[PEN-L:8948] Final words from sheep boy.
Valis wrote >I don't know who you are, Cochrane, but after reading the foul crap above >it's hard to care. For a simple rustic you nevertheless show some promise >as a replacement for Rush Limbaugh or airwave sleazebags of a finer point. > >New York City is a vast place of great world-historical significance and >many contemporary delights. It does not begin and end with Wall Street, >Madison Avenue and whichever ethnic groups your paranoia might embrace, >but is also a boiling sea of proletarian travail and pain that now and >again produces an audible utterance of its own. > >For relying so completely on your "reliable sources" I hope the regular >members of this list give you a good roasting! My enthusiasm for this exchange is flagging however in an attempt at last wordism I submit the following. I would be among the first to admit that I'm nowhere near as funny or important as I my wish to believe and I would concede Tom Walkers point that my broad brush allusions and basically ad homenum argument does little to bolster my debunking of Waring, no matter how much I enjoyed saying them. I am at a loss however to understand your response, particularly the inference that I my paranoia runs to racism or that I share the views of Rush Limbaugh. I await enlightenment either via the list or privately on this point. Following the lead of comrade Henwood I will not however take offense, fence taking being a serious crime in rural areas. Regards Bill "Sheep Boy" Cochrane
[PEN-L:8941] Jane Kelsey
Doug wrote >How high is Jane Kelsey's profile in NZ? Her book, The New Zealand >Experiment, is certainly at oods with the market-is-god form of PC. Depends on who you are. Amongst interested academics and some politicians she is reasonably well known and on the left well thought of.As to the general public she'd be an almost complete mystery. A number of academics at Auckland University ,where Kelsey is, have more or less opposed the policy direction taken over the last 13 years. They get the occasional sound bite and the odd feature article in the daily paper but thats it. Oddly much of this has eminated from the economics department. In fairness to assorted others academics opposition has not been limited to just Auckland.Particularly noteworthy is a brave but small band of heretic economists that can be heard chanting a hetrodox lament from the wilderness, I mean wilderness both metaphorically and literally as some hail from the scenic but sparsely populated south. Bill Cochrane Ngaruawahia New Zealand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:8940] Marilyn Waring
Tom Walker wrote >Perhaps Bill Cochrane was just being sarcastic. I was not. I meant every word of what I wrote, literally. We antipodeans are a simple rural folk devoid of the guile required for irony or sarcasm. I leave such sophistications to inhabitants of the metropolitan areas of North America.(Reliable sources have informed me that the truth and importance of an utterance is inversely proportional to the distance of the utterer from New York city). I agree though that "line up politics" is not a sound basis for deciding the relative merits of a proposition.My comments regarding Ms Waring were not so much directed at her opinions of the SNA framework or the valuation of womens contribution to the nations economic well being but rather to dispell the spurious notion that she was in someway left wing or progressive. Many accounts of Ms Warings activities, frequently autobiographical in nature, portray her as a fiesty heroine battling various assorted evils. This IMHO is complete bollocks as my other posts have made clear. Waring and persons like her are the 'liberal' face of a ensemble of policy positions that have, and continue to, fuck over the people that my political agenda would seek to empower and defend. She and others of her ilk are thus my political enemies and I seek to expose them for what they are at every opportunity. As to how I arrived at my assessment of Ms Waring I would say that I've heard her speak, observed her career, had friends that were colleagues and students of hers, watched her acrimonious departure from her position in the politics department of Waikato University and had occasion to be present at various social events and the odd school visit at which she made her views clear. While it is undoubtably true that unions and other traditional left wing organisations have been less than progressive from time to time most of the reforms such as equal pay, anti-discrimination laws, childcare provison, parental leave, universal francise were fought for and won by these class based organisations and not by the now fashionable New Social Movements. Bill Cochrane Ngaruawahia New Zealand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:8924] signature
Comrades I note that several of my posts ended with the signature, Bill Cochrane Centre for Labour and Trade Union Studies University of Waikato Hamilton New Zealand [EMAIL PROTECTED] This was in no way meant to implicate the centre in my opinions, they are as one might expect my own. Thankyou to those who answered my query, I have forwarded them to the avacardo and shrimp cocktail in question. Bill Cochrane Ngaruawahia New Zealand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:8911] Beyond Dependency
Comrades Our dept of social welfare (DSW) is currently funding a conference called "Beyond Dependency" at which many reportedly notable and expert persons will present their views on how to get people off welfare. Some cynical individuals have suggested that this is merely another of those events where the new right agenda is applauded loudly by the new right who then claim that a concensus has been reached blah blah. These cynics point to the presence of various supporters of the wisconsin model as evidence of the dark hand of the Business Round Table (BRT).For those interested in antipodean matters this is currently being touted as a model for reform of the NZ welfare system by the BRT and their helpers in the DSW. Heavily disguised as a very large and somewhat rotund avacardo and shrimp cocktail one of my spies attended a BRT dinner at which a Sister Connie Driscoll, manager of the St Martin de Porres House of Hope in Chicago spoke. She also apparently has an attachment to the Acton Foundation from Grand Rapids, Michagan. Could any of you kindly disposed americans shed light on who this person is and what the nature of her organization and the acton foundation is also. cheers Bill Cochrane Centre for Labour and Trade Union Studies University of Waikato Hamilton New Zealand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:8910] Re:Marilyn Waring
Comrades I write this with some trepidation, given the view in many quarters that Marilyn Waring should be elevated to the status of at least saint, perhaps a medium league deity. Marliyn Waring is and always has been a tory, albeit of a liberal kind. She is no friend of unions or a number of other traditional "left" progressive organizations and IMHO it would be ill advised to expect much in the way of progressive, in the left wing sense, thought from this individual and even less in the way of deed, despite what some of her apologists might say. As an aside it is inaccurate to state that Ms Waring was the only women member of parliament at the time of her election and I would be interested in the source of this particular statement. If one wanted to single out a women in NZ politics who is both intelligent, capable, hard working and has at least a residual commitment to social democratic principles I would nominate the current leader of the Labour party Helen Clark. If you like academics then try Jane kelsey. I say this largely because when tory scum masquerade as progressives it makes me want to vomit. Cheers Bill Cochrane Centre for Labour and Trade Union Studies University of Waikato Hamilton New Zealand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:8474] Re: Is this a consensus? (Tom Walker)
Comrade Walker wrote > Somewhere, buried in this mountain of >scraps of paper with notes on them I've got a reference to an article that >catalogued the various species of NAIRU. I would be overwhelmed with joy if you could provide this reference for me Cheers Bill Cochrane
[PEN-L:8197] Econometric Advice for Novice
Dear Comrades For reasons to unpleasant to mention I have been forced to turn my attention from the esoteric world of regulation school methodology to the more prosaic topic of the minimum wage. This involves a brush with the empirical for which I am ill prepared. I intend to test time series data for employment & unemployment in various groups for 'structural breaks' and then relate any such breaks to various policy changes, ie increases in minimum wage, change in school leaving age Is this a good idea and if so what would be a suitable test for such 'breaks'. Thanks in advance for the assistance Bill 'so thats the real world' Cochrane
[PEN-L:8197] Econometric Advice for Novice
Dear Comrades For reasons to unpleasant to mention I have been forced to turn my attention from the esoteric world of regulation school methodology to the more prosaic topic of the minimum wage. This involves a brush with the empirical for which I am ill prepared. I intend to test time series data for employment & unemployment in various groups for 'structural breaks' and then relate any such breaks to various policy changes, ie increases in minimum wage, change in school leaving age Is this a good idea and if so what would be a suitable test for such 'breaks'. Thanks in advance for the assistance Bill 'so thats the real world' Cochrane
[PEN-L:7624] Regulation School
Upon returning to my e-mail from my various child minding tasks, hence the delay in responding, I see that my query to Patrick Bond, >³While there is little doubt that the use of the term fordism is >problematic, both in Harvey's and general usage, I am curious to know >what you find unfortunate about it>³While there is little doubt that the use of the >term fordism is >problematic, both in Harvey's and general usage, I am curious to know >what you find unfortunate about it" has bought several commendably succinct and well thought out responses that I more or less disagree with. In response to these replies I would like to offer my position in respect of the regulation school and the issue of fordism and post-fordism. 1)The Regulation School of political economy is not a fully established monolithic theoretical system but is rather a diverse group of theorists engaged in a continuing research program concerned with two broad substantive issues derived from the traditions of European Marxian historical materialism; i) Firstly a concern with the political economy of capitalism and the anatomy of bourgeois society. ii) Secondly a particular concern with the manner in and through which the expanded reproduction of capitalism is secured, albeit temporarily, in the face of the immanent crisis tendencies of capitalism. The sought of regulation theory which holds my sympathies is that of the parisians, particularly Boyer and Lipietz, and that of Jessop and the British geographers Tickell and Peck. 2) One of the main strengths of the regulation approach to me is that it takes seriously the both the world of the internal relations¹ that determine the dynamic of capitalism, the esoteric and the manner in which they appear on the surface¹ to economic agents. The exoteric. Traditionally I feel that much marxian theory fails to give the exoteric its due with the consequence that we are relatively blind to the fact that reproduction of the esoteric only takes place in and through the activity of agents in the representational space of the enchanted or exoteric world. Such a failure would be of no great consequence if there was a relatively stable correspondence between the determinations of the esoteric and their appearance in the exoteric world however this is not the case as; ³The way that they appear, their representational space, provides agents with a degree of freedom in action through which the contradictions of the relations which enclose them can be expressed.²(Lipietz) 3)I think that the approach to reg theory by regulationists themselves is extremely healthy. To quote Aglietta concepts are not introduced once and for all at a single level of abstraction. They are transformed by the characteristic interplay which constitutes the passage from the abstract to the concrete and enables the concrete to be absorbed within theory. Theory, for its part, is never final and complete, it is always in the process of development.² As Lipietz cautions the point is not the creation of a monolithic theory or dogma butThe objective then is not the completion of some monolithic theory but the elaboration of concepts with ever greater precision that must then be articulated into increasingly adequate explanations of the real concrete. 4) With Tickell and Peck, and to varying degrees Lipietz and Jessop, I do not see that the crystal ball gazing of the post-fordists is compatible with the central tenets of the regulation method as I understand it. Most of this stuff is pernicious drivel of the worst kind. All soughts of crap has been justified by reference to various non-regulationist variants of fordism/post-fordism and worse still by bastardized variants of the Reg approach. I personally blame the likes of marxism to day for this kind of silliness. Down here in sheep country, ie Australia and New Zealand, some of this has been taken up by the peak union organisations, try reading John Mathews Tools of Change, for a purile techno determinist variant of this debate. I do not believe however that the reg approach necessarily implies or leads to a specific type of politics or practice.. This post is going on way to long so I¹ll stop now. In defence of the length of this post blame my childrens lack of interest in political economy, they¹re who I normally rant to. Regards Bill Cochrane
[PEN-L:7545] Re: PEN-L digest 1579
Patrick Bond writes >"The rise of pomo-K"? I understand it differently: the crisis of modern-K >(which Harvey unfortunately describes in that work as fordism). While there is little doubt that the use of the term fordism is problematic, both in Harvey's and general usage, I am curious to know what you find unfortunate about it. Cheers Bill Cochrane
[PEN-L:5284] Re: AIRAANZ
O.K so I've upset Mr Gilson. This is unfortnunate as this was not my intention nor did I mean to imply anything about AIRAANZ. As I pointed out I know nothing about this organisation. As to an apology I see no particular need to as I have not slandered, mislead or misinformed anyone as far as I can tell. If such is the case then for that I apologise. I see absolutely nothing wrong with holding marxist or trotskyist views, having spent about twenty years involved in socialist or communist organisations myself. If asked I would unequivocally identify myself as a marxist. I view such statements as statements of fact, nothing more. In the interests of fraternity however if Mr Gilson would provide me with a suitable address I will have a dozen beers of his choice delivered to show my contrition.If he should wish to contact me I maybe found at 4 King St Ngaruawahia or rung at 8247722. I wrote. "O.K, AIRAANZ is apparently the association of industrial relations academics of australia and new zealand. I checked it out largely because I'm a graduate student in the centre for labour and trade union studies at the university of waikato, where this home page is located and had never heard of this organisation. Luckily for me it has little to do with the centre, the home page and associated mailing list are run by the head of the Dept for strategic management and HRM at the management school, Clive Gilson. This guy is some kind of marxist from a trot background who, though from the U.K, has spent much of his academic career in Canada. My ignorance of anything much to do with IR/HRM at wiakato stemming from a consumming passion for Regulation school political economy. Regards Bill Cochrane" Clive Gilson wrote "For purposes of general clarification, I would like to take this opportunity to rectify the most unfortunate tones used by Mr. Bill Cochrane in describing the AIRAANZ Home Page which currently resides on the Web server at the School of Management Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Most importantly, my role as 'keeper' of the AIRAANZ Home Page is a fiduciary one. My own personal forms of scholarship and intellectual endeavours, be they Marxists of Trotskyist as Mr. Cochrane claims have NO relationship to the work of the Society - incidentally long established and patronised by all shades of industrial relations academics in the southern hemisphere. I also run the mailing list that serves those who see utility in associating themselves with the Society. Pacific Region Industrial Relations (PRIR-L) and it's full list of subscribers and method of subscribing can also be found on our home page. Finally, I am also pleased to share with PEN-L that I also co-edit the Electronic Journal of radical Organisation Theory (EJROT), that can be found at: http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/leader/journal/ejrot.htm The recently launched second edition contains an article written by Noam Chomsky. Perhaps Mr. Cochrane would like to investigate and share his pedigree with this list also. Alternatively he may wish to issue a public apology both to myself and the Society which I serve. Sincerely, Clive Gilson School of Management Studies University of Waikato New Zealand
