, I think that the whole plan vs. market discussion misses the point (i.e., the need for democracy as part of the abolition of class and to avoid the inequality-generating characteristics of both markets and central plans). Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
risk sharing, supply chains
Monday, August 11, 2003 Sharing the risk for 7E7 Partners and suppliers expected to bear more costs for Boeing By JAMES WALLACE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER AEROSPACE REPORTER Not willing to bet the company on the development of its next all-new jetliner as it has done with past planes such as the 747, The Boeing Co. is looking at a bold and different approach with the 7E7 that will spread the risk and development costs among partners and suppliers. With the program facing a critical review by a cost-conscious board of directors in a few months, Boeing appears to be closing in on key decisions about these risk-sharing partnerships. Partners and suppliers that shoulder the risks and help foot the bill could save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars in the overall design and development of the new plane. They would then have the opportunity to share in the long-term revenue potential of the plane. The idea is not new. Brazilian airplane maker Embraer is relying on 16 risk-sharing partners for its new 70- and 90-seat regional jet program. And risk-sharing partners and equipment suppliers will cover about $3.1 billion of the $10.7 billion development cost of the Airbus A380 superjumbo What Boeing envisions for the 7E7, however, would go far beyond what the industry has ever seen. Boeing has typically had their hands in all facets of design and development of new planes, said Peter Jacobs, an analyst with Ragen MacKenzie who once worked for Boeing. But times have changed and development techniques have evolved. It is now appropriate that they use partners to share their risks. Part of that is the increase in the level of outsourcing (work once done by Boeing that is now done by others). To be effective, you need to give those third parties more control of the tasks assigned to them so they can also reap the benefits while assuming part of the downside risk. It is not, however, without controversy within Boeing. Many engineers are concerned that Boeing may be giving away the design, development and manufacturing secrets and expertise that made it the world's commercial airplane leader. Although Boeing has not yet said what parts of the 7E7 its partners will make, Japanese industry is expected to manufacture the composite wings of the 7E7. Boeing has never allowed a supplier to take the lead in production of its high-value jetliner wings. Boeing is expected to announce later this year who will manufacture what parts of the 7E7. The company has only said the Japanese will get about 35 percent of the 7E7 airframe work. That's more than the 21 percent that Japanese companies now have on the 777 airframe. It's not yet known to what extent Boeing's partners and suppliers will buy -- or already have bought -- into the 7E7 program. We have no target set for that sort of thing, Mike Bair, vice president of the 7E7 program, said when asked how much of the 7E7 development costs would be shouldered by risk-sharing partners and suppliers. A couple things weigh on that, he said. What is the appetite for partners to be risk sharing? One of the things we have to balance is that if you give away risks you also give away the upside. We think this plane is going to be a runaway best seller. So part of our thought process is how much of that do we want to give away? Boeing will not reveal design and development costs of the 7E7, but analysts have estimated the total could range from $7 billion to $10 billion. It is believed that the development of Boeing's last all-new jetliner, the 777, cost the company about $7 billion. Boeing has never disclosed the amount. Bair said the design, development and production costs of the 7E7 will be significantly less than for the 777. Some industry analysts say they think risk-sharing partners and suppliers could pick up as much as 40 percent of the design and development costs. In exchange, they will get a bigger chunk of the work and more opportunity to make money if the program is successful. But they also assume more risk if the 7E7 is not a best seller. Although the three Japanese heavies -- Fuji, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi heavy industries -- are sometimes referred to as risk-sharing partners on the 777 program, it depends on how the term is defined. Airbus wanted these Japanese companies to take an equity stake in its A380. It didn't happen. Boeing made it clear to the Japanese companies that they could have only one partner -- Boeing. Japanese companies will build parts for the A380, but they are not risk-sharing partners. Some of the suppliers that Airbus is counting on for that $3.1 billion in A380 development costs are not full revenue-sharing partners. Rather, they are only assuming non-recurring tooling and infrastructure costs. In the past, Boeing has also had many suppliers who fund some portion of the non-recurring costs of their product and then hope to earn that investment back over the life of the contract. But Boeing has never had partners or suppliers that
Re: green pensions?
from BusinessWeek, Au. 18-25, 2003: The Greening of Pension Plans Cash-strapped U.S. steel (X ) may have hit on a solution for companies scrounging for the dough to pump up pension funds that were recently flattened by the stock market's slide. Just sign over some forests -- or other valuable assets. On Aug. 4, the steelmaker told analysts it was asking for government permission to transfer 170,000 acres of timberland, mostly in Alabama, to its pension funds. The company values the assets at $100 million. But the trees are young so the valuation will grow over time, Ian writes: So Paul Davidson is wrong and money does grow on trees? :-) Of course, Marx knew all about this, in a footnote in volume III of CAPITAL, chapter 22, note 7 (found at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch22.htm#n7): J G. Opdyke, for instance, in his Treatise on Political Economy (New York, 1851) makes a very unsuccessful attempt to explain the universality of a 5% rate of interest [the natural rate of interest -- JD] by eternal laws. Mr. Karl Arnd is still more naive It is stated there: In the natural course of goods production there is just one phenomenon, which, in the fully settled countries, seems in some measure to regulate the rate of interest; this is the proportion, in which the timber in European forests is augmented through their annual growth. This new growth occurs quite independently of their exchange-value, at the rate of 3 or 4 to 100. (How queer that trees should see to their new growth independently of their exchange-value!) According to this a drop in the rate of interest below its present level in the richest countries cannot be expected (p. 124). (He means, because the new growth of the trees is independent of their exchange-value, however much their exchange-value may depend on their new growth.) This deserves to be called the primordial forest rate of interest. Its discoverer makes a further laudable contribution in this work to our science as the philosopher of the dog tax. [Marx ironically calls K. Arnd the philosopher of the dog tax because in a special paragraph in his book (? 88, 5.420-24) he advocated that tax. -- Ed.] Jim Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Correction to correction
Jeez, I'm losing it. I wrote: See for instance her essay Stagnation and Progress of Marxism (1903), first published in 1927 by David Riazanov, the original director of the Marx-Engels Institute founded in 1920 in Moscow. Should be: See for instance her essay Stagnation and Progress of Marxism (1903), first published in English in 1927 by David Riazanov, the original director of the Marx-Engels Institute founded in 1920 in Moscow. J.
Re: Green
At 9:11 AM -0400 8/12/03, Kenneth Campbell wrote: the next unifying revolutionary force will be green, not red. I'd prefer Red, Black, and Green together (the colors of revolutionary socialism, anarchism, and environmentalism), also the colors of the pan-African Black Liberation Flag. At 9:11 AM -0400 8/12/03, Kenneth Campbell wrote: Everyone is immediately interested. There is no cause in which a numerical majority of the population -- not even a numerical majority of the proletariat -- will get immediately interested. A social movement always starts with a minority of organizers. Get one third of the population committed to the movement, and it will be literally revolutionary. -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
pensions, again
Deficit Strains Pension Agency Guaranteed Benefits in No Danger Now, but Long-Term Worry Grows By Albert B. Crenshaw Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 8, 2003; Page E01 Ten years ago, the government agency that insures traditional corporate pension plans racked up record deficits. Some policymakers feared that the agency would collapse, requiring a government bailout. Five years later, thanks to the bull stock market of the late 1990s, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. was on its way to record surpluses. Today, the agency is in deficit again, raising new concerns for its future. Workers don't have to be worried that we are going to run out of money here in the near term, said Steven A. Kandarian, the PBGC's executive director. But there are serious structural problems, in my judgment, in the system that need to be addressed soon. Many of the pension plans the agency insures are also in deficit. The combination has prompted a political debate on Capitol Hill. The immediate focus is on proposed changes in the rules for pension plan funding. The Treasury Department is calling for rules that would force many companies to put more money into their pension plans, while employers are seeking changes that would ease the funding requirements until markets return to normal. A broader issue is the future of the nation's retirement system, when only about half the workers in the country are covered by any kind of pension plan. Traditional pensions, also known as defined benefit plans because they promise a specific benefit in retirement, became very popular after World War II, especially in unionized industries, but have been in decline in recent years. Growing numbers of employers are using defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, instead. The federal pension agency covers about 33,000 pension plans for a total of 44 million workers. The number of plans is down from more than 100,000 in the mid-1980s. The number of 401(k) type retirement savings plans rose from just over 200,000 in 1975 to nearly 700,000 in 1998. A key difference is who bears the investment risk. In a traditional pension, the company promises to pay the benefit and the government stands behind that promise through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. In a 401(k), the worker and/or employer make specified contributions and the retirement benefit is whatever the invested money produces. The Bush administration favors a system in which workers invest and save for retirement on their own, encouraged by tax benefits. It has proposed a wide-scale system of tax-favored lifetime and retirement savings accounts that would cover almost everyone. They, and backers of defined contribution plans, say such plans better serve workers who change jobs often, as so many do. They also note, and employers agree, that all private pensions are voluntary, and forcing additional funding, or boosting regulation and federal insurance premium costs, will encourage employers to drop their traditional plans entirely or switch to 401(k)s. Some employers view the administration's proposals on funding as part of an agenda to further reduce the number of traditional pensions. One business lobbyist complained of opposition from a group of very conservative Republicans who seem to view such pensions as a form of corporate socialism they would like to see go away. The immediate concern for the federal pension agency is whether loosening the rules would allow pension plans to get further into the red so it would have more to make up if it should have to take them over. Last year, the agency estimated its exposure to claims regarded as reasonably possible was more than $30 billion. So far this year, it has added the pension plans of Bethlehem Steel ($3.9 billion in claims), National Steel ($1.3 billion), and the US Airways pilots ($600 million). The funding rules have been tightened over the years, most recently in 1994. But changes in the U.S. economy raised new worries. With traditional pensions concentrated in old unionized companies, many of which are under pressure from imports, the agency is concerned that more plans will be thrust upon it in the next few years. While the situation is not analogous to that of federal deposit insurance for savings and loans, there are some similarities. During the SL crisis, regulators repeatedly relaxed rules governing thrifts in hope that they could recover. When they didn't, the cost to the government was much higher than it would have been had the rules been tightened earlier. Among the lessons learned from the SL debacle is you don't want to mask the problem by defining away the problem, Kandarian said. You also don't want to get to the point where you're encouraging more risk to be taken within a system, as was the case with the SLs, where they were investing in riskier and riskier assets, tying to get themselves out of a hole. Employers don't foresee such problems. Just as in the case of their own plans, a
a turn in TV news coverage
On ABC world news tonight, the lead story was about how the arms dealer in the news yesterday was nothing of the sort. He was a failing textile merchant who was convinced by US agents to buy missiles that didn't exist and sell them to customers that did not exist. Reporter Brian Ross said that if it were not for the participation of the FBI, nothing would have happened. Then, it gave a brief coverage of a press conference of Stan Goff's Bring them Home group. Then, it moved on to a longer story about how US injuries were being under-reported in Iraq. Not only that, it described wounded men as bitter and demoralized and quoted a spouse of a GI who had his arm amputated after an RPG attack, who said that medical care was totally inadequate. I strongly suspect that the tide is turning against continued intervention in Iraq. Columbia professor Nick De Genova was right. It will take something like another Mogadishu to stop the USA. He was tactless but correct. Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Devine, James wrote: I'd say the Empire thesis has some life in it yet. in 25 words or less, how would you summarize the Empire thesis? What's relevant here is that imperial power is far more dispersed and polycentric than the old-fashioned Washington/Hollywood/Wall Street rules the world models would have it. A major part of the Bush agenda in Iraq was to show the world that the U.S. runs the show, and the messy outcome is showing that it doesn't. That was more like 50 words, but it's still pretty short. Doug
WTO farm deal, again
Farm deal puts WTO talks at risk Washington-Brussels pact angers developing world by backtracking on subsidies Charlotte Denny and Andrew Osborn in Brussels Thursday August 14, 2003 The Guardian A battle between the west and the developing world at next month's World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun was looming last night after India rejected a late deal on farm subsidies stitched together by Washington and Brussels. The world's two largest trading blocs claimed the deal would inject new life into deadlocked trade liberalisation talks but faced immediate objections from India, one of the WTO's most powerful developing country members. It is not feasible. It does not take into account our farmers' interests, said India's ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, KM Chandrasekhar. With less than a month to go before the trade ministers arrive in Mexico, agriculture remains one of the most contentious issues on the table. To break the logjam, the European Union and the United States are offering limited cuts to the most trade-distorting subsidies and some reductions in the high tariffs that hit developing country farm exports. But aid agencies said western countries were backtracking on the pledge they made when the new round of talks was launched, two years ago, that developing country interests would be the priority. One of the crucial promises western trade ministers made at the beginning of the new round in Doha - to abolish all export subsidies - would be watered down under the EU-US plan. Instead, Brussels and Washington are offering a more limited deal to phase out subsidies on a range of interests to developing countries. But, for a product to appear on the list, farm lobbies in Europe will have to give their approval, and sceptics argue the EU will never agree to put sugar on it - one of the most heavily subsidised products that is harming farmers in the developing world. This is world class comedy from the world's subsidy super-powers, said Kevin Watkins, Oxfam's head of research. They are completely reneging on the commitments they made two years ago. Mr Watkins said Europe and the US appeared to have agreed to turn a blind eye to each other's lavish spending on farm subsidies. Campaigners say this encourages mountains of surplus food, which is dumped in the developing world, bankrupting local farmers in the process. Washington enraged its trading partners last year when it increased spending on farm subsidies by $180bn over the following 10 years. Just months later, the EU came under equally heavy fire after France and Germany forced other member states to agree to keep spending on the common agricultural policy virtually unchanged until 2013. The draft deal allows the EU and the US to claim most of their spending is non-trade distorting and so not subject to demands for cuts. This deal is designed to accommodate the US farm bill and the non-reform of the common agricultural policy, Mr Watkins said. This is a reckless assault on the Doha development round. Officials in Brussels believe the deal is the best chance that talks will be wrapped up by the end of 2004, as planned. The three-page framework leaves out much of the detail - such as how swingeing any cuts in subsidies might be - and will still have to be negotiated. However, both sides insist privately that they have given real ground and signed up to concrete concessions - at least in principle.
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Geez, Jim... This should be some kind of Lefty U. screening test. Ken. -- The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. -- Friedrich Nietzsche Devine, James wrote: what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? self-importance? determinism? is that a neurosis? --ravi
Degrees of Separation Are Likely More Than 6, Especially in E-Mail Age
I always like to see the words urban myth used when talking about academics. So much of accepted stuff is legendary. The connectedness of the world via the Net was always lauded in academia and SEC prospective alike. While I think Stanley Milgram was brilliant, things ain't really that different after all. Even with email and ecommerce. Ken. -- The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. -- B.F. Skinner Degrees of Separation Are Likely More Than 6, Especially in E-Mail Age By KENNETH CHANG New York Times August 12, 2003 Socially, it may be a small world, but it's hard to get from here to there. In the current issue of the journal Science, researchers at Columbia University report the first large-scale experiment that supports the notion of six degrees of separation, that a short chain of acquaintances can be found between almost any two people in the world. But the same study finds that trying to contact a distant stranger via acquaintances is likely to fail. The six degrees of separation notion came from an experiment in 1967 by Dr. Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist, where a few hundred people tried to forward a letter to a particular person in Boston by sending it through people they knew personally. About a third of the letters reached their destination, after an average of six mailings. Dr. Milgram's experiment inspired a notion that the billions of people in the world, widely separated by geography and culture, actually form a close-knit network of social acquaintances, that you are a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of anyone anywhere. Until now, few scientists have tried to confirm Dr. Milgram's findings, which some scientists find unconvincing because of the small number of participants and other shortcomings of the experiment. The advent of the Internet enabled the researchers to more carefully explore the problem, which is part mathematical the structure of the network and part psychological what motivates people to participate or not, and how do people decide whom to send the message to? The answers are of interest both to computer scientists studying the ebb and flow of information on the Internet and sociologists studying the spread of gossip and cultural trends. In this global study, more than 60,000 people tried to get in touch with one of 18 people in 13 countries. The targets included a professor at Cornell University, a veterinarian in the Norwegian army and a police officer in Australia. Despite the ease of sending e-mail, the failure rate turned out much higher than what Dr. Milgram had found, possibly because many of the recipients ignored the messages as drips in a daily deluge of spam. Of the 24,613 e-mail chains that were started, a mere 384, or fewer than 2 percent, reached their targets. The successful chains arrived quickly, requiring only four steps to get there. The rest foundered when someone in the middle did not forward the e-mail. As in most social networks, it is not just a question of who knows whom, but who is willing to help. Just because President Bush is six degrees from me doesn't mean I'm going to be invited for dinner at the White House, said Dr. Duncan J. Watts, a professor of sociology at Columbia and senior author of the Science paper. You can ask a friend of a friend for a favor, but that's about it. Of the people who received an unsolicited e-mail message in the experiment, 37 percent sent it on, a relatively high participation rate. But with nearly two-thirds of the recipients not forwarding the message at all, the number of continuing e-mail chains dwindled quickly with each successive step. When the researchers asked people why they did not participate, less than 1 percent replied that they could not think of anyone to send the e-mail message to, suggesting that most simply did not want to be bothered. Thus, the researchers assumed that many more of the e-mail chains could have been completed. They calculated that half of them would have been finished in five steps or less if the first sender and the target lived in the same country, and seven steps otherwise. That sounds like we're pretty connected, Dr. Watts said. But the 98 percent attrition rate would suggest we're really not connected, Dr. Watts said. It all depends on what this attrition rate is. Dr. Mark Granovetter, a professor of sociology at Stanford who wrote an accompanying commentary in Science, said the similar findings of Dr. Watts and Dr. Milgram suggest the phenomenon of close links in social networks is pretty robust. Dr. Judith S. Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska who has described six degrees of separation as an academic equivalent of an urban myth, said the conclusion was not warranted. Instead of showing we live in a small world, it really shows the opposite, she said. Ninety-eight percent of people can't reach anybody. What do they conclude? `Hey, we're all
Re: The Road to Serfdom
No. It was not my intention to open a thread. On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 02:56:20AM +0200, Jurriaan Bendien wrote: Michael, if you want to open another thread, go ahead... my own philosophy is that the whole problem or art is how one can thread a thread into another thread that ties a solid knot into the thread one was operating on. I mean, you might like a thread for a while, but then you feel you need to get into another thread, but you still have the previous thread, and you have to thread that previous thread into another different thread, so that you can start another new thread yourself. In my own life, I have a bit of a threading problem at the moment, which I have to resolve somehow (difficult, since I don't have a lot of friends here who can help out with the warp and woof), but anyway I will try to stay out of the thread you appear not to like, even although you said previously You are welcome to do what you want. Regards Jurriaan - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Doug Henwood wrote: Devine, James wrote: I'd say the Empire thesis has some life in it yet. in 25 words or less, how would you summarize the Empire thesis? What's relevant here is that imperial power is far more dispersed and polycentric than the old-fashioned Washington/Hollywood/Wall Street rules the world models would have it. A major part of the Bush agenda in Iraq was to show the world that the U.S. runs the show, and the messy outcome is showing that it doesn't. Not really. Empires that are strong enough can take a lot of messy outcomes and go merrily on the way. There are various potential weaknesses in u.s. hegemony but only potential. That hegemony will survive, even flourish, until it is militarily/politically driven from the mid-east and far-east and until a large and militant mass movement at home demands that it _acccept_ that foreign defeat. The USSR used to look favorably on its negative balance of payments. The whole world was sending it wealth. Until there is serious political resistance (backed by reasonable military force) from other nations, the u.s. balance of payments 'problem' should be regarded not as a problem but merely as an index of the amount of tribute it is collecting from its empire (and even more from its junior partners in that empire -- Japan EU). Carrol That was more like 50 words, but it's still pretty short. Doug
Re: US war against Iraq post-mortem
General Winter won three in Russia. But I wonder if all three were not really won by Russian feudalism. Feudalist culture (declining or not) had the singular ability to absorb massive blows to the communications infrastructure without collapsing. (That's why they had fiefdoms... and created knights...) Ken. -- Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. -- R.W. Emerson
Re: The Road to Serfdom
My understanding is that the reason why Michael Perelman opposes pen-l discussions of market socialism is (1) we've had them before, mostly killing the subject, and (2) they degenerated into a tone similar to the one below. That said, I see nothing wrong with a pen-l discussion of market socialism. Maybe some new points will come up, though I doubt it. Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 6:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:42 AM
Re: The Road to Serfdom
- Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:00 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Actually, there are three things. Humor is also forbidden. === There is no 3rd thing! [Monty Python]
Re: Kautsky and imperialism
Karl Kautsky : Imperialism and the War Source: International Socialist Review, November 1914 Translated: William E. Bohn Transcribed: for marxists.org, March, 2002 If imperialism were necessary to the continued existence of the capitalist method of production-these arguments against it would make little impression on the capitalist mind. But they will make a deep impression if imperialism is only one among several means of achieving this object. We can say of imperialism what Marx said of capitalism: Monopoly creates competition and competition creates monopoly. The violent competition of great concerns led to the formation of trusts and the destruction of small concerns. Just so there may develop in the present war a combination of the stronger nations, which will put an end to the competitive building of armaments. From a purely economic point of view, therefore, it is not impossible that capitalism is now to enter upon a new phase, a phase marked by the transfer of trust methods to international politics, a sort of super-imperialism. The working class would be forced to fight this new form of capitalism as it did the old, but the danger from it would lie in a new direction. This analysis was completed before Austria surprised us with her ultimatum to Servia. The conflict between these two nations did not result from imperialistic tendencies alone. In eastern Europe nationalism still plays a role as a revolutionary force and the present conflict has a nationalist as well as an imperialist cause. Austria attempted to carry out an imperialist policy; she annexed Bosnia and appeared to be on the point of bringing Albania within her sphere of influence. Through these activities she roused the nationalist spirit of Servia, which felt itself threatened by Austria and thus became a danger to the Austrian government. The world-war was brought on, not because imperialism was necessary to Austria, but because Austria, on account of the peculiarity of its organization, endangered itself through following an imperialist policy. Such a policy can be successfully followed only by a state which is internally united and which has for its field of operations a region far behind it in civilization. But in this case a state divided against itself, a state half Slavic in population, attempted to carry out an imperialist policy at the expense of a Slavic neighbor state which is quite the equal in civilization of the adjacent parts of its imperialistic enemy. (End of quote)
Re: Isaac Deutscher's anecdote about the readership of Marx's Capital in the ...
Michael Perelman wrote: I missed this the first time, but this Hitler stuffdoes not belong here. I agree with you entirely. Melvin P., whoever that is, typically imputes to me statements and opinions which I do not hold, and then he tells me to shut up or prove something I am not even concerned with in the given context. In future, Melvin P. will get zero response from me on PEN-L, and an extremely nasty response off-list if he deliberately misrepresents my views in public again. Jurriaan
Re: Green
I wrote: But in this particular battle of definitions, I agree with all the Yoshies out there. They call anarchism what Mr. Marx would call democracy. I think it's useful to avoid mushing concepts together that way. I don't see that as mushing. I see it as evolving language. But we can call it Fred if it helps the discussion along. I would distinguish between democracy from below (which I see Yoshie and I as advocating) and democracy from above (parliamentarism). Then we are in agreement. Anarchism is a word that means little in a formal sense. :) god, I wish I were. Los Angeles and mediocre Catholic academia are not good places for activism. Nor do the responsibilities of fatherhood encourage activism (at least with my kid). Brother, I know. I meant no offense. In any event, I was talking about democracy as a basic political principle. We need such principles to guide our visions for what we want, along with our strategy and tactics. I don't see anarchists as providing those. As a theory of meaning, anarchists are weak. As a theory for action, they are exemplar. Long life to them, Ken.
Re: Martix for price discrimination
Right. What about airline tickets? There are ways around such laws. On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 02:58:50PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: Price discrimination is an antitrust violation -- the statute is the Robinson-Patman Act -- that can expose the defendant to treble damages in a civil action, and even if you win you have to pay me, or someone like me, really godawful amounts of money to get you off. (This is in fact largely what I do for a living.) So, the citizen plaintiff is not without recourse! jks --- michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anon. 2003. Is Price Discrimination The Next Big Trend In Commerce? San Jose Mercury News (7 August). The Internet also gives sellers more information about consumers than ever before -- how many products they buy and when, perhaps even how many each can afford. Eventually, two people might get the same pop-up ad for the same Zippo lighter, but one ad pitches them for $15 while another says they're $10. This vision of the Internet is the basis of a new analysis from Andrew Odlyzko, a former Bell Labs mathematician now at the University of Minnesota's Digital Technology Center. Odlyzko expects price discrimination to become more pervasive not only because so much personal data is being collected in online commerce but also as technology, in the name of protecting copyrights, limits what people can do with online content. a few years ago, Coca-Cola Co. experimented with a vending machine that automatically raised prices in hot weather. the economy could suffer if technology helps suppliers engage in price discrimination against producers of important goods and services. http://www.dtc.umn.edu/7/8odlyzko/doc/privacy.economics.pdf -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Family shot dead by panicking US troops
Family shot dead by panicking US troops Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a father and three children in their car The Independent, By Justin Huggler in Baghdad 10 August 2003 The abd al-Kerim family didn't have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop. We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us, the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. We were calling out to them 'Stop, stop, we are a family', but they kept on shooting. The story of how Adel abd al-Kerim and three of his children were killed emerged yesterday, exactly 100 days after President George Bush declared the war in Iraq was over. In Washington yesterday, Mr Bush declared in a radio address: Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people ... All Americans can be proud of what our military and provisional authorities have achieved in Iraq. But in this city Iraqi civilians still die needlessly almost every day at the hands of nervous, trigger-happy American soldiers. Doctors said the father and his two daughters would have survived if they had received treatment quicker. Instead, they were left to bleed to death because the Americans refused to allow anyone to take them to hospital. It happened at 9.30 at night, an hour after sunset, but long before the start of the curfew at 11pm. The Americans had set up roadblocks in the Tunisia quarter of Baghdad, where the abd al-Kerims live. The family pulled up to the roadblock sensibly, slowly and carefully, so as not to alarm the Americans. But then pandemonium broke out. American soldiers were shooting in every direction. They just turned on the abd al-Kerims' car and sprayed it with bullets. You can see the holes in the front passenger window and in the rear window. You can see the blood of the dead all over the grey, imitation velvet seat covers. A terrible misunderstanding took place. The Americans thought they were under attack from Iraqi resistance forces, according to several Iraqi witnesses. These are the circumstances of most killings of Iraqi civilians: a US patrol comes under rocket-propelled grenade attack and the soldiers panic and fire randomly. This time there was no attack. Another car, driven by an Iraqi youth, Sa'ad al-Azawi, drove too fast up to another checkpoint further up the street. Al-Azawi and his two passengers did not hear an order to stop, as their stereo was turned up too loud. The US soldiers, thinking they were under attack, panicked and opened fire. In the darkness of one of Baghdad's frequent power cuts, other US soldiers on the street heard gunfire and thought they were under attack. They, too, reacted by opening fire, though they could not see what was going on. Soldiers manning look-out posts on a nearby building joined in, firing down the street in the dark. It was then that the abd al-Kerims drew up to the checkpoint. The panicking US soldiers turned on their car and shot the family to pieces. It was anarchy, said Ali al-Issawi, who lives on the street and witnessed the whole thing. The Americans were firing at each other. There was plenty of evidence lying in the street under the hot sun. Empty bullet casings lay everywhere. Bullet holes marked the walls and gates of nearby houses. Several parked cars were riddled with bullet-holes, their windows smashed and tyres shredded. From the spread of the bullet holes all over the street, it was clear the soldiers had fired in every direction. Sa'ad al-Azawi, the driver of the other car, was killed. The Americans dragged his two passengers out and beat them, still thinking they were resistance, Mr al-Issawi said. Watching from his house nearby, Mr al-Issawi did not know that al-Azawi was dead, and when the car burst into flames, he tried to rush over to help the young man. The Americans did not let me, he said. A soldier came over and told me 'Inside'. He pushed me, even though my eight-year-old daughter was with me. They didn't let us get the young guy's body out of the car until he looked like he had been cooked. Further down the street, Anwar abd al-Kerim, who was heavily pregnant and had somehow managed to escape injury in the car as bullets rained all around her, got out of the car, holding her wounded eight-year-old daughter Mervet, and sought help from her brother, who lived down the road. She had to leave in the car her injured daughters, 16-year-old Ia and 13-year-old Haded, along with her husband, Adel, who was bleeding badly and groaning. Her 18-year-old son, Haider, was already dead. A bullet went between his eyes. I saw my sister running towards me with her daughter in her arms and blood pouring from her, said Ms abd al-Kerim's brother, Tha'er Jawad. She was
quotation du jour
He's a nice fellow. You can't find a better fraternity brother. -- Sen. Ernest Hollings, about Pres. Bush-2. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: The Road to Serfdom
- Original Message - From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] The real disagreement between Keynes and Hayek was identified by Keynes... (as being about) the question of knowing where to draw the line between intervention and non-intervention. Keynes's criticism of Hayek was that he accepted that the logical extreme of no intervention at all was not possible, but gave no guidance in The Road to Serfdom as to where the line should be drawn. This was the same criticism made later by the libertarians. But unlike them, Keynes thought that it was a matter of practical judgement, not principle. He acknowledged that Hayek would draw the line differently than he would, but criticized him for underestimating the practicability for a middle course. He also argued that since Hayek accepted that a line had to be drawn, it was disingenuous of him to imply that 'as soon as one moves an inch in the planned direction you are necessarily launched on the slippery path which will lead you in due course over the precipice... Keynes proposed his middle way as a means of harmonizing individualism and socialism'. - Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996, p. 159-160. == http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg07575.html
Forwarded from Nestor Gorojovsky (Argentina update)
INTRODUCTION I owe the list a long posting on Argentinean politics. Rodríguez Saá, the Peronist candidate my own group supported critically during the campaign, seems to have been shattered by electoral defeat, and my silence may be understood as an indication that I have been shattered with my candidate. Well, news on my shattering are greatly exaggerated (and if we are to listen to the hardest core of the imperialist press, even those on Rodríguez Saá's, but this is something I can´t discuss here now). As a result of my not being shattered at all, however, I am extremely busy, and IMHO a good report in English on the Argentinean situation in the last couple of months needs more than some minutes snatched off my employer´s time. Today, I will give my views on Lou Pr.´s posting on what should be done in Argentina. But in order to answer, I will have to begin with some comments on the general political situation. Since no serious comment of it can fail being traced back to the April 27th election and the performance of Rodríguez Saá and his MNyP during the election and, particularly, AFTER it, in part at least, I am beginning to give my own account of what has happened here during these two eventful months. THE GENERAL SETTING OF THE CURRENT SITUATION: A BOTCHED POST-ELECTORAL SITUATION FOR THE LEFT OF THE NATIONAL CAMP During the Presidential campaign, and against the forebodings of many among his followers, Rodríguez Saá expected to arrive to a runoff with Menem and overwhelm him. There were times when he would even dream with a result on the first round that made the runoff unnecessary. He didn´t accept that there would exist a possibility not to be (at the very least) second after Menem, and April 27th, which left him out of the Great Game, took him completely unawares. He felt it had been a terrible defeat, a veredict by the Argentinean people that they do not want our program now, and decided that for the time being, this is Kirchner time. He made many other mistakes, all of which in the end turned what was no defeat at all but a grand beginning into an actual -post-electoral- defeat. The MNyP, in spite of many organizative and political shortcomings, in spite of the venomous attitude of the media, in spite of the relative desire for tranquility that had gained the spirit of the Argentinean masses once the worst exponents of neo-liberalism were ejected, managed to impose the agenda of the electoral debate, had been unable to beat the immense forces conjured up against it. But it had obtained a 15% of the vote for a hard, national-revolutionary set of immediate measures (not a general programme, but a hundred or so of concrete measures, sometimes even stating the date when they would be taken) in a very complex election where the strongly government-backed winner obtained 22%. It would moreover be added that Kirchner got to the Presidency thanks to Rodríguez Saá. Without him, Duhalde would have chosen another, more moderate, candidate. In order to fight off the man of the default (more on this latter on), he had to strike an agreement with the most progressive of the mainstream Peronist candidates, a candidate who would have never got to Presidency without the MNyP on the streets. Nothing of the above was enough, however, for Rodríguez Saá, and during the first two months after the elections he heaped mistake. That is why I stated above that he had not suffered was an _electoral_ defeat, but a _post-electoral_ (to a great deal self-inflicted) one. (Some day I hope I have the time to go on deeper on this issue, but today cannot do so: those who can read Spanish may have interesting insights through the debates collected on the Reconquista Popular archives). What really matters here is that the net result of Rodríguez Saá's self-injuring blunders was that no organized left-wing opposition to Kirchner has appeared _on the national camp_, and Kirchner´s first interesting signals won the attention of most of the anti-neoliberal voters in Argentina. This is the general setting of my reply to Lou´s observation on what is to be done. THE WHAT IS TO BE DONE ISSUE: CAN THE LEFT OF THE ANTI-NATIONAL CAMP FARE BETTER? Lou Proyect writes: The more I read about Argentina, the more it appears that the political crisis on the left stems from the failure of the Marxist groups to rid themselves of sectarian and dogmatic habits. The challenge to the Marxist left seems to come primarily from autonomist and libertarian socialist figures like Adamovsky who fetishize localized forms of resistance. If you stop and think about it, the autonomist left has the same kind of micropolitical orientation that the Russian economist current had in the early 1900s. All Argentina needs is a few latter-day Lenins who can write a What is to be Done updated for the current struggle. IMHO, this is partly accurate partly wrong. First, the _accurate_ side. The failure of
Microsoft loses one
[ LA Times] Microsoft Loses UC Patent Case A jury sets damages of $520.6 million, the largest award ever against the company. By Joseph Menn Times Staff Writer August 12, 2003 A federal jury found Monday that Microsoft Corp.'s Web browser infringed a University of California patent and directed the company to pay $520.6 million in damages, the biggest award ever against the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. The jury, which deliberated for two days after a four-week trial, decided that Microsoft should pay the University of California and Eolas Technologies Inc., a tiny Chicago company that licenses the technology from the university. The 12-member jury determined the damage award by concluding that Microsoft owed $1.47 for each copy of the Windows operating system that included Internet Explorer during a nearly three-year period. Should the verdict stand, the university system could gain 10% of the award, or about $52 million, under the terms of its licensing contract, a person familiar with the case said. The university system could use the money: The recently approved state budget for the 2003-04 fiscal year cut $410 million in UC programs. The verdict underscores both the uncertainty of patent issues in the world of high technology and the variety of legal challenges facing Microsoft. The dominant maker of basic software for personal computers has settled cases with federal antitrust officials and classes of consumers but still is battling a European Union probe, lawsuits by competitors including Sun Microsystems Inc. and claims by 20 patent holders. In the last three years, a dozen patent cases against Microsoft have been dismissed before reaching a jury. Many successful companies are faced with this type of litigation. We will continue to vigorously defend our claims, said Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler. The technology in question allows Web browsers to alter the display of Internet pages, by rotating a picture, for example. It was invented by, among others, Eolas President Michael D. Doyle when he was a professor at UC San Francisco. The university licensed the patent to Eolas in 1994. No major maker of browsers has permission to use the technology, said Eolas attorney Jan Conlin. The verdict marks Microsoft's first significant loss in a patent case since 1994, when Stac Electronics in Carlsbad won $120 million. That case was appealed and then settled for about $80 million. Though it would take Microsoft less than three weeks to earn enough money to pay the new judgment, the company said it would appeal. Before that happens, the judge in the case may hear arguments about whether more recent sales of Windows should be included in the royalty calculations and whether, as Microsoft attorneys claim, Doyle misled patent officials in 1998 about the possibility that someone else developed similar capabilities before he did. We are confident the facts will support our position, Desler said. It's important to note that the court has already rejected claims that there was any willful infringement. We believe the evidence will ultimately show that there was no infringement of any kind. Microsoft investors shrugged off the news, leaving the company's shares little changed in late trading from their pre-verdict close of $25.61, up 3 cents, on Nasdaq. Everybody knows that there are legal risks at Microsoft, said U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Eugene Munster. Get comfortable with it if you want to own the stock. Munster predicted that Microsoft would drag the case out in appeals, then settle. He said Internet Explorer could use different techniques to achieve the same effect as achieved by the technology at issue, so that consumers won't perceive any changes if Microsoft is forced to stop using the technology. In making their case, Eolas attorneys tried to show that Microsoft had a small share of the browser market when it began using the disputed technology in November 1998. By September 2001, the end of the period in which the jury found infringement, Microsoft had vanquished browser pioneer Netscape Communications Corp. by including Internet Explorer with Windows. The bundling of Explorer with Windows was a key part of the federal and state antitrust suits against Microsoft and of Netscape's private suit, which was settled this year for $750 million. In their pursuit of a claimed $1.2 billion in damages, Eolas' lawyers sought to piggyback on the antitrust claims. Eolas is a technology development firm that aims to license its patents. Its biggest financial success may have been licensing the stylized E in its logo to IBM Corp., which uses a version for its ebusiness marketing campaign. And Eolas' trademark claims include one for the phrase invented here, according to its Web site. Should Eolas collect from Microsoft, attorney Conlin said, it would expand its operations. It has always been Eolas' intent to have an ongoing business, she said.
Re: question on finance capital
I got it from reading Ford's financial statements, maybe 2-3-4 years ago. I think it came out in an exchange on PEN-L with Patrick Bond. Doug michael wrote: Can you point me to the source, please. I remember you mentioning this before. Was it in LBO? Doug Henwood wrote: michael wrote: Business Week describes GM becoming almost entirely dependent on its finance unit. I recall seeing something similar about Ford. A few years ago, Ford was making money on its finance division and breaking even on cars. But the finance division was almost exclusively devoted to financing the purchase of Ford vehicles. So, they were capturing a business formerly engaged in by bankers, and their finance business was dependent on what they manufactured (which undermines the usual postindustrial story). Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
AG and the bond market
All talk and no action - how the US bond market rodeo broke away from the Fed Charlotte Denny Monday August 11, 2003 The Guardian Faced with the harsh reality of cutting the deficit to please the markets, one aide in the Clinton White House is reported to have said that if he could be reborn, he'd come back as the bond market. Then I could intimidate everybody. After the turmoil in the bond markets over the past two weeks, Alan Greenspan must be wondering if he should chuck in his day job and get a job in the bond markets as well. The market's two-decade long bull run has finally ended, and with it Mr Greenspan's carefully crafted strategy of keeping long-term interest rates on government debt (which move in the opposite direction to prices) low to prop up the economy. In the early spring when the build up to war had driven the world's largest economy into what Mr Greenspan called a soft spot, the Fed embarked upon a deliberate strategy of talking down long-term borrowing costs. Members of the Fed's open markets committee (FOMC) talked about radical solutions like pumping money directly into the economy by buying bonds. After its May meeting, the Fed made history when it noted that one of the risks was that inflation could go too low. Even though the FOMC left borrowing costs unchanged, the markets decided that with central bankers openly talking about deflation, there was no risk that their returns would be eroded by rising prices. They snapped up more long-term debt, pushing down yields even further, giving the economy a boost without the Fed even having to cut short term borrowing costs. By mid-June, yields on 10-year treasury bills had reached 3.1%, their lowest since the late 50s. Encouraged by bargain deals, US households rushed to remortgage their homes. As in Britain, consumers took the opportunity to extract some of the equity out of their homes, switching to larger but cheaper mortgages, and then spent the proceeds - sometimes paying off more expensive credit card debt, but more often in America's malls and car showrooms, keeping the economy ticking over at a time when business was still too nervous to start investing. But the party ended abruptly in late June when the Fed surprised the mar kets with a smaller than expected borrowing cut - just 25 basis points - and played down the chances that it might have to resort to unorthodox techniques such as buying long-term bonds to keep the economy afloat. Long-term yields have risen by 1% since mid-June, back to more normal levels, but pushing the rate on a 15-year mortgage up from about 4.5% to more than 6%. Unsurprisingly, remortgaging has collapsed, and with it, some worry, the fledgling US recovery. Stephen Lewis, at Monument Securi ties in London, says there was a fatal flaw at the heart of the Fed's policy. As householders remortgaged, the duration of their loans dropped, forcing the lenders to buy up more long-dated debt to rebalance their portfolios, thus exacerbating the bond bubble. The reverse process occurred when yields started rising, and households cut back on remortgaging. To prevent their portfolios lengthening, players in the mortgage backed market sold bonds, reinforcing the fall in prices and rise in yields. The mortgage-backed market is now one and half times the size of the treasuries market, raising questions about whether risks can be safely laid off on to government debt. Mr Lewis doubts they can. The Fed, he says, has created a self-destruct mechanism at the heart of the US financial system. With cruel precision, such a mechanism could be triggered only when investors begin to feel better about economic prospects. The sharp switch in investors' expectations may also prompt reconsideration about whether the Fed should follow other central banks in adopting an inflation target. Although on paper the Fed is the least transparent of the world's large central banks, in practice it has been the easiest one for markets to predict. Research by Joachim Fels at Morgan Stanley shows that economists polled ahead of central bank meetings have a much better track record at predicting the FOMC than either the European Central Bank governing board, or the Bank of England's monetary policy committee. The reason is that the Fed usually signals its moves in advance through speeches by FOMC members. This time, however, the Fed has seriously wrongfooted the markets to the point where some are wondering what its strategy really is. In the spring it seemed the idea was to keep short-term interest rates low as an insurance against the risk of outright falls in prices, while holding up the possibility that if a Japanese-style deflationary spiral threatened, the Fed would use tactics like buying up bonds to expand the money supply. Since June, however, the markets have simply been confused. The statement following this week's Fed meeting will be all the more closely scrutinised as a result. The bond market appears to have decided that the
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Michael Perelman wrote: Actually, there are three things. Humor is also forbidden. I didn't know that. I suspected it was more a case of self-censorship :) Joanna
Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
I am commenting on selected passages from an article that can be read in its entirety at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1016107,00.html Reformist social democracy is no longer on the agenda The anti-globalisation movement is the basis of a left alternative Fausto Bertinotti The anti-globalisation movement is the first movement that represents a break with the 20th century and its truths and myths. At present it is the main source of politics for an alternative to the global right. When, on February 15, 100 million people took to the streets, the New York Times referred to it as a second world power, a power that in the name of peace opposed those who wanted war. But the February 15th demonstrations were mounted despite the grumbling of Michael Hardt that it was diverting attention from the real movement, namely anti-globalization. It has countered the crisis of democracy with embryonic new democratic institutions. It has challenged the division of political labour among trade unions, parties and cooperatives and shifted the focus of political debate from institutions to social relations, bringing feelings and everyday life back into the realm of politics. It has also tackled the theme of power, in terms not of achieving and keeping it, but of transforming, dissolving and reconstructing power through self-government. And it has challenged the model of a party leading the movement, proposing instead the notion of networks and links among groups, associations, parties and newspapers. transforming, dissolving and reconstructing power through self-government? Does anybody know what he is saying? I certainly don't. An alternative European left can find its strategy only within the anti-globalisation movement. The key issue both for the movement and for us is the clash between peace and war. The movement has identified the global dimension of war and the fact that it is inbuilt in a system which cannot do without it. It was this conviction that turned the anti-globalisation movement into the backbone of the peace movement. Really? As far as I can tell, the backbone of the peace movement in the USA is the much-pilloried ANSWER coalition. Meanwhile, the UPJ, which has much more of a quotient of antiglobalization outfits like Global Exchange in its ranks, is working overtime to figure out how to involve the movement in stopping Bush. For veterans of the American left, especially those familiar with the CPUSA, this can mean only one thing and it ain't good. And you also have the hard-core anti-globalization black block types, like Chuck Zero, who despise UPJ and ANSWER equally. The animosity seems driven by the same considerations that perturb Michael Hardt. With imperialism going at full blast, they wish that the mass movement would return to breaking Starbucks windows--as if that will get US troops out of Iraq or prevent nuclear war with North Korea. In Italy, the Refounded Communists, together with others, tried to do this through the referendum on extending employment protection to all workers. We were defeated, but the referendum took its inspiration from the movement, the idea of the struggle for equal rights against job insecurity. This battle, however, has not taken on a European dimension. The European trade unions decided not to call a general strike against the war, which would have also been a boost to the fight against neo-liberalism. Now there is the chance of re-opening a Europe-wide battle over the welfare state. In the face of converging government policies, only an organisation fighting at European level can make its case. I have no idea why this should be a precondition. When the multinationals in combination with the comprador bourgeoisie in Bolivia tried to privatize water, the indigenous people fought like hell to beat back this attack and they were successful. The way to move forward in politics is militancy, not necessarily creating continent-wide formations. It seems to me that the main problem in Europe is not related to geography but to opportunism, a long-time problem for the left that predates Naomi Klein. When the French left backed Chirac, it ceded ground to the class enemy. Moves such as this have to be challenged in order for us to go on the offensive. Unless they move in this direction, the European anti-capitalist leftwing parties risk disappearing in terms of political representation; and within the anti-globalisation movement there could develop a temptation to flee from politics. The forces of the European left cannot depend on social democracy. They must break away with a radical, united initiative. Not only the prospects of the left and the anti-globalisation movement, but even the existence of Europe as an autonomous entity, is at stake. Hate to sound old-fashioned, but what about socialism? * Fausto Bertinotti is national secretary of Italy's Refounded Communist party (Rifondazione Comunista) and a member of the Italian and European parliaments.
Re: Green
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: the one thing that all anarchists seem to agree with is that centralized government (the state) should be abolished -- as soon as possible. The State is the governmental expression of class rule. I've never met anyone--anarchists included--who argued that that State could be abolished by decree. All socialists worth their salt (and most anarchists worth their salt are socialists e.g. Chomsky) realize that the State cannot be replaced with self-government until classes have ceased to exist. Classes cannot die out until the social revolution is made and that can't be done without its being an act of the class workers themselves. Wobbly greetings, Mike B) But without a centralized govt, how do people deal with issues that affect us all, e.g., global warming? how do we prevent the neighboring anarchist collective from building nukes? I prefer Marx, whose vision of the withering away of the state (as I understand it) refers to the _subodination_ of the state to the people, so that the _distinction_ between the state and society withers away. That's a long-term goal, one that can't be achieved if one abolishes the state as soon as possible. Abolition of the state NOW simply unleashes the forces of Hobbesian havoc (anarchy in the worst sense of the word) that are present in actually-existing capitalist society. Instead, the state needs to be controlled. Some anarchists would say that delaying the withering away was opportunist or something, allowing a new class of state managers to arise. But abolishing the state right away allows rule by those with the most AK-47s. of course, it ain't bloody likely that the state will be abolished soon -- unless the system melts down. I doubt that an environmental crisis would produce a very attractive anarchy. The IWW (OBU) was great, as a first step in the development of a working-class movement. Politics are needed too. Jim -Original Message- From: Yoshie Furuhashi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tue 8/12/2003 7:31 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Green is there a color which represents democracy? I'd prefer democracy to anarchism (which precludes democracy). Jim Anarchy, to me, means democracy, i.e., collective self-government, the very ideal to which Lenin spoke in _The State and Revolution. Not all those who call themselves anarchists agree with me on this interpretation, though. :- I also like the idea of One Big Union. Would you have freedom from wage slavery? Then come join the Grand Industrial Band! Would you from mis'ry and hunger be free? Come on, do your share, lend a hand! Listen to Utah Phillips sing the Joe Hill song There Is a Power in a Union at http://video.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/joehill/UPThereIsPowerInAUnion.rm?altplay=UPThereIsPowerInAUnion.rm. I like the Black Cat log of the Industrial Workers of the World, too (I have a T-shirt with the logo on it), except that cats rarely go for collective actions. :-0 -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/ = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
I'd say the Empire thesis has some life in it yet. in 25 words or less, how would you summarize the Empire thesis? Jim
US, Eu cut farm deal
EU and US seal farm trade deal Mark Tran Wednesday August 13, 2003 The Guardian The EU and the US today agreed on a joint plan for agricultural trade reform designed to boost the chances of success at global trade talks next month. The plan, to be put to the full World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership later today, came as negotiators tried to make headway before the crucial ministerial meeting next month in Mexico. The proposal, which still needs approval from EU member states, was concluded late yesterday negotiators after several weeks of intensive talks. There is an agreement in principle, said the EU ambassador to the WTO, Carlo Trojan. Few details of the accord were immediately available, but diplomats said it covered the three key areas of agricultural trade - domestic support, export subsidies and market access. The two main sticking points had been export subsidies and market access. The EU felt it was unjustly targeted for providing export refunds to its farmers while US export credits were off the negotiating table. On market access, the EU wanted smaller cuts on import tariffs than the US. Today's deal between the world's two largest providers of farm subsidies followed what the EU described as landmark reform of its common agricultural policy (CAP) in June. In that package, the EU agreed to break the link between subsidies and farm output and so reduce the surplus produce Europe dumps in poor countries, where the practice bankrupts local farmers. Trade ministers from the developing world have already dismissed the CAP reform as a fudge because it leaves the worst excesses of the Û40bn (£28bn) programme untouched. Nevertheless, it paved the way for today's deal. Agriculture is one of the stickiest issues for the WTO, with the EU and a handful of other countries with strong agricultural lobbies pitted against the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, as well as developing countries. The latter argue that farm subsidies paid by rich states - running to over $300bn (£186.5bn) a year - prevent them from competing on equal terms in international markets. Despite giving heavy financial support to its own farmers, the US had allied itself with major agricultural exporters such as Argentina, Brazil and other members of the Cairns group in calling for the sharp cuts in tariffs and an end to export subsidies. The EU and individual WTO members such as Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Norway have demanded a more gradual approach. An EU official admitted that today's compromise might not satisfy the Cairns group. ActionAid, an international development agency, argues that rich countries must agree to slash their subsidies, while allowing poor countries flexibility to develop policies to support small-scale farmers. With only weeks to go before the Cancun meeting, WTO negotiators face an enormous task in bridging differences on thorny issues such as agriculture, access to cheap medicines and investment. WTO members were supposed to have reached a common position on agriculture back in March, and the overall talks that began nearly two years ago in Doha are supposed to be wrapped up by the end of 2004.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I don't believe I've engaged in this argument over market socialism since the days of the first Spoons marxism list -- and I'm not going to now. But I have a sort of external observation. However socialism arrives, if it ever does, not much will change overnight. So early socialism will be, tautologically, a market socialism in process. I presume that jumbled market socialism will exist in a context of high political participation (after all, any socialist regime will arise, peacefully or violently, out of a mass movement and the revolutionizing practice which such a mass movement implies) -- and _that_ is the context in which it will be possible and necessary to debate the ways in which the market will be modified, transformed, eliminated, etc. I think it is the nature of the issue that debates on it at present will just go round and round, see Omar the Tentmaker. Carrol
Re: how to lead the revolution
Michael Perelman wrote: I have a sense that we tend to discuss radical economic strategy for other countries -- and probably for our own -- with a tone that sounds like books that tell people how to raise children or win the affection of others. Aren't radical economists supposed to have the expertise to do that? People look to us, man. I don't have a lot of answers, and it often embarrasses me. We can affect a certain modesty - it's not for us to prescribe, we should listen to the people - and while there's a certain truth to that, it's also a lot of buck-passing. Doug
Re: Green
is there a color which represents democracy? I'd prefer democracy to anarchism (which precludes democracy). Jim Anarchy, to me, means democracy, i.e., collective self-government, the very ideal to which Lenin spoke in _The State and Revolution. Not all those who call themselves anarchists agree with me on this interpretation, though. :- I also like the idea of One Big Union. Would you have freedom from wage slavery? Then come join the Grand Industrial Band! Would you from mis'ry and hunger be free? Come on, do your share, lend a hand! Listen to Utah Phillips sing the Joe Hill song There Is a Power in a Union at http://video.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/joehill/UPThereIsPowerInAUnion.rm?altplay=UPThereIsPowerInAUnion.rm. I like the Black Cat log of the Industrial Workers of the World, too (I have a T-shirt with the logo on it), except that cats rarely go for collective actions. :-0 -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Isaac Deutscher's anecdote about the readership of Marx's Capital in the glory days of Classical marxism
'Das Kapital' sei eine zu harte Nuss, meinte Ignacy Daszynski, einer der bekanntesten sozialistischen 'Volkstribune' um die Jahrhundertwende, er habe es deshalb nicht gelesen. Aber Karl Kautsky habe es gelesen und vom ersten Band eine populäre Zusammenfassung geschrieben. Diese habe er zwar ebenfalls nicht rezipiert, aber Kelles-Krausz, der Partei-Theoretiker, habe Kautskys Buch gelesen und es zusammengefasst. Kelles-Krausz Schrift habe er zwar auch nicht gelesen, aber der Finanzexperte der Partei, Hermann Diamand, habe sie gelesen und ihm, Daszynski, alles darüber erzählt. Source: http://www.rote-ruhr-uni.org/seminare/lesekreis.shtml (Capital is a tough nut to crack, opined Ignacy Daszynski, one of the most wellknown socialist people's tribunes around the turn of the 20th century, but anyhow he had not read it. But, he said, Karl Kautsky had read it, and written a popular summary of the first volume. He hadn't read this either, but Kelles-Krausz, the party theoretician, had read Kautsky's pamphlet and summarised it. He also had not read Kelles-Krausz's text, but the financial expert of the party, Hermann Diamand, had read it and had told him, i.e. Daszynski, everything about it). I think Deutscher's essay on Das Kapital appeared in English in his collection of essays Marxism in our time. Jurriaan
immunity for oil companies in Iraq
From MS SLATE's on-line summary of major US newspapers today: The LA [TIMES] goes inside with word of concerns over an executive order signed by President Bush two months ago that may give U.S. oil companies blanket immunity from lawsuits and criminal prosecution over the sale of Iraqi oil. As written, the executive order cancels the rule of law for oil companies, a lawyer for the non-profit Government Accountability Project says. According to the group, the measure cancels out liability--even if it\'s proved that the companies committed human rights violations or caused environmental damage in the course of their Iraqi-related business. The White House, however, says the immunity won\'t be that broad--and instead protects the Iraqi people\'s money since profits from the sales will go into rebuilding the country. Jim
