Women, Hispanics put new face on U.S. farming

[Diane Monaco]

Is this progress or the “feminization” and “ethnicization” of farming as
farm prices stagnate and costs rise for equipment, supplies, and land,
requiring increases in farming productivity just to survive?  An
important method for increasing productivity in farming is, of course, to
use “family labor.”

Diane


Women, Hispanics put new face on U.S.
farming 
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
7/19/2004 
Charts also: 
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-07-18-cover-farmers_x.htm


PEWAMO, Mich.  When strangers turn from a two-lane
country road onto the gravel drive of the Grazeway Dairy, they see a
young woman tending the cows.

They invariably ask where the boss is. "People come here and think
I'm the hired help," Terri Hawbaker says.

They'd better rethink. Hawbaker is 24, a woman, a new mom  and the
owner of a 120-acre farm and 65 dairy cows in this flat, rural stretch of
mid-Michigan. 

About 100 miles away, near Lake Michigan, the produce market on state
highway M-140 in Covert still carries the name of a prominent local
family. But the store and 60 acres of rich farmland that produce the
luscious apples, strawberries, blueberries and tomatoes on display have a
different owner: Armando Arellano, an immigrant from Mexico. 

Mirroring the demographic transformation of the USA, American farming is
becoming more diverse. There is a marked increase in the number of women
and Hispanics who are "principal operators"  those who run
the farm.

Women and Hispanics have long played a significant role in farming, but
often in supporting jobs from picking crops and milking cows to
bookkeeping. But an aging population, the surge in Hispanics in every
corner of the country and Americans' growing fascination with organic
foods are propelling more women and Hispanics into owning and managing
farms.

"Agriculture in this country is changing in ways we don't even
know," says Ron Wimberley, an agricultural demographer at North
Carolina State University and former president of the Rural Sociological
Society.

The latest Census of Agriculture by the U.S. government shows that
women's presence as principal farm operators is growing in 43 states.
More Hispanics are running farms in all 50 states, planting roots in
regions where their role in agriculture had been limited largely to
migrant labor.
To those who cherish Thomas Jefferson's idea that farmers are the
cornerstone of democracy, the growth is worth celebrating.

"It's very encouraging that there are people who want to farm,"
says Ralph Grossi, president of the American Farmland Trust, a non-profit
group that works to protect farmland. "We're seeing a
reconnect."

American farming is still dominated by non-Hispanic white men. About 27%
of the nation's 3 million farmers are women who run farms alone or who
work with their husbands or others. About 2% are Hispanic. Black farmers,
whose numbers have dwindled steadily throughout much of the past century,
make up only 1.2%.

As giant agribusinesses extend their hold on food production, the amount
of farmland and the number of farms are declining.

But there's an uptick in small farms that have 10 to 49 acres and annual
sales of less than $10,000. Organic farms are contributing to some of
that increase. Almost 12,000 farmers reported selling some organic foods
for a total of $393 million in sales in 2002.

That's a tiny portion of the $200 billion U.S. agricultural market, but
the numbers and the growing popularity of farmers' markets and organic
grocery stores show that health-conscious Americans are clamoring for
locally and organically grown produce. It's a market that some female and
Hispanic farmers are starting to serve.

"The urban population has a favorable attitude of farmers,
particularly as they think about where their food comes from,"
Wimberley says. "People are very safety-conscious, what with this
low-carb, high-carb business."

The trend may change the politics of agriculture. Almost 70% of
government subsidies now go to 10% of farmers, Grossi says. When debate
on a new farm bill starts next year, he expects small farmers to be more
vocal. "There certainly will be a reason to question why so much
public support goes to so few farmers," he says.

'A new generation' 

Farm groups are reaching out to the new arrivals.
"There is a new generation coming into agriculture," says Sandy
Penn, outreach coordinator with the Natural Resources Conservation
Service in Michigan. "They need to understand how to get financing,
how you do things. ... A lot of programs have to be put on in
Spanish."

Among the reasons for the increase in female and Hispanic farmers:

•Aging. When male farmers die, their widows often take over. When
farmers retire, they sometimes offer loyal employees a chance to buy some
land, especially if no one in the family wants to keep the farm going.
Many of those longtime workers are Hispanic.

"They came in as farm workers and have gotten to the point where
some of them want to enter as operators," says C

unions

[Devine, James]

[was: RE: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece]
 
I don't see why pushing to make labor unions more democratic and to make the 
established leadership more responsible represents a "split in the working class." A 
union would be more effective if it were more democratic rather than having decisions 
made on high by plump cats. 
 
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine 
 
sartesian wrote:
>an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then
>independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again,
>constructed against the established leadership.

Ah yes. More splits in the working class.

Joel Wendland

Re: oops, again

[Devine, James]

Doug writes:
>It's been a while, but don't I remember Keynes using the "wage unit"
as the numeraire in cost comparisons? I'm writing something on oil
right now, and it seems to make more sense to compare prices over
time using the average hourly wage rather than the CPI, given all the
guesswork involved in producing a price index.<
 
in the GT, Keynes proposed measuring total spending in wage units by deflating the 
nominal amount by the wage: (total nominal spending)/(average wage). He did this 
because it would be proportional to total employment. It's akin to Adam Smith's "labor 
commanded theory of value," in which the "value" of a commodity is how much labor it 
can buy. (He also has a labor embodied theory of value, which produces different 
results. The two are akin to exchange-value and value in Marx.) 
 
jim devine

LAT: Dealing with Killing

[Michael Pollak]

[This is much more interesting than the usual discussion.  Several fairly 
intelligent things get said and the video game automaton explanation 
barely rates a mention. But it's the the comparative stats between WWII 
and Vietnam which occur halfway through that really grabbed my attention. 
They seem remarkable, if true.]

   Los Angeles Times
   'Enemy Contact. Kill 'em, Kill 'em.'
   Sun Jul 18, 7:55 AM ET
   By Charles Duhigg Times Staff Writer
   NAJAF, Iraq (news - web sites) -- Tucked behind a gleaming machine
   gun, Sgt. Joseph Hall grins at his two companions in the Humvee.
   "I want to know if I killed that guy yesterday," Hall says. "I saw
   blood spurt from his leg, but I want to be sure I killed him."
   The vehicle goes silent as the driver, Spc. Joshua Dubois, swerves
   around asphalt previously uprooted by a blast.
   "I'm confused about how I should feel about killing," says Dubois, who
   has a toddler back home. "The first time I shot someone, it was the
   most exhilarating thing I'd ever felt."
   Dubois turns back to the road. "We talk about killing all the time,"
   he says. "I never used to talk this way. I'm not proud of it, but it's
   like I can't stop. I'm worried what I will be like when I get home."
   The men aren't Special Forces soldiers. They're just ordinary troops
   with the Army's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment serving their 14th month
   in Iraq, much of it in daily battles. In 20 minutes, they will come
   under attack.
   Many GIs and Army psychiatrists say these constant conversations about
   death help troops come to grips with the trauma of combat. But mental
   health professionals within and outside the military point to the
   chatter as evidence of preventable anguish.
   Soldiers are untrained, experts say, for the trauma of killing. Forty
   years after lessons learned about combat stress in Vietnam, experts
   charge that avoidable psychological damage goes unchecked because
   military officials don't include emotional preparation in basic
   training.
   Troops, returning home with untreated and little-understood mental
   health issues, put themselves and their families at risk for suicide
   and domestic violence, experts say. Twenty-three U.S. troops in Iraq
   took their lives last year, according to the Defense Department -- an
   unusually high number, one official acknowledged.
   On patrol, however, all that is available is talk.
   "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill," Hall says. "It's like it pounds at my
   brain. I'll figure out how to deal with it when I get home."
   Home is the wrong place for soldiers to deal with combat experiences,
   some experts say.
   "It's complete negligence," says Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a retired
   psychology instructor at West Point who trains law enforcement
   officers and special operations soldiers.
   "The military could train soldiers to talk about killing as easily as
   they train them to pull the trigger. But commanders are in denial.
   Nobody wants to accept the blame for a soldier who comes home a wreck
   for doing what his country asked him to do," he said.
   The emotional and psychological ramifications of killing are mostly
   unstudied by the military, defense officials acknowledge.
   "The idea and experience of killing another person is not addressed in
   military training," says Col. Thomas Burke, director of mental health
   policy for the Defense Department. "Training's intent is to re-create
   battle, to make it an automatic behavior among soldiers."
   He defends the approach, saying that if troops think too much about
   emotional issues in combat situations, it could undermine their
   effectiveness in battle.
   Other military representatives, including officers overseeing combat
   stress control programs, did not return repeated phone calls seeking
   comment.
   Much of the military's research on killing and battle stress began
   after World War II, when studies revealed that only a small number of
   troops -- as few as 15% -- fired at their adversaries on the
   battlefield.
   Military studies suggested that troops were unexpectedly reluctant to
   kill. Military training methods changed, Grossman and others say, to
   make killing a more automatic behavior.
   Bull's-eye targets used in basic training were replaced with
   human-shaped objects. Battlefield conditions were reproduced more
   accurately, Burke says. The goal of these and other modifications was
   to help soldiers react more automatically.
   The changes were effective. In the Vietnam War, 95% of combat troops
   shot at hostile fighters, according to military studies.
   Veterans of the Vietnam War also suffered some of the highest levels
   of psychological damage -- possibly as many as 50% of combat forces
   suffered mental injury, says Rachel MacNair, an expert on veteran
   psychology. Most notable among the injuries was post-traumatic stress
   disorder, a condition contributing to violent outbursts year

Anti-regulatory controtions

[michael perelman]

The second paragraph is especially funny.


Davis, Bob. 2004. "With White House Ex-Staffers, Mercatus Helps Zap
Codes It Says Restrict Business." Wall Street Journal (16 July): p. A 1.

"In 1998, Wendy Gramm, who headed the White House Office of Information
and Regulatory Affairs during the Reagan years, started Mercatus's
regulatory review group.  She hired a small staff of regulatory experts
to work with economists at George Mason and elsewhere.  Ms. Gramm, wife
of former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, says Mercatus differs from
special interests because it analyzes "all impacts" of rules with the
public interest in mind.  Over the past six years, Mercatus has filed
100 comments to 31 agencies on rules ranging from auto safety to
financial regulation."
"Mercatus analysts sometimes contort themselves to build a case against
regulation.  Ms. Dudley and Ms. Gramm criticized one EPA rule to reduce
surface ozone because the EPA didn't take into account that clearer
skies would increase the rate of skin cancer.  Later, two other Mercatus
scholars blasted a different EPA rule on diesel engines, arguing that it
was bad because it would increase surface ozone in some cities.  This
time they didn't say anything about the cancer-prevention benefits of
more smog.  "We didn't go to the next step," Ms. Dudley acknowledges."

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[sartesian]

Ah, Mr. Wendland, you return.  Please, before you remark upon others's
comments-- please review your opposition to immediate US withdrawal from
Iraq.  Explain the accelerating instability brought on by the US presence.

Or is that too divisive for you in your role as the sage of social
democracy?

- Original Message -
From: "Joel Wendland" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece


> sartesian wrote:
>
> >an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then
> >independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again,
> >constructed against the established leadership.
>
> Ah yes. More splits in the working class.
>
> Joel Wendland
>
> _
> FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now!
> http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Joel Wendland]

sartesian wrote:
an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then
independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again,
constructed against the established leadership.
Ah yes. More splits in the working class.
Joel Wendland
_
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar – get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

Dear liberal brothers and sisters

[Louis Proyect]

Dear liberal brothers and sisters at the Institute of Public Accuracy,
I am somewhat perplexed by Professor L. Sandy Meisel's attack on Ralph
Nader's ties to the Reform Party on your Institute for Public Accuracy
website (http://www.accuracy.org/). In searching my brain for the actual
record of a Reform Party elected official, I can't seem to remember
anything that dastardly occurring under ex-pro wrestler Jesse Ventura's
term as governor of Minnesota. No Japanese-Americans were thrown into
concentration camps like under FDR. No bombs were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki to "teach the Russians a lesson", like under Harry S.
Truman (see Gar Alperovitz). No Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. In fact,
Ventura told the press while on a trip to Cuba that change should take
place there without outside pressure. No Gulf of Tonkin resolution like
under LBJ. No support to Somoza like under Carter. No bombing of
pharmaceutical factories in Khartoum like under Clinton. All these
things happened under Democrats, right?
Moving right along, I can't understand why the liberal establishment
didn't get its knickers tied into a knot when Kerry floated John McCain
as a possible VP running mate. Isn't this the guy who once said that "I
hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live"? And turning to
Kerry, didn't he tell Don Imus that his opponent in a Massachusetts
campaign "took more vacations than people on welfare"? And what's the
deal with Kerry's frequent appearances on this racist show? His pal Imus
once called Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz a "boner-nosed,
beanie-wearing Jew boy." I don't know about your kind of liberal, but my
kind of liberals wouldn't hang out on a radio show like that
--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Democrats Put Bush on the Ballot While Fighting to Keep Nader off It

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

"Democrats Put Bush on the Ballot While Fighting to Keep Nader off
It":

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[sartesian]

First, all three million do not exist in the same locality.  Secondly, a
large number who voted for Nader then now are happily reunited with friends
inside the regular Democratic Party.  Thirdly, fat chance of getting the
national party to change anything, or even state parties.  Remember the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party?  Fourthly, the Democratic Party is not
an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then
independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again,
constructed against the established leadership.   Need I continue?

- Original Message -
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece


> >Michael Hoover wrote:
> >>maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should
> >>take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in
> >>place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available
> >>funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another,
> >>show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem
> >>mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties...
> >
> >This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying.
> >What's the argument against it?
> >
> >Doug
>
> An argument against it?  You would actually try it yourself if it
> were really a good idea.
>
> Yoshie

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Michael Hoover wrote:
maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should
take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in
place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available
funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another,
show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem
mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties...
This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying.
What's the argument against it?
Doug
An argument against it?  You would actually try it yourself if it
were really a good idea.
Yoshie

Re: oops, again

[Doug Henwood]

Daniel Davies wrote:
I forgot to mention that this is the main reason why it is always vitally
important when considering whether or not to lend your support to some
well-meaning social benefit package, that it should always be indexed to
average wages and not to CPI.
It's been a while, but don't I remember Keynes using the "wage unit"
as the numeraire in cost comparisons? I'm writing something on oil
right now, and it seems to make more sense to compare prices over
time using the average hourly wage rather than the CPI, given all the
guesswork involved in producing a price index.
Doug

Re: oops, again

[Doug Henwood]

Daniel Davies wrote:
On the other hand, no statistical body on earth has the
resource to monitor the proliferation of mobile phone payment plan options;
even the consumer press gets confused on this one regularly.
The BLS has a page devoted to cell phones in the CPI:
. Their weight in the index is
something like 0.05%.
3.  Also, in order to be part of a big aggregate index like CPI, something
has to be reasonably widely consumed in the economy in order to make it
worth while collecting the statistics.  That means that hire-purchase fees
are almost certainly in there (so the financing deals on SUVs will show up
as falling prices), but check-cashing services and payday loans probably
aren't.  In general, financial services have a surprisingly low weighting in
RPIX and HICP and I would imagine that they did in CPI too.  Statistics bods
tend to hate financial services because it's so difficult to work out what
the hell the value added is.
Oddly, there's no line for "financial services" in the monthly CPI
release , but it does
appear as an option in the detailed data access
. My guess is that
straightforward things like checking accounts would be covered, since
those are fairly straightforward and essential (though 20% of
Wal-Mart customers don't have them). But anything more complicated
would be too complicated, and as DD says, probably not widely enough
used. No doubt Pat Jackman could clear it all up in a jiffy.
Doug

Re: oops, again

[Daniel Davies]

>On the other hand, note that this
>would mean that the CPI would systematically overstate the cost of living
>the life of a rich person but underestimate the cost of being poor, which
is
>a known problem of RPI and related statistics.

I forgot to mention that this is the main reason why it is always vitally
important when considering whether or not to lend your support to some
well-meaning social benefit package, that it should always be indexed to
average wages and not to CPI.

dd

Re: oops, again

[Daniel Davies]

In my limited understanding, there are two capture issues here (my missus
used to work in statistics, but every time I ask her, she keeps talking
about some plants I haven't watered or something).

1.  Doug is entirely right, in principle, that if a service which used to be
free is now paid for, that is the sort of thing that the CPI people would be
interested in.  On the other hand, no statistical body on earth has the
resource to monitor the proliferation of mobile phone payment plan options;
even the consumer press gets confused on this one regularly.  So what they
do is either a) take the plain vanilla tariff option and look for changes in
that, b) take a sampling of the tariffs on offer and guesstimate or, most
often, c) a mixture of a) and b), mostly a) but having a look at b) every
now and then in the hope that that it won't be too far out of line.

Note that this would probably give you a decent estimate of the overall
economy-wide average price of mobile phone services, because you would often
miss the funky fees they started adding on, but you would also miss the
superduper discount plans that they put forward to preferred customers and
the two would quite likely cancel out.  On the other hand, note that this
would mean that the CPI would systematically overstate the cost of living
the life of a rich person but underestimate the cost of being poor, which is
a known problem of RPI and related statistics.

2.  There are also, on the other hand, the "late payment" fees that
companies often tack on to bills.  It would be pretty unusual for these to
be part of any price index, since at least in principle, they are not
transactions between willing parties (the company makes a big show of not
wanting to miss the payment) and in general only willing transactions are
considered to be part of the national economy.  Again, the incidence of
these fees falls on two groups, a) the poor and b) the terminally
disorganised.

3.  Also, in order to be part of a big aggregate index like CPI, something
has to be reasonably widely consumed in the economy in order to make it
worth while collecting the statistics.  That means that hire-purchase fees
are almost certainly in there (so the financing deals on SUVs will show up
as falling prices), but check-cashing services and payday loans probably
aren't.  In general, financial services have a surprisingly low weighting in
RPIX and HICP and I would imagine that they did in CPI too.  Statistics bods
tend to hate financial services because it's so difficult to work out what
the hell the value added is.

best,

dd

-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug
Henwood
Sent: 19 July 2004 19:56
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: oops, again


Daniel Davies wrote:

>they wouldn't, necessarily.

Fees most certainly should be included. "Usurious" interest rates
would be difficult to define in a world of 18-21% credit card rates.
And if they're not changing, but just constantly high, it's a
distributional issue, a form of secondary exploitation, but not
really a CPI issue. But a fee added to a service that used to be
free, or an increase in a fee, most certainly should be captured by
the CPI.

Doug

Re: oops, again

[Doug Henwood]

Michael Perelman wrote:
I would include check cashing businesses, rent to own, 
Doug, are you saying that they "should" or they "are" included?
I may have misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about fees
in general. If you're talking about finance-related fees (and
interest), then those things aren't covered in the CPI, since they're
considered savings & investment-related, and not goods &
services-related. The CPI's focus is on the TV's price and features,
not how it's paid for.
It'd be great to have measures of the kind of bloodletting finance
you're talking about, but it sure would be hard to gather the info
and present coherent summary stats.
Besides, the CPI's focus is on short- to medium-term price changes.
The kind of finance you're talking about is a fairly timeless feature
of American poverty.
Doug

Re: oops, again

[Michael Perelman]

I would include check cashing businesses, rent to own, 

Doug, are you saying that they "should" or they "are" included?

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 02:56:01PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Daniel Davies wrote:
>
> >they wouldn't, necessarily.
>
> Fees most certainly should be included. "Usurious" interest rates
> would be difficult to define in a world of 18-21% credit card rates.
> And if they're not changing, but just constantly high, it's a
> distributional issue, a form of secondary exploitation, but not
> really a CPI issue. But a fee added to a service that used to be
> free, or an increase in a fee, most certainly should be captured by
> the CPI.
>
> Doug

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

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: oops, again

[Michael Perelman]

I called, but did not get the person Doug mentioned.  a lower level person could not
answer me because he had never heard of such a consideration, so I had to leave a
message with someone else. --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

math

[Charles Brown]

Math, grammar and logic are all sets of rules on how to use symbols.

CB


by Devine, James

[was: RE: [PEN-L] absolute general law of capitalist accumulation]

Charles writes:
>CB: I want to go dialectical on y'all and say logic is mathematical and
linguistic, but I am curious on the essential distinction between
linguistics and mathematics implied here.<

it's possible that math might be part of Chomsky's transformational grammar,

i.e., the structure of human language that is inborn ("built-in") in the
human
brain? In that case, math is linguistic, but not "merely" so.

It seems to me that math represents the abstract aspects of reality. But
since
it leaves out the concrete, it must be incomplete.

(oops, I'm going Johnny Cochrane on y'all.)
jd

Re: Venture Communism (Robert Owen)

[Michael Hoover]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/04 8:50 AM >>>
Hazlitt's essay on Robert Owen is quite fun:
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Political/Owen.htm
there's also a rather good museum in New Lanark these days which makes
an
attractive daytrip if you're ever stuck in Glasgow.
I occasionally find myself thinking that Owen and the pre-Engels British
Socialists are probably worth another look, but have always been put off
by
the teetotal tendency which one tends to find there.
dd

tawney's _the radical tradition_ includes brief essay on owen that is
worth looking at...   michael hoover

--
Please Note:
Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from 
College employees
regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon 
request.
Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.

dialectic

[Devine, James]

my handy-dandy philosophical dictionary on dialectic:

"From the Greek _dialektos_ ("discourse," "debate"). The art or science
of dialectic begins in the drawing of rigorous distinctions. The
procedure brings to light contradictions, and other types of opposition
not sensed before. ... "


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Michael Hoover]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/04 3:52 PM >>>
 Michael Hoover:
> will rogers said something to effect that he wasn't a member of any
> party, he was a democrat...

when I "quoted" this, I was corrected: he wasn't a member of any
_organized_ party.


i stand (actually, i'm sitting) corrected...

> maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in
> 2000 should
> take control of local democratic executive committees, use
> structure in
> place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck,

all of them? then who's left?
jd
>

who's/whose left now...  michael hoover

--
Please Note:
Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from 
College employees
regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon 
request.
Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.

math

[Devine, James]

[was: RE: [PEN-L] absolute general law of capitalist accumulation]

Charles writes:
>CB: I want to go dialectical on y'all and say logic is mathematical and
linguistic, but I am curious on the essential distinction between
linguistics and mathematics implied here.<

it's possible that math might be part of Chomsky's transformational grammar, i.e., the 
structure of human language that is inborn ("built-in") in the human brain? In that 
case, math is linguistic, but not "merely" so.

It seems to me that math represents the abstract aspects of reality. But since it 
leaves out the concrete, it must be incomplete.

(oops, I'm going Johnny Cochrane on y'all.)
jd 

absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[Charles Brown]

by Gil Skillman
Charles Brown wrote:
> by Devine, James
>
> Charles writes:
>
>>The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking
about
> things. Formal logic is a linguistic project.


To which Ravi responds:

  i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit
that formal logic is a mathematical project, not a linguistic one
(even
wittgenstein might agree). fwiw, i agree with most of the rest of
charles' summation of logic.


For an in-depth defense and exploration of the idea that logic is grounded
in mathematics rather than vice-versa, see G. Spencer-Brown's classic LAWS
OF FORM.  His argument rebuts the notion that formal logic is "a linguistic
project":  Spencer-Brown's argument is that, given any consistent
distinction (and thus any specific linguistic structure), and two rules,
(essentially):  1) "a double affirmative is equivalent to an affirmative (
Is is = is)"  and 2)  "a double negative is equivalent to an affirmative (
Not not = is)", then certain results unavoidably follow, *whatever* the
distinction or linguistic structure you begin with.

Gil

^
CB: I want to go dialectical on y'all and say logic is mathematical and
linguistic, but I am curious on the essential distinction between
linguistics and mathematics implied here.

As a coincidental side note, I have been trying to teach some math to my
son, and I just decided to focus on word definitions. So, "mathematics is
linguistic" is another proposition :>)

Anyway, I wonder if the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation is
not an empirical generalization, but a statement of a theoretical conclusion
or something. One of the earlier posts raised this.

But, maybe if it is empirical and secular, it is intended to be "monotonic",
as Waistline compared it to the law of gravity. Focus on this might draw
attention away from the issue of crisis cycles. Capitalism is continuously (
secularly) creating poverty, not just cyclically.

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Devine, James]

 Michael Hoover: 
> will rogers said something to effect that he wasn't a member of any
> party, he was a democrat...

when I "quoted" this, I was corrected: he wasn't a member of any _organized_ party.
 
> maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 
> 2000 should
> take control of local democratic executive committees, use 
> structure in
> place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, 

all of them? then who's left? 

jd

The Ruling Class Dumps Bush

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

"The Ruling Class Dumps Bush":

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Doug Henwood]

Michael Hoover wrote:
maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should
take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in
place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available
funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another,
show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem
mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties...
This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying.
What's the argument against it?
Doug

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Michael Hoover]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/18/04 7:51 PM >>>
I don't think that the League of Pissed Off Voters, aka the League of
Independent Voters, goes anywhere by itself, but seen as a part of a
larger phenomenon, it's interesting.
On one hand, it's an indication of how embarrassing it has become to
make a straightforward argument for John Kerry or the Democratic
Party in general, among thinking young persons especially, so the
Democratic operatives have to come up with a face-saving cover that
lets them believe that they are still "independent," albeit they will
be voting and working for John Kerry.
Yoshie
<<<>>>

will rogers said something to effect that he wasn't a member of any
party, he was a democrat...

maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should
take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in
place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available
funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another,
show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem
mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties...

maybe nothing would happen, but maybe there would be crisis of hegemony
in dem party, existing national/state dem 'leaders' might have to react,
maybe they'd play their hand and decide to decertify local executive
councils run by leftists/ progressives, so dem party could become
something different from what it is today or it might be be destroyed,
either outcome would be ok...michael hoover

--
Please Note:
Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from 
College employees
regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon 
request.
Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.

Re: oops, again

[Doug Henwood]

Daniel Davies wrote:
they wouldn't, necessarily.
Fees most certainly should be included. "Usurious" interest rates
would be difficult to define in a world of 18-21% credit card rates.
And if they're not changing, but just constantly high, it's a
distributional issue, a form of secondary exploitation, but not
really a CPI issue. But a fee added to a service that used to be
free, or an increase in a fee, most certainly should be captured by
the CPI.
Doug

Re: oops, again

[Doug Henwood]

Michael Perelman wrote:
I would be very interested to know if late fees or usurious interest
rates are included.  I
have never heard anything about such inclusion.  I would be very
happy to learn more about
it.
As it says on the top of every CPI release:
FOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
 Patrick C. Jackman (202) 691-7000
Doug

Re: oops, again

[Devine, James]

It's true that often customers don't care. But often it's because they don't have the 
time, don't have the education, are totally overwhelmed by circumstances, trust 
authority too much, are depressed, or the like.  


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -Original Message-
> From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael
> Perelman
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 10:21 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L] oops, again
> 
> 
> Here is another article from my files.  I have just included 
> the parts relevant to the tail
> of the thread.  Customers don't notice or don't care [or 
> don't want to spend the time].
> 
> Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like 
> fall on the backs of the poor.
> Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean 
> that the distribution of
> income is even more lopsided.
> 
> 
> Mayer, Caroline E. 2002. "Add-Ons Add Up: Firms Are Finding 
> New Ways To Tack Fees on Basic
> Bills." Washington Post (17 November): p. H 1.
>  And there's another reason companies do add-ons: Consumers 
> let them do it.
>  Most of the time, consumers don't notice the extra fees -- 
> or feel they are so small, they
> don't care. There are only a few times when consumers have 
> protested, most notably after
> Sprint decided to charge some of its PCS wireless customers 
> -- primarily those with poor
> credit ratings who were on a special price plan -- $3 when 
> they wanted to speak to a
> customer-service representative.
> 
> 
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
> 
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
> 

Re: [Fwd: Swans' Release: July 19, 2004]

[Michael Hoover]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/18/04 5:23 PM >>>
Michael wrote:
>i've a hunch that some left interest in nader is reflection of
>absence of actual left alternatives, as panelist at forum i attended
>in ann arbor said yesterday: 'he's best known option", lousy way to
>develop actual left alternative...

I think that those who are seriously interested in building a
movement and political party capable of challenging the bipartisan
consensus on the domestic and foreign policy ought to be able to
think beyond the specific positive and negative attributes of Ralph
Nader as an individual and think about who (among Green Party
leaders, rank-and-file Green Party members, non-Green Party members,
etc.) is supporting him and why, what we can do to work with them,
and so on.
Yoshie
<>

some will, perhaps, pooh-pooh following as not serious but - imo -
neither movements nor parties are built via campaigns for prez, too much
time/effort/use of too limited resources, amount/kind of attention that
nader gets (which is result of name recognition, not due to green
party/ideas)  will not contribute to either task, important green
*party* work is down ballot if at all...

nader received almost 3 million votes last time, will probably receive
less this time
for number of reasons, but those 3 million folks (and others who voted
for various left alternatives in 2000) would make bigger statement by
turning out en masse to a kerry inauguration with one statement - 'we're
on your ass' (pelt his motorcade with 3 million eggs)...   michael
hoover



--
Please Note:
Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from 
College employees
regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon 
request.
Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.

Re: oops, again

[Max B. Sawicky]

Just read a bit in Tax Notes that shows you cannot logically
separate financing arrangements from sticker price.
Some Brit department stores are trying to finagle
the VAT by characterizing part of the retail price
as a credit card processing fee, thereby shunting
taxable value added into non-taxable fees.

This is a potential problem in the flat tax as
well, if financial sector income is exempt from
tax.

mbs


-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Davies
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 1:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: oops, again

they wouldn't, necessarily.  The statistics people try to get a fix on the
genuine average price of things, but it's a hell of a job to be sure you're
comparing like with like, and the bias is likely to be entirely one way; as
Michael noted earlier, how often do they make a mistake in your favour, or
give you an undisclosed discount?  The issues are not a million miles
different from those involved in hedonic pricing.  It's also very common
indeed for price indices to be moved by cheap financing or discount deals
which aren't necessarily available to poorer people; the differential
between average prices and prices charged in poor urban areas where people
don't have cars to drive to the supermarket is a known problem in the UK
stats at least.

dd

Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[Gil Skillman]

Charles Brown wrote:
> by Devine, James
>
> Charles writes:
>
>>The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about
> things. Formal logic is a linguistic project.
To which Ravi responds:

i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit
that formal logic is a mathematical project, not a linguistic one (even
wittgenstein might agree). fwiw, i agree with most of the rest of
charles' summation of logic.

For an in-depth defense and exploration of the idea that logic is grounded
in mathematics rather than vice-versa, see G. Spencer-Brown's classic LAWS
OF FORM.  His argument rebuts the notion that formal logic is "a linguistic
project":  Spencer-Brown's argument is that, given any consistent
distinction (and thus any specific linguistic structure), and two rules,
(essentially):  1) "a double affirmative is equivalent to an affirmative (
Is is = is)"  and 2)  "a double negative is equivalent to an affirmative (
Not not = is)", then certain results unavoidably follow, *whatever* the
distinction or linguistic structure you begin with.
Gil

Re: elections and the Korean experience

[Martin Hart-Landsberg]

As to the radio interview noted below with Jomo on Korea:
I heard that interview and think that Jomo seriously mischaracterized
the Korean situation.  First he spoke of recovery and continued strong
growth.  The Korean economy was basically in recession the first half
of last year.  This year domestic consumption and investment have been
falling.  The economy is growing only because of exports and those
increasingly to China.  Now that China is trying to slow its economy
there are fears of the country slidding back into another recession.
The domestic consumption that helped carry the recovery for a period,
2001-2002, was largely based on a massive credit card spending
explosion.  People are now unable to pay debts and the financial system
is shaky.  The result has been a decline in consumption spending and
government bailouts..
As for the president, he has low approval ratings, and remains strongly
in favor of free market reforms, proposing among other things the
creation of special economic zones for foreign companies where labor
and environmental laws will be greatly reduced.  He is also for greater
labor flexibility which means greater freedom for companies to fire
workers.  The labor movement has gained little from him, which is why
they are strong supporting the new Democratic Labor Party.
Marty
--On Monday, July 19, 2004 10:25 AM -0700 Michael Perelman
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Doug's radio interview with Jomo also touched upon the Korean
experience.  He also attributed the change in Korean politics to the
strength of the union movement.
How have unions been more successful there than in the US?
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[ravi]

Charles Brown wrote:
> by Devine, James
>
> Charles writes:
>
>>The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about
> things. Formal logic is a linguistic project.
>

i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit
that formal logic is a mathematical project, not a linguistic one (even
wittgenstein might agree). fwiw, i agree with most of the rest of
charles' summation of logic.

--ravi

Re: oops, again

[Daniel Davies]

they wouldn't, necessarily.  The statistics people try to get a fix on the
genuine average price of things, but it's a hell of a job to be sure you're
comparing like with like, and the bias is likely to be entirely one way; as
Michael noted earlier, how often do they make a mistake in your favour, or
give you an undisclosed discount?  The issues are not a million miles
different from those involved in hedonic pricing.  It's also very common
indeed for price indices to be moved by cheap financing or discount deals
which aren't necessarily available to poorer people; the differential
between average prices and prices charged in poor urban areas where people
don't have cars to drive to the supermarket is a known problem in the UK
stats at least.

dd

-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug
Henwood
Sent: 19 July 2004 18:22
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: oops, again


Michael Perelman wrote:

>Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on
>the backs of the poor.
>Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that
>the distribution of
>income is even more lopsided.

How do you know they do? They should be included in the CPI
calculations, based on the principles of the thing.

Doug

Mathematics of Venture Communism

[Dmytri Kleiner]

Ok, moving on from the Various more philosophical debates about the
revelutionary value of Venture Communism, I have a very concrete question
regarding the Mathematics of the share prices in the Venture Commune.

In order to keep the per share profitablity constant or growing, the price
of each new share in labour hours must represent sufficient investment
that the profitability of the Commune as a whole grows at the same rate as
it's membership (at minumum).

Any advice on how this per-share labour value could be calculated?

Re: oops, again

[Michael Perelman]

I would be very interested to know if late fees or usurious interest rates are 
included.  I
have never heard anything about such inclusion.  I would be very happy to learn more 
about
it.

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 01:22:24PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on
> >the backs of the poor.
> >Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that
> >the distribution of
> >income is even more lopsided.
>
> How do you know they do? They should be included in the CPI
> calculations, based on the principles of the thing.
>
> Doug

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

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: elections and the Korean experience

[Michael Perelman]

Doug's radio interview with Jomo also touched upon the Korean experience.  He also
attributed the change in Korean politics to the strength of the union movement.

How have unions been more successful there than in the US?
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: oops, again

[Doug Henwood]

Michael Perelman wrote:
Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on
the backs of the poor.
Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that
the distribution of
income is even more lopsided.
How do you know they do? They should be included in the CPI
calculations, based on the principles of the thing.
Doug

oops, again

[Michael Perelman]

Here is another article from my files.  I have just included the parts relevant to the 
tail
of the thread.  Customers don't notice or don't care [or don't want to spend the time].

Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on the backs of the 
poor.
Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that the distribution of
income is even more lopsided.


Mayer, Caroline E. 2002. "Add-Ons Add Up: Firms Are Finding New Ways To Tack Fees on 
Basic
Bills." Washington Post (17 November): p. H 1.
 And there's another reason companies do add-ons: Consumers let them do it.
 Most of the time, consumers don't notice the extra fees -- or feel they are so small, 
they
don't care. There are only a few times when consumers have protested, most notably 
after
Sprint decided to charge some of its PCS wireless customers -- primarily those with 
poor
credit ratings who were on a special price plan -- $3 when they wanted to speak to a
customer-service representative.


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

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[Charles Brown]

by Devine, James

Charles writes:
>The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about
things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. Why not dialectical logic to
some extent ?<

what exactly is "logic" then?  I'm no expert on philosophy, but it seems to
me
that dialectics isn't a "logic" in the same sense that formal logic is a
"logic." (My handy-dandy DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION: EASTERN AND
WESTERN THOUGHT, by W.L. Reese, defines "logic" as "The theory of the
conditions of valid ... [inference, i.e.,]  passage from one or more
statements
which are called premises to a further statement called the conclusion.")

If dialectics form a system of logic, it's one that's qualitatively
different
from formal logic. In fact, I'd call them a system of heuristics (which
Webster's defines as "an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving ...
that utilize self-educating techniques").


^^
CB: In part calling it logic comes from Hegel's book title _The Science of
Logic_.

To me you are correct that dialectical logic is qualitatively different than
formal logic, although, I think Hegel's approach is that formal logic is
part of dialectical logic.

For short, the main principle of formal logic is non-contradiction ,whereas
dialectics' first principle is contradiction. In formal logic, a thing must
be identical with itself. In dialectical logic, as a way of expressing the
fact that everything changes, a thing is not identical with itself.  Of
course, I didn't think of this, but got it from various Marxist commentaries
on dialectics.




Formal logic looks at a connection "premises X...Z imply conclusion A" and
says
either "no they don't" or "yes they do." On the other hand, it seems to me
that
dialectics centers on empirical investigation, saying that we need to look
at
the "big picture." A dialectician might say that "it's true that premises
X...Z
logically imply conclusion A, but you left out a lot of stuff. Premise B
isn't
true, while because of factors F, G, and H, this proposition isn't
empirically
relevant." An example: there's a bunch of economists called "the social
choice
school" that derives all sorts of of theorems from their math (mostly about
how
bad democracy is and therefore how wonderful the market is). My
(dialectical)
response: you fools ignore the empirical fact that under capitalism,
"democracy" works following the principle of "one dollar, one vote" much
more
than it follows the "one person one vote" principle that you assume.


CB: Let me consider your idea. I haven't thought of it this way. Of course,
there is the dialectical dictum that the truth is concrete. Perhaps, that is
some of what you are getting at ?

^^


To my mind, Marx & Engels were very strongly empirical in their orientation
(without being empiricist). Their critique of Saint Max (no relation to
Saint
Max  Sawicky) and his friends in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY starts with the idea
that
Max _et al_ are talking about "a revolution in thought" but what really
counts
are "revolutions in practice" and, more generally, the empirical world of
production, social relationships, history, etc. Given this
empirical/practical
orientation, it makes sense to embrace Hegel's dialectical heuristics and
turn
them upside down, away from speculation and toward humanity.

jim devine



CB: Yes, I think Gould referred to dialectics as a heuristic. I had a
thought about that when it was raised years ago on Thaxis by Jim Farmelant,
but I have to go into my memory banks.

Of course there is this which has probably been copied here before:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its
direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the
process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea," he even transforms
into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the
real world is only the external, phenomenal form of "the Idea." With me, on
the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by
the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years
ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at
the first volume of "Das Kapital," it was the good pleasure of the peevish,
arrogant, mediocre 'Epigonoi who now talk large in cultured Germany, to
treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time
treated Spinoza, i.e., as a "dead dog." I therefore openly avowed myself the
pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the
theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The
mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents
him from being the first to present its general form of working in a
comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It
must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational

Re: "the property relations within," its meaning- Last

[Waistline2]

In a message dated 7/19/2004 11:49:28 AM Central Standard 
Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
CB: 
  Well, "property relations within WHICH the productive forces 
work"

Comment
 
Last response . . . the moderator has called for an end. 

 
Read what Marx states because you reverse what he stated. Marx 
does not explain things from the stand point of "property relations wihtin Which 
the productive forces work." He states the exact opposite. 
 
"At a certain stage of their development, the material 
productive forces ofsociety come in conflict with the existing relations of 
production,  . . . with the property relations within which they have been 
at work hitherto. 
 
My political conclusion are derived from a different 
assessment of the meaning of productive forces or what is the same . . . the 
material power of the productive forces. This means I have a racially different 
view of social revolution and the meaning of the proletariat as the lowest 
strata of society and the prospect of political revolution in America. 

 
This is all right because we have been here before. 

 
The reason the productive forces are fundamental is because 
they are the more mobile aspect of the mode of production with the property 
relations within. Productive forces of course presuppose the existence of human 
beings and human will as it operates in a definable "mode of production." 

 
Soviet industrial socialism was an industrial society and 
industrial society is being changed. In this sense it is no different from 
America in its industrial mode of production. That is why the law of value could 
not be abolished. World socialism on the basis of the industrial system cannot 
abolish the law of value and regulate exchange to the dustbin of history. 

 
World revolution in an industrial society would still call for 
a revolution in the mode of production to get to economic communism. The 
difference is that this leap would not take place on the basis of contradiction 
passing into antagonism. 
 
You have the last word. 
 
Melvin P. 

Re: Of Rumps and Dumps

[Devine, James]

I wrote: >> The "ruling class" almost never acts as a unified force that "dumps"  
someone. However, I can imagine that sections of the ruling class could turn against 
Bush. More importantly, the whole election process is set up in a way that filters out 
the anti-capitalist candidates. In the end, the differences within the ruling class 
can be settled by "letting the people decide," where of course the people don't have 
much choice  and are highly influenced by campaign ads, the media, etc. The election 
then has the side-effect of helping to legitimate the system.<<  (edited so that 
no-one thinks I'm JKS based on misspelling).

Marv Gandall writes: > I largely agree with you, although I think you can find  
historical instances where the ruling class adjudges some degree of change necessary 
to act as a safety valve releasing mass pressures which threaten to overwhelm the 
system. The New Deal comes to mind in a period which saw the rapid growth  
internationally of the left.<

I don't think that the US ruling class was united behind FDR. I've been told of the 
abortive anti-FDR coup led by establishmentarian sorts (though I've forgotten when it 
happened), while my rich grandmother belonged to a social set that referred to FDR and 
especially his wife as a "class traitor" (and in a touch of anti-semitism, 
"Rosenfeldt").  I've also read a bunch of literature coming out of the "business 
community" that was highly opposed to FDR. 

The ruling class, though it is a coherent position is the structure of social classes, 
is also an ever-changing bunch of coalitions (that sometimes overlap) that are trying 
to serve individual capitalist needs while forming consensi (consensuses?) about 
serving the long-term collective interests of the class, maintaining capitalism's 
systemic health, etc. These coalitions -- including the Democratic Party and the GOP 
in the US -- often are at each others' necks but often cooperate. They respond in 
different ways to pressures from outside the country, from the working class, from 
economic crises and technological challenges, etc. 

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

FUD

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

"FUD" (a perfect term to refer to the tactic that the Democratic
Party uses against third parties on the left):

Re: [Fwd: [Marxism] The Case for Nader-Camejo, by L. Proyect]

[Max B. Sawicky]

On budget deficits, Kerry is as bad as Clinton, which is pretty bad.
But Nader has never been particularly good and clear on this issue,
though I think that overall his programmatic message goes in the right
direction.

mbs



In that chapter, titled Appease the Bond Market: the Kerry Plan to Make the
Rich Richer, Bates lays out in convincing detail how Kerry would reinstitute
Clintonomics. As a "deficit hawk,"

/morped/ Socialism Betrayed - "the property relations within," its meaning

[Charles Brown]

 
by Waistline2


 From the standpoint of the form of slave labor prior to Emancipation to
Emancipation - (which ended in counterrevolution that would eventually trap
five million blacks and six million whites in the sharecropping system), to
deployment of the mechanical cotton picker and the tractor . . . to the
growth of the huge industrial farms to the emergence of "frankenfoods" . . .
or the application of science - biogenetic, to farming . . . we are speak of
a huge revolution in the mode of production. 
 
The fact of the matter is that the instruments . . . tools . . . deployment
of human labor as the primary energy source of Southern agriculture did not
change between say 1865 and 1900. With all due respect to Mr. Aptheker . . .
I profoundly disagree that Lincoln's election constituted a revolution. I
also have disagreed with his economic description of slavery and the
aftermath of the Civil War for the past 30 years. 

^^
CB: The slavocratic ruling class recognized it as a revolution. That's why
they started the Civil War.

^

 
Such is life. 

^
CB: C'est la guerre.

^
 
What is being spoken of is a qualitatively different production process that
forever changes the form of the laboring process that arose and emerged with
the industrial system. The implications are staggering because this
qualitatively new production technique - regime, begins unraveling and
shattering the commodity form and value. This does not mean that "all of the
old mode of production (laboring process) disappears" . . . but rather the
old process is sublated. Farming still takes place in the Mississippi Delta
using a set of instruments and machinery half a century old. 

^
CB: Sure there are new qualities to the production process due to computers,
but there were new qualities added to the production process by use of
electricity, the internal combustion engine, the use of oil as fuel,
telephonic and radio commuication, etc., etc. all post 1867. The bourgeoisie
constantly _revolutionize_ ( a contradiction) the instruments of production.

^

 
The meaning of "the property relations within" is the property relations
within a given mode of production. In my opinion this is at the base of our
divergence and most Marxists have in the past defined modes of production on
the basis of the form of the labor process . . . like slavery, feudalism and
capitalism. I am aware that I divergence from this description, while
remaining consistent with the method Marx deploys in describing the advance
of industry in the Communist Manifesto and Engels description of the advance
of industry in Anti-Durhing. 
 
Here is what Marx states concerning "the property relations within:" 
 
"At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of
society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or —
what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property
relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of
development of the productive forces these relations turn into their
fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution." 
 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface
-abs.htm 
 
The "property relations within" are not simply within the legal expression
as abstraction . . . because what the "legal" expresses is relations of
production or how people are aggregated together to utilize a given state of
development of the mode of production. 


^^
CB: OK. The passage you quote equates "relations of production" and property
relations. 

"...the existing relations of production, or what is but a legal expression
for the same thing with the property relations..." 



The property relations within which the forces of production developed were
a combination of wage-labor and capital and slave-labor and capital.  When
slave labor-capital was overthrown, this was revolutionary because it change
the fundamental property relations within which the forces of production had
been at work hitherto. The slave-capital relationship couldn't contain the
full technological development potential of Modern Industry.

^

 
 
"From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn
into their fetters." The productive forces begin with human being and the
specific mode of human labor + tools, instruments and/or machinery + energy
source and how they are organized. How the people are organized are the
relations being referred to this relation becomes a fetter in the face of
the development of the productive forces - with the property relations
within. 

^^
CB: Well, "property relations within WHICH the productive forces work"

^^

 
The issue connected to "Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the
Soviet Union" by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is the economic phenomena
inherit to an industrial mode of production . . . no matter what the
property relations within. 

^

CB: Yea, I haven't read that book, but you 

Re: SOCIAL MOBILITY

[Tom Walker]

"Is it possible that some Republican delegate might hop in a pedicab this
summer and pause to ruminate on an economy in which some are always pulled
and more and more are always pulling?"

No.

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

[Fwd: [Marxism] The Case for Nader-Camejo, by L. Proyect]

[Louis Proyect]

Swans
The Case for Nader-Camejo
by Louis Proyect
(Swans - July 19, 2004)  Although liberal attacks on Ralph Nader
have been marked by a level of vituperation usually reserved for such
as Slobodan Milosevic, Greg Bates's Ralph's Revolt is completely
rancor-free by contrast. It is a calm, dispassionate "case for joining
Nader's rebellion," as the subtitle puts it.
As founder and publisher of Common Courage Press, Greg Bates
selects works that go against the grain of conventional thinking. They
include Jeffrey St. Clair's "Been Brown So Long" (reviewed on
Swans in March 2004) and numerous titles by Paul Farmer, the
Harvard physician who has dedicated his life to helping AIDS patients
in Haiti. On the Common Courage website, the mission statement
refers to Farmer, who had invited Bates to a ceremony in Boston
where Jean Bertrand Aristide was to give a speech. In explaining to
Farmer why he publishes his books and those of other progressives,
Bates says, "Some ask why we do this work. We ask a different
question: How can we not?"
Throughout Ralph's Revolt, Bates likens Nader to Don Quixote, a
somewhat unflattering comparison if you think solely in terms of tilting
at windmills, etc. However, one must remember that Cervantes chose
Quixote as a vehicle for his own unhappiness with the bourgeois
transformation of Spain. If Don Quixote was a fool to romanticize
Spain's feudal past, at least he had the wisdom to assert "There are
only two families in the world, the Haves and the Have-nots," a
phrase used by Bates as the epigraph for chapter nine of his book.
In that chapter, titled Appease the Bond Market: the Kerry Plan to
Make the Rich Richer, Bates lays out in convincing detail how Kerry
would reinstitute Clintonomics. As a "deficit hawk," Kerry promised
to abandon earlier plans to expand college tuition subsidies and aid to
state government in order to "help the higher priority of halving the
federal deficit in four years." These announcements worried liberal
supporters such as Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect who
shrewdly observed that Kerry was running an election campaign on
the basis of how Clinton governed, rather than the way that he ran for
office. He worried that "No president ever got elected by promising to
appease the bond market." Of course, it makes things a lot easier if
you don't have a gadfly like Ralph Nader calling attention to this in
televised debates.
While Paul Krugman advised his readers in the New York Times on
July 9 that "John Kerry has proposed an ambitious health care plan
that would extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured
Americans, while reducing premiums for the insured," Bates reminds
us that this does not include a provision for single payer insurance, the
most cost efficient and effective means for insuring access to health
care for all. Instead, tax-payer money will be showered on
corporations to ease the cost of private insurance plans. The May 3rd
Wall Street Journal quotes Kerry: "I would think American business
would jump up and down and welcome what I am offering."
By contrast, votenader.org says: "The Nader Campaign supports a
single-payer health care plan that replaces for-profit, investor-owned
health care and removes the private health insurance industry (full
Medicare for all)."
If Nader's campaign suggests elements of Don Quixote, then Bates
sees George W. Bush in terms of another familiar literary figure from
the same period. "The year 1605, or possibly 1606, saw the creation
of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. There are some parallels between
this assassin and George W. Bush. The one murdered to become
king, while the other stabbed democracy in the back by convincing his
allies on the Supreme Court to anoint him. But, as with the Ralph
Nader/Don Quixote comparison, it is the differences, not the
similarities, that illustrate."
As tempting as it is to understand everything that's gone wrong with
the USA in the past four years as the plot of an evil King (a trope that
was also found in Barbara Garson's Macbird, a send-up of LBJ
during the Vietnam war), the real problem is the lack of a hero to
come to the rescue in the final act. While so many liberals (including
Michael Moore) hope that the Democrats arrive on a white horse to
rescue the American people, the truth is that the Democrats have been
complicit in the right wing drive to make war abroad, deprive us of
decent jobs and curtail civil liberties.
With respect to his ambitions, Bush is not qualitatively different from
previous scary Republican Party presidents, from Richard Nixon to
Ronald Reagan. What he has and what they lacked is control over the
Congress and Judiciary, something that has not occurred since the
1950s. Furthermore, Bush benefits from having a supine Democratic
legislative opposition that has voted for the Patriot Act, "No Child
Left Behind," the invasion of Afghanistan, and many other Bush
initiatives. If Bush represents some sort of fascist threat, it is
remarkable that none of

Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[Devine, James]

Charles writes:
>The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about
things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. Why not dialectical logic to
some extent ?<

what exactly is "logic" then?  I'm no expert on philosophy, but it seems to me that 
dialectics isn't a "logic" in the same sense that formal logic is a "logic." (My 
handy-dandy DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION: EASTERN AND WESTERN THOUGHT, by 
W.L. Reese, defines "logic" as "The theory of the conditions of valid ... [inference, 
i.e.,]  passage from one or more statements which are called premises to a further 
statement called the conclusion.") 

If dialectics form a system of logic, it's one that's qualitatively different from 
formal logic. In fact, I'd call them a system of heuristics (which Webster's defines 
as "an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving ... that utilize self-educating 
techniques"). 

Formal logic looks at a connection "premises X...Z imply conclusion A" and says either 
"no they don't" or "yes they do." On the other hand, it seems to me that dialectics 
centers on empirical investigation, saying that we need to look at the "big picture." 
A dialectician might say that "it's true that premises X...Z logically imply 
conclusion A, but you left out a lot of stuff. Premise B isn't true, while because of 
factors F, G, and H, this proposition isn't empirically relevant." An example: there's 
a bunch of economists called "the social choice school" that derives all sorts of of 
theorems from their math (mostly about how bad democracy is and therefore how 
wonderful the market is). My (dialectical) response: you fools ignore the empirical 
fact that under capitalism, "democracy" works following the principle of "one dollar, 
one vote" much more than it follows the "one person one vote" principle that you 
assume. 

To my mind, Marx & Engels were very strongly empirical in their orientation (without 
being empiricist). Their critique of Saint Max (no relation to Saint Max  Sawicky) and 
his friends in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY starts with the idea that Max _et al_ are talking 
about "a revolution in thought" but what really counts are "revolutions in practice" 
and, more generally, the empirical world of production, social relationships, history, 
etc. Given this empirical/practical orientation, it makes sense to embrace Hegel's 
dialectical heuristics and turn them upside down, away from speculation and toward 
humanity.

jim devine

Re: Of Rumps and Dumps

[Marvin Gandall]

I largely agree with you, although I think you can find historical instances
where the ruling class adjudges some degree of change necessary to act as a
safety valve releasing mass pressures which threaten to overwhelm the
system. The New Deal comes to mind in a period which saw the rapid growth
internationally of the left. Of course, where a ruling class feels it has no
room for concessions, as in tapped-out Italy, Germany, and elsewhere in
Europe at the time, the move is mostly in the other direction. As you note,
there's never perfect unanimity, and the reform/repression options are
always up for debate.

Some on the left, including on this list, imagine that the US corporate and
political establishment is currently faced with this choice -- ie. either a
move  towards greater repression under the Republicans, or a "prophylactic"
move to dump them in favour of the Democrats to siphon off popular
discontent.

Bit what popular unrest do they see which would provoke this kind of
reaction? There's a good deal of disillusionment about Iraq and the
persistent disgruntlement about capitalist inequality and hardships, but
there is no organized left of any consequence in the US -- inside or outside
the DP -- which would have the ruling class contemplating extraordinary
measures. If the Nader/Camejo ticket were to surprise, it would sit up and
register the change in temperature, but I doubt it would start to panic just
yet.

Marv Gandall

- Original Message -
From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Of Rumps and Dumps


I haven't read this thread carefully, so I hope I'm not repeating anything.

The "ruling class" almost never acts as a unified force that "dumps"
someonw. However, I can imagine that sections of the ruling calss could turn
against Bush. More importantly, the whole election process is set up in a
way that filters out the anti-capitalist candidates. In the end, the
differences within the ruling class can be settled by "letting the people
decide," where of course the people don't have much choice and are highly
influenced by campaign ads, the media, etc. The election then has the
side-effect of helping to legitimate the system.

SOCIAL MOBILITY

[Diane Monaco]

[While in Cuba last month, a colleague and I walked and walked throughout
old Havana for days, but just could NOT bring ourselves to use one of the
many “bicycle cabs” used as a frequent mode of transportation
there.  Besides all of our “cash” went to magnificent concerts and
tipping the many wonderful musicians throughout the city…and for salsa
and merengue lessons :).]

"Is it possible that some Republican delegate might hop in a pedicab
this summer and pause to ruminate on an economy in which some are always
pulled and more and more are always pulling?"

The New Yorker
SOCIAL MOBILITY
by Adam Gopnik

Issue of 2004-07-26
Posted 2004-07-19

One of the stranger sights in the city this summer is the bicycle taxi.
Strictly speaking, it should be called a tricycle taxi, since it consists
of a strong-thighed young manthere seem to be few women in the guildon a
contraption with a saddle and one wheel in front, pulling a small calèche
that rides along on two wheels in back. But to call it a tricycle taxi is
to summon images of child labor, and to call it, as it has been called, a
“three-wheeled bicycle” lands us in realms of contradiction too confusing
even for this contradictory summer. In any event, you can hail the
bicycle taxior pedicab, to give it its full Avenue of the Americas
monikerat a corner, get into the calèche (or it a surrey? a barouche?),
and take it for a ride wherever you want to go, for as long as it takes
to get there. Bicycle taxis have been on the city streets for a decade,
and there are at least three entrepreneurs hiring them outthe largest is
the Soho-based Pedicabs of New Yorkbut they seem newly commonplace in
midtown. Unlicensed and unmetered, though not uninsured, they roam the
avenues, searching for riders. (Prices are negotiable, but seem to run to
whatever the pedaller thinks the pedallee can afford, taking into account
how much work it will be to pull him. Price discrimination against the
portly is acceptable, and a fifteen-dollar ride seems typical.) 

It’s hard not to admire the pedicabs’élan as they scoot up and down the
avenues, darting in and out of the lines of stolid traffic, the little
whatever-it-is in back just squeezing through as the couple from Altoona
hold on to their digital camera for dear life, all in a blur of legs and
wheels and accompanying obscenities from internal-combustion chauffeurs.
Although the bicycle cabs were apparently intended for tourists, their
advantages in traffic seduce the natives, too, and a big chunk of their
work now seems to involve transporting people who have, in essence, got
fed up with sitting in stalled traffic in a taxicab. (The other day, a
New Yorker hailed a pedicab for the first time, because she was late for
her workout. Pumping hard, sweat pouring, the bicycle pedaller got her to
the gym on time.)

To try out a bicycle cab, even in a semi-philosophical spirit, is to be
caught up in a rush of exhilaration, embarrassment, and potential
significances. Heady and vaguely Edith Whartonish as it is to be pulled
around town in an open carriage, it is, at the same time, disconcerting
to have someone else’s physical labor quite so plainly, quite so clearly
and publicly, quite so accusingly, visible as the source of your forward
movement. Normally, in New York and elsewhere, machinery and ritual
intercede between the puller and the pulled. The taxi- or livery-
cab-driver, whose hours, wages, and health-insurance predicaments are
unknown to the rider, is enthroned behind Plexiglas, and he has a whole
set of rituals (the right-hand seat piled high with personal objects, the
endless cell-phone conversation) designed to salve his self-respect, and
to give exploitation at least the appearance of self-reliance. 

The pedicab is, no getting around it, a rickshaw with pedals. (In fact,
the second-leading pedicab company is called Manhattan Rickshaw.) It
offers, in a pointedly symbolic, Bertolt Brecht-meets-Barbara Ehrenreich
package, both the eternal facts of capitalismthe capitalist proceeds from
home to office by dint of someone else’s sweatand the essential ironies
of the post-industrial era: the more emancipated we seem to become from
physical labor, the more physical labor is left for someone else to do.
What Robert Reich has talked about for years, and John Edwards has talked
about for the past several monthsthat the gap has widened between the
wealthy few and everybody elseis, in the bicycle taxi, suddenly given a
local habitation and a loud bell. The feeling is not even so much
capitalist as feudal. You are the lord of the manor, being pulled through
the streets on a sedan chair; he is Piers Plowman, in spandex shorts.


Riding in a bicycle taxi, one feels nostalgia for the bicycle messenger
of the Reagan era. The bicycle messenger, with his whistle and his
disdain, was the embodiment of underclass resentment and underclass
style, and of a booming economy, which demanded that documents be here
now. As oblivious of stoplights as he was of

PAUL KRUGMAN: Bush's medical plan: Class warfare

[Diane Monaco]

Sunday, July 18, 2004
Bush's medical plan: Class warfare
By PAUL KRUGMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
If past patterns are any guide, about one in three Americans will go
without health insurance for some part of the next two years. They won't,
for the most part, be the persistently poor, who are usually covered by
Medicaid. They will be members of working families with breadwinners who
have jobs without medical benefits or who have been laid off.
Many Americans fear the loss of health insurance. Last week, I described
John Kerry's health plan. What's the Bush administration's plan?
First, it offers a tax credit for low- and middle-income families who don't
have health coverage through employers. That credit helps them purchase
health insurance. The credit would be $3,000 for a family of four with an
income of $25,000; for an income of $40,000, it would fall to $1,714. Last
year, the average premium for families of four covered by employers was
more than $9,000.
A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the tax credit would
reduce the number of uninsured, 44 million people in 2002, by 1.8 million.
So it wouldn't help a great majority of families unable to afford
insurance. For comparison, an independent assessment of the Kerry plan by
Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University says that it would reduce the number of
uninsured by 26.7 million.
The other main component of the Bush plan involves "health savings
accounts." The prescription drug bill the administration pushed through
Congress last year had a number of provisions unrelated to Medicare. One of
them allowed people who purchase insurance policies with high deductibles,
generally at least $2,000 per family, to shelter income from taxes by
setting up special accounts for medical expenses. This year, the
administration proposed making the premiums linked to these accounts fully
tax-deductible.
Although the 2005 budget presents that new deduction under the heading
"Helping the uninsured," health savings accounts don't seem to have much to
do with the needs of the families likely to find themselves without health
insurance. For one thing, such families need more protection than a plan
with a $2,000 deductible provides. Furthermore, the tax advantages of
health savings accounts would be small for those families most at risk of
losing health insurance, who are overwhelmingly in low tax brackets.
But for people whose income puts them in high tax brackets, these accounts
are a very good deal; making the premiums deductible turns them into a
great deal. In other words, health savings accounts will offer the already
affluent, who don't have problems getting health insurance, yet another tax
shelter. Meanwhile, health savings accounts, in the view of many experts,
will actually increase the number of uninsured.
This perverse effect shouldn't be too surprising: Unless they are carefully
designed, medical policies often have side consequences that worsen the
problems they supposedly address. For example, the Congressional Budget
Office estimates that one-third of the retirees who now have drug coverage
through their former employers will lose that coverage as a result of the
Bush prescription drug bill and will be forced to accept inferior coverage
from Medicare.
In the case of health savings accounts, the key side consequence is a
reduced incentive for companies to insure their workers. When companies
provide group health insurance, healthier employees implicitly subsidize
their sicker colleagues; they're willing to do this largely because the
employer's contributions to health insurance are a tax-free form of
compensation, but only if the same plan is offered to all employees.
Tax-free health savings accounts and premiums would provide healthier and
wealthier employees an incentive to opt out, accepting higher paychecks
instead, and would lead to higher insurance premiums for those who remain
in traditional plans. This would cause some companies to stop providing
health insurance, or raise employee contributions to a level some workers
can't afford.
The difference couldn't be starker. Kerry offers a health care plan that
would extend coverage to most of those now uninsured, paid for by rolling
back tax cuts for those with incomes over $200,000. President Bush offers a
tax credit that would extend coverage to fewer than 5 percent of the
uninsured, plus a new tax break for the affluent that would actually
increase the number of uninsured. I don't see how Bush can win this debate.

Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed

[Michael Perelman]

This seems to have devolved into a discussion between 3 people.  Maybe we can drop it 
now.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Russian econ growth

[Diane Monaco]

Chris Doss forwarded:

'the tax system must
not weigh excessively on business,' 'the state and
business must make every effort to reduce unemployment
and poverty'--we asked a number of leading analysts to
comment on the few exact figures that the president
did offer.

'[...]
'Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8% in the first
four months of 2004,' Putin stated at the start of his
speech. While that number might seem too good to
believe, the analysts don't question it.

'There is no reason to doubt it. It is no great jump,
just a perfectly credible increase in the rate of
growth [7.3% in 2003] arising from historically high
prices for oil and the investment and consumer boom
that high oil prices stimulated,' Kotikov said.

Anton Struchenevsky, an economist with Troika
Dialogue, said: 'To judge by the growth rate, the
country will outperform last year. Moreover, growth is
not being powered by the raw materials sector alone,
and its particularly favorable price conditions, but
by other elements of industry as well. 
[...]

Aleksey Vorobyev, an analyst for Aton, said
preliminary figures from the Economics Ministry
indicate an 8% growth rate for the January-April
period of 2004 as compared with the same period in
2003. 'More exact figures will come in time from the
Statistical Service,' he said. 'However, judging by
the 7.9% growth rate in basic sectors of the economy
(manufacturing, construction, agriculture,
transportation, retail trade), the announced figures
look reliable.'

I read a little while ago that the Russian federal budget
“surplus” was $8.4 billion during this first half of 2004 high growth
period.   Budget surpluses and high growth do often go
hand-in-hand.   Is there the feeling in Russia that the federal
tax system does weigh heavily on business?

Also, are military equipment exports fueling some of this growth? 
(See article below)

Diane

Russia posts record arms sales
AP 
http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/printer_1651.shtml
Jul 19, 2004, 08:55

BOLSTERED by continued demand from its best customers - India and China -
Russian arms sales grew by 20 per cent to $US5.4 billion ($7.47 billion)
last year, a post-Soviet record, according to a report issued today by
the state weapons trading company Rosoboronexport.

President Vladimir Putin has made boosting arms exports a top priority
for his government and has called for tighter export controls on
weapons-related technologies and military equipment to ensure Russia's
niche in international arms markets is not threatened by foreign
competitors. 

Russia exported weapons worth a total of $US4.8 billion ($6.64 billion)
in 2002. 

Russian weapons industries have come to depend on foreign customers after
orders from the cash-strapped Russian military ground to a near halt
following the 1991 Soviet collapse. 

Though Russia has become one of the world's top arms exporters after the
US and Britain in recent years, the country's arms sales are only a
fraction of the approximately $US20 billion ($27.67 billion) a year
exported by the Soviet Union during the 1980s. 

Nikolai Novichkov, editor in chief of Arms Tass, the military technical
information division of ITAR-Tass, and a correspondent for Jane's Defence
Weekly, said that China accounted for 56 per cent of Russia's exports
while India bought about 18 per cent. 

"Russian arms are cheaper than American or European analogues but
have good reliability," Mr Novichkov said. 

Russia has been aggressively promoting its weapons in South-East Asia and
last year's figures were significantly boosted by the purchase of 18
Sukhoi SU-30 MKM fighters by Malaysia for an estimated $US900 million
($1.25 billion). Also, Indonesia agreed to buy two Sukhoi-30s, two
Sukhoi-27s, and two MI-35 assault helicopters through a counter-trade
deal worth $US192.6 million ($266.48 million). 

Alex Vatanka, a Russia expert at Jane's Sentinel in London, said the
sales increase was in line with Russia's aim of becoming the No 2
exporter worldwide. 

"It goes hand in hand with the Putin administration's pursuit of
what they call the multipolar world order, to essentially say to
Washington: 'We will not listen to you dictate every single item on the
agenda. We have our own interests'," he said. 

Rosoboronexport issued its statement ahead of the Farnborough air show,
which begins on Monday in Britain. The aviation and space industry
accounts for 70 per cent of total exports, the company said. 

The arms exporter will display the wares of 50 Russian defence companies
at the week-long event, at which over 1000 companies from different
countries are expected to participate. 

More than 180 pieces of military equipment will be displayed at the
Rosoboronexport stall in the form of models, posters and advertising
equipment; 30 of the items will be displayed for the first time. 

While data on the famed Sukhoi family of fighter planes will be on hand
for visitors, the company has said that no military planes will take part
in aerial sho

Re: /morped/ Socialism Betrayed - "the property relations within," its meaning

[Waistline2]

CB: I'm not sure what you mean by "with the property relations 
within" 
 
^ 
 
>The unions of labor force of the workers and the means 
of production is simultaneously a connection of productive forces and a 
connection of people in the process of production which together makes up 
relations. The division of labor in manufacture is a relation in production and 
also emerges as a productive force. This applies to industrial society and the 
post industrial society evolving in front of us.<
 
 CB: I'd differentiate between the technological 
organization of production, including machines and who stands where on the shop 
floor, and property relations, who appropriates the products. 
 
Comment/Reply
 
The beginning of a qualitatively new production process that 
changes the form of the laboring process is always somewhat difficult to 
describe because all the new features have not yet emerged . . . and cannot 
emerged without political revolution that overthows the old relations of 
production and property relations within, that block their 
development. 
 
Yet, one can follow the direction of this development and 
apply certain lessons from our own history of development. Take for instance the 
biogenetic revolution which in fact is an authentic revolution in the material 
power of production that changes the form of the laboring process . . . 
especially in relationship to agriculture. 
 
From the standpoint of the form of slave labor prior to 
Emancipation to Emancipation - (which ended in counterrevolution that would 
eventually trap five million blacks and six million whites in the sharecropping 
system), to deployment of the mechanical cotton picker and the tractor . . . to 
the growth of the huge industrial farms to the emergence of "frankenfoods" . . . 
or the application of science - biogenetic, to farming . . . we are speak of a 
huge revolution in the mode of production. 
 
The fact of the matter is that the instruments . . . tools . . 
. deployment of human labor as the primary energy source of Southern agriculture 
did not change between say 1865 and 1900. With all due respect to Mr. Aptheker . 
. . I profoundly disagree that Lincoln's election constituted a revolution. I 
also have disagreed with his economic description of slavery and the aftermath 
of the Civil War for the past 30 years. 
 
Such is life. 
 
What is being spoken of is a qualitatively different 
production process that forever changes the form of the laboring process that 
arose and emerged with the industrial system. The implications are staggering 
because this qualitatively new production technique - regime, begins unraveling 
and shattering the commodity form and value. This does not mean that "all of the 
old mode of production (laboring process) disappears" . . . but rather the old 
process is sublated. Farming still takes place in the Mississippi Delta using a 
set of instruments and machinery half a century old. 
 
The meaning of "the property relations within" is the property 
relations within a given mode of production. In my opinion this is at the base 
of our divergence and most Marxists have in the past defined modes of production 
on the basis of the form of the labor process . . . like slavery, feudalism and 
capitalism. I am aware that I divergence from this description, while remaining 
consistent with the method Marx deploys in describing the advance of industry in 
the Communist Manifesto and Engels description of the advance of industry in 
Anti-Durhing. 
 
Here is what Marx states concerning "the property relations 
within:" 
 
"At a certain stage of their development, the material 
productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of 
production, or â what is but a legal _expression_ for the same thing â with the 
property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of 
development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. 
Then begins an epoch of social revolution." 
 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm 
 
The "property relations within" are not simply within the 
legal _expression_ as abstraction . . . because what the "legal" expresses is 
relations of production or how people are aggregated together to utilize a given 
state of development of the mode of production.  
 
"From forms of development of the productive forces these 
relations turn into their fetters." The productive forces begin with human being 
and the specific mode of human labor + tools, instruments and/or machinery + 
energy source and how they are organized. How the people are organized are the 
relations being referred to this relation becomes a fetter in the face of the 
development of the productive forces - with the property relations within. 

 
The issue connected to "Socialism Betrayed: Behind the 
Collapse of the Soviet Union" by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is the economic 
phenomena inherit to

Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed

[Charles Brown]

by Waistline2
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>CB: Yes, the South started the Civil War (a counter-revolutionary coup
d'etat see Aptheker) because the slave system could only survive by
constantly expanding geographically ,i.e. by geographical extension, or
extensive development. Marx discusses this in his essays on the Civil War
and U.S. economy at that time.<

Reply

My understanding is that the plantation South attempted to secede from the
Union . . . but that is not the point. By counterrevolution in the American
Union  . . . the Civil War itself is not referred to but rather the period
of history constituting the overthrow of Reconstruction . . . or the chain
of events that was the result of the Hayes Tilden agreement of 1876 . . .
leading to Plessy versus Ferguson.

^^
CB: Yes, I can see use of counterrevolution in this post-Civil War context.

Aptheker has the thesis that the initiation of the Civil War itself was a
counterrevolution, because the election of Lincoln was essentially a
revolution ( a change in the mode of production because a major form of
property was negated) . Lincoln's election was a revolution, not because the
he and the Republicans advocated abolition of slavery in the South, but
because they were for forbidding the slave system to _extend_ in the
terminology you have introduced, extensive territorial development. And
since the slave form of organization could not develop intensively ( as you
say below), it would die if it couldn't develop extensively, therefore
Lincoln's policy would indirectly "abolish" slavery, was a revolution and
the Southern firing on Fort Sumter was a counterrevolutionary assault. Also,
the slavocracy had been the ruling class of the whole U.S. the period before
the Civil War for , well all of it right back to Washington and Jefferson
really. The South controlled the Presidency and the Supreme Court. The
Democratic Parties were the parties of the Slavocracy. So, Lincoln's
election was a rev overthrowing the slavocratic ruling class. This is
Aptheker's explicit thesis, but really  a lot of it is in Marx's writing on
the U.S. Civil War.

However, I understand your use of "counterrevolution" for
Post-Reconstruction. The Civil War counterrevolution failed,was defeated.
The Counterrevolution you discuss succeeded.

^

One aspect - among several factors, of the outward expansion of the system
of plantation slavery is the form of labor itself and the laboring process
of gangs of slaves. The form of the laboring process of the slave system
contains its own barrier that prevents an internal intensive development.
This limitation of the form of slave labor has everything to do with the
tools and energy source deployed by masses of slaves.

^
CB: Well, it is the property form - human beings owned - that limits what
the masters can trust the slaves with. Marx has a specific passage on this.
I'll look for it. Empirically, slaves would tear up a form of machinery
quicker. Slaves are more readily Luddites. But this is generated by the
property relationship between slave and master , not the form of the
technology.

^^^

Actually . . . we discussed this issue before . . . Sartesian, yourself and
myself and it is all right to disagree over the form of the laboring process
. . . the economic character of plantation slavery . . . why it was not a
form of primitive accumulation . . . etc.

^
CB: Right. Slavery in 1860 is no longer primitive accumulation. Slavery at
the time of the primitive accumulation of all capitalism in the 1400 and
1500's is one of the things that Marx terms the chief momenta of the
primitive accumulation.

^^

Extensive and intensive development of the material power of production are
not isolated categories . . . yet what is being discussed is on what basis
the form of the laboring process itself is changed and what constitute a
revolution in the form of the labor process - the basis or internal
components of it intensive development . . . as opposed to extensive
expansion.

A soft ware programmer in the same building as a machinists is a different
creature expressing a change in the form of the laboring process. The
productive forces are revolutionized . . . sublated . . . and by definition
this takes place incrementally.

For instance, providing the slaves with better plows, hoes, etc., and the
driver man with a better whip, cannot lead to the internal intensive
development of agricultural production beyond the point of human muscle
effort . . . because the form of slave labor as a laboring process contains
its own barrier. This self contained barrier can only be shattered -
sublated, with the development of the means of production . . . that is
tools, instruments and machine development driven by a different energy
source . . . radically different from the tools, instruments and energy
source underlying the form of slave labor.

Providing slaves with a tractor constitutes a revolution in the form of the
laboring process . . 

absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[Charles Brown]

by Devine, James

Charles asks:Are you saying someone has put Hegel (
or dialectics) into simpler language ?


No. I'm saying that Marx's dialectical and materialist perspective (in
CAPITAL)
can be translated into relatively common-sense terms by using a non-Hegelian

language.

Jd

^^^
I'm thinking the use of "absolute" in "the absolute general law of
capitalist accumulation" is in the opposition absolute/relative, as in
absolute and relative surplus value and other usages. However, here , Marx
does not mention a relative. Perhaps these are the exceptions , the non-"all
other things being equal", aspects. He mentions countervailing tendencies
when he describes the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. But
here he says there are "relative" tendencies , but does not discuss them.
This seems a way to emphasize this particular law, maybe.

The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about
things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. Why not dialectical logic to
some extent ?

I certainly am not opposed to the translation you suggest above.

CB

Re: Of Rumps and Dumps

[Devine, James]

I haven't read this thread carefully, so I hope I'm not repeating anything. 
 
The "ruling class" almost never acts as a unified force that "dumps" someonw. However, 
I can imagine that sections of the ruling calss could turn against Bush. More 
importantly, the whole election process is set up in a way that filters out the 
anti-capitalist candidates. In the end, the differences within the ruling class can be 
settled by "letting the people decide," where of course the people don't have much 
choice and are highly influenced by campaign ads, the media, etc. The election then 
has the side-effect of helping to legitimate the system. 
 
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine 



From: PEN-L list on behalf of Marvin Gandall
Sent: Mon 7/19/2004 6:29 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Of Rumps and Dumps



Sartesian wrote:

Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has dumped George Bush?

Check out: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf

Check the whole site at:  http://www.whitehouseforsale.org


And this:

Wall Street firms funnel millions to Bush
By Thomas B. Edsall and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post
May 24 2004

At Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., a suggestion from chief executive E. Stanley
O'Neal is not to be taken lightly.

O'Neal eliminated 24,000 jobs, froze pay and steadily pushed out competitors
for executive power, including colleagues who had championed his rise up the
corporate ladder. "Ruthless," O'Neal has reportedly told colleagues, "isn't
always bad."

So it came as no surprise that when O'Neal sent letters to senior executives
at Merrill Lynch in early June asking them to contribute to President Bush's
reelection campaign, the response was prompt and generous.

Between June 12 and June 30 of last year, the Bush-Cheney campaign was
inundated with 157 checks from Merrill Lynch executives and at least 20 from
their spouses; 140 checks were for the maximum allowed by law: $2,000.

Total take generated by the O'Neal letter: $279,750 in less than three
weeks. When that total is combined with the rest of the money contributed to
Bush by employees during the current election cycle, Merrill Lynch personnel
have given $459,050, according to Dwight Morris & Associates, which studies
political money.

The money flowing from Merrill Lynch employees is part of a $12.14 million
tidal wave of cash to the Bush campaign from the finance and insurance
sectors.

Wall Street has stepped up to the plate in support of Bush, and Bush has
sponsored legislation producing billions of dollars in revenue on Wall
Street.

Capital gains and dividend tax cuts have encouraged substantial asset
shifting by investors -- transactions producing commissions for securities
firms. In addition, in 2001, Bush secured a gradual repeal of the estate
tax, allowing the accumulation of investment wealth without fear of large
tax liability for heirs.

The 10-year revenue loss from the elimination of the estate tax will be
$133.2 billion, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. The
revenue losses from the dividend and capital gains cuts will be $125.3
billion through 2010, according to the committee.

In addition, the administration has proposed creation of tax-free "Lifetime
Savings Accounts" that, if approved, would result in a major shift from
savings accounts to investment accounts managed by Wall Street companies.

O'Neal is one of nine Wall Street "Rangers" -- each one has raised at least
$200,000 for the Bush campaign. In addition, five other executives of
prominent securities firms have raised at least $100,000 each to qualify as
Bush "Pioneers."

The O'Neal-generated cash is a record for such a short time period,
according to Morris and other campaign finance experts.

O'Neal's success, however, represents only a small fraction of an
unprecedented drive by top Wall Street firms in support of the president.

When employers of contributors to the Bush campaign are ranked, seven out of
the top 10 are major securities firms. Employees of Morgan Stanley & Co.
Inc. have contributed the most of any single company to Bush: $505,675.

Asked why so many of the top 10 employers of contributors are Wall Street
securities firms, Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign,
said, "We are proud that we have over 1 million donors to the Bush-Cheney
campaign representing every county in every state in this nation."

Altogether, personnel at these seven top 10 firms have given Bush $2.33
million, or a fifth of the $12.14 million from employees of the finance and
insurance sector that has flowed to Bush this election cycle.

By comparison, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry
(Mass.), has raised $472,564 from employees of the same seven firms, and the
entire finance and insurance sector has given Kerry $2.7 million.

Many of the Wall Street Rangers and Pioneer

Re: Of Rumps and Dumps

[Marvin Gandall]

Sartesian wrote:

Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has dumped George Bush?

Check out: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf

Check the whole site at:  http://www.whitehouseforsale.org


And this:

Wall Street firms funnel millions to Bush
By Thomas B. Edsall and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post
May 24 2004

At Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., a suggestion from chief executive E. Stanley
O'Neal is not to be taken lightly.

O'Neal eliminated 24,000 jobs, froze pay and steadily pushed out competitors
for executive power, including colleagues who had championed his rise up the
corporate ladder. "Ruthless," O'Neal has reportedly told colleagues, "isn't
always bad."

So it came as no surprise that when O'Neal sent letters to senior executives
at Merrill Lynch in early June asking them to contribute to President Bush's
reelection campaign, the response was prompt and generous.

Between June 12 and June 30 of last year, the Bush-Cheney campaign was
inundated with 157 checks from Merrill Lynch executives and at least 20 from
their spouses; 140 checks were for the maximum allowed by law: $2,000.

Total take generated by the O'Neal letter: $279,750 in less than three
weeks. When that total is combined with the rest of the money contributed to
Bush by employees during the current election cycle, Merrill Lynch personnel
have given $459,050, according to Dwight Morris & Associates, which studies
political money.

The money flowing from Merrill Lynch employees is part of a $12.14 million
tidal wave of cash to the Bush campaign from the finance and insurance
sectors.

Wall Street has stepped up to the plate in support of Bush, and Bush has
sponsored legislation producing billions of dollars in revenue on Wall
Street.

Capital gains and dividend tax cuts have encouraged substantial asset
shifting by investors -- transactions producing commissions for securities
firms. In addition, in 2001, Bush secured a gradual repeal of the estate
tax, allowing the accumulation of investment wealth without fear of large
tax liability for heirs.

The 10-year revenue loss from the elimination of the estate tax will be
$133.2 billion, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. The
revenue losses from the dividend and capital gains cuts will be $125.3
billion through 2010, according to the committee.

In addition, the administration has proposed creation of tax-free "Lifetime
Savings Accounts" that, if approved, would result in a major shift from
savings accounts to investment accounts managed by Wall Street companies.

O'Neal is one of nine Wall Street "Rangers" -- each one has raised at least
$200,000 for the Bush campaign. In addition, five other executives of
prominent securities firms have raised at least $100,000 each to qualify as
Bush "Pioneers."

The O'Neal-generated cash is a record for such a short time period,
according to Morris and other campaign finance experts.

O'Neal's success, however, represents only a small fraction of an
unprecedented drive by top Wall Street firms in support of the president.

When employers of contributors to the Bush campaign are ranked, seven out of
the top 10 are major securities firms. Employees of Morgan Stanley & Co.
Inc. have contributed the most of any single company to Bush: $505,675.

Asked why so many of the top 10 employers of contributors are Wall Street
securities firms, Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign,
said, "We are proud that we have over 1 million donors to the Bush-Cheney
campaign representing every county in every state in this nation."

Altogether, personnel at these seven top 10 firms have given Bush $2.33
million, or a fifth of the $12.14 million from employees of the finance and
insurance sector that has flowed to Bush this election cycle.

By comparison, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry
(Mass.), has raised $472,564 from employees of the same seven firms, and the
entire finance and insurance sector has given Kerry $2.7 million.

Many of the Wall Street Rangers and Pioneers are, like O'Neal, chairmen and
CEOs -- top executives who rarely engage in the mundane work of political
fundraising.

This year, the Wall Street Rangers include Philip J. Purcell, CEO of Morgan
Stanley; Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman of UBS Financial Services Inc.; Henry
M. Paulson Jr., chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs & Co.; and John J. Mack,
CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston Corp.

None of them tried to become a Pioneer for the Bush campaign in 2000.

Spokesmen for the firms that replied to inquiries about the contribution
patterns denied that the money was related to Bush tax policies. Mark Herr,
of Merrill Lynch, said, "The simple facts are these: Mr. O'Neal wrote a
letter to executives and asked them if they wanted to contribute to the
president. He also made it clear that no one was obliged to do so." In a
prepared statement, UBS Financial Services said employe

Re: Venture Communism (Robert Owen)

[Daniel Davies]

Hazlitt's essay on Robert Owen is quite fun:

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Political/Owen.htm

there's also a rather good museum in New Lanark these days which makes an
attractive daytrip if you're ever stuck in Glasgow.

I occasionally find myself thinking that Owen and the pre-Engels British
Socialists are probably worth another look, but have always been put off by
the teetotal tendency which one tends to find there.

dd

Re: Venture Communism

[Dmytri Kleiner]

On Sun, Jul 18, 2004 at 08:49:19AM -0700, sartesian wrote:

> One last time:

I thank you for your patience, and again, I have read and reread your
response carefully. Unfortunatly, there is little in the way of clear
points to be found. I am not saying that this makes you wrong, you may be
right, however, I have no clue what you are actualy proposing and it's
relationship to Venture Communism.

Further, while I will present refutations of your arguments, it is very
plain to me that your knowedge of the historical context of this
discussion is impressive, I benefit from your feedback. My thanks and respect
to you.

> --
> I pointed to the historical failures of these attempts and the failures of
> social revolutions that in fact did not complete the "violent" process of
> expropriating the bourgeois system on an international scale. Violence
> seems to be your numbe one fear .  What you propose is not different that
> Owenism and a new New Lanark.

As a syllogism:

A certain historical attempt failed, your attempt is similar to it,
therefore your attempt will fail.

This is fallacy, since you have not given any applied analysis comparing
the attempts and the curcumstances of failure.

Simply calling something 'Owenism', or a 'new New Lanark' doesn't make an
argument, however, I do appreciate the references and will look into them.

> Your response is proof of the voluntarism.  'Taking surplus value away from
> them and put it instead towards the accumulation of democratically
> controlled communal wealth?'  Workers don't have that choice.  Plain and
> simple.  They sell their labor power out of necessity.  That same necessity
> creates the potential, the necessity, for social, even violent, revolution.

Again, as a syllogism:

Your plan depends on choice, workers don't have choice, therefore your plan
wont work.

Again, your argument is a fallacy: _Some_ workers do have choice, they have
'spare labour' that is currently being underutilzed, they can invest this
labour into a Venture Commune, which if sucessfull would become an
employer, and thereby give more workers choice and more political
influence.

Remember, Venture Communism is primarily an investment strategy, it
is therefore no more voluntaristic that a normal investment fund, in wich
Capitalists 'Voluntarily' invest their spare capital.

Both investments are made not out of charity, but rather in expectation of
gain, therefor require Rational Actors, not volunteers.

> You think the workers who worked at the Ypsilanti, Michigan M-16 factory
> waiting to be drafted during Vietnam War did it out of choice?

Yes, some of them had spare labour to invest in Venture Communes, doing so
may have strengthened their movement.

> And many upon return, if they did return, could consider, not alternative
> democracies, but immediate struggle for radical transformation, in class vs.
> class terms.

You keep saying struggle, but other than the implied grunting and groaning you
do not provide any actual activities that this struggle entails.

Venture Communism gives this struggle a Business Plan, if you'll forgive the
language.

The only alternative Business Plan you imply is a miraculous workers
revolution. Without Venture Communism where do you imagine you will find the
Capital required to plan and carry out this revolution?

> Workers are not at all faced with the 'same question.'  They face this
> reality, this struggle with this social organization, not the question of
> whether to sell their labor to Ford, or 'share' it in New Amana.  Choice has
> absolutely nothing to do with it.

Here you attempt to restate the earlier fallacy, in an attempt at proof by
insistence. It is still a fallacy, _All_ Wokers may not have a choice with
what to do with _All_ of their labour, However _Some_ workers do have a
choice with what to do with _Some_ of their labour.

This spare labour is what Venture Communism seeks to mobilize.

> News flash: it, overthrowing the ruling class, has been attempted, and even
> had some success.  None of the attempts or success involved venture
> communism, democratically shared profits, etc.

And once again you attempt your first fallacy, only in reverse:

A certain historical attempt had some success, your attempt is
not similar to it, therefore your attempt will not succeed.

This is still a fallacy, since again you have not given any applied analysis
comparing the attempts and the circumstances of success.

This argument is no better than saying you remind me of my uncle Tim,
uncle Tim was wrong, therefore so are you. I would then follow up by
accusing you of a lack of knowledge of my uncle Tim when you disagree.

This is a fallacious argument, as it is up to me to demonstrate the
applicability of the comparison I'm making.

>  They all did involve a
> certain amount of violence, and a class, not individuals, that utilized that
> violence in defense of that social revolution.  Nothing wrong with that,
> 

Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed

[Waistline2]

In a message dated 7/18/2004 3:16:15 PM Central Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 
 
>CB: Yes, the South started the Civil War (a 
counter-revolutionary coup d'etat see Aptheker) because the slave system could 
only survive by constantly expanding geographically ,i.e. by geographical 
extension, or extensive development. Marx discusses this in his essays on the 
Civil War and U.S. economy at that time.<
 
Reply 
 
My understanding is that the plantation South attempted to 
secede from the Union . . . but that is not the point. By counterrevolution in 
the American Union  . . . the Civil War itself is not referred to but 
rather the period of history constituting the overthrow of Reconstruction . . . 
or the chain of events that was the result of the Hayes Tilden agreement of 1876 
. . . leading to Plessy versus Ferguson. 
 
One aspect - among several factors, of the outward expansion 
of the system of plantation slavery is the form of labor itself and the laboring 
process of gangs of slaves. The form of the laboring process of the slave system 
contains its own barrier that prevents an internal intensive development. This 
limitation of the form of slave labor has everything to do with the tools and 
energy source deployed by masses of slaves. 
 
Actually . . . we discussed this issue before . . . Sartesian, 
yourself and myself and it is all right to disagree over the form of the 
laboring process . . . the economic character of plantation slavery . . . why it 
was not a form of primitive accumulation . . . etc. 
 
Extensive and intensive development of the material power of 
production are not isolated categories . . . yet what is being discussed is on 
what basis the form of the laboring process itself is changed and what 
constitute a revolution in the form of the labor process - the basis or internal 
components of it intensive development . . . as opposed to extensive expansion. 

 
A soft ware programmer in the same building as a machinists is 
a different creature expressing a change in the form of the laboring process. 
The productive forces are revolutionized . . . sublated . . . and by definition 
this takes place incrementally. 
 
For instance, providing the slaves with better plows, hoes, 
etc., and the driver man with a better whip, cannot lead to the internal 
intensive development of agricultural production beyond the point of human 
muscle effort . . . because the form of slave labor as a laboring process 
contains its own barrier. This self contained barrier can only be shattered - 
sublated, with the development of the means of production . . . that is tools, 
instruments and machine development driven by a different energy source . . . 
radically different from the tools, instruments and energy source underlying the 
form of slave labor. 
 
Providing slaves with a tractor constitutes a revolution in 
the form of the laboring process . . . even if he remains a slave for a period 
of time . . . and this "period of time" is short because the form of labor 
corresponding to a slave mode is not compatible with mechanization of 
agriculture and the value system. The form of the laboring process is burst 
asunder. 
 
The Civil War itself is considered revolutionary because the 
Slave Oligarchy was overthrown and shattered as a slave oligarchy and ruling 
class. In this sense the abolition of slavery was a social revolution without a 
preceding or corresponding economic revolution. That is, the instruments of 
production of the agricultural South did not advance, but the North imposed a 
revolution in the social relations upon the South with the freeing of the 
slaves. 
 
Every truly great social revolution must proceed from, stand 
upon and develop from an economic revolution. It is not possible to truly free 
slaves or proletarians without replacing them with more efficient energy. At the 
time of Emancipation, there was no such economic revolution in the means of 
production connected to Southern agriculture. This truth couple with a growing 
domestic and international demand for cotton and tobacco condemned the freemen 
to a new and often more brutal form of exploitation. 
 
Without question political alliances between Northern - Wall 
Street Finance capital, and the conversion of the Slave Oligarchy into the 
landlord planter class has everything to do with the counter revolution in full 
swing by 1890 . . . but what is being isolated is the conditions by which the 
form of the laboring process is transformed. 
 
The tools or instruments of production connected to Southern 
agriculture changed very little between 1870 and say . . . 1940. Sharecropping 
and the convict-lease system became new forms of slavery for the African 
American and this form of labor - the laboring process itself, would undergo 
revolutionizing with the invention of the mechanical cotton picker and the 
mechanization of agriculture, the development of weed killing chemicals, 
tractors etc. These developme

A Postmortem: The Anti-War Movement, September 2001-March 2004

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

"A Postmortem: The Anti-War Movement, September 2001-March 2004":

--
Yoshie
* Critical Montages: 
* Greens for Nader: 
* Bring Them Home Now! 
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity: 

Of Rumps and Dumps

[sartesian]

Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has 
dumped George Bush?
 
Check out: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf
 
 
Check the whole site at:  http://www.whitehouseforsale.org
 
 
 

Russian econ growth

[Chris Doss]

PS Rosbalt's english-language site is closing. Damn.

Rosbalt, 01/06/2004, 18:06
Putin's Interesting Arithmetic
Analysts are divided over the ambitious plans for
national development outlined in President Vladimir
Putin's recent state of the federation speech, but
they are agreed that realizing them, if they can be
realized, will take some doing.

Leaving aside vague declarations--'the tax system must
not weigh excessively on business,' 'the state and
business must make every effort to reduce unemployment
and poverty'--we asked a number of leading analysts to
comment on the few exact figures that the president
did offer.

'First of all,' said Vadim Kotikov, an analyst for
NetTrader.ru, 'many of Putin's assertions have already
been amended by Economics Minister German Gref. Putin
is, of course, a politician, not an economist, and so
a few errors on his part can be excused. But it is odd
that the people who wrote his speech let such mistakes
get by.'

'Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8% in the first
four months of 2004,' Putin stated at the start of his
speech. While that number might seem too good to
believe, the analysts don't question it.

'There is no reason to doubt it. It is no great jump,
just a perfectly credible increase in the rate of
growth [7.3% in 2003] arising from historically high
prices for oil and the investment and consumer boom
that high oil prices stimulated,' Kotikov said.

Anton Struchenevsky, an economist with Troika
Dialogue, said: 'To judge by the growth rate, the
country will outperform last year. Moreover, growth is
not being powered by the raw materials sector alone,
and its particularly favorable price conditions, but
by other elements of industry as well. Still,' he
said, 'it is hard to believe that this kind of growth
will last very long. Oil prices are not going to stay
up forever, and when they begin to decline, so will
growth.'

Aleksey Vorobyev, an analyst for Aton, said
preliminary figures from the Economics Ministry
indicate an 8% growth rate for the January-April
period of 2004 as compared with the same period in
2003. 'More exact figures will come in time from the
Statistical Service,' he said. 'However, judging by
the 7.9% growth rate in basic sectors of the economy
(manufacturing, construction, agriculture,
transportation, retail trade), the announced figures
look reliable.'

But what about the president's confidence that GDP can
be doubled by 2010? Is this realistic?

The notion of doubling GDP by 2010 is, obviously, a
great motivator, said Maksim Sheyn, who heads the
analysis department of Broker Credit Service. 'But to
double national output in 10 years will require growth
of 7.3% a year,' Sheyn said. 'And to double it by 2010
(that is, in six years), a rate of 12.2% a year would
be needed, not 8%. . . . This kind of exaggeration may
be all right for fairy tales but not for serious
statements of policy. . . . One can only hope for a
more sober approach in any corrections that are
forthcoming.'

Kotikov also was critical of the president's
arithmetic. 'Even assuming continuation of current
high growth rates of 8% a year, simple arithmetic
shows that GDP can be doubled no earlier than 2012
(taking 2003 as the base year),' he said. 'The real
question is on what basis Putin and the government
believe the current growth rate can be maintained.
Doubling GDP is a nice-sounding slogan, but there's
not been a word about concrete measures that the
government plans to take to see it into reality. The
most disappointing thing is that the president said
nothing about government plans to encourage small and
medium businesses, which are the source of 40%-60% of
GDP in developed countries and less than 15% for us.
Creating favorable conditions for small business would
set the stage for a real economic breakthrough, but
that apparently is harder to do than resting on the
laurels of high petroleum prices and taking credit for
the growth those bring with them.'

In the opinion of Struchenevsky of Troika Dialogue, a
doubling of GDP is possible only with very high
petroleum prices or if there are radical reforms in
the economy. 'Unfortunately, reforms are barely
moving,' he said. 'All we can say at this point is
that the president's figures are part of a political
game. We'll only really be in a position to say how
the president's declaration is being acted on when we
see the budget for 2005.'

Even maintaining the current 8% growth rate won't
produce a doubling of GDP by 2010, Aton's Vorobyev
said. 'Doubling GDP in 10 years is an extremely tricky
business,' he said. 'Much depends on the economic
picture outside Russia and that is completely beyond
the control of the Russian government.'

Finally, the president called for full ruble
convertibility within two years while holding the rate
of inflation to 3% annually.

Vorobyev said: 'Sharply reducing the rate of inflation
while stimulating high rates of economic growth is
virtually a contradiction in terms. One certainly
cannot expect

Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected

[Diane Monaco]

Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected
Thu Jul 15, 2004 08:32 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing initial claims for
jobless pay grew by more than expected last week, government data showed on
Thursday, with seasonal factors offsetting a large drop the week before.
First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose 40,000 to 349,000 in
the week ending July 10, the Labor Department said.
Wall Street analysts had forecast a substantial rise in claims to 346,000
from a revised 309,000 the previous week.
Last week's number, originally reported at 310,000 and much lower than
expected, had been heavily influenced by seasonal factors linked to the
expected closure of auto plants for an annual exercise to change over to
next year's models. Instead, this influence showed up a week later, Labor
officials said, possibly because of the timing of the July 4 holiday.
While initial claims rose, the four-week moving average of filings, which
smoothes weekly fluctuations to provide a better picture of underlying
trends, advanced 3,250 to 339,000 from a revised 335,750. This was
initially reported at 336,000.
Strong economic growth has delivered a sustained improvement in hiring in
the United States, with 671,000 jobs added to the nonfarm payroll between
April and June, although June's score of 112,000 new jobs was less than
half the number expected.
The number of unemployed on the benefit rolls after claiming an initial
week of aid rose by 112,000 to 2.971 million in the week ending July 3, the
latest for which figures are available.