[PEN-L:12630] Re: Russian help
See July/August _Dollars and Sense_ "Why Did the USSR Fall?" You might take a look at the topic Big Government vs Privatization in my conference econ. democracy on PeaceNet where several recent newspaper articles re Russia are posted as well. If you don't have access to PeaceNet give me your e-mail address and I'll forward the info to you. Cheers, Curtis Moore facilitator of the conference econ.democracy on PeaceNet Econ.democracy posts a model constitution for a democratic economy. At 02:30 PM 9/27/97 -0700, Rebecca Peoples wrote: Hi folks, I desperately need help on Russia today: recommended books, artcles sites, etc. Rebecca
[PEN-L:12271] Re: Comp.Econ.Sys. course bibliography
I still have in my possession an August 1973 draft (Comments invited) bibliography by Jim Campen with the title: A Structured and Partially Annotated BIBLIOGRAPHY of Materials relevant to Constructive Thinking About SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVES FOR AMERICA. 84 pages. Price 35 cents [+40 cents postage] Contents: Introduction Detailed Outline Selective Short Listing The Bibliography Essay: Why and How to Think About Socialist Alternatives for America I don't know whether Campen ever published this thing. It is 84 pages in length and I highly recommend it. Perhaps he has even updated it, I don't know. Campen teaches somewhere in Boston, I think. His name is on the masthead of Dollars and Sense. For a recent bibliography, I have recently (last month) reviewed one written by Thad Williamson. You can get the scoop on that at http:\\www.northcarolina.com\thad Don't see how you can get by without reading that. Curtis Moore At 11:41 AM 9/11/97 -0700, James Devine wrote: Eric Schutz writes: I have just updated a bibliography on socialist economics that I sent out to pen-l'ers in 1991, suitable for use in courses on, e.g., Comp. Econ. Sys. I'll be happy to e-mail the new version (about 200-titles) to pen-l'ers on request. what we need is a pen-l FTP or gopher site to collect such bibliographies and syllabi (etc.) so that folks can access this kind of thing easily and at any time. I recently found a Marx bibliography on line that turned out to be very useful. It would be great if pen-l could make this kind of contribution. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/fall%201997/ECON/jdevine.html Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Dear, you increase the dopamine in my accumbens." -- words of love for the 1990s.
[PEN-L:10950] Re: OOps
Sorry. I accidentally sent to the list what was meant to be an off-line message to thwilliamson. Curtis Moore
[PEN-L:10951] Re: religion
Dear Mr. Williamson, I have enjoyed reading your posts on PEN-l. Recently I looked at your web page and noting your background wondered if you might help me with the following: Request #1. Perhaps with your contacts you could help me locate a book. Sometime ago I heard about a manuscript by Duns Scotus (Medieval theologian c. 1100?) that dealt with the topic of human development on the lines of the metaphor of Aristotle's famous oak tree. Each human being is like a tree with its own unique essence. In order for the tree to develop into what it is meant to be (into its full potential/flowering) it requires the proper environment -- the right nutrients, sunshine, right amount of rainfall, etc. Only with the proper environmental support can the tree reach its full potential/actualize its essence implanted in it by its creator. So, similarly with each human being. Implicit in this view also is the idea that without the proper environmental support, development will be stunted. Supposedly there is a book out (70s? 80s? 90s?) by some author giving an exposition of and commentary on this text by Scotus. (Don't know the author or the press). I am on the adult education committee of my church (Bethany Methodist) and we are reviewing books that we might use in our class next fall. If there is any difficulty with this request, please ignor it. The person who could finger this book for me, supposing it exists, is currently out of town. This Sunday I'll get some further help on this. Request #2. Do you have a publication date for your 150 page bibliography? Would it be possible to get a copy of this anytime soon? Request # 3. Do you have any idea when Gar Alperovitz will publish his "magnum opus?" When you were six years old I called Alperovitz (got hold of his wife) and he gave me permission to include his "Notes on a Pluralist Commonwealth" as an appendix to my "Note I" on "Reframing the U.S. Constitution" -- still unpublished. I have an electronic conference on IGC (Peacenet), econ.democracy. It started in January 1995 and currently contains 112 topics. The subject is a model constitution for a democratic economy. The topics Contents, Introduction and Art 1 constitute my "introduction." Topic 43 contains a bibliography. Topic 112 is a reading list. Topic 48 (response 1) is a current list of topics and responses, sort of an index of the conference. I thought you might be interested in some of this, given your breadth of interest in the area of economics. Finally, I have not yet had a chance to read your "long" paper on religion that you speak of in your message below but will do so shortly. Sincerely, Curtis Moore, San Francisco. Original message:- Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 19:41:50 -0700 (PDT) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Thad Williamson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:10893] Re: religion Alright, as to the first question on materialist analysis of religion: Still nothing better that I know of than Feuerbach; an excellent monography considering Feuerbach in historical perspective by Stanford professor Van Harvey, out in '96, would be the place to start. Secondly, I think you will find the non-consumerist (I won't say anti-consumerist) sentiment present in many, many pulpits in America. Even the conservative journal Christianity Today ran a long cover article last fall on the conflict between Christian teaching and capitalist consumption patterns [alongside its analysis of the election from Ralph Reed, et al!]. And the critique of the image of the person and the types of communities is a staple of politically progressive theological discourse. I'm very interested in the subject of how churches might contribute to a long-term process of social reconstruction in the US, and have written a long paper about this available at http://www.northcarolina.com/thad/church.htm . [A couple of versions should be out in small religion journals this fall.] The basic points are that 1. The declared social principles of the mainline Protestant denominations at least, are very good and progressive, even radical if taken seriously but 2)few in the denominations seem willing to note the obvious and fundamental contradiction between those stated principles [universal income, etc.] and the fundamental operations of capitalism 3)which results in a mostly ineffective political lobby that invites more scorn than positive outcome as well as 4)a tendency by even progressive religious leaders to toady to power (i.e. Clinton, whom a number of key leaders lay hands on in a white house prayer service in November '95) in a misbegotten attempt to preserve a shadow of the influence the churches once had. Moreover, you have a huge gap between the basically conservative people in the pews
[PEN-L:8926] Re: Marilyn Waring
Within limits, therefore, her video is useful. But it is no substitute for analysis. I think that's what I meant to say (or ought to have said). I think the video is a powerful visual statement and Marilyn Waring comes across very well. Not being from New Zealand, I don't know how she is currently regarded there, or elsewhere, for that matter. What matters with respect to the video is that she is a superstar there, at that moment in time. Curtis Moore San Francisco Facilitator of the conference econ.democracy on PeaceNet Original message: - Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 18:00:05 -0800 (PST) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:8919] Marilyn Waring I have used the Waring video in my classes, in particular Women and the Canadian Economy, very effectively. It is very good on the issue of the degrading of women's contribution to the economy and *as a result*, the degredation of the environment. But it is shallow on the question of capitalism as the cause of the problem and her environmentalism is very "Tory" -- the old golden pastoral age of sheep and dung. In fact she was here promoting her most recent book a couple of weeks ago ( I missed her as I was in Cuba) but my students who attended on my recomendation were not impressed -- she had reduced all her analysis to shit (dung). Within limits, therefore, her video is useful. But it is no substitute for analysis. Paul Phillips
[PEN-L:8890] Marilyn Waring video
Last night (Tuesday, March 12, 9:30-11:30, PST) on KQED Public TV in San Francisco a video presentation featuring Marilyn Waring was aired. Waring is the author of the book "Who's Counting," internationally published. In some countries the title is "If Women Counted." (The computer at Stacey's books in SF was not able to come up with this book, however. So, I don't yet know how to get it.) The video is currently available through KQED for $150 as part of the current KQED membership drive. (For the $150 you get a year membership in KQED + the video -- not relevant for anyone outside the Bay Area, I know.) The video includes a "study guide." You may not be able to purchase the video anywhere else at this time. (When I called the national video number through which service most PBS videos are available, I was told that this video is only available through KQED at present.) The reason I bring this to your attention is that so many on PEN-l are teachers. IMHO I can't think of anything that would enhance an Intro to Econ course better than this video. Economics has the reputation for dullness. This video is anything but dull. It's main theme is national income accounts and how the way these accounts are kept world-wide impact the standard of living, especially in the case of women, and the environment. The power of the video lies in its visual presentation of some astounding free market "externalities." The video is divided into segments. One segment features an interview with John Kenneth Galbraith. (With all his books lined up like good soldiers in the background behind his desk.) In so many words, Galbraith gives his assent to Waring's work, and states that he hopes his own life's work will be seen as contributing to this same vein of thinking! Has he become an URPE member? Through a fluke, Waring was elected to the New Zealand parliament at the age of 22 (1983, I believe). She was the youngest member of the parliament and the only woman. Within a few years she took over as the chair of the budget committee (whatever it's called exactly). And she is sharp as the proverbial tack. Another Hazel Henderson. The combination of Waring's "sharp as a tackness" plus the visual presentation of some of the best of Samuelson's beloved free market externalities ought to win this thing an oscar, or whatever they give out in this area. Curtis Moore San Francisco Facilitator of the conference econ.democracy on PeaceNet.
[PEN-L:8822] Re: query: Keynes quote: euthanasia of the rentie
Answer to question posed in original message below: "Now, though this state of affairs would be quite compatible with some measure of individualism, yet it would mean the euthanasia of the rentier, and, consequently, the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit the scarcity-value of capital." ... Book VI, Chapter 24 Concluding Notes, _The General Theory of of Employment, Interest, and Money_ pp. 375-6 in the Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich edition. Original message: Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 12:37:39 -0800 (PST) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Robert R Naiman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:8817] query: Keynes quote: "euthanasia of the rentier"? Does anyone have the quote and cite where Keynes talked about the "euthanasia of the rentier"? ___ Robert Naiman 1821 W. Cullerton Chicago Il 60608-2716 (h) 312-421-1776 (here there is voice mail) Urban Planning and Policy (M/C 348) 1007 W. Harrison Room 1180 Chicago, Il 60607-7137 (o) 312-996-2126 (here there is voice mail also) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://icarus.uic.edu/~rnaima1/
[PEN-L:7928] Re: Norway and oil
Jim Devine said : (whether I'll mention the oil money depends on whether people ask). The oil ruins this model, doesn't it. But as "pwogwessives" we should have a reply at our finger tips, should we not? Sorry to say, when after my initial excitement, I came to realize how severely the oil tarnished the Norway model, I was initially at loss for an immediate/intuitive reply. After further thought, here is my reply to the question: What can replace the "oil" in the Norway model? (1) The military budget or Peace Dividend. The Peace Dividend could replace the "oil" in the Norway model, at least for the U.S. economy (not for the Norway economy). (2) The theme of Bowles, Gordon and Weisskopf's _Beyond the Wasteland_(1983) is economic waste. Recovering the economic waste could replace the "oil" in the Norway model. (JW Smith in _The World's Wasted Wealth 2_(1994) has further mined the waste theme.) (3) Next come more complicated and less "intuitive" ideas (not to mention "controversial") such as the Henry George model for rational public finance. I don't want to get into any more complicated replys. Such as "economic planning." QUESTION. Can anyone think of any more obvious/intuitive/simple/immediate responses? for us "pwogwessives"? Original messages:-- Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 11:26:38 -0800 (PST) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7908] Norway and oil Oil seems to have brought nothing but tragedy to most people in countries where it was recently discovered. Norway is an exception. How much have the ordinary Nigerians or Mexicans benefitted from oil? The Wall Street Journal recently had an article decrying the squandering of oil resources in Norway. I sent Trond the reference. I no longer have it, but in fact, Norway seems to be the only country where the windfall has been used well. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date sent:Thu, 19 Dec 1996 10:49:00 -0800 (PST) Send reply to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: D Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7907] Norway's welfare state [fwd] From: THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL, Friday December 13, 1996 Front Page (bottom) WELFARE'S SNUG COAT CUTS NORWEGIAN COLD By YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM OSLO, Dec. 9 - Suffer from rheu- matism? The Norwegian state will send you to the Canary Islands for a month of therapy, all expenses paid. Husband walked out, leaving children to raise? Not to worry. As a single mother under the generous Norwegian welfare system, you will get special subsidies for the children and paid leave from your job so you can stay home and rear them. Take Dr. Sidsel Kreyberg, 42-year-old pathologist. When her husband left her in 1987, leaving her with two young children, she was immediately embraced by the state. For nearly eight years, until both children reached age 10, the state paid her a pension. Other support systems helped, including free day care, subsid- ized housing and vacations, and free medical and dental care. The Government also footed the bill for Dr. Kreyberg to fulfill her old ambition of getting a Ph.D. in epidem- ology at the University Oslo. Now she is off welfare and has a better-paying job than before she went on. The other day, she stood in her living room overlooking a vista of snow-covered forests and the Oslo Fjord. She beamed at her daughter, Karoline, 12, and son, Karsten, 10, and proclaimed, "Look at the result." The entire world, it seems, is dis- mantling the welfare state, privatizing the public sector, downsizing govern- ment, reducing subsi- [Picture #1. Poolside reading at Norway's health center in the Canary Islands.] dies and cutting social programs that were once sacrosanct. From Europe to Africa, across most of Latin America and even in the once fabulously wealthy Arab oil countries, governments plagued by soaring budget deficits are everywhere embracing the free-market gospel preached in the 1980's by President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. Everywhere, that is, except Norway. Buoyed by an unending gush of oil revenue and guided by a national commit- ment to egalitarianism, Norway's 4.35 million people are fattening the mother of all welfare states. Even business people -- including those who export pulp, paper, lumber, chemicals, fertilizers, aluminum and transport machinery to the globalizing world of dog-eat-dog capitalism -- join in their nation's adherence to social democracy.
[PEN-L:6188] Re: query: superexploitation
In _The World's Wasted Wealth 2_ by J.W. Smith, p. 337, the author gives an explanation of the concept of *superproprietors* as follows: QUOTE: ... The changes in the past two hundred years make it difficult to understand the eighteenth-century conception of liberty embodied in the Constitutiion. For the founders, private property was the best guarantee of the public good, because the richest members of society were the ones with the strongest interest in its prosperity. The richest merchants in New York would have the most public spirit when it came to improving the harbor. The largest planters would care the most about improving communications and agriculture. And the rich of all kinds would have the greatest interest in governing society in such a way as to avoid provoking rebellion by excessive laxity or severity in law and administrationThe independent producer in a free market was the centerpiece of the Jeffersonian system in his incarnation as a farmer; in his mercantile form this producer was the center of Hamilton's system. This figure has been driven to the fringes of American life, but not by the rabble. Instead a new class of *superproprietors* has 338THE WORLD'S WASTED WEALTH 2 grown up and eclipsed the farmer, merchant, and laborer altogether. 15 (emphasis added) With the marginalization of the farmer, merchant, and laborer, a money aristocracy has claimed superior rights. The elimination of the excessive rights the powerful have structured into the law would leave true free-enterprise capitalism which, in turn, would create a wealthier society. ... END QUOTE Footnote 15 is as follows: 15 Walter Russell Mead, _Mortal Splendor_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987), pp. 120-21. Admittedly this is not a Marxist reference, but I happened to be reading this material when your post arrived. _The World's Wasted Wealth 2_ (1994) by J.W. Smith can be obtained from: The Institute for Economic Democracy, Box 303, Cambria, CA 93428. The author's chapter 18 "Subtly Monopolizing Money, Money Capital, and Banks" goes into the details of *superexploitation*. I.e., it fills out the concept. Smith now has a web page at http://www.slonet.org/~jwsmith/ Curtis Moore, facilitator of the conference econ.democracy on PeaceNet. Original message: -- Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 12:58:00 -0700 (PDT) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Walter Daum [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:6180] query: superexploitation Does anyone recall the original (or any) use of the term "superexploitation" in Marxist literature? Thanks, Walter Daum
[PEN-L:532] Re: Mondragon
From: E.F. Schumacher, _Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered_ (London: Blond Briggs Ltd), 1973. [The quote is from the Harper Row paperback edition.] The Scott Bader Commonwealth Ernest Bader started the enterprise of Scott Bader Co. Ltd. in 1920, at the age of thirty. Thirty-one years later, after many trials and tribulations during the war, he had a prosperous medium-scale business employing 161 people, with a turnover of about 625,000 a year and net profits 274 exceeding 72,000. Having started with virtually nothing, he and his family had become prosperous. His firm had established itself as a leading producer of polyester resins and also manufactured other sophisticated products, such as alkyds, polymers, and plasticisers. As a young man he had been deeply dissatisfied with his prospects of life as an employee; he had resented the very ideas of a "labour market" and a "wages system," and particularly the thought that capital employed men, instead of men employing capital. Finding himself now in the position of employer, he never forgot that his success and prosperity were the achievements not of himself alone but of all his collaborators and decidedly also of the society within which he was privileged to operate. To quote his own words: I realised that - as years ago when I took the plunge and ceased to be an employee - I was up against the capitalist philosophy of dividing people into the managed on the one hand, and those that manage on the other. The real obstacle, however, was Company Law, with its provisions for dicta- torial powers of shareholders and the hierarchy of manage- ment they control. He decided to introduce "revolutionary changes" in his firm, "based on a philosophy which attempts to fit industry to human needs." The problem was twofold: (1) how to organise or combine a maximum sense of freedom, happiness and human dignity in our firm without loss of profitability, and (2) to do this by ways and means that could be generally acceptable to the private sector of the industry. Mr. Bader realised at once that no *decisive* changes could be made without two things: first, a transformation of ownership -- mere profit-sharing, which he had practised from the very start, was not enough; and, second, the vol- untary acceptance of certain self-denying ordinances. To achieve the first, he set up the Scott Bader Commonwealth 275 in which he vested (in two steps: ninety per cent in 1951 and the remaining ten per cent in 1963) the ownership of his firm, Scott Bader Co. Ltd. To implement the sec- ond, he agreed with his new partners, that is to say, the members of the Commonwealth, his former employees, to establish a *constitution* not only to define the distribution of the "bundle of powers" which private ownership implies, but also to impose the following restrictions on the firm's freedom of action: First, the firm shall remain an undertaking of limited size, so that every person in it can embrace it in his mind and imagination. It shall not grow beyond 350 persons or thereabouts. If circumstances appear to de- mand growth beyond this limit, they shall be met by helping to set up new, fully independent units organised along the lines of the Scott Bader Commonwealth. Second, remuneration for work within the organisa- tion shall not vary, as between the lowest paid and the highest paid, irrespective of age, sex, function or ex- perience, beyond a range of 1:7, before tax. Third, as the members of the Commonwealth are part- ners and not employees, they cannot be dismissed by their co-partners for any reason other than gross personal misconduct. They can, of course, leave voluntarily at any time, giving due notice. Fourth, the Board of Directors of the firm, Scott Bader Co. Ltd., shall be fully accountable to the Com- monwealth. Under the rules laid down in the Constitu- tion, the Commonwealth has the right and duty to confirm or withdraw the appointment of directors and also to agree to their level of remuneration. Fifth, not more than forty per cent of the net profits of Scott Bader Co. Ltd. shall be appropriated by the Commonwealth -- a minimum of sixty per cent being retained for taxation and for self-finance within Scott Bader Co. Ltd. -- and the Commonwealth shall devote 276 one-half of the appropriated profits to the payment of bonuses to those working within the operating company and the other half to charitable purposes outside the Scott Bader organisation. And finally, none of the products of Scott Bader Co. Ltd. shall be sold to customers who are known to use them for war-related purposes. When Mr. Ernest Bader and his colleagues introduced these revolutionary changes, it was freely predicted that a firm operating on this basis of collectivised ownership and self-imposed restrictions could not possibly survive. In fact, it went from strength to
[PEN-L:533] Re Mondragon co-ops
From: _Dollars and Sense_, Jul/Aug95 CO-OPS, ESOPS, AND WORKER PARTICIPATION by Rebecca Bauen In 1991 the 130 employees of Market Forge, an industrial cooking equipment manufacturer in Everett, Massachu- setts, were threatened with loss of their jobs. The Chicago- based conglomerate that owned the 95 year-old plant in- tended to sell it to a firm in Georgia and move operations there. When the union, United Steel Workers (USW) Lo- cal 2431, successfully halted the move, the company threatened bankruptcy. But in 1993, after two and a half years of negotiations, the workers bought their plant. With the help of the USW the employees were able to assess whether the firm would be a good investment before purchasing it. Said Dave Slaney, Vice President of the Steelworkers local, "We creat- ed a financing structure which allows employees to own 100% of the shares and have full control: each employee has one vote to decide on management salaries, their own pay raises, firing the manage- ment, as well as plant re- location. " The Market Forge buy- out was accomplished through the increasingly common tool of an Em- ployee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). But 100% ownership by workers is rare for ESOPs. In al- most all cases employees own a small fraction of the stock, and so have lit- tle decision-making power. ESOPs are one of two mechanisms that many corporations are encour- aging as solutions to mea- ger rates of productivity growth. The second mechanism is employee participation plans, which allow workers to have input into how their jobs are structured and how companies are run. Business leaders hope that ESOPs and participation schemes will raise productivity by reducing workers' alien- ation from their jobs. But both of these mechanisms are management-inspired, and neither, on its own, gives em- ployees real power within their workplaces. As a result they have generally failed to yield serious productivity improvements. In contrast, worker cooperatives, in which the em- ployees have both full ownership, and control over management decisionmaking, are a true break with tra- ditional corporate structures. As such, studies have shown that not only do they generate more employee satisfaction, but production efficiency often improves greatly. While still a tiny fraction of American compa- nies, worker coops are steadily demonstrating their vi- ability in the marketplace. ESOPs ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM There are approximately 9,500 U.S. companies with ESOPs -- including Hallmark, Avis, and United Air- line -- covering over 10 million employees, who con- trol over $150 billion in corporate stock. And they are growing at a rate of 300,000 to 600,000 new partici- pants a year, according to the National Center for Em- ployee Ownership (NCEO), an Oakland-based non- profit. In most ESOP corporations, employees are offered stock as part of a benefits package, and accrue increasing rights to shares with seniority. Some companies substitute ESOPS for pensions altogether -- despite the riskiness for employees of having their retirement invested in the fate of the company. Veronica Manson of NCEO explains that ESOPs are popular with corporations because of the tax benefits. In fact ESOPs were invented by a corporate investment banker in 1974. ESOPs allow a company to set up a trust fund for employees and borrow money to buy shares. The company then makes a tax deductible contribution to the plan to enable it to repay the loan. Besides large corporations, small family- owned firms are also turning to ESOPs. Tra- ditionally, when a company's founder wants to retire and cash out, the owner sells the company to a large firm, or goes out of busi- ness altogether. The alternative is to sell to the workers and get a tax break. Many stock ownership plans offer em- ployees the right to vote for the board of directors. But, unlike the Market Forge case, employees rarely comprise a majority of the stockholders. NCEO reports that less than one-third, or about 2,500 compa- nies, form ESOPs for philosophical rea- sons; to really share ownership. A top man- ager in one of the country's leading ESOP investment firms admits, "ESOPs are the antithesis of workplace democracy." The Horatio Alger strategy of benefitting indi- viduals, rather than collective groups of workers, is the operative one. At first glance, ESOPs seem to offer a win-win strategy; the individual employees gain by the financial success of the company, and the corporation gains tax benefits. Yet the cards are stacked: the company's financial success is only a possibility, while the tax benefits to the corporation are guaranteed. "Employee owners" are still employed by CEOs and outside stockholders, who continue to both reap profits and make the majority of decisions about the future of the firm. PARTICIPATIVE MANAGEMENT: ANOTHER DIVERSION Another strategy that appears to offer increased democra- cy in the workplace is participatory management.
[PEN-L:5600] Math 2
Math Language 2. The controversy between Newton and Leibniz over the "invention" of the calculus is interesting in this regard and sheds some light on the subject. The three greatest mathe- maticians of all time are generally considered to be Archimedes, Newton and Gauss. The crown probably belongs to Newton although he insisted that he "stood on the shoulders of giants" -- which is correct. It is said that Newton worked out his proofs using his newly invented?/discovered? calculus, but then restated or translated these proofs into the language of Euclidean geometry. Thus the great treatise called _... Principia Mathematica_(1687) is incredibly obscure because calculus is carried out in the language of Euclidean geometry. Why did Newton do such a thing? He said he wanted to make it difficult in order to avoid intellectual squabbling. However, I suspect that another more important reason is that he was first and foremost concerned to demonstrate without question the truth of his theorems. He couldn't do this at that time with "calculus" because arithmetic and calculus were not axiomatized until after centuries more work (eventually in axiomatic set theory this century). However, Euclidean geometry had been axiomatized by Euclid, was based on five "transparent" axioms (except the fifth wasn't so trans- parent) and hence Newton could demonstrate the truth of his theorems by "translating" calculus into Euclidean geometry, thereby creating an incredibly exact but obscure treatise. Later on there was a huge intellectual dispute over who "invented" the calculus, Newton or Leibniz. Leibniz was the one who invented the language of the caluclus that we use today. He took great pains in crafting the language. For the next hundred years English mathematicians, out of loyalty to Newton (English nationalism) attempted to develop the calculus along Newton's lines and failed. Rather, further development of the calculus was carried out on the continent because Leibniz had forged the superior mathematical symbolism. Point -- mathematical languages themselves undergo develop- ment. What motivates this development? The ease in carrying out proofs and performing calculations. However, such ease in one direction (proofs and calculations) does not make for an easy language to understand. Rather it makes for a new language to learn. On the other hand, the deepest mathematical results are very often most lucidly explained in ordinary language. There was a linguistic progression in the development of the symbolism (language) of mathematical logic also. The first work on this subject by G. Frege came out in 1879. The symbolism was hopelessly obscure. Thus Frege is obscure. Bertrand Russell studied under the Italian mathematician G. Peano for a few years and adopted Peano's symbolism as the symbolism of his _Principia Mathematica_ -- like Newton's tome, another obscure work that had to be gone over by scores of mathematicians and subsequent generations thereof. Gerhard Gentzen reformulated Russell's awkward "symbolic logic" into a system of "natural deduction," the way we (i.e., mathematicians) "naturally" reason, the mature form of mathematical logic today. However, this reasoning is not that "natural" to most of the species, but must be learned, just as you have to learn French if you're an English speaker. Math majors seem to be so natural- ly adept at this language that they don't need or bother to study it formally. It's sort of a sixth sense for them, even though it took Bertrand Russell his entire early career to codify the grammar. (Should this grammar be taught to everyone, like English grammar in grade school? Is this possible or is the subject too difficult?) But I have to get on to mathematics in economics. I am hardly an expert on this subject, but I did take a look at mathematical economics once in the 60s and formed an opinion on it. Which may be of interest. Curtis Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:5184] End of Justice
Hey Bill, Sorry if I bugged you. I thought the article
on justice summarized the issue in a way that I hadn't seen it
summarized
before. I thought it was a particularly good article and I
wanted to share it. I wasn't looking for you to rehash your own
position again. I already read it. Hope you're coming along with
your "mountain of work."
Curtis.
Justin, Again I didn't intend to stir up everyone's guilt
complex(es). A friend of mine in Berkeley in the 60s, although
financially well off, felt guilty about moving with his new wife
into an upscale East Bay neighborhood. So they bought a home on
the Berkeley-Oakland border. After being robbed three times they
moved into the upscale neighborhood.
Page 4. United Church News/April 1995
`BOOK OF VIRTUES' MISSING A CHAPTER. The fallacy is that
virtuous people will become a virtuous society. by W. Evan
Golder
Editor
As of late March, "The Book of Virtues," edited, with
commentary, by William J. Bennett, had been on the best seller
list for 66 weeks. The 831-page book has a certain nostalgic
appeal. Browsing through it, one recognizes familiar fables
("The Ants and the Grasshopper"), poems ("All things bright and
beautiful"), stories ("How the Camel Got His Hump"), speeches
(The Gettysburg Address) and heroes (William Tell, George
Washington, Clara Barton, Rosa Parks).
Bennett's book lists 10 virtues, with a chapter for each:
self-discipline, compassion, responsibility, friendship,
work,courage, perseverence, honesty, loyalty and faith. Only
gradually does the reader realize what virtue is missing:
justice, that is, a sense of community, of the common good. Oh,
the word is there, as in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from
Birmingham City Jail" ("Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere") -- but its's under "responsibility." Plato on
justice is under "honesty."
In March a group of Fortune 500 corporations held a news
conference to advocate rolling back the Clean Air Act. Here was
a clear example of corporations sacrificing our planet's life
tomorrow for their profits today. This attitude of selfishness
("Me first") gained renewed acceptance during the Reagan years,
when Bennett served as Secretary of Education. It is the
logical outcome of moral education which sees virtues only as
individual character traits.
The book's fallacy lies in thinking that virtuous people will
grow up to become a virtuous society. On the contrary, as
Reinhold Niebuhr taught us, there is a "basic difference between
the morality of individuals and the morality of collectives."
Virtuous people grow up to hold news conferences putting
corporate concerns ahead of the common good.
Aristotle and Plato considered justice a virtue. Concern for
the common good is also a strong biblical theme. "The word of
God is addressed to communities, to cities, to nations, to the
whole family of nations," says a 1993 document, "A Call to The
Common Good," issued jointly by the National Council of Churches,
the Synagogue Council of America and the U.S. Catholic Confer-
ence. But too often, the paper reminds us, genuine focus on the
common good has been "lost in a confusing clash of individual
aspirations and narrow appeals."
Examples surround us: polluted air, underfunded schools,
overpriced health care. Until social virtues are valued along-
side personal virtues, the breadkown of community life in this
country will only get worse.
END QUOTE
[PEN-L:5146] Justice
Hi PEN-lers
The following response can be filed under Justice (I know
everyone keeps extensive files) or, if you perfer, example par
excellence of a fallacy closedly related to what you economists
call the fallacy of composition. (I wonder if this fallacy has a
name?) At any rate, for "fallacy of composition," see Samuelson
*Economics* 4th edition, p.10-11. However, I suppose he says
much the same thing in later editions.
This is a response to what Bill Mitchell wrote May 7 under
the topic "revolt of the haves." -- remember that one? [The post
is reproduced below.] One of the hats I wear is the treasurer's
hat for Marin Small Publishers Association. We meet once a month
and each year put on our Annual Spring Seminar in Corte Madera,
Marin County just across the Golden Gate Bridge (it occurred last
Saturday --with one hour demo on publishing, etc. on the www).
In preparing for this one I had occasion to visit our current
president in his office and it turned out that he is an
editor of a periodical called United Church News. As I left his
office he gave me the latest copy of the periodical he edits.
As I glanced at this periodical I saw that one of the
feature articles bore on what I had just read in PEN-l in a post
by Bill Mitchell. This article is as follows:
Page 4. United Church News/April 1995
`BOOK OF VIRTUES' MISSING A CHAPTER. The fallacy is that
virtuous people will become a virtuous society. by W. Evan
Golder
Editor
As of late March, "The Book of Virtues," edited, with
commentary, by William J. Bennett, had been on the best seller
list for 66 weeks. The 831-page book has a certain nostalgic
appeal. Browsing through it, one recognizes familiar fables
("The Ants and the Grasshopper"), poems ("All things bright and
beautiful"), stories ("How the Camel Got His Hump"), speeches
(The Gettysburg Address) and heroes (William Tell, George
Washington, Clara Barton, Rosa Parks).
Bennett's book lists 10 virtues, with a chapter for each: self-
discipline, compassion, responsibility, friendship, work,courage,
perseverence, honesty, loyalty and faith. Only gradually does
the reader realize what virtue is missing: justice, that is, a
sense of community, of the common good. Oh, the word is there,
as in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham City Jail"
("Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere") -- but
its's under "responsibility." Plato on justice is under
"honesty."
In March a group of Fortune 500 corporations held a news
conference to advocate rolling back the Clean Air Act. Here was
a clear example of corporations sacrificing our planet's life
tomorrow for their profits today. This attitude of selfishness
("Me first") gained renewed acceptance during the Reagan years,
when Bennett served as Secretary of Education. It is the
logical outcome of moral education which sees virtues only as
individual character traits.
The book's fallacy lies in thinking that virtuous people will
grow up to become a virtuous society. On the contrary, as
Reinhold Niebuhr taught us, there is a "basic difference between
the morality of individuals and the morality of collectives."
Virtuous people grow up to hold news conferences putting
corporate concerns ahead of the common good.
Aristotle and Plato considered justice a virtue. Concern for
the common good is also a strong biblical theme. "The word of
God is addressed to communities, to cities, to nations, to the
whole family of nations," says a 1993 document, "A Call to The
Common Good," issued jointly by the National Council of Churches,
the Synagogue Council of America and the U.S. Catholic Confer-
ence. But too often, the paper reminds us, genuine focus on the
common good has been "lost in a confusing clash of individual
aspirations and narrow appeals."
Examples surround us: polluted air, underfunded schools,
overpriced health care. Until social virtues are valued along-
side personal virtues, the breadkown of community life in this
country will only get worse.
END QUOTE
I guess that the point of the above article as it relates to
Bill Mitchell's post (see below) is that we as individuals have
to do something MORE than simply practice personal virtues, or
society isn't going to get any better. This something more
surely involves actively promoting a good social democratic
POLITICAL agenda as another PEN-ler pointed out in response to
Mitchell's post. But I thought that the article above said
something tersely that I haven't seen expressed as well.
[Cf also, Adam Smith's invisible hand argument: each capitalist
practicing GREED (Note, not virtue, mind you but greed) and
maximizing his individual profits leads by the famous invisible
hand to the betterment of society as a whole. -- Huh?]
Curtis Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED]
179 Bocana S
[PEN-L:5061] Re: List
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: list Dear PEN-l: (I guess I'm speaking to Michael?) I'd like to get on your PEN-l list. Please tell me how. [See discussion below for why I have not asked to join previously.] Gracias, --- Curtis Previous message(s): Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 22:22:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Justin Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Revolt of the Haves To: Curtis Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] In-Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks for the post, which I read. Since I am on the list, why send it to me especially? --Justin Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 22:22:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Justin Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Revolt of the Haves To: Curtis Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] In-Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks for the post, which I read. Since I am on the list, why send it to me especially? Funny you should ask. I am a writer (on economics). I have been on PeaceNet now since 1993, I quess, with my old floppy drive XT. An activist friend sort of pushed me on to PeaceNet. At the time I didn't even know what the internet was. I considered myself a writer, the computer was my typewriter, and I was on the cutting edge of modern computer technology because I knew WordPerfect. It used to be that when I got sick and tired of writing I'd tune in to PEN-l. It was sort of my TV set. So, I never joined any list. Didn't know or care what a list was. Didn't care about posting anything. Just wanted to listen. Well, all that's changed since I got into the big time with my new 486DX2 last fall. My writing project got too big to publish in paper without a huge expense, so I stumbled into my own conference econ.democracy. See the introduction to it. Then I was told I was supposed to "advertise" my conference. To whom? Well, the only people I "knew" were the ones I had read and downloaded on PEN-l. They didn't know me. I didn't post or even try to post. Furthermore, most of them are at universities. I am not. However, I have recently been in contact with certain of these professors re my conference and I have been in correspondence with them individually through their e-mail addresses. When I saw your name, it seemed to me that you were a new kid on the block, because I hadn't seen you post before. In the second place, when I saw your address with "freenet" in it, it rang a bell. Last year I took a course on the internet given by grad students from the U.C. Berkeley library school and they were big on the freenets. We tuned into the one in Cleveland. I figured that someone on a freenet just might be interested in my "constitution for a democratic economy." So, that's why I contacted you. At any rate, I have never joined any "list". For some reason it has lain in the back of my mind that the bitlist associated with PEN would probably be restricted to academic economists, but I never bothered to ask. Since you raised the question in my mind, let me ask you, how did you get on the "list"? Does it cost money? How much? How did you find out? I already pay PeaceNet at least $25.00 mo. If I want to post in the PEN conference I send my post to the moderator MichaelP at Chico State. If I received all those posts on the PEN in my mailbox as a result of being on some list, my mailbox would be flooded. So, now you tell me. What advantages do you get from being on the list? How do you get on? Maybe I should get on. Awaiting enlightenment. --- Curtis. Fri, 12 May 1995 11:25:04 -0400 Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 11:22:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Justin Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Lists To: Curtis Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] In-Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The list is free and has interesting information and useful discussion. E-mail the header address to ask how to get on. Your mailbox will not "flooded" and you can of course delete anything you don;t want to read or keep. I'm not at a university this year either--I'm starting law school in the fall, though. --Justin Schwartz
