Reagan dead
Did anyone else see the CNN hagiography? He was 93 - how many people died as a result of his policies? Mark Dr Mark Laffey Department of Politics and International Studies SOAS, University of London [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0207 898 4744
Simple question
One of my students asked me yesterday what is the difference between a company and a corporation? To my discomfort, I didn't know the answer. I'd be very grateful if someone could offer a simple definition. Cheers, Mark At 12:39 02/07/02 -0700, you wrote: >http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/opinion/02KRIS.html > >The NY Times had an interesting editorial blasting the FBI for not >arresting the anthrax suspect, who the author seems to think is the guilty >party. In the course of the story, the author asks: > >Have you examined whether Mr. Z has connections to the biggest anthrax >outbreak among humans ever recorded, the one that sickened more than >10,000 black farmers in Zimbabwe in 1978-80? There is evidence that the >anthrax was released by the white Rhodesian Army fighting against black >guerrillas, and Mr. Z has claimed that he participated in the white army's >much-feared Selous Scouts. > >I don't recall this incident, but it suggests a US connection. Any >comments? > > > > > > -- >Michael Perelman >Economics Department >California State University >Chico, CA 95929 > >Tel. 530-898-5321 >E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Dr. Mark Laffey Department of Political Studies School of Oriental and African Studies University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H OXG 0171 898 4744 (w) 0117 969 8438 (h) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: RE: Hetero Depts
What about economic geography departments? Minnesota-Twin Cities has some pretty serious economic geographers of a heterodox persuasion, such as Eric Sheppard, for instance. Mark At 21:17 12/05/02 -0700, you wrote: >Emmanuel College, where Ellen Frank teaches. > >"Forstater, Mathew" wrote: > >> University of Southern Maine >> >> If you are including smaller undergrad schools: >> >> Franklin and Marshall College >> Dickinson College (University?) >> >> (both in Penna.) >> >> There are lots more little ones. > > Dr. Mark Laffey Department of Political Studies School of Oriental and African Studies University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H OXG 0171 898 4744 (w) 0117 969 8438 (h) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ergonomics, etc.
What evidence is there that Nader voters were in fact potential Gore voters? That is, is there any data to show that had Nader not been an option, the people who voted for him would have voted for Gore? Surely that is the correct question to ask. Nader voters may simply have stayed at home rather than voting for Gore. Mark Laffey At 15:48 24/03/01 -0800, you wrote: >> >>Brad DeLong wrote: >>>> >>>>>Yet another blessing we have received from Ralph Nader... >>>> >>>>No, from Al Gore. If as many self-identified Democrats had voted for >>>>Gore as self-identified Republicans voted for Bush, W would still be >>>>governor of Texas. >>>> >>>>Doug >>> >>>And Nader was in their pitching, telling self-identified Democrats >>>not to vote for Gore... >>> >>> >>>Brad DeLong >> >>No, Nader never told anybody, let alone "self-identified Democrats," >>"not to vote for Gore."... >> >>Shane Mage > >God! The quality of argument here is *really* low. If you vote for >Nader, you don't vote for Gore--unless you're in the vote fraud >business... > > >Brad DeLong > > Dr. Mark Laffey Department of Political Studies School of Oriental and African Studies University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H OXG 0171 898 4744 (w) 0117 969 8438 (h) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:2625] Re: Re: Terribly Sorry
Keep working on that sense of humour, Barkley.
More seriously, I'm curious what Barkley (and others) might recommend. Let's
assume, for the sake of argument, that you inhabit a small corner of the
academic world. Let's further assume that you have progressive politics, as
defined by the 'p' in PEN-L, say. The left opposition, let alone socialist or
historical materialist, is largely defunct and the critical position has been
more or less colonized by various forms of poststructuralist and postmodern
work. Words like totalising, economistic and reductionist tend to get bandied
around a lot. Obviously you don't devote all of your time to trying to debunk
this sort of thing but what should you do? There are a variety of options.
Do you 1) ignore it and simply acquiesce as devotees acquire more control of
the means of academic production (editorships of major journals, positions on
the boards of funding agencies, editorships of book series, chairs of depart-
ments etc etc.)? 2) join in -- 50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong? 3) write
at least one paper that tries to point out where and how this stuff is wrong?
4) talk to your friends, and mutter about the decline of intellectual life or
blame it on the dialectic ('post-Fordism is responsible for post-modernism,
gosh darn it and there ain't a thing we can do about it')? 5) quit academe?
(I went with 3 obviously, which alas does require reading and citing Butler).
Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:2582] Re: Re: Butler and bad writing
Academic males won't be able to get it up unless they cite Butler? Hey, pretty funny, Barkley. Penis jokes yet. Smiley faces make everything alright, don't they? Depending on which parts of the academic terrain one is writing and working in, Butler might or might not be important. Since mine was a critique of the turn to Butler, presumably this puts me on the side of the penis deflators? Leaving aside the unpleasant metaphor for a minute, Butler, whether one likes her work or not, is trying to deal with some fairly serious and complicated issues. I for one have found some of her writing very lucid (e.g, her contribution to Feminists Theorize the Political (eds.) Judith Butler and Joan Scott, Routledge 1992). Some of the rest is more technical and harder -- pause for the penis joke from Barkley -- but that is equally true of almost any specialised field you care to name. I guess I just don't get it either: part of what seems to be implied by some of the responses to the discussion of Butler is the view -- profoundly undialectical in my opinion -- that there really isn't anything to be learned from all of the work carried out by scholars like Butler. Either 1) Marx -- or some other card-carrying Marxist -- said it already or 2) its just idealism/bourgeois etc. etc. (take your pick). Gee, I guess Marx was pretty lucky that the major bourgeois economists and other writers of his day -- whom he read very carefully -- just were important. Timing, it appears, is everything. Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:932] Re: unemployed Ph.D.'s
Since my point was apparently unclear, at least to Big, let me restate it: presumably there is some purchase in the current state of higher education for various kinds of activism, organising and reworking of established assumptions about what higher education means, who it is for, and where one can be an intellectual. There was nothing 'sensitive' about my observations, which seems to be just one more instance of gendering, as is the misreading of my reference to 'balls'. In the former case, I can only assume that because I tried to take the argument being made on its own terms first, which the initial responses did not, tending both to dismiss it out of hand and/or to adopt ad hominem forms of criticsm, which meant that I took seriously the fact that people's emotions are implicated in their work, even if the work in question happens to be graduate school, this is somehow 'soft'? What sort of response is that to my argument? If anyone is really interested in organizing and figuring out how to change the world -- or at least bits of it -- mightn't it behoove them to take seriously the situations that people find themselves in, including their feelings about those situations? There's nothing particularly sensitive about that. Which is not to say that one simply substitutes hearts for minds, but that unless you treat people with respect and take them seriously, how on earth can you even begin to talk to them? That really is to adopt an elitist position. In the latter case, I was making an obviously too quick reference to the fact that the labor movement and organised workers more generally have tended to be oriented to male concerns and to be run by male workers for male workers. This imparts to discussions of organizing, even today, a certain manly quality, even as increasing numbers of women come to the fore in organizing, especially in service industries. Sorry to have been too cryptic last time. Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:930] Re: Re: Re: unemployed Ph.D.'s
I would like to point out what seems to me a strikingly nasty tone to the initial responses to this post. Disparaging suggestions about class origin -- she must be lower middle class or from the working class -- which are then linked to the putatively exaggerated respect those subjects have for the institutions of higher learning suggest that those making such claims are able, unlike our unemployed PhD, to see right through to the real nature of those institutions. Pointing out that 'it's different in economics' or asking 'why didn't you organize the clerical staff?' makes it sound as though, darnit, she was just a victim of self-delusion, and now self-pity. I can't help but feel that there is a gendered element to these responses. And that the responses seem to miss the point of the post, which was, I thought, not only to draw attention to what Raymond Williams might have called the structure of feeling in the upper reaches of higher education, and in particular amongst graduate students, but also to show how the contradiction between that structure and the realities of the job market can be exploited in a positive way, by using them as an opportunity to begin to rearticulate the meaning of higher education and to open up space for a more public conception of what it might mean -- and where and how -- to be a public intellectual. That seems like something that ought to be of major concern to and interest for this list. Or am I missing something? Are these things that cannot be talked about unless the unemployed PhDs in question have demonstrated they are serious and have balls by doing some real organizing first? Mark Laffey
Re: FWD: New Book (fwd)
Michael: I would be interested in seeing a desk copy of your book with Clarence Lo as a possible text for a political economy and public policy course that I am teaching in the Spring. Mark Laffey DEpartment of Political Science Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 330 672 2060
[PEN-L:3369] Re: "low-grade Anti-Moslem crap"
Michael Etchison: whom are you addressing? Clearly it is not the majority of people on this list, who are neither anti-catholic, nor anti-anti-moslem (as a knee-jerk response) nor anything else in the aggregate. So I wonder just why, when it is pointed out, in quite reasonable fashion, that the content of your remarks was seemingly anti-moslem, that you should feel the need to lash out in this purile manner? If you don't like the tone of the list, unsubscribe. It's a very simple command. Otherwise, if we can have more constructive conversations, that would be great. Incidentally, lest I be accused of some sort of policing or other evil act, I disavow any such intention. It does seem to me, however, that the origin of your complaint is far exceeded in size by the virulence of your response. Can we get back to more intersting topics of conversation? Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:3175] Re: Changing U.S. Demographics
Patrick Mason equates large Africa-American populations in the South with cult- ural diversity: am I missing something here? Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:3079] Re: Anthony Giddens
There is a nice discussion of MI in the context of rat choice marxism by Jutta Weldes in Theory and Society, 1989. She shows, in contrast to Eric's last message, that it is not a question of whether or not structures "make" people do things. Rather, the issue concerns the ways in which structures do or do not have an ontological status apart from the practices that produce them, and in turn the ways in which they enable and constrain practice. Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:2175] Re: Academic managers of the marxist variety
For what it is worth: A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of spending a year as a full-time temp at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. For those of you unfamiliar with Macalester, it is my understanding that it has the largest endowment of any four year college in the US -- rapidly closing on the magical $1 billion. Anyway, as a good leftist, I saw it as my task to teach these people -- my students that is -- to think. As an international relations specialist, that meant amongst other things getting beyond the 'we are the world' point of view in U.S. foreign policy -- amongst other things. It was not difficult to pull this off. My students were intelligent, well-trained, and inquisitive: they were quite taken -- so far as I can tell -- with me and my classes. I gained excellent evaluations (which the college subsequently lost). Anyway, the point of my story is as follows: even given what I think were *very* congenial circumstances, my critical position served merely to confirm my students in their (not-so-nascent) neo-liberalism. I was evidence that 'critical' types were represented in the academy, and that, yes, they were interesting, but ultimately, this *is* college after all -- a place where one is allowed to think different thoughts -- before going off to Harvard Law and the corporate world. It seems to me more or less irrelevant to talk about the class character of the academy -- it is so overdetermined as to be beyond discussion. The only changes that would make a real difference are *structural changes* -- such as allowing the students to determine democratically how the course will be organised and graded for example, or how the college will be administered -- for rather than in opposition to scholarship, might be nice. Beyond that, the best that can be done is for committed scholars to make their commitments count by reaching beyond the classroom. Most students believe that college is not the real world -- loans and the consequences of dad's being laid off to the contrary -- so it is only by actively bringing 'the real world' into the class room that we can begin to change their self-understandings in critical ways. Mark Laffey
[PEN-L:559] Re: Increased need for k
Would someone be willing to provide suggestions about useful articles laying out the social costs of hard intellectual property regimes? Thanks. I will compile replies and repost to the list. Mark Laffey Department of Political Science Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 216 672 7975 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:5034] Re: Workplace Democracy texts
This is a request for help in tracking down texts on workplace democracy. The chair of my department, who shall remain nameless, has just informed me that, contrary to our previous agreement, he wants me to teach workplace demo- cracy next semester rather than recent political thought. The life of a part- time temp is not a happy one. Does anyone have any good suggestions for recent texts on this subject? I am especially interested in critiques of the 'quality circle' approach, updates on the factory regime work by Burawoy, good readable histories of the union movement in the US (building on Foner, probably), and in Europe. The course description says that the class covers "the theory and practice of extending democracy into the workplace from the shopfloor to the boardroom in Germany, Sweden, Yugoslavia [sic! time to update the course description!] and the US". I plan to expand the focus of the course beyond these states, and to add an explicit international dimension, so feel free to be imaginative in your posts. I would in particular like to address some of the recent efforts to organize along the Mexican border and in the US agricultural sector. There is also work such as 'Confessions of a Union Buster' which I plan to look at. Is anyone familiar with it? Suggestions can be sent to me privately at the above e-mail address. Thanks very much for any and all suggestions on this. I will circulate the final set of suggestions to the list. Mark Laffey Department of Political Science Kent State University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4658] Re: East Asia Paradigm Shifts?
I would also be interested in a copy of Mark Selden's paper. Thanks. Mark Laffey Department of Political Science Kent State University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Middle Class
I always thought that middle class had less to do with income -- unless we are back to liberal categories -- than with one's position in the relations of production. Income is surely irrelevant. Shaquille O'Neill is (or at least was, prior to investing his first huge check in stocks and bonds) working class -- in the classical sense that he sells his labor power. I, making my measly part-time salary at a university, am not working class, if only because my position in the overall relations of production is significantly different than his. If Mr O'Neill were to spend all of his money each year rather than invest -ing it, wouldn't he then remain working class? Mark Laffey
RE: Atlas plugged
I would like to add my name to those in favor of the atlas posting. It seems to me just sensible that authors on the net should be able to post brief notes informing fellower subscribers of the appearance of their works. Mark Laffey
competitiveness index and New Zealand
A friend informed me that New Zealand had ranked ninth on the most recent world competitiveness scale. Does anyone know what this is and how it is calculated? Mark Laffey
Re: URPE = UPE?
Before there was the Soviet Union, what did self-professed radicals think they were doing? Before there was a democratic state, what did radical democrats think they were talking about? Before there was legislation to attempt to ensure equal opportunity for women, and protection from rape within marriage, and all the other ways in which our society oppresses women, what did feminists think they were doing? Before the abolition of slavery, what did the abol- tionists think they were doing? Any progressive political movement has always relied upon a utopian vision to guide it -- as do the pro-marketeers: does anyone believe that the free market is anything but a myth? Why does the collapse of 'actually existing socialism' mean that we can no longer see ourselves as working for something other than or better than capitalism 'with a human face'? If it was bad before, it is bad now. If we could conceive of alternatives before, we can surely conceive of them now. If we had political agendas to promote before, surely we still have them. For my two cents worth, it is not a question of simply resisting because an alternative (please!) existed. It never was, and it never should have been. It is and has always been about trying to change what is in many ways a fundamentally flawed system. And it is not a question of a sudden change or collapse -- that presumably was part of the reason why the SU turned out as it did, as was the effort to produce socialism in one country. If it is anything, what we are talking about has always been, as Sheila Rowbotham argued in Beyond the Fragments, building the forms of organization that will shape the future in our everyday practices in the present. Does that mean simply reforming capitalism? What did Marx think the significance of the struggle for the 8-hour day was? Was that reformism? The whole question is miscast if it is reform and pro-capitalism or radical and opposed to capitalism. Surely it must be reform and anti-capitalism -- or isn't that grammatically acceptable? If using 'radical' puts people off, then maybe there is an issue here. But I fail to see what the concern about identity is otherwise. [although I do sorta like frumpe...] Mark Laffey
RE: Too many college students?
I am also inclined to think that higher education should be freely available as well as publicly rather than privately funded. But I also think that this requires that we have a strong system of vocational and secondary education. As far as I can tell, for a great many in the US, that is often not the case. There is no apprentice system, and the secondary system is often the first place where cuts are made to balance state budgets, something which I find almost incomprehensible. What I was responding to in Richard Clark's post were the parallels between some of his arguments and the liberal positions that have now come to dominate in New Zealand, where I'm from, and which I see as driving ongoing efforts to privatise the education system. And I think it is correct to see much of the turmoil in higher education as being linked to the expansion in participation by previously excluded groups (as charted in Mike Davis's Prisoners of the American Dream). The vast expansion in college numbers comes overwhelmingly from what were traditionally non-participating groups. In that respect, de facto efforts to reduce the numbers in college can be seen as a kind of return to the previous status quo. Now, that is fine if there are other avenues available for education and the collection of the credentials required for entry into the workforce. But I am skeptical that these currently exist or are likely to appear any time soon. Where is the political force that might produce such a change? What is more likely is that such resources as currently go into higher education will simply disappear, and the needed expenditure on other forms of training and what have you will not appear. So where does this leave us? I am not inclined to see the redistrib- ution of leisure time as the answer, if only because I can't see this as a purely US problem. The redistribution of our leisure time means only that certain kinds of labor will be carried out elsewhere, usually at very low wages and in poor conditions. We purchase more leisure time for ourselves by shift- work onto others. Moreover, the kind of guaranteed minimum standard of living that would be required to enable people to live is not likely to be made available in this country any time soon (oh no, not another federal bureaucracy will be the cry). Redistribution of work, as per Schorr's argument, then leads to simply the proliferation of part-time, low-waged jobs with (maybe) health insurance and (maybe) tax rebates for the working poor. Is that the kind of solution we are looking for? So, where does that leave us, in our quest for a more 'rational' public policy for higher education? Certainly, the lust for 'core social sciences, for example, is mainly a nonsense, at least with respect to the kinds of skills required to carry out many of the occupations administrators presumably think they are preparing students for. In fact, as a one-time political philosophy graduate who worked in New Zealand's trade bureaucracy, such 'core sciences' seem more like a down-right hindrance to clear thinking and such. It was the liberal arts graduates who tended to be the high flyers, not the accountants and other 'technical' types. Certainly, some basic forms of technical literacy are increasingly necessary, but beyond that, it is right I think to see the undergraduate degree in many areas, certainly liberal arts, as teaching how to think. That function could be placed elsewhere. But that would require a re-thinking of at least secondary education, as well as massive investment in teachers. I guess for me the issue comes down to the prior question of 1) what is education for, and 2) what is the university? Depending on how you come down on those issues, answers vary dramatically. The simple fact of the burden subsidising education places on taxpayers (to the extent it does -- what kind of numbers are we talking here?) does not justify the kinds of changes we are talking about. There may be other benefits of higher education that out- weigh that concern, depending on the size of the burden. Mark Laffey Department of Political Science Kent State University
Re: Too many college students?
If I understand this correctly, you are suggesting that any form of federal, tax-payer support for access to higher education should be done away with. The argument is that there is no room (or very little) in the higher echelon, which is where these people think they are going, so they should not receive any tax monies in order to attend college. Well then, what *should* they be doing? Should they be going to technical college? Is it justifiable to give them tax monies for that? Should they just join the (noble?) working poor? After all, who needs an education to operate an elevator, right? That's your argument if I understand it. Aldous Huxley give a pretty vivid picture of what an eficient elevator requires in the way of intelligence. It seems to me that plenty of college students are well aware that the jobs are not there, but also that such positions as are available are often based on certain skills which they need to get somewhere, and many employers won't take someone without a college degree in any case. So, I am not as convinced as you seem to be of the gullibility or the crass materiality of these students. If you are so convinced of the lack of meaning in what academics do, then the current downsizing of the academy should be of considerable pleasure for you. The market determines how many departments, how many professors etc. In the meantime, the well-off will keep sending their kids to college (they can more readily afford it), and the reproduction of structures of privelege will continue apace. But at least the poor tax-payers won't be paying for it... I think this entire argument rests on 1) a denigration of the rationality of people who choose to be students, especially those who 'aren't too bright'; after all, why should people who have been let down by the high school system, and American education generally, be supported by the poor old tax payers to learn some basic skills -- like reading and writing? God, it almost sounds like socialism. Let them learn at home, the same as they learn about sex. 2) an assumption that the kinds of skills that these people may be looking for -- which includes as a necessary by-product, not an either/or, clear thinking and the like -- are just beyond them in a college environment. Let them look for these elsewhere so that college profs can teach the smart kids -- who just happen to be easier to teach anyway. How convenient not to have to educate the also-rans. 3) assumes that the mission of the university is somehow settled, and not subject to revision in the context of structural change outside it. These people are then to be denied access to the resources -- of all kinds -- that the modern university contains unless they can pay for them themselves. Like the well-to-do can. See above. Surely it is at least arguable that the role of the university is to provide these people with information which will benefit them. That can take all kinds of forms. But why should not the wider society pay for it? Don't we all benefit from a better informed, better educated populace? Or are the merits of education only to be judged by whether you can get a good job at the end? I wonder how that plays for those who have traditionally been excluded from the institution. Presumably we shouldn't pay for them either. Althusser had it right, I think, when he said that the universities were sites of struggle. It is a pity that you have given up.
harry Cleaver's e-mail address
I am trying to get in touch with Harry Cleaver, and the address I have is not working. Can someone send me his address? Or, if he is listening, perhaps he could do so? Thanks. Mark Laffey Department of Political Science Kent State University Kent, OH 44242
