[PEN-L:10143] Re: Tavis, you're *still* wrong
6. It would be helpful to take a more differentiated view. Not all industries are equal with respect to their vulnerability to globalization. Tortilla mfg. in LA can't be relocated because the market requires and demands daily delivery of fresh product. Pool cleaners can be recruited anywhere but they must be physically located where the pools are. Generally products or services that lend themselves to computerization or involve information management are more vulnerable. Travel agencies can now subcontract their phone sales and bookings to prison labor across the nation. Globalization is an uneven process affecting different sectors and different segments of the labor market in different ways. Yeah, but it can happen. My understanding of the beer industry is that it used to be very localized. Then a few majors took over. Beer was mass produced and shipped in concentrate to local branches where water was added and the beer was canned. Local breweries closed down. Now there's a resurgence of local breweries, but their market share is small and production does not have to be local. The "local" content is the recipe. For instance, I think Boston's Sam Adams is brewed under license in PA. I wouldn't be surprised if some tortillas are shipped frozen across country. Maybe the Hispanic population in LA can tell the difference, but how come you can buy tortillas in Cleveland? Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:10140] RE: Globalization
Tavis Barr writes: This is true. But it's not the same kind of export competition. Harvard, MIT, and Mass general don't argue to their workers that they have to lower wages to compete with Berkeley or Oxford. None of these places are threatening to close down and move their work to Mexico. Although people come from all over the world to go to Boston hospitals, most patients are still from New England, and nobody's out pitching the cheapest services to customers in Australia. Competition is in the form of quality and innovation, and that matters a lot for worker bargaining power. As for business services, well, I worked as a temp in Boston for several years, and most of those jobs were in FIRE firms. Almost all of the client base of these offices was in New England if not in Eastern Mass. So again, although the companies were often international, the markets were usually local or at most regional. Cheers, Tavis But the threat of taking some things off shore (or out of state) is very real for firms like Fidelity Investments (which is currently building branch offices in RI NH and overseas). There's a real problem in talking about "services" as if it were a homogeneous field. Marx wrote some interesting things about services in _Theories of Surplus Value_; Andy Sayer argues, cogently IMHO, that "services" is a chaotic conception in _Method in Social Science_; and a few years ago Dick Walker had a great article deconstructing the concept along the same lines as Sayer but in much more depth (I think it's reprinted in his book jointly written with Sayer -- _The New Social Division of Labor_). We have to be very clear about (1) what we mean when we say "services" and (2) the level of abstaction we're operating at. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9900] Re: Globaloney
Marshall Feldman wrote: Perhaps one should go back before 1980. Most arguments re. globalization allude to a transition in the SSA/MSR c. 1969. So comparing 1960 and 1997 might be more to the point. What then becomes the non-globalized Other of this model? The crisis years 1929-45? The period of nonglobalization ran from 1945, or 1950, to 1969? Doug I agree with you Doug. Capitalism has been a global system since its earliest days. The capitalist core has migrated from Italy, to Northern Europe, to England, to North America, to Asia (is that next?), Etc. Trade, raw materials flows, etc. have also been global since capitalism's inception. The question is what we mean by globalization and how it's different from other, earlier forms of capitalism as a world system. In this, I think most people who argue the globalization line see cross-trading in manufactured goods as the distinguishing feature. Immediately preceding forms of overseas investment (e.g., GM buying Opel) were to penetrate foreign markets with manufacturing plants in those countries. Current globalization involves investment in overseas manufacturing for purposes of export from those countries. This, I think, is one of the distinguishing characteristics (another is global money flows, and I'm comfortable with the demise of Bretton Woods as the date for that). The other issue is how one periodizes history. This is always problematic because things don't just start and stop. I'm sure one can find manufacturing investment of the sort I described before 1960, just as one still finds international investment in raw materials. The theoretical question is when quantitity becomes quality. The crucial thing in the globalization argument is that globalization changed the terms of class struggle in the core countries (or at least contributed to that change). This argument does seem to make a certain amount of sense. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9813] Re: Globaloney
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] D Shniad wrote: What follows is a response to Doug's call to specify a bit more what we're talking about when we compare the relative magnitude of financial speculation to that of trade and other economic activity. (Caveat: I don't work with or have access to trade stats; what follows is the seat-of-the- pants calculation that I've done based on readings about speculation, etc. I invite those with access to the stats to respond.) The IMF estimates that foreign exchange transactions are more than $1 trillion daily, while trade volumes are in the $3.5 trillion ballpark annually. If trade volumes are 5% of the total of the world's domestic output (a *very* conservative estimate), then the aggregate of the world's real output would be in the neighbourhood of $70 trillion per year. Actually, gross global product was around $25 trillion in 1994, according to the World Bank, making trade around 14% of output. Let's look at some export/GDP ratios for 1980 and 1994 for evidence of some globalizing "revolution." Of course it's always possible the revolution started after 1994; someone check with Ed Herman on this. EXPORTS AS PERCENT OF GDP 1980 1994 "developing" countries23% 22% Latin Amer/Caribb 16 15 Brazil 98 Mexico11 13 S Africa36 24 S Korea 34 36 Canada28 30 Japan 149 Norway47 33 Sweden29 33 UK27 25 U.S. 10 10 source: World Development Report 1996, table 13 (If trade volumes are a somewhat larger portion of domestic production in the aggregate, then the world's aggregate production is somewhat smaller.) By comparison, aggregate international financial transactions come in at more than $300 trillion per year. By these calculations, the aggregate of international *financial* transactions are more than four times the dollar magnitude of *real* production. It was on the basis of this observation that I made the statement that speculative activity had dwarfed the activity of productive capital. No one disputes that there's lots of furious, pointless, even destructive speculative activity going on. How, precisely, is it malignant, though? Merely describing its magnitude is not to make the case. Doug 1) Maybe we have to look at the composition of trade. My sense of the globalization thesis is that trade in manufactured goods has globalized while trade in raw materials has declined relatively. 2) Perhaps one should go back before 1980. Most arguments re. globalization allude to a transition in the SSA/MSR c. 1969. So comparing 1960 and 1997 might be more to the point. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9818] Re: RM conference overdetermination
Jim Devine writes: This fits with an insight that Alan Freeman suggested as one part of a longer paper he presented at the recent ASSA/URPE conference: when Marx (or Freeman) talks about "objective conditions," he is not talking about "the forces of production" (as the technological determinists do) or even "the capitalist mode of production" as much as the left-overs, the hangovers, from the past. Jim, I don't think this gets quite out of the woods. First, your notion is very much like Roy Bhaskar's argument for what he calls the transformative mode of social activity. Except for Roy, not only does the past haunt the present, it also allows social institutions to have emergent properties (their own causal efficacy) independent of any given individuals. Second, to say something is overdetermined does not necessarily mean everything determines everything else -- including the present determining the past. All it requires is multiple and contingent causes such that a given outcome is neither necessary nor sufficient evidence of any given cause. Here again I find Bhaskar much better than RW. RW seem to stop at overdetermination, whereas Bhaskar seems to start there. His critical realist theory has us identifying specific causes and their contingent interaction to explain why certain outcomes do or do not appear. If, for example, we do not see a growing reserve army of labor during a period of U.S. history, perhaps it's because gender relations interact with class relations to undermine a tendency that the latter, by itself, would foster. This is a far cry from overdetermination since it explains the "overdetermined" (contingent) outcome rather than hide it behind a 7-syllable word. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9716] ]e: Globaloney
Doug, I wonder if we wouldn't be better advised to think of the technology as a social relation (much the same way the Marx thought about manufacturing) and to understand the technology's influence on other social relations. Posted on 29 Apr 1997 at 12:50:16 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:9708] Re: Globaloney Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 09:48:42 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael Eisenscher wrote: But it would be as grave an error to ignore the qualitative, not just quantitative impact these technologies have had on the capacity for capital mobility, reorganization of the labor process, control, and the options these open for capital which were not available 30 or 40 years ago. I don't think the transformations wrought by chips and fiber optics are underappreciated by anyone, mainstream or radical. In fact, I think too much attention is paid to them, at the expense of some very old underlying social mechanisms (competition, profit maximization, etc.). I'll admit that some of my attack on globalization thinking is done in the spirit of former Economist editor Geoffrey Crowther's maxim for journalism, "simplify and exaggerate," but it's needed. It's understandable why bourgeois analysts would want to promote globalization and system-transformative technical change; liberal (U.S. sense) apologists like Columbia's Graciela Chichilnisky say that the knowledge revolution has made notions like ownership and even capital obsolete. And I guess postmodernists like the idea of an epistemic break between then and now; it makes it easier to dismiss Marxism and to stop thinking about social relations, or to treat social relations as entirely discursive. But radicals should, I think, follow Larry Summers' advice and dispense with "the breathless tone about technology." Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9714] Re: globalization question
Posted on 29 Apr 1997 at 11:20:25 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:9707] Re: globalization question Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 08:19:00 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (rakesh bhandari) If Indonesian capital can escape the contradiction between production and consumption through the export of consumer goods--as suggested by Jim-- why can't US capital escape the same contradiction through the export of investment goods to markets in Asian and Europe? In other words, hasn't the "globalization" of investment demand allowed US capital to escape the limits of insufficient domestic consumer demand and thus terminate the Marxian contradictions? Rakesh Bhandari Ethnic Studies UC Berkeley Yes. I believe this is the model Lipietz and others paint when they speak of global fordism. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9693] Re: globalization question
Posted on 28 Apr 1997 at 00:33:03 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:9681] Re: globalization question Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 21:33:55 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael Hoover responded to my question about the integration of the U.S. South into the national economy, saying that the government expended considerable resources to encourage investment there. Why did they have to expend funds? Why was the investment so slow in coming. I have seen references to the delay noting the lack of air conditioning until the 1960s and the lack of infrastructure until the interstate highways began in the 1950s. But surely conditions are more difficult in Haiti or Vietnam. Any other comments? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael, Perhaps some of the explanation lies in different forms of ownership and capital mobility. Expansion into the 1950's U.S. south was led by branch plants and firms relocating there (the latter is particularly true of New England textile firms). Globalization in the 1990s has the capital flows, but not the ownership flows. Much offshore production is done by foreign-owned subsidiaries (witness the recent strike against a Nike supplier in I think it was Thailand, or some other Southeast Asian country). U.S. managers may only consider air conditioning to be important when their own skins are involved. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9650] Re: Ports 'crossing the threshold of
Could someone fill me in? I must have missed the earlier posts about this. What is the URL for COSIPA's web site? What is COSIPA? What are the issues here? How is the state giving capital the keys to the plant? Etc. If an earlier posting covered this, could you please just tell me the subject it was listed under, so I can look it up? Thanks. Posted on 24 Apr 1997 at 13:43:34 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:9644] Ports "crossing the threshold of globalizat Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 10:43:07 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: D Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Forwarded message: From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Apr 24 05:10 PDT 1997 X-Authentication-Warning: sunrise.ccs.yorku.ca: lanfran owned process doing -bs X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 08:05:51 -0400 Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sam Lanfranco [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Ports "crossing the threshold of globalization" To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 2667 In response to a LabourNet note: against the use of non-union casual labour at COSIPA's marine terminal. COSIPA's web site invites comments on "any doubts or suggestions" concerning its "new venture to cross the threshold of Globalisation" including "the new maritime terminal, its most recent Doug Henwood wrote: I'm a bit mystified by a port crossing a threshold of globalization. Ports are all about international trade, and always have been, no? -- I assume that Doug is making a little joke here, but there is a deeper point. As the famous Brando film "On The Waterfront" makes the point, Docks and Ports have always been about two very different things. The trade that passes through them is very international. But, much of the time, the production regime, and in particluar how labor 'fits in' at the port has been very 'local' in its structure and control. Reflect on the labor regime on the ships that travel the seas. With 'flag of convenience' shipping labor conditions range from excellent to terrible. There is something going on at the level of the organization of work, and rights of workers, at this point in time and it is probably an early warning for things to follow. For the large shipping interests, two ports in Sydney and London, or Hong Kong and San Francisco, are just two platforms at opposite ends of the same 'plant'. Things are loaded here and unloaded there - much like boxes switching assembly lines in a factory. What is new here is not that the goods being moved are for global trade. Doug is right, they were always for global trade. What is new is that each port facility is increasingly being looked at as just another workstation in a global transportation plant. That they are 1000s of miles apart makes no difference to those trying to organize them. The strategy is the same as if they were simply different delivery gates at the same factory site. Capital, in the form of the owners of the fleets and the port terminals undrestands that. The current struggles are helping drive the point home to labour. As for the state - it seems to be standing at the factory gate handing the keys to the fleet and port owners in a classic model of the state as handmaiden to capital. Other than higher levels of organization on the part of global labor (part of what Labornet and LABOR-L support) the only other quiet actor which could play a stronger role is civil society organizations. I am not sure what it will take for them (those resident in major port cities) to realize what the game is here, what they have at risk, and where they should be playing their hand. Sam Lanfranco [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:9620] Internet Humor
I hope you'll appreciate this: Posted on 14 Dec 1996 at 23:45:10 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) FW: Christmas restructuring... Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 23:45:05 -0500 Reply-To: URI Faculty Senate List [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: David Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 'Tis the season The recent announcement that Donner and Blitzen have elected to take the early reindeer retirement package has triggered a good deal of concern about whether they will be replaced, and about other restructuring decisions at the North Pole. Streamlining is due to the North Pole's loss of dominance of the season's gift distribution business. Home shopping channels and mail order catalogues have diminished Santa's market share. He could not sit idly by and permit further erosion of the profit picture. The reindeer downsizing was made possible through the purchase of a late model Japanese sled for the CEO's annual trip. Improved productivity from Dasher and Dancer, who summered at the Harvard Business School, is anticipated. Reduction in reindeer will also lessen airborne environmental emissions for which the North Pole has received unfavorable press. I am pleased to inform you that Rudolph's role will not be disturbed. Tradition still counts for something at the North Pole. Management denies, in the strongest possible language, the earlier leak that Rudolph's nose got that way, not from the cold, but from substance abuse. Calling Rudolph "a lush who was into the sauce and never did pull his share of the load" was an unfortunate comment, made by one of Santa's helpers and taken out of context at a time of year when he is known to be under executive stress. As a further restructuring, today's global challenges require the North Pole to continue to look for better, more competitive steps. Effective immediately, the following economy measures are to take place in the "Twelve Days of Christmas" subsidiary: - The partridge will be retained, but the pear tree never turned out to be the cash crop forecasted. It will be replaced by a plastic hanging plant, providing considerable savings in maintenance; - The two turtle doves represent a redundancy that is simply not cost effective. In addition, their romance during working hours could not be condoned. The positions are therefore eliminated; - The three French hens will remain intact. After all, everyone loves the French; - The four calling birds were replaced by an automated voice mail system, with a call waiting option. An analysis is underway to determine who the birds have been calling, how often and how long they talked; - The five golden rings have been put on hold by the Board of Directors. Maintaining a portfolio based on one commodity could have negative implications for institutional investors. Diversification into other precious metals as well as a mix of T-Bills and high technology stocks appear to be in order; - The six geese-a-laying constitutes a luxury which can no longer be afforded. It has long been felt that the production rate of one egg per goose per day is an example of the decline in productivity. Three geese will be let go, and an upgrading in the selection procedure by personnel will assure management that from now on every goose it gets will be a good one; - The seven swans-a-swimming is obviously a number chosen in better times. The function is primarily decorative. Mechanical swans are on order. The current swans will be retrained to learn some new strokes and therefore enhance their outplacement; - As you know, the eight maids-a-milking concept has been under heavy scrutiny by the EEOC. A male/female balance in the workforce is being sought. The more militant maids consider this a dead-end job with no upward mobility. Automation of the process may permit the maids to try a-mending, a-mentoring or a-mulching; - Nine ladies dancing has always been an odd number. This function will be phased out as these individuals grow older and can no longer do the steps; - Ten Lords-a-leaping is overkill. The high cost of Lords plus the expense of international air travel prompted the Compensation Committee to suggest replacing this group with ten out-of-work congressmen. While leaping ability may be somewhat sacrificed, the savings are significant because we expect an oversupply of unemployed congressmen this year; - Eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming is a simple case of the band getting too big. A substitution with a string quartet, a cutback on new music and no uniforms will produce savings which will drop right down to the bottom line; We can expect a substantial reduction in assorted people, fowl, animals and other expenses. Though
[PEN-L:9017] Re: LA Living Wage Passes!
Bob, Can you give us more information about this. What does the ordinance do? What is in the report you refer to? Thanks. Posted on 18 Mar 1997 at 20:15:49 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:9004] LA Living Wage Passes! Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 17:14:23 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Robert Pollin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Finally, some very good news for the left and labor movement. After a long, bitter struggle, the LA Living Wage ordinance passed 12 - 0, with three abstensions. Mayor Richard Riordan had promised to veto the ordinance, but with a 12-vote majority, the ordinance is now veto proof! Though the coverage is still very small--directly probably about 5,000 workers--it should help unions to fight for new wage norms throughout the city. This victory was the result of an extremely well organized and effective labor/progressive coalition. Several people at UC-Riverside, including me, worked with the coalition in producing research, including a full scale study, "The Economics of the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance." There are great lessons here about what it takes to win something worthwhile. One thing is that well-supported appeals to social justice really can be effective at the local level, where the dominance of big money corporate politics is far less pervasive--even in a big city like LA. -- Bob Pollin Robert Pollin Department of Economics Univesity of California-Riverside Riverside, CA 92521-0427 (909) 787-5037, ext 1579 (office); (909) 788-8106 (home) (909) 787-5685 (fax); [EMAIL PROTECTED] (e-mail) Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8836] Central City Malls
Hi, First, please forgive the multiple postings. I'm posting this to several lists in the hope of getting quick and useful responses. A local reporter is doing an article on downtown, central-city malls. This is not from some disinterested standpoint: ground breaking for a large mall in Providence (Providence Place) is scheduled for this spring. The reporter interviewed me and asked two questions I could not answer, and I'd really appreciate your help in answering them. First, what do the business plans of these malls typically look like. For example, what return on investment do developers plan on? Also, is there a difference, either in cost or planning strategy, between suburban and central city malls? Are there any figures readily available on a) the overall financial package for specific malls or malls in general and b) the public subsidy portion of such malls. Second, are there any good studies of mall impacts? I have a student who's reviewing evaluations of enterprise zones, and she's finding they're pretty lousy. Is there a parallel literature on central-city malls, and is it any better? Please reply to me directly. Your help will be most appreciated. Thanks very much. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8786] Re: progressiveness war
Jim, This worries me: My hypothesis is that the general rise of progressiveness from 1952 to 1975-6 is a result of the cold war and two major hot wars (the need to legitimate the system in the eyes of the troops) plus the relatively non-globalized status of the US economy at the time (international competition was less important, making a welfare state easier). Were any of the social democracies (e.g., in Scandinavia) ever so self-contained that they didn't face international competition? I don't think a purely "economic" explanation will cut it. BTW. Ian Gough argues along similar lines re. the distribution of state revenues and expenditures in _The Political Economy of the Welfare State_ Warm regards from Peace Dale. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8785] Re: Barkin
Posted on 27 Feb 1997 at 12:49:34 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:8782] Barkin Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 09:31:57 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Does anyone know David Barkin's whereabouts? I'm told he's in Boston right now. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html I thought he was at the Lincoln Land Institute in Cambridge but that he returned to Mexico last year. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8784] Re: Nike in San Francisco
Richard Barff and one of his students at Dartmouth wrote a terrific article in _Regional Studies_ a few years back. It's called "Nike Just Did It," and it's about Nike's subcontracting strategies in S.E. Asia. One thing that's terribly clear from the article is that Nike could pay its own workers great wages and still be exploiting the hell out of the people who make Nike shoes. Most Nikes are made under subcontract through carefully groomed supplier networks. Posted on 26 Feb 1997 at 19:32:33 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:8777] Nike in San Francisco Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 16:25:18 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: D Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] /* Written 6:55 PM Feb 24, 1997 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in gn:reg.indonesia From: John MacDougall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: IN: AP - Nike Machine Runs into Protest Well-oiled Nike machine runs into SF protest machine By RICHARD COLE, Associated Press Writer Feb 20 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The multi-billion dollar Nike empire and its muscular sports machine rolled into town Thursday to launch a new store, but instead ran into the city's protest movement and eked out a public relations draw. Demonstrators carrying giant mock Indonesian shadow puppets gathered outside the new Nike Town super store's media opening to accuse the footwear company of exploiting workers in Asia. Walter Johnson, head of the San Francisco Labor Council, said he would call on the AFL-CIO to launch a national boycott of Nike products until 25-cent-an-hour wages were raised and conditions improved. Caught in the crossfire was San Francisco 49ers record-smashing receiver Jerry Rice, who for 12 years has had a contract to promote Nike. Rice was visibly upset by questions about Nike's factories, saying he had heard of the controversy only when he arrived at the Union Square store Thursday. He finally stalked away from reporters. ``I think it's unfair you guys throwing this in my face,'' Rice told reporters. ``I understand it's a situation that has to be dealt with, but it's also something you have to think about. You can't just respond right off the bat.'' San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown displayed his political cross-training by sidestepping the controversy after oohing and aahing at the slick, expensive -- $79 for a U.S. soccer team shirt -- three-story retail store. Brown said he welcomed the jobs Nike was bringing to the city. ``I'd love to have the same thing happen to people all over the world, but my first responsibility is obviously to San Francisco,'' the mayor said. Nike spokesman Jim Small defended his company's record, saying Nike pays at least the minimum wage in all its factories, and an average of 50 percent more. Nike, he noted, is a member of a committee of apparel makers that will make recommendations to President Clinton next month on how to protect overseas employees of U.S. firms. ``Nike will not tolerate the abuse of workers in our facilities,'' he said. ``We care about them.'' But union organizers and advocates for Nike workers told a different story outside the Union Square building. Katie Quan, Northwest regional manager of the garment workers union, said Nike's contractors in Indonesia have consistently fought against efforts to organize their factories. ``The labor leaders there have been fired and imprisoned,'' Quan said. Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange organized the protest and contrasted conditions she saw in visits to Indonesia with the plush Union Square environs of Nike Town, which opens Saturday. Phil Knight, chairman and chief executive officer of Portland, Ore.-based Nike, she noted, is one of the world's richest men. ``Nike sweatshop workers in Indonesia make $2.20 a day -- well below the liveable wage, yet Nike continues to pour money into bloated megastores, into its CEO's $5.2 billion hoard, and on multi-million dollar promotional contracts with rich sports stars,'' Benjamin said. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8205] Re: long waves -- and a better qu
To answer Doug's question, Schumpeter distinguished between inventions (technological discoveries/ applications) and innovations (commercially viable applications). Mensch, among others, elaborates on this and argues that a technology can be around for some time before it becomes the basis for a long wave. I think it's just a short step from this to argue that a technology may become an innovation and be around for years before the innovation becomes a carrier technology. Also, the logic of Schumpeter's argument does allow for a substantial gestation time before take-off occurs (in the depression entrepreneurs invest in the new technology, but dramatic growth and multipliers may be years down the road and may depend on other contingent conditions being satisfied). This obviously leads to a sticky empirical issue: how to distinguish between innovations at the low part of the S curve vs those that comprise the societal stock of innovations but have not yet formed the basis for growth. Posted on 10 Jan 1997 at 11:41:16 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:8159] Re: long waves -- and a better question Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 08:36:50 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood) I don't know my Schumpeter very well, or long-wave theory either, but computers and related instruments have been around for quite a long time now - in use by governments since the 1950s, and by business since the 1960s. Did earlier transformative technologies - steam engine, railroad, car, radio - take so long to have a long-wave upkick? Greenspan was citing a paper recently - is this what Rakesh meant by: Paul David makes in his widely circulated paper comparing the dynamo and the computer - that asserted that it took decades for the electric motor to have an impact on productivity. But what about the other world-transforming gadgets? Did they operate with a delay of 30 or 40 years? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8206] Re: Fwd: Re: long waves -- and a
Amplifying on Maggie's comments, the cotton gin changed things overnight because it did not require any substantial changes in other parts of the production system. Electricity took decades to affect productivity substantially because the mills were fitted out to take power from a central source and to distribute it via elaborate systems of belts and pulleys. Electricity did not help much until after the factories were rebuilt. Which is partly why we might expect electricity to have more substantial implications for long waves than the cotton gin did. How does one differentiate "societal technology clusters" whose impacts cross all economic sectors from sector-specific ones? Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8205] Re: long waves -- and a better qu
To answer Doug's question, Schumpeter distinguished between inventions (technological discoveries/ applications) and innovations (commercially viable applications). Mensch, among others, elaborates on this and argues that a technology can be around for some time before it becomes the basis for a long wave. I think it's just a short step from this to argue that a technology may become an innovation and be around for years before the innovation becomes a carrier technology. Also, the logic of Schumpeter's argument does allow for a substantial gestation time before take-off occurs (in the depression entrepreneurs invest in the new technology, but dramatic growth and multipliers may be years down the road and may depend on other contingent conditions being satisfied). This obviously leads to a sticky empirical issue: how to distinguish between innovations at the low part of the S curve vs those that comprise the societal stock of innovations but have not yet formed the basis for growth. Posted on 10 Jan 1997 at 11:41:16 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:8159] Re: long waves -- and a better question Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 08:36:50 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood) I don't know my Schumpeter very well, or long-wave theory either, but computers and related instruments have been around for quite a long time now - in use by governments since the 1950s, and by business since the 1960s. Did earlier transformative technologies - steam engine, railroad, car, radio - take so long to have a long-wave upkick? Greenspan was citing a paper recently - is this what Rakesh meant by: Paul David makes in his widely circulated paper comparing the dynamo and the computer - that asserted that it took decades for the electric motor to have an impact on productivity. But what about the other world-transforming gadgets? Did they operate with a delay of 30 or 40 years? Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:8206] Re: Fwd: Re: long waves -- and a
Amplifying on Maggie's comments, the cotton gin changed things overnight because it did not require any substantial changes in other parts of the production system. Electricity took decades to affect productivity substantially because the mills were fitted out to take power from a central source and to distribute it via elaborate systems of belts and pulleys. Electricity did not help much until after the factories were rebuilt. Which is partly why we might expect electricity to have more substantial implications for long waves than the cotton gin did. How does one differentiate "societal technology clusters" whose impacts cross all economic sectors from sector-specific ones? Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:3917] Re: subsidies for sprawl
Posted on 18 Apr 1996 at 17:42:55 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:3842] subsidies for sprawl Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 14:33:28 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Eban Goodstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anybody out there familiar with a literature on: (1) the degree to which suburban development is subsidized? (2) estimates of the externality costs of sprawl? References would be greatly appreciated. Eban _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Eban Goodstein email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Economics phone: 503-768-7626 Lewis and Clark College fax:503-768-7379 Portland, OR 97219 There was a very good book written in the 1970s called, "The Costs of Sprawl." You might also look at Ken Jackson's "The Crabgrass Frontier," Edel, Sclar, and Lauria's "Shakey Palaces", and Mike Davis' "Prisoners of the American Dream". The latter are more history than cost accounting, but they do get into the political economy of suburbia. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:3918] Costs of Sprawl
The book I referred to in my earlier posting as "The Cost of Sprawl" was written by a graduate class at Pace University (I think). It's different from the official study done by the ULI (I think). The book's overarching method is to compare various costs across countries. For example, the book claims Sweden uses less energy per capita than the US, even though Sweden has a colder climate. The book also argues that such differences are directly tied to urban form. Incidently, cross-national comparisons do seem more fruitful than trying to construct alternate scenarios as a research design for attacking this problem. Much of the observations people made about development in the U.S. reflects this country's political economy more than saying specific about the costs of any one mode of urban form. Mark Gottdiener's "Planned Sprawl" may be of interest here, as would my own articles on U.S. housing and fordism (with Richard Florida -- see the "International Journal of Urban and Regional Research," c. 1989 and our paper in "Housing and Government: Comparisons from Seven Countries" published in a Sage edited collection). Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:3919] Social relations
Paul Sweezy's first chapter in _The Theory of Capitalist Development_ is one of the clearest and most eloquent arguments for basing economics and, more generally, social theory around social relations. I would like to make this point in my urban theory course next fall, but a more modern reading with a less singular focus on Marx's economics would be far more useful to me. Can anyone suggest something along these lines? Thanks. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/874-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/874-5511 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:3477] Re: The Death of David Gordon
I too am shocked and saddened at the news of David's death. I was in New York at the Urban Affairs meetings on March 15-17, and Bob Beauregard mentioned David was in the hospital waiting for a heart transplant. Today I came in to catch up on my e-mail, and I saw David didn't make it. To add my voice to our collective sorrow, I remember David from numerous URPE activities in the 1970s. Once while he was visiting his family in Berkeley he took time out from his busy schedule to come to my apartment and help me with my dissertation. I was researching the relation between class segementation, spatial patterns of housing and labor markets, and the role of urban transportation in coordinating this system of inequality. David gave me copies of the relevant sections of his own dissertation, which used factor analysis to identify labor market segments, to use for my own work. He also engaged me in a very stimulating discussion about my own research. All this for a graduate student he hardly knew and certainly had no need to spend any time with. The following obituary mentions his contributions to labor and macro economics. Others have mentioned his contribution to feminist economics. I want to add to this already impressive list his contribution to radical urban political economy. His reader, _Problems in Political Economy: An Urban Perspective_, remains one of the most accessible and comprehensive books in the area. It illustrates David's gift for combining rigorous theory and empirical evidence to shed light on crucial policy issues and to unmask the hidden ideology in conservative economics. As I returned from New York, I thought about revising my urban theory class for next fall. I thought about how helpful an updated version of this book would be. I realized how much was lost by David's intellectual journey taking him to fry fish outside the urban arena. Now, I realize how much more we will miss the man himself. Fare thee well, comrade. David M. Gordon (1944-1996) David Gordon, a leading economist of the left, died Saturday at the age of fifty-two; he succumbed to congestive heart failure while awaiting a heart transplant at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. At the time of his death he was Director of the Center for Economic Policy Analysis and Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research. Gordon came from a family of economists. His father, the late Robert Aaron Gordon, was President of the American Economic Association while his mother, the late Margaret S. Gordon, was well known for her contributions to the economics of employment and social welfare policy. His brother Robert J Gordon is a prominent macroeconomist and Professor of Economics at Northwestern University. David Gordon and his family have been referred to as the "Flying Wallendas of Economics." David Gordon is best known for his contributions to the theory of discrimination and labor market segmentation, his analysis of the institutions shaping long-term economic growth, and his trenchant criticisms of conservative economic policy. His contributions to labor economics, developed jointly with Richard Edwards and Michael Reich, challenged the conventional assumption of a single labor market and argued instead for the recognition of deep divisions along racial, gender, and class lines. His macroeconomic research involved theoretical, historical and econometric analysis of the impact of political and social as well as economic institutions on long-term investment and growth. He coined the term "social structure of accumulation" and is credited with founding the school of economic thought bearing that name. Gordon's Fat and Mean: The Myth of Managerial "Downsizing" and the Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans, to be published next month by Martin Kessler Books at The Free Press, has won lavish pre-publication praise. A review to appear in The Atlantic suggests that it will be one of the most influential public-policy books of the decade. The book documents the long term decline in the pay and living standards of American workers and what Gordon has termed the increasingly top-heavy bureaucratic structure of American corporations. As a student, Gordon wrote for the Harvard Crimson, and following his graduation from Harvard in 1965 he helped found The Southern Courier, a civil rights newspaper based in Atlanta. Throughout his life he maintained his interest in journalism, contributing an economics column to the Los Angeles Times and numerous articles to The Nation, as well as making frequent appearances on television and radio commentary programs. Gordon received his doctoral degree in Economics from Harvard University in 1971, taught briefly at Yale, and since 1973 has been a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research. Pointedly eschewing the career paths of the economics mainstream, he was a founder and active member of the Union
[PEN-L:3006] Re: Anthony Giddens
Well, most geographers I know (or what Andy Sayer calls "those in the spatial sciences") think Giddens' thinking about space is too little too late. Doreen Massey, for example, in her _Spatial Structures of Production_ raised the question of how to think about global-local in a much more extensive and insightful way. I'm not saying Giddens is wrong, only that he raises issues that others have long recognized. Check out Ed Soja's _Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory." Posted on 12 Feb 1996 at 12:22:27 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:2894] Anthony Giddens Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 09:17:48 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Chris Merrett" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anthony Giddens, as a sociologist, is also a closet geographer. His ideas about structure versus agency have lead him to think about the social construction of place. This has lead him to ponder the epistemological dilemma of linking global processes to local outcomes in a theoretically informed way that is not empiricist in nature. I believe that he has contributed to the social sciences by transcending disciplinary boundaries to tackle economics, geography, sociology and philosophy. I would also like to hear what other people think about Anthony Giddens. Cheers, Chris Merrett Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:1343] Re: steel experts?
Posted on 30 Oct 1995 at 15:16:35 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:1173] steel experts? Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 12:08:24 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood) A subscriber of mine, Tom Lehmann, is looking for someone who knows the steel industry well and who is sympathetic to labor to talk about the industry and the general economic environment for a joint union-management seminar to be held in Lorain County, Ohio. Anyone interested in volunteering, or if you have any suggestions of people you'd be happy to volunteer, please contact Lehmann at 800-227-7113, ext. 2412 during business hours, Ohio time. Thanks. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html Doug, See if Ann Markusen (in the planning program at Rutgers) is available. I also think John Metzger (visiting at U of Pittsburgh in Planning) did work on the steel industry. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:1344] RE: why get rid of the Commerce D
Posted on 31 Oct 1995 at 04:31:55 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:1184] RE: why get rid of the Commerce Department? Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 01:28:01 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Michael A. Lebowitz" [EMAIL PROTECTED] In message Mon, 30 Oct 1995 10:13:24 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (James Devine) writes: As for Peter Burns' question about the GOP actually stimulating private investment and thus the economy: yes, they can do that. But such a profits-led boom encourages investment to get further out of line with consumer demand, implying greater tendency toward recession. This may be true for a closed capitalist economy or for capitalism-as-a whole, but why should it be true for one capitalist country? Ie., don't we have both a logical and concrete basis to recognise that any individual capitalist country can pursue successfully such policies--- as long as others are not doing the same, that is? cheers, mike Good point. But given that the US is the world's largest economy, would it make a difference if we did it versus, say, Britain? Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:1345] Re: economic decline/help
Posted on 25 Oct 1995 at 05:35:43 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:1108] economic decline/help Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 02:35:01 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (jones/bhandari) I am reading the former finance editor of Business Week Jeffrey Madrick's The End of Affluence: The Causes and Consequences of America's Economic Dilemma--a short, non-specialist overview of the US economy. Madrick advances an interesting claim (actually it could be taken as an indictment of the economics profession), and I am wondering whether he is right about this. "For all its ups and downs, [the post- WWII boom] produced the fastest, broadest-based economic growth and rising living standards a major economy has ever seen. There is not one forecast on record that suggested it might not last." (p.35) Is this true? Thanks for the help. Rakesh I don't know. Would you call Baran and Sweezy's MONOPOLY CAPITAL a forecast? Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
[PEN-L:105] Re: REGULATION (WAS Two Questions
Posted on 1 Aug 1995 at 14:37:40 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:81] Two Questions Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 11:37:19 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Thomas Schumacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] Does anybody know if the papers from the International Conference on Regulation Theory in Barcelona (1988) were ever collected or published? No, not in one place. Also, does anybody know of any work that's been done within the regulation school on consumption? It seems that for Aglietta at least that one of the features of the shifts he outlines is the changes in patterns/practices of consumption, and yet most of the work coming after him has concentrated on either the labor process or the state. Any leads? Check out David Harvey's _The Condition of Postmodernity_. Also see Florida, Richard L and Marshall MA Feldman. 1988. Housing in US Fordism. Int. Jour. Urban and Regional Research 12(2): 187-210. Feldman, Marshall and Richard L Florida. 1990. Economic restructuring and the changing role of the state in US housing. Pp. 31-46 in Government and housing: Developments in seven countries, ed. Willem van Vliet and Jan van Weesep, Vol. 36, Urban Affairs Annual Reviews, Newbury Park: Sage. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:5481] Re: suburbs/housing and SSAs
Posted on 12 Jun 1995 at 13:58:27 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:5461] Re: suburbs/housing and SSAs Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 10:31:18 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Eric Nilsson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marshall Feldman wrote that the run-up in housing prices led to a possible reduction in the cost of job loss. But might that only apply to those who bought their homes before the rapid rise in prices? Those who bought homes after prices went up rapidly found themselves stuck with huge monthly mortgage payments. For these folks, job loss might lead not only to the loss of income but the possibility of the loss of their home as they became unable to make their monthly payments. Sure, but remember a few things. First, before WWII around 60% of the population rented, but by the '60's around 65% owned. Forget house price inflation for the moment and consider how the consumer credit institutions preserved shelter for homeowners. You have to miss several installments before the lender comes to foreclose; this is most true for housing, less true for consumer durables. It particularly holds when lenders hold mortgages in specific communities. Thus, being out on strike in a place like Lordstown in 1965 puts one at less risk than in say, Flint in the '30s. Second, house price inflation during the '70s was very uneven. It applies almost not at all to the midwest and east. Much more to California (the East Coast picked up in the '80s). What you say is true, but remember that housing turnover rates are class-specific (blue collar workers have lower turnover rates than say white collar professionals) and age-specific. In any case, turnover takes place among a small fraction of all owners. So, workers in California who had homes before the boom and who either cashed in or just smiled at their ballooning equity had an alternate source of income. Those who were not owners were generally young, but still in the minority in most local labor markets. In short, we argue, pase Aglietta who argues suburbanization lowered the cost of labor power, that 1) suburbanization primarily structured demand, 2) it was wasteful and actually raised the cost of labor power (institutionalizing norms that absorbed productivity increases in further expenditures rather than in either savings or shorter working hours), 3) its specific institutional expression lowered the short-term cost of job loss through the specific mechanisms designed to protect lenders. The impacts of house-price inflation were relatively minor compared to these larger patterns, confined to specific local labor markets, and within the latter further lessened the overall cost of job loss. (Our library doesn't have the journal with Marshall's article in it so forgive me if this is discussed in the article.) Marshall also wrote, One thing that regulationists sometimes overlook is the double dynamic of the regime of accumulation (fordism here) and the relative place of the individual country (social formation for the orthodox) in the world system. The US was fordism's global hegemon, and US fordism was a particular flavor relying heavily on suburbanization instead of social democracy. Would you say a bit more about the link between US hegemony and the fact the US social formation relied heavily on suburbanization. What impact this have in your approach? Sure, there are specific connections between the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system and the internal problems the US was having with stagflation. These, in turn, can be partly traced to the domestic financial system which was strongly tied to housing, real estate, and postwar suburbanization. .. .. Eric Nilsson Department of Economics California State University San Bernardino, CA 92407 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:5442] Althusser Quote
Hi, In his eulogy for Louis Althusser (reprinted in _The Althusserian Legacy_, ed. E. Ann Kaplan and Michael Sprinker. London: Verso, 1993) Jacques Derrida quotes from Althusser's _Bertolazzi et Brecht_ (1962). The quote ends with the following sentence: "We share the same story -- and that is where everything begins." Can someone tell me where this essay is printed and where it can be found? Even better, can some one give the the original French version of the quote? Thanks. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:5371] Re: Kondratieff
Posted on 7 Jun 1995 at 22:14:16 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:5359] Re: Kondratieff Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 19:13:38 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Evan Jones - 448 - 3063" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 7 June Eric Nilsson wrote: My concern with a focus on K cycles and their relationship to institutional change is the following. I'm sympathetic to Eric's concern. Work like Segmented Work is too stylised; the fault is not so much its economism but its determinism. If one takes the post WWII long boom for example there were probably features that were institutionalised and which underpinned the whole period - e.g. the 'fordist' cluster of suburbia, consumer durables, consumer credit, unprecendeted family formation,etc. You may want to consult the article Rich Florida I wrote on this: "Housing in US Fordism". Internatinal Journal of Urban and Regional Research 12, 2 (June 1988): 187-210. On the other hand, the notion that the periods of favourable accumulation worked fairly automatically once set in place is silly. It seems to me generalizing either way is silly. It would depend on the specific organization of accumulation. In the case of US suburbanization, once the pieces were in place around 1950 (adding the highway act in 1956), the geographic transformation DID work fairly automatically for about 2 decades. Then profit squeezes led to restructuring, and today's suburbanization does not complete the circuit adequately. Major tinkering in the banking system did not get implemented until the late '70s when things no longer worked so well. At the global level, cold war and some regional hot wars is crucial for Pax Americana underpinnings of the K-like long boom. But not even the most ardent hawks in 1945 could guess at the magnitude of devleopments until the Soviet UNion become the unviersal bogeyman after 1947 and Korea kicked it off in 1950. But design and automatic operation are two separate questions. My reading of the post-WWII period in Australia is that the period bubbled along with mini-crises which had to be resolved, not least by the active deliberation of various agencies of the state (and by this I mean far more than textbook Keynesian macro manipulation). This is an interesting question. I believe regulationists distinguish between regulatory crises (i.e. those within the regime) and transformatory crises (i.e. those that change it). Can we understand these mini-crises as regulatory ones? In Australia, in particular, a major development which kept the long boom bubbling along in the 1960s was an extraordinary expansion in the mining sector, a phenomenon mostly unforeseen in the 1950. This development in turn had dramatic implications of a regional nature (meaning that the 'national economy' aggregates are hiding important internal developments), with the epicentre of activity moving from the more industrialised south-east States, to the periphery of north and west. Very important and interesting questions. Regulationists have a tendency to homogenize the social formation. In fact, uneven development is the rule, and regulation theory often adds little to our understanding of uneven development within even stable regimes. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:5372] Re: Kondratieff
Posted on 7 Jun 1995 at 12:42:27 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:5338] Re: Kondratieff Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:40:27 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Anthony D'Costa" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regarding small acale incremental technical changes that contribute to our understanding of Japanese technological prowess, see Tessa Morris-Suzuki's analysis of "social networks of innovation" beginning in Tokugawa Japan. Can you give us the citation please? Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:4768] RE: New work on discrimination in
Gary, Thanks for the posting. Can you give us the specific references? I've tried to highlight the ones needed. I don't agree that the studies have shown discrimination per se; I don't think any have, except for the "paired-testing" types (minority and white person with identical characteristics try to get a loan, get a job, ...). Can you cite a recent published study via which we can bore into the lit? The studies most often replicated have shown that areas with many minority residents -- usually African American population percentage, for most studies -- have lower loan flows per eligible housing unit. This "area" race effect is different than showing "individual" race effects aimed at specific minority applicants. Again, please give at least on cite as a port of entry. The area race effects show, in Anne Shlay's term, the lack of a "fair ^^ ref? very volume of these studies is, in a way, impressive -- because lots of ^^ Is there a review or academic summary? In response, HMDA data on individual applicants were produced thanks to a compromise worked out by the Southern Finance Project and others during the FIRREA negotations. This richer data allowed richer tests on whether in fact there were still fewer loans to minorities once you took applica- tions into account. The answer was, yes; but the conservative rejoinder Have these studies been published anywhere? conservative scribes at the WSJ. The revised Beantown tried to put ref? Area race effects can be the legacy of structural discrimination, not just of racist bankers. And structural discrimination can be an amalgam of labor-market inequity, class dynamics, unequal wealth, etc. I have a paper coming out later this year in the Rev. of Black Pol. Economy, which ^^ do you know which issue? I agree completely with the need to look at spatial dimensions. More and more I think this is a key. The racial, of course, is spatial. This is just where we need to add in, say, Robert Bullard and Melvin Oliver, to spice William J. Wilson. The racial is also gendered, as is the class- Again, people might want refs. to Bullard, Oliver, and Wilson. -- with John Veitch -- on LA. The class/gender/racial separations that published where? Lash and Urry that it's "ungovernable" -- but it's definitely polarized, ^ cite? And as to literature. The old radical stuff from the 1970's has a lot to ^ anything in particular? that I've been learning a lot from the geographers and sociologists. There's which ones? Where? a second look. For those interested in such trends, a new "Los Angeles" school is arising -- with Ed Soja, Mike Davis, Allen Scott, Jennifer Wolch, Michael Dear at the center -- in response to the older "Chicago model". Hey, we're just jealous about MJ coming back. Why not Magic? Some cites here would help too. BTW, the "Los Angeles" school is not so new (these folks have been plugging along since at least the mid-1970's) and not so LA (see the intro to Mike Storper and Dick Walker's _Capitalist Imperative_). As far as I'm concerned, Manuel Castells nailed the Chicago model from France in 1972 (_The Urban Question_). Thanks again. I'm familiar with some of the lit. here, but it would be nice to know exactly what you're referring to and to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Marsh Feldman Phone: 401/792-5953 Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 The University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:4299] Re: biotechnology
One other thing I forgot to mention in my recent posting. Ric McIntyre and I recently completed a study of flexible manufacturing for the US Economic Development Administration. Part of the study covers industry case studies for three industries, with Medical Instruments Supplies being one (the other two are Aircraft Components and Textile Finishing). You might be interested in this. If so, send e-mail request to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and ask her to send you a pricing for the report once we get our duplicating account in place. She'll send it to you in a month or so. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-5953 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:4300] Re: biotechnology
Posted on 25 Feb 1995 at 17:20:05 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:4284] biotechnology Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 14:17:52 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Nicholas Witheford [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is to ask if anyone can give me recommendations on books and articles offering critical analysis of the political economy of the biotechnology industry. I'm particularly interested in/ repelled by the potential use of this technology as a means for capital to exercise quality control over the reproduction of labour power. With thanks in advance, Mutantly, Nick Witheford I've published two articles on biotech, both of which approach the issue from the point of spatial organization and economic development: Feldman, Marshall M.A. 1985a. Biotechnology and local economic growth: The American pattern. Pp. 65-79 in _Silicon landscapes_, ed. Peter Hall and Ann Markusen. Boston: Allen Unwin. . 1985b. Patterns of biotechnology development. Pp. 93-107 in _The future of urban form: The impact of new technology_, ed. John Brotchie, Peter Newton, Peter Hall, and Peter Nijkamp. London: Croom Helm. Also check out, Kenney, Martin. 1986. _Biotechnology: The university-industrial complex_ New Haven: Yale University Press. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-5953 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:3844] Re: rationality
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 11:35:33 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] The essential issue, I believe, is whether or not particular social institutions promote socially productive or socially unproductive behavior. [I'm sure we could argue for a while about how to define what is socially productive and unproductive, but let's assume we could agree on that for the moment.] Well, how does an institution promote one kind of behavior rather than another? For the most part, or if you wish to be more cautious in statements, certainly to some extent, institutions promote one kind of behavior rather than another by making one kind of behavior individually rational, IR as you say, and other kinds of behavior individually irrational. People do NOT always have to behave in IR ways in order for this phenomenon to occur. And people are always "free" to choose to behave in ways that are NOT IR for various reasons -- one of which might be moral or pol- itical committments. As one who as frequently chosen individually irrational courses of action -- as I'm sure you are too -- I know that the pressure from social institutions does not always succeed in getting me to behave in a particular way. But, that does not obviate the fact the social institution promoted, or pressured me and others, to behave in a particular kind of way, and forced me to behave in a way that in some meaningful sense was counter to my own self-interests as I see them. I don't see why we have to give such pride of place to a subjectivist notion of individual rationality. Institutions may promote one kind of behavior over another, but it seems unnecssary to add that they do so by making one kind of behavior IR. Institutions constrain, empower, and pressure for some behaviors over others, and it seems almost besides the point to worry if individuals consciously choose these behaviors. I cannot plan an effective course of action counting on my vassels' oaths of fealty to provide me with labor when I need it, but I might be able to count on my savings account serving the same purpose. The prospects of feudal labor relations are so remote from my real possiblities that I do not even consider them. There must be an infinite set of alternatives I do not even consider, my actual actions must have an infinite set of implications I am not even aware of; ditto for motivations. It seems more meaningful to talk of the institutional detemination of the scope for possible conscious action before we worry about the rationality of those actions. In other words, the path to human action does not necessarily pass through consciousness. It is in this sense that I think progressive critics of capitalism can argue that markets and private enterprise promote socially unpro- ductive behavior. And I don't see how that conclusion is contradicted by the fact that many people -- perhaps all people -- to some extent resist the pressure to behave in the ways markets promote, and even that the very viability of market systems hinges on people NOT always behaving in the ways that markets push them. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:3730] Positivism
The following list of "strict" positivist doctrines comes from Giedymin, Jerzy. 1975. Antipositivism in contemporary philosophy of social science and humanities. _British Journal of the Philosophy of Science_ 26: 275-301. 1. Identification of knowledge with science and mathematics. 2. Empiricism in the extreme form of either phenomenalism or physicalism, i.e. the ruduction of science to statements about directly observable facts and the elimination as meaningless of any sentence that is neither analytic nor empirical (synthetic in Justin's usage), e.g. of metaphysics. 3. The reduction of philosophy to the 'logic of science' and of mathematics. 4. Methodological naturalism ... i.e. the view that the social sciences and even humanities have basically the same aims and methods as the natural sciences. 5. Sociological relativism with respect to norms, in particular ethical ones. 6. Emphasis on the social value of science and on its practical applications. Giedymin gets this from Bacon, Comte, and that crowd, the British empiricist, notably Mill, and the Vienna LP group. From this list, he proposes there are 64 (=2^6) possible definitions of positivism as the term is commonly used in social sciences. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:3624] Re: Prison Labor, Wal-Mart, Class
Posted on 5 Jan 1995 at 18:38:20 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) [PEN-L:3617] Prison Labor, Wal-Mart, Class Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 14:29:45 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Cotter_Cindy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Highways aren't the only things U.S. prisoners build. I was told the wooden furniture and bannisters at the CSUN library were built by prison labor. I've also seen a classy full page ad in Governing Magazine for a southern state that wants to contract with anybody to produce practically anything or provide any service. Well, perhaps not security guards I have mixed feelings. I wouldn't want to compete for my living with someone paid virtually nothing and living at state expense. On the other hand, leaving prisoners to molder useless in their cells at taxpayer expense doesn't sound like a great plan either. Reducing the prison population would be a great idea, but there will doubtless be some we'd most all agree should be locked up. BTW, the most recent issue of Governing (Jan '95) has a cover article titled "The Mega-Store Monster" about the political furor aroused in small communities by the onslaught of Wal-Mart "and its kin." (Is this the list where there was some discussion of that issue? Sorry if I'm off the mark.) There's a statement in the article that relates to our earlier discussion of class: "But the fact of the matter is, working-class and rural New York and New England residents don't spend a great deal of time worrying about the 'built environment' or the 'cultural landscape,' to use just two of the phrases that preservationists like to toss around. They tend to be more impressed by the notion that clothes, towels and dishes will be a few dimes cheaper once the mega-store arrives, and that there will be a sizable increase in the number of part-time jobs available, albeit for low wages and spotty benefits." A statement that seems to be shear fabrication. Wal-Mart is having an awful time getting into Vermont and building another store about 5 miles from here. Working class New Englanders may not worry about "the built environment", but they do worry about their way of life, property values, and the safety of their kids. "The built environment" is an abstraction (but not a chaotic one), and few lay people think in these terms. Nonethelees, it is a real, intimately related to everyday life, and the object of struggle. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
[PEN-L:3625] Power and Method
Hi, I'm teaching a research methods course this spring, and one of the things I do early on is to have the class understand the politics of methodology. I would like to have a reading relating "scientific method" to the development of 20th century capitalism (e.g. focusing on the rise of big science, the relationship between positivism and the need to control through indirect means, etc.). Can someone suggest something suitable? Thanks. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
Feed Hungry Kids
Subject: FWDHoliday Giving (fwd) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 15:32:41 -0500 (EST) From: Marshall Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] From garnet.berkeley.edu!walker Wed Dec 14 14:59:05 1994 Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 11:50:07 -0800 Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], Sun Min Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], "santana@nature" [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FWDHoliday Giving Date: 14 Dec 1994 09:17:43 -0800 From: "Ron Choy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FWDHoliday Giving Mail*Link(r) SMTP FWDHoliday Giving Please forward, if you wish. -- Date: 12/13/94 6:20 PM Subject: Holiday Giving -- Forwarded message -- Want to do a kind thing for some hungry kids this holiday season? If not, press delete now. If you have a heart and a minute, read on. Sun Microsystems is donating $0.10 to a food bank each time an Internet user sends an email msg to any (or all) of the three addresses below: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Doesn't matter what the msg contains; it could be an empty msg, full of invisible holiday spirit. Pick your favorite and send email there a few times. If *everyone* on the net were to BCC all three addresses with every msg they posted to a list for one day, the counter would top out almost instantly, so this is like a weird and wonderful test of Mass Human Kindness. You can do your part to help big fat international corporations make good on their Promises of donations to charities. It only takes 250,000 msgs to reach the $25,000 Sun promised to donate to a Bay Area food bank for homeless families. Other corporations are donating to selected causes, including a banking firm in Washington DC that will donate up to $5,000 to the Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage (only 50,000 msgs...li'l baby birdies...furry baby rabbits... c'MON now! :) Other corporations are participating too: any firms wishing to add matching funds should contact Luther Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The announcement's in the Dec 94 Advanced Systems magazine (pg 22). Who knows, someday you might see companies all across the globe donating part of their obscene profits to children's charities in Sarajevo, San Francisco, Manila, Mogadishu, Bombay, Moscow, Port-au-Prince, Bucharest, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro... everywhere Santa stops in. Remember: any user can send multiple msgs, so please be counted at least _once_, OK? There are not many such opportunities to directly affect something with your computer, and it doesn't take the Compassion of Siddhartha to see what's good about putting food in the mouths of little children with no home, wherever they are. Lobo - | Redwood Design Automation | The task of an educator should be to | | Ph: 408-428-5473 (office) | irrigate the desert, not clear the forest | | 408-934-9918 (home) | __o | | 408-894-2498 (fax)|_`\,_ | --- (*)/ (*) == Richard A. Walker Professor and Chair Department of Geography University of California, Berkeley 94720 (510) 642-3901 -3370(FAX) == -- Marsh Feldma
Re: Greenfield strategies
Posted on 14 Nov 1994 at 15:25:44 by TELEC List Distributor (011802) Greenfield strategies Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 12:23:59 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can someone guide me to references on the "Greenfield" practice of a company threatening to transfer production to an existing plant in an area with low union rates and/or high unemployment? Thanks to all respondents! Jesse Vorst*** The Revolution Knows No Time Zones! *** University College, University of Manitoba Winnipeg R3T 2M8 CANADA w: 204-474-9119 h: 204-269-1365 f: 204-261-0021 time: central time (GMT-UTC -6 winter, -5 summer) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Greenfield practices are only one of several ways of using space as an instrument of class struggle. Alternately, some greenfield practices are not directly related to class conflict (e.g., moving somewhere because it's cheaper to build new than rebuild). Bluestone and Harrison's _Deindustrialization of America_ is old but still a very good discussion of such practices. Paul Knox's textbooks, _Urbanization_ (Prentice Hall 1994) and _The Geography of the World Economy_ (with John Agnew, Edward Arnold 1994) are excellent entries into the literature. Also see Doreen Massey's _Spatial Divisions of Labor_ and Allen Scott's _Metropolis: From Division of Labor to Urban Form_ and his _New Industrial Spaces_. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
Re: Atlas published
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Apologies for both the vulgar self-promotion and possible duplicate postings! Please feel free to repost, redistribute, tack on telephone polls, shout from rooftops, etc. JUST PUBLISHED! THE STATE OF THE USA ATLAS The Changing Face of American Life in Maps Graphics by Doug Henwood, 127 pages US and Canada: Simon Schuster/Touchstone, ISBN 0-671-79695-X elsewhere: Penguin, ISBN 0-14-024302-X No need to apologize Doug, this looks very interesting. You did leave off the price, however. How much does SS hit us up for with this? Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
Re: Broken vows Coase
Posted on 12 Sep 1994 at 11:15:13 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) Broken vows Coase Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 08:14:01 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well the vote was 10-0 for me to unzip my lips. I'll celebrate the occasion by asking a question instead of issuing a pronunciamento. Actually I think I asked this question some time ago, but don't recall getting much in the way of answers. Do PEN-Lers have, or know of, any critiques of Coase's theorem of why firms exist? Relatedly, are there any Marxian theories of the firm? Well, in Coasian terms I don't know of any. I.e. is there a Marxian theory of why a rational capitalist would not have either one big firm or a completely disintegrated one. But if we leave rational decision making aside, I think Marx's work on the concentration and centralization of capital (it's been a while since I read Das Kap, but I think old greybeard had a fair amount of stuff directly related to why new firms form too) is germaine here. Also Marglin's What do bosses do? seems apropos. Doug Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 212-874-4020 (voice) 212-874-3137 (fax) Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
Re: underconsumption
Posted on 5 Sep 1994 at 01:43:31 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) underconsumption Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 22:42:31 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (donna jones) Donna Jones wrote a very informative posting giving a critique of underconsumption theory. In the hope of eliciting further comment, I have a few comments of my own: 1) She points out that underconsumption crises can be self-correcting because capital moves out of sectors for which there is too little consumer demand, thereby reducing supply. This sounds like a good explanation of the business cycle. Since capital movements occur over time and space, these movements are very important to understanding capitalism, even if they are self-correcting mechanisms for an instantaneous capitalism on the head of a pin. 2) The alternative crisis theory she alludes to is that of a rising organic composition. This too can be overcome (e.g. through uneven technological change that affects the value composition of capital). Moreover, certain patterns of change can lead to a decreasing organic composition and rising profit rates. So why is this source of crisis necessarily more profound than underconsumption? Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
Re: URPE = UPE?
Posted on 31 Aug 1994 at 17:32:31 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) Re: URPE = UPE? Date: Wed, 31 Aug 1994 14:31:31 -0700 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Chris Barrett" [EMAIL PROTECTED] I do think some of the recent postings on the URPE name change issue are missing the serious point and attending instead to more trivial matters, such as what difference the name makes on resumes. The real issue concerns the audience accessible to those of us who believe there is a better [feasible] way. Do we advocate via a boldly named forum like that we have now, with the consequence that many reasonable folks who might be open to our approaches and proposals self-select out, leaving us to talk basically among ourselves? Or do we water down the public image, infiltrating the mainstream, if you will, [rather like Cockburn on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal] but risk losing our identity and any coherence in our message in the process? .. stuff deleted .. Chris Barrett I think Chris' point is right on the money. I sometimes cringe when I assign RRPE articles to my class because I strongly suspect some students dismiss or pigeonhole the article ahead of time because it comes from a "radical" journal. In part this stems from a strong subjectivist, pomo position advocated by one of my colleagues, so that many of our students come to think everything is relative and simply a matter of opinion. Since RRPE articles label the opinion for them, the students don't have to evaluate the article for themselves. Other journals, e.g. the Cambridge Journal of Economics or even the Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics don't have this problem (most of our students don't know the difference between a Post- Keynesian and a Post-Office, so even though they recognize the latter journal as having a particular slant, they have no idea what that slant is). So a more innocuous title might make the journal more useful, although I honestly don't know what else I would call it. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
An urban/regional course
I may have posted this before, but because PEN-L hasn't been working too well over the past month or two (at least here it hasn't), I may have not have sent it to PEN-L or I may have missed some replies. Since making the original posting, I have gotten feedback that a good strategy is having students study local problems. This seems a good idea, but how does one have them integrate all the subject matter? For example, a very rich local issue is a new mega-mall being constructed as a public-private partnership in Providence. This could bring in all sorts of topics: central place theory, the theory of the state, gender, land values, post-fordism, etc. How does one split up the class to work on these different aspects simultaneously while covering them sequentially in class meetings? Here's the original posting: Hi, I teach a course, "Spatial and Fiscal Relationships of Communities" to second-years graduate students in a two-year community planning program. The students have no required prior background in economics or geography. I treat the course as a basic "urban theory" course, covering the "classic" material in the field (e.g., central place theory, Weberian location theory, the Chicago School's concentric zone theory, etc.) as well as more recent stuff on globalization, flexible specialization, economic restructuring, etc. The texts I've used in the past are Dicken and Lloyd's _Location in Space_ and Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_. I am a bit dissatisfied with the way the course has gone the past few years. There is an enormous amount of material to cover, and it is hard for students to engage the material in a way they find interesting. Davis' book, for example, is often read as a dead history of Los Angeles rather than an account with general lessons about the new global economy and its effects. Does anyone out there teach a course like this or have other thoughts on making the course more manageable and interesting to students? Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 "Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."
Urban and Regional Course
Hi, I'm starting to think about the fall :^( and redesigning my course on urban and regional theory. It's an introductory course for graduate students in community planning who have no economics or social science prerequisites. The course is called "Spatial and Fiscal Relationships of Communities" and I generally teach it as a course in urban theory, covering such "classic" things as Christaller's central place theory, the Chicago School's concentric zone theory, etc. and more recent and radical stuff like flex-spec, and the like. Generally, I've used Dicken and Lloyd's _Location in Space_ combined with Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_ the past few years. I'm a bit dissatisfied with the course covering too much and covering things in too little depth. Does anyone out there teach a similar course and/or have suggestions? Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Objectivity in Textbooks
The following quote is from Earl Babbie (1992), _The Practice of Social Research_, 6th ed. (Wadsworth), p. 261: A little-known survey was attempted among French workers in 1880. A German political sociologist mailed some 25,000 questionnaires to workers to determine the extent of their exploitation by employers. The rather lengthy questionnaire included items such as these: Does your employer or his representative resort to trickery in order to defraud you of a part of your earnings? If you are paid piece rates, is the quality of the article made a pretext for fraudulent deductions from your wages? The survey researcher in this case was not George Gallup but Karl Marx (1880: 208). Though 25,000 questionnaires were mailed out, there is no record of any being returned. -End of Quote Does anyone have information about the survey (were any of the instruments returned?). What do people think of the gratuitous swipe at the end of Babbie's mention of the survey? It might be instructive to have students rewrite Marx's questions to be less "biased" and to discuss Babbie's presentation as a more subtle, sophisticated form of bias. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Re: Zoning the Workspace
Sam Lanfranco write: .. [lots of good stuff deleted] What we need is an ability to flexibly configure, reconfigure, archive and close down multiple virtual workspaces "in the same neighbourhood". The CSU site has become our community storage locker of sorts, but we still only have one meeting room. We need the capacity to set up sub-groups "on the fly" and we need to persuade ourselves to become "rapportours" to report back what happened in our block. This means we are going to have to figure out how to command more of the abundant resource (listservs, gopher sites, etc.) and how to 'ZONE" them for appropriate use. By zoning I don't mean passing virtual laws saying what is done where, I mean setting polite rules of conduct which govern what consenting adults can do where on "our" part of the internet. .. [lots more good stuff deleted] Sort of sounds like "gopher" or the Unix Usenet news, both of which have a hierarchical structure. If we're stuck with internet/bitnet mailing lists, one possiblility would be more heavy moderation: with summaries of postings and subject classification. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
No Subject
Can anyone give me the full citation to Bertell Ollman's "Is there a Marxian Ethic?" Thanks. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
No Subject
Can anyone give me the full citation to Bertell Ollman's "Is there a Marxian Ethic?" Thanks. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Re: Who holds SL Mortgages?
Posted on 16 Mar 1994 at 01:00:17 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) Who holds SL Mortgages? Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 21:58:16 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's a question about SL Balance Sheets: I was lecturing the other night to my adult-ed class at Baruch and was trying to talk about "disintermediation" and how all the nice homely local SL's got stuck with 5% mortgages when interest rates skyed to 16% in the early 1980's. Now one of my student's insisted that in today's "financially innovative" environment SL's would never get burned again because they can get rid of the inherent interest rate risk of home mortgages through "swap" and other hedging strategies. I responded that though they can diversify some of the risk, the asset base of the local SL is still comprised mainly of home mortg's. Moreover, New York State banking laws restrict how active an SL can manage their loan portfolio - otherwise they would all become arbitrageurs and leave their nice safe offices out in Queens and get a plush corner office on Wall street. So, who out there in Pen-L land can help me with a useful response to this nice student (yes, he is visting from mainland China, and yes we had an interesting discussion about planning) before next Monday's class? Thanks Jason Hecht -- Jason Hecht [EMAIL PROTECTED] 48 West 68th Street, Apt. 3A New York, New York 10023-6015 Well, I'm not sure what the student means by "swap", etc., but here goes. Many housing lenders sell mortgages on secondary markets and only collect fees for servicing the loans. This, however, is one-sided. SL deposits are liquid, and depositers can withdraw their funds on short notice. Thus, if the rate paid on deposits fall below market rates, deposits are withdrawn and new deposits are not made. So, why can't the SL simply invest in a portfolio with a higher rate of return? Under old regulations, the simple answer was the bank is not allowed to. With deregulation, SL's have more freedom, but someone, somewhere must be holding the original low-interest mortgages. Since the latter are typically 30-year, fixed rate, they reflect an interest rate gap between market rates and their own rates. To the extent that a bank holds such paper in its portfolio, it can either sell below-market-rate paper at a deep discount or continue to hold the paper. Either way, the SL's role of lending long and depositing short creates a precondition for disintermediation. The key point is not the SL's increase liquidity under deregulation, but rather its RELATIVE liquidity compared to other financial institutions. With rapid inflation, it's like a game of musical chairs, with the institutions having the lowest relative liquidity left holding the low-interest notes. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Re: Who holds SL Mortgages?
Posted on 16 Mar 1994 at 01:00:17 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) Who holds SL Mortgages? Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 21:58:16 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's a question about SL Balance Sheets: I was lecturing the other night to my adult-ed class at Baruch and was trying to talk about "disintermediation" and how all the nice homely local SL's got stuck with 5% mortgages when interest rates skyed to 16% in the early 1980's. Now one of my student's insisted that in today's "financially innovative" environment SL's would never get burned again because they can get rid of the inherent interest rate risk of home mortgages through "swap" and other hedging strategies. I responded that though they can diversify some of the risk, the asset base of the local SL is still comprised mainly of home mortg's. Moreover, New York State banking laws restrict how active an SL can manage their loan portfolio - otherwise they would all become arbitrageurs and leave their nice safe offices out in Queens and get a plush corner office on Wall street. So, who out there in Pen-L land can help me with a useful response to this nice student (yes, he is visting from mainland China, and yes we had an interesting discussion about planning) before next Monday's class? Thanks Jason Hecht -- Jason Hecht [EMAIL PROTECTED] 48 West 68th Street, Apt. 3A New York, New York 10023-6015 Well, I'm not sure what the student means by "swap", etc., but here goes. Many housing lenders sell mortgages on secondary markets and only collect fees for servicing the loans. This, however, is one-sided. SL deposits are liquid, and depositers can withdraw their funds on short notice. Thus, if the rate paid on deposits fall below market rates, deposits are withdrawn and new deposits are not made. So, why can't the SL simply invest in a portfolio with a higher rate of return? Under old regulations, the simple answer was the bank is not allowed to. With deregulation, SL's have more freedom, but someone, somewhere must be holding the original low-interest mortgages. Since the latter are typically 30-year, fixed rate, they reflect an interest rate gap between market rates and their own rates. To the extent that a bank holds such paper in its portfolio, it can either sell below-market-rate paper at a deep discount or continue to hold the paper. Either way, the SL's role of lending long and depositing short creates a precondition for disintermediation. The key point is not the SL's increase liquidity under deregulation, but rather its RELATIVE liquidity compared to other financial institutions. With rapid inflation, it's like a game of musical chairs, with the institutions having the lowest relative liquidity left holding the low-interest notes. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Re: New system
Posted on 14 Mar 1994 at 10:59:09 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) New system Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 07:57:23 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's confusing not to have PEN-L listed as the source of a message; the new software makes everything look like pseudo-personalized direct mail. And, at least on this system (PINE 3.05, on a Sun UNIX), you can't reply to PEN-L; a reply goes to the author. Can this be fixed? Or is this the price of progress? Doug Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 212-874-4020 (voice) 212-874-3137 (fax) Some of us have mail systems that distinguish between the mailing list, the mail's author, and other conceptually distinct entities involved in the posting's origins. In such systems, knowing the mail comes from a particular individual IN ADDITION to knowing it is forwarded by a particular list is very useful. Whatever solution is found for Doug's problem ought not take away the additional functionality enjoyed by those of us with more capable mail processing software. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
References
By popular demand, here are the two references I mentioned eariler this week: Eric Sheppard Trevor J. Barnes. 1990. _The Capitalist Space Economy: Geographical Analysis after Ricardo, Marx, and Sraffa_. London: Unwin Hyman. Sayer, Andrew. 1992. _Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach_. London: Routledge. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Liberalism
I am a teaching fellow this year, and for our meeting next week we are reading an article by Clark Kerr, "Knowledge Ethics and the New Academic Culture" (_Change_ Jan/Feb, 1994: 9-15). I remember Clark as Chancellor at UC Berkeley and one of the guys we demonized in the sixties. Well Clark's still at it. On p. 13 he says: There are those who totally reject scholarship as being at the center of the academic enterprise. A Harvard professor, for example, has written that the "primary function of Marxists in the university" is to "take part in what is, in fact, a class struggle"; and thus our "chief task must be to disrupt production" The quotations are from Richard Lewontin, "Marxists and the University", _New Political Science_ Vol. 1, Nos. 2-3, Fall-Winter 1979-80: 256-30. I suspect old Clark takes this quotation out of context, perhaps one that sees the university as the site of ideological struggle between progressive and reactionary scholarship. Unfortunately, our library does not have the article so I can't look it up. Can someone out there help me out? BTW, Clark is curiously silent on universities that have business schools, law schools, job placement offices, departments of government, etc. I guess these are not forms of class struggle for scholars like Clark. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Re: space (i.e., where we actual stand
Posted on 3 Mar 1994 at 02:21:43 by Uriacc Mailer (002033) space (i.e., where we actual stand) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 02 Mar 1994 22:30:28 -0800 (PST) I am not about to jump into Gil and Ajit's debates on GE and Sraffa. Not my cup of tea. But something Jim Devine said, along with the fact that I am teaching Urban this quarter, brought up on of my ongoing peeves. On march 2, Jim Devine said: (Of course, time is another problem for Walrasians: they can't deal with historical (i.e., real-world) time, but only logical time.) At least as important as real time is real space, i.e., the real lacation of real economic activity. Neoclassical theory implicitly assumes that all activity, production, distribution, the auctioneer, exist at a single point in space. I believe that *every* econ grad. student should be required to take a course in Urban, that includes location theory. The addition of real space to the standard neoclassical model guarantees that perfect competition is *logically* impossible. The best the neoclassicals can hope for is imperfect competition. Bottom line, no firms are efficient in the standard sense, and no firm produces the optimal amount of output. One had better like the second best, because the "best" is impossible. Doug Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED] Two books I'd recommend on this issue, at somewhat different extremes of the theoretical spectrum, are: Sheppard Barnes, The Capitalist Space Economy. -- A post-Sraffa affair, with reswitching in space, etc. Sayer, Andres, Method in Social Science, A Realist Approach -- Mostly philosophy of science, but it has good discussion of the conditions under which social science can safely ignore space. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815
Re: Nicholas Lemann on The Myth of Community Development
On Thu, 27 Jan 1994 22:23:46 CST Anthony M. Orum (312)-996-3015 said: Dear Alex Hartley: I hope I am not pressing this issue too far, and in a sense I am testing the dialogic limits of H-Urban, but I am curious why you regard these programs as fruitless. What is it about the core city in America today that resists change and renovation? Is it the physical structures, alone, or do they rather represent the permanence of inequality in America? Do you believe that all Americans will continue to forsake the city for the suburb; and if so, who, indeed, will or should care for those left behind in the central city? Assuming the federal government is inept, or unable, to do so, is there any party to whom to turn -- or do you agree with Eric Mumford, that the problems lies, not in the stars, but in our values? Unless our so-called "values" fall from the sky, there may be some underlying practices that give rise to these "values." So, even if Eric is right, there may be hope yet if we can only identify the practices and change them. Marsh Feldman Community Planning Phone: 401/792-2248 204 Rodman Hall FAX: 401/792-4395 University of Rhode Island Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kingston, RI 02881-0815 [For a copy of the complete conversation, including Eric Mumford's comments, send a note to Listserv@uicvm or [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET LEMANN COMMDEVT -- Wendy Plotkin, H-Urban Co-Moderator]
Research Methods Summary (VERY LONG
This is a summary of replies to a posting asking for input for a course
on "research methods." It is organized around the topics in the original
posting.
1 Introduction
1.1 General Comments
2 Textbooks on Social Science Research Methods
2.1 List of Suggested Texts
2.2. Comments on Suggested Texts
3 Supplemental Reading
3.1 List of Suggested Readings
3.2 Comments on Suggested Readings
3.2.1 Data Analysis
3.2.2 Research Methods
3.3 Anti-positivist Supplemental Readings
3.3.1 Suggested Anti-positivist Supplemental Readings
3.3.2 Comments on Suggested Anti-Positivist Readings
4 Guides or Aids for Writing Theses and Thesis Proposals
4.1 Suggestions
5 Jump Starting a Thesis
5.1 Suggestions
6 Data Analysis: (SAS) Texts and Data
6.1 Appropriate Statistical Software
6.1.1 SAS: Pro and Con
6.2.2 Alternatives to SAS
6.2 Suggested Texts
6.2.1 Comments on Suggested Texts
6.3 Data
6.4 Should We Teach Data Analysis This Way?
6.4.1 Is Statistics Dangerous
6.4.2 Topics to Cover
7 Topics and Issues in Social Science Research Methods Course
8 My Plan for the Course
8.1 The Data Analysis Lab
8.2 Class Sessions
8.3 Individual Work
9 Conclusion
Since the summary is quite long, each section starts at the left
margin and is underlined with dashes to facilitate searches to topic
headings. I have added my own comments and given credit where appropriate.
Text from my original posting is preceded by "" and quotations from other
people are preceded by one or more vertical bars ("|"). I deliberately
reproduce the original questions from my original posting at the start of
each section so that people interested in a specific topic can go directly
there and see what the issue is.
I want to thank everyone who commented, I found your comments both useful
and fascinating.
1 Introduction
Here is my original posting:
Hi,
Pardon my posting of this to several lists. I am casting my net widely
in the hope of catching several fish.
In the spring I will be teaching a research methods course to first
year graduate students in a two-year community (urban) planning program
leading to a professional masters degree (MCP). The course has three main
objectives: 1) having the students write an initial draft of their thesis
proposals, 2) introducing them to social science research methods, and 3)
learning sufficient computer data analysis skills to do data analysis for their
theses. There are several things I would like your input on.
Textbooks on Social Science Research Methods
I plan to use _Doing Urban Research_ by Gregory Andranovich and Gerry
Riposa (Sage, 1993). This book has several virtues. It is short (98 p.
of text), has class exercises, considers diverse theoretical orientations
and considers non-positivist urban research (e.g., Mike Davis, Mark
Gottdiener, etc.) to be today's mainstream, covers key issues (spatial
levels of analysis, the unity of theory/basic/applied research, research
design, data collection, qualitative research, and reporting research).
Obviously, the coverage in such a short book is cursory.
Still, I have some misgivings about the book. It presents "the scientific
method" as the standard Popperian account of deduction, hypothesis, etc.
It emphasizes causality, and its notion of causality goes little beyond
that of Hume and JS Mill. Its abbreviated form and common-sense writing
style may gloss over very complex issues while giving too brief treatment
for students to master the material adequately. Its treatment of epistemology
and the philosophy of science is almost nil: I would like much more
explicit discussion of the various epistemological "isms" (positivism, realism,
subjectivism, rationalism, postmodernism, feminism, etc.). The political
implications of epistemological positions are never discussed. Etc.
Can anyone suggest another social science research methods text to use either
instead or as a substitute?
Supplemental Reading
Partly to deal with these shortcomings, I want to use a "jigsaw" approach
in class sections. This teaching technique uses 3-4 supplemental readings
per course period. Students must read at least one of the readings, and
in class they break up into groups in which the students collectively have
read every reading. They then share what they read with the other students
in the group, and the group works together to answer a question or do a task.
Then the groups report to the class, and class discussion focuses on the
topic of the day.
Different topics I'd like to treat this way include: the relation between
theory, knowledge, and practice; causality; conceptions of science and
human knowledge; the uses of research; the relation between theory and method;
levels of analysis; defining research goals and objectives; literature
reviews; research design; data collection; data sources; reporting research;
design of
