US vs Europe
I don't know where Nathan Newman gets his Canadian political information from, but his post exhibits a great ignorance of Canadian politics, history and immigration experience. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to try to educate him at this time but perhaps some time in the future Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
US vs Europe
It has struck me somewhat odd in this exchange that nobody has mentioned Canada which shares a more European political system with the American geographical-class structure. I would suggest that the continued existence of a viable social democratic party and its regional electoral success at the provincial level in forming governments in almost half of the country is evidence that it is the anti-democratic constitution and government system that has ruled out any class-based or social democratic party. On the other hand, the third party status of the NDP and its predecessor, the CCF, would support the contention that the power of capital and the existence of an agricultural frontier has also created sectional divisions that frequently produced electoral divisions based not on class but region (regional populism) which, with a petit bourgeois base has been right-wing (often close to fascist) populism (e.g. social credit and the current Reform party.) Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
globaloney
Jim writes to the effect that US corporations only served the US market up to the 1930s. I suggest he look at Mira Wilkins work on the MNC. American corporations began to invade Canada in the last decade of the 19th C. (See also Southard et al., Canadian American Business which was, if I remember correctly, was published in the 1930s.) The move into Canada was, in my opinion, an offshoot of the trust and merger movement. Having reached the limit of the US market, the new corporattions could only achieve a larger market by expanding to other countries. Given the communication and transportation limitations of the day, the most availble market was Canada and this was the period when the first major wave of foreign direct investment occured in Canada. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Yugoslavia and Market Socialism
I think a couple of weeks ago Barkley posted something about Yugoslavia and market socialism which prompted a spirited response from somebody that Yugoslav socialism was an 'oxymoron' because Yugoslavia was not democratic and therefore could not be socialist. Unfortunately, (as I indicated previously) I lost all my previous e-mail so if I am grossly misrepresenting some views posted to pen-l then I apologize in advance. However, I would like to put my vote of confidence behind Barkley, rather than his critics, who seem not to know much about went on in Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s. When Tito came to power at the end of WWII he and the leadership of the JCP established a 'Stalinist' type state which lasted justed a few years before Jugoslavia broke with Stalin and began (after 1950) introducing worker self-management and democratizing both the workplace and decentralizing state powers to the republics and the autonomous regions like Kosovo and Vojvodina. Though there was never 'two-party' elections (sic) like there are in the US, there were multi-interest group elections at all levels particularly after the implementation of the new constitution in 1976. There were in fact multi-'parties' and the Communist Party was disbanded (to be replaced by the 'non-party' League of Communists.) Indeed, after the breakup, these various groups reorganized as political parties alternative to the growth of neo-liberal nationalist parties favoured by the US (at the expense of so many lives.) Indeed, I would argue that Jugoslavia came closer to establishing a truly democratic regime at both the industrial and political level than any other regime in modern European history. It failed both because of internal contradictions and external interventions. We have argued this all in our book _The Rise and Fall of the Third Way: Yugoslavia 1945-1991_ One may agree or disagree with our analysis, but to argue that Jugoslavia was some sort of anti-democratic, authoritarian offshoot of Stalinism and was not (at least) attempting socialism is the kind of bourgeois or crude-marxist crap that brings disrepute to scholarship on the left. Nasvidinje, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Kosovo
Barkley, While looking for something completely different, I came across the source on the 1990 US law. Not unexpectedly, my memory was false and it was not the source I expected. Here I will quote it in full. It is Sara Founders, "Bosnia Tragedy", International Action Centre (founded by Ramsey Clarke), NY: 1995. Origins of the breakup -- a U.S. Law A year before the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, on Nov. 5, 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Law 101-513. This bill was a signed death warrant. One provision in particular was so lethal that evan a CIA report described three weeks later in the Nov. 27, 1990, New York Times predicted it would lead to a bloody civil war. A section of Law 101-513 suddenly and without previous warning cut off all aid, trade, credits and loans from the US to Yugoslavia within six months. It also ordered separate elections in each of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia, requiring State Department approval of election procedures and results before aid to the separate republics would be resumed. The legislation further required US personnel in all international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to enforce this cut-off policy for all credits and loans. There was one final provision. Only forces that the US State Department defined as 'democratic forces' would recieve funding. This meant an influx of funds to small right-wing nationalist parties in a financially strangled region suddenly thrown into crisis by the overall funding cut-off. The impact was, as expected, devastating. This law threw the Yugoslav federal government into crsis. It was unable to pay the enormous interest on its foreign debt or even to arrange the purchase of raw materials for industry. Credit collapsed and recriminations broke out on all sides. At thae time there was no civil war. No republic had seceded. The US was not engaged in a public dispute with Yugoslavia. The region was not even in the news. [What was behind it?] With the collapse of the SU, the US big business was embarking on an aggressive march to reshape all of Europe. Non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer needed as a buffer state between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. A strong, united Europe was hardly desireble. Washington policy makers considered both to be relics of the Cold War. [goes on to argue that US wanted to pre-empt the rise of German power in the region.] Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Kosovo
Barkley, I can't remember where I read it -- perhaps Covert Action -- about the US cutting all aid to Yugoslavia in the late 1980s in an attempt to destabilize the country. The references sounded genuine and refered to State Department declassified documents if my memory serves me correctly. If I have time after exams and marking I will try to dig up the reference for you. Re the Albanian population in Kosovo: here are the figures up to 1986. 1921 Albanian population as % of Kosovo population = 63.8 1948 = 69.5 1971 = 73.7 1981 = 77.4 1986 = na Growth rate of population by ethnicity SFRY: 1953-60 1961-701971-80 Total14.9 10.69.0 Albanians25.6 29.9 30.0 Macedonians 19.6 15.0 11.5 Servs13.6 9.56.6 Croats 11.5 6.85.9 The high population growth rate (through natural increase) was held as responsible for the continuing relative poverty in Kosovo *despite* a transfer of development capital to the regions greater than anywhere else in Yugoslavia -- estimated (circa 1988) at US$ 1,450,000 daily. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Peter Dorman
Peter, Could you please resend your e-mail. It got lost with a lot of other stuff with my e-mail problems. Paul Paul Phillips
No Subject
Date:Sun, 29 Mar 98 16:39 LCL From:PHILLPS To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]< Subject: Kosovo (corrected) I had trouble with my e-mail and the previous post was cut off and the last part garbled. So let me please correct it. But this relates back to Barkley's message. From what I have been able to find out from anecdotal evidence so far there has been little change in Yugoslavia from self-management institutions (though I don't know aabout the state of property relations.) I suspect that part of the American antipathy to Serbia is due to the lack of reforms in the economic system. Yet, our evidence is that it is (at least in part) the retention of much of the self- management institutions in Slovenia which has eased its transition without the gutwrenching declines that some of the other transitionary economies have experienced. If that is the case, then to what extent is American policy willing to accept that maintenance of some form of self-management and workers' control or will it require an abandonment of worker participation as an ideologically acceptable constraint before the US will abandon sanctions. What worries me is that when I was in Slovenia in December I attended a seminar with the US ambassador who was leaving to take up the Yugoslav Desk in Washington. In his talk he basically said, if I interpreted him correctly, that even Slovenia which 'had made great strides' had not liberalized (i.e. privatized) sufficiently to satisfy American goals -- that is, worker participation in management had to go! If that is the case, then one can understand the basic 'cold-war' mentallity that is driving US-Serb relations and the US intervention in Kosovo. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Kosovo
I have a proposal for Barkley: We invite leaders from the Serbs and from Kosovo to join us in a restaurant in Montreal for an evening with appropriate amounts of wine (and in my case seafood) and we will both guarantee peace -- at least for as long as the wine and seafood lasts. Do you accept the challenge? On a more academic level, let me point out some of the interesting dificulties. I have been involved in a research study of the effect of the privatization of social capital (and the move from 'worker self management' to capital direct management) on both how workers respond (and how output responds) and on the effect of legislated 'co-determination' on industrial relations in Slovenia. We now have interviews with approx 120 enterprises and union officials on the 'new regime' representing most of the major entorprises in Slovenia. I have recently received an invitation to from the respected (and independent) 'Institute of Economic Science" (Institut Ekonomski Nauka) to do such a study in Yugoslavia (Serbia and Cerna Gora) in conjuction with the national trade unions. But this relates back to Barkeley's message -- to what extent is American policy kjwilling to accept accedemic research -- or to what extent is it willing to confine 'research' to ideologically acceptable constraints.?
Kosovo
For the most part I agree with Barkley on his comments on Kosovo but I would add a few considerations. 1. The most recent crackdown on Albanian separatists was a result of the killing of 4 (?) Serbian Police in an ambush. The police responded by raiding the headquarters of a faction of the Kosovo Liberation Army. One may argue that the scale of the response was inappropriate to the provocation, but I have heard little about the American sanctions on Britain for its military response to IRA terrorism (or the genocide by Suharto in East Timor.) It is obvious that the American response (and the British) is propelled by something other than principle, though as Barkely points out, what it is the makes the US and Albright so war-mongering, I am not sure. 2. It is abundantly clear that, if Kosovo was granted independence, it would immediately begin ethnically cleansing the region of Serbs. In fact, ever since I have been going there for 10 years, there have been (documented) examples of 'cleansing' done by the Albanians. 3. The 'poverty' of Kosovo is probably not as bad as Barkley intimates. Many Kosovan 'families' have networks of businesses inother parts of Yugoslavia (past and present). Eg. in Slovenia many of the fruit and vegtable stands, pastry shops and even sum of the pubs are run by Albanians (and owned by Albanians) who are obligated by family connections to remit part of their revenues to Kosovo. (i.e. a colleague friend told me that when he was in the army, an Albanian in his unit had to remit part of his salary to his 'family' back in Kosovo. The families ahve the same sort of extended nature and coersive (though not necessarily criminal) as the Sicilian families.) 4. The problem is almost sure to break out in Macedonia because of the inequality in birth rates between the Macedonians (Slavs) and the Albanian minority. At the present rates it will not be too many years before the Albanian population excees the Macedonian as in Kosovo. The Macedonians also fear ethnic cleansing. I was told a couple of years ago (by a Slovene) that the Macedonian government was exploring asking the Serbs to provide soldiers to police its border with Albania to prevent Albanian migration into Macedonia. I have no way of knowing whether or not it is true, but it does sound plausible. 5. What is the answer? I don't know -- but the US response is only making matters worse. Already it has brought to prominance and leadership the ulti-rightist and nationalist Voyslav (?) Seslj who makes Milosevic look like a civil rights worker. God save us from US foreign policy. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Chase Manhattan Responds
I don't know when Boddhisatva was last in Canada, but at least here in Winnipeg, the percentate of aboriginal peoples in population is approximately equal to the percentage of blacks in the american population -- and this does not include the peoples of east asian origin -- Filipinos, Vietnamese, Chinese -- nor the admittedly much smaller percentages of East and West Indians, African and Latinos, none of which would be classified as he does as 'white'. Indeed, in recent years the majority of immigrants to Canada has been 'non-European' while the highest fertility rate in the country has been among the aboriginals. So don't give us any of this guff about 'white Canada'. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Chase Manhattan responds
The Chase Manhattan response boggles the mind as Wojtek has noted. On reflection I have some advice to Doug that, rather than annex Canada (which has been the US response for over a century to the upstart pretentions that some other people on this continent have that they might prefer some other, more humane and democratic system than that in our neighbour to the south), all he really needs to do is take out a membership in a Canadian credit union, have his cheques deposited there, and then withdraw his money through a Credit Union (bank) card. You get the current exchange rate with only a 1 or 2 dollar service charge. And you can actually use your credit union card at the local bank machine of the Chase Manhattan bank! Oh, and about the annexation of Canada. I should note that the US citizens of the NorthWest Angle of the US on lake of the Woods are petitioning congress to secede and join Canada because of the rotten treatment they are getting from the US. I just hope the US Government gives them the same support in their seccession movement as it gives to the Kosovo terrorists. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba.
barriers
Doug raises an interesting question. He is being charged $45 dollars for each Canadian$ cheque he clears. Now, of course, the cost of clearing those cheques (thanks to modern technology) approaches zero. So someone is ripping him (and many others of us) off. Why? And why do we accept it. What stops an independent (as suggested, I think by Maggie), from setting up shop in Canada, accepting those canadian cheques, converting them to international bank draughts or money orders -- if I remember right at approx 5$ max -- and transmitting them to the US. Have the monopoly banks become so powerful that they can prevent absolutely the market, imperfect as it is, from working even in a most primitive matter. In short, is there really a market in international money or have 'tansaction cost' completely destroyed the market except for the multi-big players? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
What wnt right? -unemployment
Valis, It might help if I knew what SBF, n/s and n/d meant in your post. p/p u/m W/C
Re: green permits and taxes
Barkely and Robin, Correct me if I am off track here, but if permits are distributed free (based on some past pattern), or if they are initially priced below social cost, and then a tradeable permit market created, does this not act as a barrier to the entry of new firms who must buy up permits at full market price in order to produce? Of course, if permits had to be bought up every 6 mos or year, that would tend to equalize the capital cost in subsequent periods but it would still be an extra entry cost for new firms. This would not be the case for taxes. Does this make sense? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Brassed Off
For those of you who appreciated "the Full Monty", let me highly recommend another British film in the same genre -- "Brassed Off" about the closure of a coal pit and the performance of the collery band. It isn't quite as funny but it is more explicitly political. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Red vs Green
Max talks about the conflict between the coal miners and ecologists in the US. Here in Canada, there has been a major conflict between loggers and ecologists, particularly in BC where the forest industry is the key to the provincial economy. This has led to major problems for the NDP both electorally and in policy making. The NDP relies on the unions for both financial and electoral support but also on ecologist for support and election workers. The forest industry keeps yelling, if you protect old growth forests and oppose clear cutting you (the loggers) will lose your jobs. So vote Liberal (the right-wing party currently> so you can keep your jobs. (or federally, vote for the unltra right Reform (sic) Party). As a result, the NDP government which has done more for the ecology (increased parks, introduced more forest restrictions, etc.) than any other jurisdiction in Canada, is teetering on the electoral edge, while still being roundly condemned by the environmentalist who would prefera right-wing ecological collapse to gradual improvement in forest practice. It is all very discouraging for us Red-Greens. Paul Phillips Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: Santa Fe
Just thought you might like to know, Krugman was on CBC national this morning explaining the Asian Crisis. He said it was all due to nepotism and corruption of Asian society. The nephew of a dictator will set up a bank or a company and everybody will lend to him because the loan is, in effect, government guaranteed. This led to a preponderance of bad loans that eventually came tumbling down. So there it is. No complexity at all! Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
David Card's Response
Thanks to all the pen-l-ers who responded to my request, particularly to Bill Lear who posted me Card's response. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
David Card's response
Some time ago (a year?) someone posted (Doug?) a response by David Card to the critique that two other economists had given to _Myth and Measurement_. Unfortunately, I did not save the response and now I have need of it to counter claims by a neo-right critique of minimum wages who is claiming that Card and Krueger's work has been discredited. I have tried going back into the Pen-l archives but haven't been able to find it. a. does anyone have it who could e-mail it to me? or b. does anyone remember exactly when it was posted or how I can find it in the Pen-l archives? Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Global Financial Crisis II
In response to the exchange between Tom, Doug and Max, there is recent evidence from Canada that they are both right. Yesterday the Canadian Council on Welfare issued its report on child poverty in Canada in which my home province, Manitoba, was third on the list after New Brunswick and Newfoundland. It is interesting that in both Manitoba and New Brunswick the governments have adopted low wage policies to entice in low wage employers (e.g. telemarketers). The rise in child poverty has come *as a result of falling unemployment* as a consequence of the growing proportion of low-wage jobs, even where both parents are employed. Manitoba, for instance, has had the highest percentage drop in unemployment -- and one of the highest increases in child poverty. The welfare council is calling for a rise in the minimum wage and in the social welfare system -- exactly the opposite of what is being advocated by the neoclassicals and business and the Conservative gov't. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Greenspan on Social Security
Doug, perhaps you can explain to me Greenspan's thought process. If Social Security is privatized in the way he was talking about this means a great deal of more money flowing in to the stock market and, I believe he suggests, an increase in the rate of saving. But if, as you argue, the stock market is not about financing new issues but merely bidding up the price of existing paper, this means that the 'saving' would not generate any real output when the time comes to pay pensions. Moreover, if as post Keynesian thought has it, investment creates savings (rather than the new classical savings creates investment) would not the attempt to increase savings reduce investment and further reduce the ability of the economy to produce pensions out of future realized output? Or am I confused? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
scale economies
I think Michael is correct that the economies of scale are note technical economies but marketing and finance. In the automobile industry for instance, a network of dealerships and parts depots which service, not only different products (cars, trucks, etc.) but also different models (mini, compact, mid, large, luxury) is where the corporate economies, as opposed to plant economies. I was involved with the suppervision of an excellent PhD thesis here on the industrial organization of the agricultural machinery industry in North America and one of the conclusions of the study was that it was the marketing and financing of farm machinery credit plus the availability of full-line products (i.e. the firm had to be greater than any one product plant). So the question of technical efficiencies sets only the *minimum* size of the firm, not the maximum. On the related point of oligiopoly and inflation, I would have thought that the general model (cost-plus) implies that oligopoly prices remain relatively constant as long as demand is less than optimum capacity (approximately 85%) at which time firms begin to plan new investment and begin to raise prices to generate the profits to fund such new investment. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: ripening contradictions?
I really don't know what Doug is talking about. I just got my IMF Survey a couple of days ago and the headline reads: "Camdessus Commends Indonesia's 'Impressive' Economic Policy Program". Obviously, nothing is wrong with the far east.(;-)) Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
5 minute lecture
Can anyone translate Firket's 5 minute lecture into readable e-mail text and repost it? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
"Rent"
I happen to think that the original Puccini opera is moving enough. It is interesting that Broadway has also 'copied' Puccini's Madama Butterfly with their "Miss Siagon". The story is the same but the music isn't. But the story stands (unfortunately.) Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Institutions
Larry Shute asked for a list of the most important institutions in the market to try to educate his colleagues about the important constraints on the neoclassical fraud (er. sorry "model") of the economy. Unfortunately, I don't think this is a viable approach to the problem. Commons defined an institution as "collective action in control of individual action." That means that "an institution" is anything that constrains market behaviour -- from collective agreements and labour union behaviour to oligopoly pricing behaviour, to church teaching on the moral depravity of working on Sundays. That is, there are no 10 (20, 30, 100) most important institutional constraints/ Institutionalism is a paradigm -- that is institutions form a web of behaviour that (like the neoclassical paradigm) produce a resulting behaviour that one can expect and pattern a policy on. But it is not 10 (20, 30, 40 ) institutions that one can model in the neoclassical sense. One should look at Veblen's classics on this: The Theory of Business Enterprise, Absentee Ownership, The Engineers and the Price System. These are particularly enjoyable reading in the current context of the 'meltdown' of the stock market. I am sure that Thorstein is chuckling in his grave. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba.
'Men of the Deeps'
This is inspired by Louis' recent postings on working class culture. Two nights ago I went to a concert at one of Winnipeg's major concert venues given by the 'Men of the Deeps", a miners choir formed 32 years ago in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to celebrate the Canadian Centenary. The qualifications to be a member of the group is first, that you are (or have been) an underground miner; and, secondly, that you can sing. (The only non-miner is the conductor, a music professor from Antigonish College, John O'Donell, who drives the 500 plus kilometers to Glace Bay every week to reherse.) At the moment, the 25 or so members of the group, mostly aged 40-70s, are on a cross Canada tour, in part to promote their most recent CD, "Coal Fire in Winter". (They have 5 or 6 recordings, the previous one being "Buried Treasures" released in 1995.) The 'Men of the Deeps' have the largest repetoire of coal mining and un union songs in Canada, many of them collected by O'Donell or written by or for the group. Many of the songs they sang recounted the under- ground disasters that plagued the region throughout its history. There was not a dry eye in the house when one relatively young miner, a former president of the miners' union local, introduced a song written about one of the more recent mine explosions when, as union president, he was called out in the middle of the night to watch as his cousin's and uncle's bodies were hauled out of the burning shaft. But these were proud workers, fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, proud of Cape Breton and its labour tradition, and proud of their union -- and willing to sing about it. Among the frequent sad refrains of death and disaster was also their sometimes caustic humour. One recounted the story of the union president being interviewed on a local talk-radio show. He was being asked by the host about criticism that had been levelled agains his leadership and the local union. He retorted: "We have heard of these them allegations -- But, you can be sure, we know who these alligators are!" Personally, a miners' choir strikes a responsive chord with me. It is part of my own cultural background. My grandfather emigrated from the coal mines of Wales to work the hardrock mines of the Boundary country of southern British Columbia early in this century. I'm not exactly sure which year(s) but he was secretary of the Western Federation of Miners local in Phoenix some time before the 1st World War. One of his closest friends was Bill Pritchard, one of the jailed leaders of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike and of the One Big Union. I interviewed Pritchard in the early 1960s (part of my research for my PhD thesis on the B.C. Labour movement.) At that time Bill had retired to San Diego where he was spending his retirement years -- conducting a Welsh ladies Choir. Shortly afterwards, I arranged to tape an interview with my grandfather, at that time in his mid 90s on his history in the unions and the music they sang. (He was an ardent opera singer.) The day we were to do the interview he phoned to postpone, saying he did not feel well. A couple of days later he died -- I had lost the opportunity not only to reclaim part of my personal heritage, but to record for posterity a small part of Canada's working class history. I have always regretted that I waited too long. This was just one of the memories and meanings that the concert evoked. For one thing, the Celtic sense of poetry -- from the reading of a poem "Who are They" by a former member of the 'Men of the Deeps'. "Who are they who poke and rile, and sing out names with humour bold, that load and hew and take the guff, to those above these tales are never told. "Who are they who lead the way, when rescue is in store, when men are trapped and loving families weep, as torches fail and lamps grow dim and darkness slowly creeps. Who are they who fought to break the company's chains and never shied when days were lean, to change this way of life; and now, the fields are green." The 'Men of the Deeps' sang for 2 1/2 hours in their pit clothing -- heavy work boots, dark grey green shirts and pants, held up by wide black leather belts, and each with hard hat complete with miners lamps. The climax of the concert was the great miners anthem penned by Canada's Nova Scotian songbird, Rita McNeil -- "Working Man". "It's a working man I am, and I've been down underground, And I swear to God if I ever see the sun, Or for any length of time, I can hold it in my hand, I never again will go down underground." (She has recorded this with the 'Men of the Deep' on her album, 'Reason to Believe'.) As they sang, the stage lights dimmed as the miners/singers turned on their head lamps. By the end, the auditorium was ' dark as the dungeon' except for the lights of the miners helmets which shone into the audience 'as dark as the coal.' To a person, the audience rose in standing ovation . While the waves of applause continued, the choir
[PEN-L:12745] Pensions
First, let me thank all on the list who responded, on or off the list, to my query for views on pension privatization or related questions. I ended up with enough material to write a book! The TV debate went I think well enough, though we didn't even get to 1/4 of the issues raised in the discussion that has since taken place on both PKT and Pen-l as a result of my query. Let me, however, share a couple of insights from this: an excellent article on the Chilean pension privatization in NEw LefT Review, #223 by Riesco and Fazio "Pension Schemes in Chile" (1997). I read it on my way to the TV studio so I am not sure if I got all the facts right, but if so, the Chilean experiment is not very attractive. Rate of returns in 1996 were - 3.5%, 1995, - 2.5 %. Admininstrative charge 20 per cent of employee contribution plus 10 % for disability ( plus 7% of income for health insurance.) 40% of the labour force was not covered by any pension/insurance system. The best stuff on the Canadian Pension Plan is by Monica Townsand, published by the Can Centre for Policy Alternatives, and in the Alternative Budget Papers (Lorimer/ CCPA) where she exposes the fraudulent campaign by the media and the financial community to create panic among young Canadians about their future pensions in order to dismantal the public plan. Incidentally, this was xactly the tactic used by my right-wing opponent in our TV debate. One thing that no one addressed on the net (Doug was off in Toronto shamelessly self-promoting because I had hoped he might respond) was the question of Keynes on pay-as-you-go versus funded pension plans. I was sure that it was Doug who claimed that Keynes was opposed to funded plans. Was I wrong. (Memory goes with age so it could be.) Paul Phillips, economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:12697] Privatizing Pensions
Pen-l-ers, I will be debating current proposals to reform the Canadian Pension Plan on TV tomorrow evening. The argument for 'reform' I believe is similar to that for privatizing the US social security system based on (inaccurate) claims that the present system is bankrupt, non-sustainable, etc. I am not worried but these arguments because they are based on factually wrong claims. However, other parts of the proposal involve increased funding of the CPP through the stockmarket purchases and a much higher degree of funding generally rather than 'pay-as-you-go'. Further, some of the support for this comes from extravagent claims of the huge success of the privatization of the Chilean pension system. Can pen-l-ers give me answers to the following three questions which I know have been addressed in one form or another on this list over the last few months. I need the info by tomorrow morning. 1) What are the arguments against stock market funding of basic social security pensions? 2> What was Keynes' objection to funding pension plans as opposed to 'pay-as-you-go' funding? 3> What is the downside of the Chilean pension privatization? Much thanks in advance, Paul Phillips, economics, Manitoba [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12671] ethnic identification
I would have thought that the term "first nation" referred more to the collective groups (i.e. the tribal councils are refered to as "first nations" as in the Manitoba "Assembly of First Nations". Here I would think that the term aboriginal (rather than indiginous) is in common use to refer to all groups, treaty and non-treaty indian, metis, dene and inuit -- that is to individuals of aboriginal descent whether or not they are members of first nations. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:12554] Civil war
I would like to concur with Maggie on her excellent post on the relation between the abolition of slavery and the developing sectional economic interests in the US. Just as a minor contribution to this debate, I would like to recommend a theoretical article by Evsey Domar on this issue which supports the view developed by Clare Pentland in his Labour and Capital in Canada, 1650-1860, that 'unfree labour' is the institutional form of capital in economies of labour shortage. Actually, I should say the institutional form of capital-labour relations in labour shortage economies. See Evsey Domar, "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis", _J. of Econ. History_, vol. 30, no. 1, 1970. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11307] re CEO's Incomes
In my attempt to be both brief and trenchant, I seem to have confused Gil with respect to my use of power as the determinant of executive incomes and the uselessness of the neoclassical framework to try to justify CEO's pay and perks. I will try to be more clear in the following elaboration. The concept of marginal productivity involves the addition of a single unit of the variable factor (which must be homogenous with previous units of the factor or it is impossible to sort out the productivity of what). Now, if we add a CEO to an existing firm, is his mp the total value of the firms output (on the assumption that the firm can not operate without a CEO)? Or is it the change in TP when a second CEO is added? (an obvious contradiction>, [D? Or is it the change inTP when one CEO is replaced by another? This then would indicate that all CEO renumeration (subtracting opportunity wages) is a form of rent. (i.e. the rent to a natural or developed talent e.g. the return to Wayne Gretsky's hockey skills.) However, as Ricardo pointed out, rent is a result of price, not a cause of price. Since CEO's are in a position to influence price through market power, they are also in a position to some extent to determine their rents. However, this is rather tortuous analysis and the concept of marginal productivity is so unreal (we have gone through all this before) that neoclassical theory in this regard "has no clothes". In any case, all rents in the long run are a return to power, either in the form of ownership rights that include the right to restrict output, monopoly market power, power of the office to allocate rent, etc. To quote Marc Lavoie's comment on the importance of power: "...power is the ultimate objective of the firm: power over its environment, whether it be economic, social or political. 'Power is the ability of an individual or a group to impose its purpose on others'. (Galbraith, 1975, p. 108) The firm wants power over its suppliers, over its customers, over the government, over the kind of technology to be put in use THE NOTION OF POWER, EXCEPT WHEN RELATED TO THE CASE OF THE PURE MONOPOLY, HAS BEEN SYSTEMETICALLY IGNORED IN ECONOMICS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF INSTITUTIONALISTS AND MARXISTS." (Lavoie, Foundations of Post-Keynesian Economic Analysis, pp 99-100) In short to deal with the issue of power in income distribution we have to leave the certai, equilibrium world of neoclassical economics and utilize the models of surplus (post-classical or heterodox) economics. It is here that the fundamental issue of power is joined. It Becomes the question of who has the power to distribute surplus. Why do American CEO's receive much greater incomes than do Japanese or European CEO's? Why do CEO's of private utilities receive greater remuneration than _the same_ CEO's received prior to privatization despite no change in productivity? Why do CEO's of profit losing firms get commensurate remuneration with those of profit making firms? (etc. etc.) none of which can be explained by mp theory or even with any reasonable application of neoclassical rent theory. However, they can all be explained within surplus models by modelling the sources and distribution of power (although not necessarily in an econometrically operational sense.) Many Marxists, for instance, talk about working class bargaining power over distributive shares in terms of the size or proportion of the reserve army of unemployed. This was the context in which I used the example of the mugger (which has been used on this list in the past in more or less this context.) The mugger does not produce any marginal product, but his power over the use of force allows him to redirect, to himself, part of the surplus in the form of the above subsistence wages of the muggee. I trust this makes sence of my earlier elliptical post. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11221] on CEO Pay
I must admit I am a little suprised that Pen-l-ers would be debating this issue in terms of neoclassical marginal productivity. This is the equivalent of arguing, what is the marginal productivity of a mugger? (i.e. someone who has market power because of some non-market force.) The moment one moves to a non-neoclassic frameworke (as Jim D suggests) then the problem is "solved". There is a surplus distribution problem. This is not a market problem, but a power problem. (Why is it that non-neoclassical economists avoid the issue of power?) One can utilize rent theory to justify the resulting justification. But, if we were honest, that is really crap. Let us put it a different way, what is the mp of a crime king (and are CEOs really different?) And on a different stream, a colleague of mine posted a document documenting horrendous war crimes against the Unites States Government, specifically with regard to the use of biological warfare against Cuba. Yet, despite the level of despisity (is that a word) of the offense, not one member of this list from the US has responded. Comment? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11018] Re:K/Y ratios
Doug, But that was my point. If capital is expropriating human capital productivity, the K/Y ratio would be low, but so would wages -- but the HumanK/Y would be high, relative to Europe and Japan, n'est pas? Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11014] Apologies for Duplication
Sorry about the duplication of my last two posts. The e-mail was down here at my university for a day and when it came back up it did not send my posts. As a result I resent them and then the computer sent the others as well. Ah well !!! Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11007]
Date:Mon, 23 Jun 97 16:58 LCL From:PHILLPS To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Progressive Web Sites The URL for the Cyber Picket Line is Http://www.cf.ac.uk/ccin/union/ I have only had time to take a cursury look at it and it seems that some of the pages are still under construction (I checked the Slovenian link and the page came up blank for example.) However, as a source for world union links, it appears impressive. Paul Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11001] Progressive Web Sites
The URL for the Cyber Picket Line is Http://www.cf.ac.uk/ccin/union/ I have only had time to take a cursury look at it and it seems that some of the pages are still under construction (I checked the Slovenian link and the page came up blank for example.) However, as a source for world union links, it appears impressive. Paul Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:11000] K/Y ratio
Doug, Could not there be an additional explanation in the so-called Leontieff paradox -- that the US exports labour intensive goods because the labour embodies a great deal of 'human capital'. That is, is it not possible that when human capital is added to physical capital, the K/Y ratio would rise both absolutely and relatively. This would also imply that capital is exploiting the workers investment in human capital as well. Paul Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba.
[PEN-L:10952]
Date:Wed, 18 Jun 97 09:59 LCL From:PHILLPS To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Political Economy Programs In response to the falling off of enrollment in economics programs across Canada and at our university, some of us are pushing for the establishment of an alternative political economy stream. We have a strong contingent of politcal economists in the department and already offer courses in alternative macro (post keynsian/marxian> and micro (neo-ricardian/ marxian> as well as courses in Marxian economics and a number of institutional based courses. However, we still require our students to take calculus, econometrics, orthodox neoclassical micro and new-keynesian macro. What we have found is that a number of students -- including a disturbing proportion of our best students, are rejecting our honours and graduate programs because they feel that orthodox economics (applied mathematics) is basically irrelevant and becoming less and less marketable in the job market. The spate of articles recently in journals and in the Globe and Mail about the irrelevance of contemporary economics is increasingly being reflected in student attitudes, not to mention employers, politicians and the general public. This is the reason for our renewed interest in starting an alternative stream. This is all a prelude to a request: Could all of you who have polical economy programs at your university send me a brief outline including required courses, program requirements, graduate programs, etc., either by e-mail ([EMAIL PROTECTED]> or by snail-mail at Paul Phillips Department of Economics, University College, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. R3T 2M8 Thanks, Paul Paul Phillips
[PEN-L:10898] Progressive Web Sites
A couple of weeks ago I asked on Pen-l for suggestions of progressive web sites suitable to provide up to date material for a local social action newsletter produced by a collective of retired, but socially (progressive) concerned clergy. I had only five replies, two of which asked that I post a list of the suggestions to Pen-l. All of the suggestions that were made were also made to the entire list so it may not be necessary to repost them. However, at risk of repetition, here they are with a few comments on my brief forays at checking them out. The first concern of my friend was keeping up to date on the New Zealand experiment with radical neo-liberalism. Bill Rosenberg responded (you can can review his complete list of suggestions through the csf archives - more on this later) with the general Web site of the library at Lincoln University http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/libr. (hereafter, I will omit the http:// 'prefix'). The link to political and other current affairs on this site is called Ara Nui. Through that I found the Council of Trade Unions site (www.union.org.nz/) which had the article updating the NZ 'miracle' that Sid Shniad posted a couple of days ago on this list. The left/labour political sites are the Alliance (www.alliance.org.nz) and the Labour Party (www.labour.org.nz). For political news Bill suggested Newsroom (www.newsroom.co.nz) but I did not check it out. Incidentally, last time I tried the lincoln library site, I could not get it, I don't know why. Sid Shniad suggested the web site of the Canadian Centre on Policy Alternatives (www.policyalternatives.ca) which I did. What is particularly useful about this site, in addition to a number of the most important articles from the Centre's excellent monthly magazine, the Monitor, is the long list of links to other, not just Canadian, progressive/left sites. Max Sawicki pointed me not just to the web site of EPI (epinet.org) but to the economic policy site sponsored by American Prospect which has another long, long list of links to progressive (and some not so progressive) sites. The URL for this is epn.org. I have also been a regular visitor to Doug Henwood's LBO site (www. panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html) which not only has a judicious selection of articles from past issues of LBO, but also has a some what shorter list of links to progressive sites and, what is useful for the economists, links to data sites and not just American (i.e. includes links to Stats Canada.) I would also point to the archives at csf.colorado.edu which includes the pen-l, Pkt, progressive sociologists, and the environment list (the name escapes me at the moment) archives which also has a search engine for exploring these archives. More detail on Bill's response re NZ, for example can be found in these archives under his name. I had no response from anyone outside North America and New Zealand. However, there are links from the sites mentioned above to some other countries/continents. For instance, the NZ CTU site had links to the British TUC and the Australian ACTU. However, if anyone has any other suggestions, please feel free to respond. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10509] Labour Films
For a real documentary on collective bargaining, see the CBC/NFB film "Final Offer" which is a film of the Canadian UAW-General Motors negotiations in 1984 (?) which led not only to a different pattern of agreements in Canada but also to the breakoff of the Cdn Automobile Workers from the UAW. It is an incredible documentary in that both parties allowed the cameras into their negotiations and into the union caucus sessions. (It also comes with a language warning -- this is the real stuff.) Paul Phillips, Economics and Labour Studies, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10371] Umbrage
But Tom, what you quote Alexa as saying is good social democratic stuff -- make the capitalist system work properly through redistribution, sound fiscal and monetary policy, and the provision of a secure social wage. You are criticizing her for not being a socialist. But the CCF abandoned any pretence of socialism with the Winnipeg declaration in 1956. This has been my point all along, you can criticize social democracy if you want on grounds that it won't deal with the problems of capitalism, but don't criticize a social democrat for being a social democrat and dealing with the problems as she sees fit. She has addressed the problems in the campaign (including the MAI), but you don't like her solutions. Within the context of what I think is possible in the present climate, I think the alterntive budget etc. are feasible, credible and would ease a lot of social pain. But a lot more will be needed in the long run to move to a socialist society of course. What I asked of you was what would you campaign credibly on that you think wouldbring about a socialist society? Paul Phillips, Economics, Manitoba
[PEN-L:10351] Umbrage
I apologize if I offended Tom by my somewhat immoderate response to his posting. For Sid's benefit, I will quote the original comment that prompted my frustrated response. >Here in Canada, the social-democratic NDP abstains from even its own >social-democratic, electoral politics in a vain attempt to be seen >as a voice of moderation. The NDP appeal in the current election >coes down to nostalgia for the 1970s -- a presumably brighter, >happier, more innocent time. If you liked the Partridge Family, >you'll love the NDP. The PF was "wholesome" psychedelia without >drugs. The NDP is wholesome Keynesianism without fiscal crises. > >And there's the social democratic dilemma in a nutshell: it's not >simply that social-democratic policy prescriptions are >objectionable, it's that in order to be palatable to the >"mainstream" they always have to be repackaged as even more >innocuous than they are. Social democratic policies can >never be innocuous enough, at least until they are completely >vapid -- at which point, they are readily dismissed by "the >mainstream" as vapid. Now Ken and Bill have responded to much of this and I don't want to repeat what has been said. But let me summarize my objections. 1. The NDP has tried to campaign on good solid issues -- jobs, health care, day care and social programs. It is the media and the right wing politicians that have hijacked the election campaign to stress "national unity" as a way of deflecting attention from the NDP's critique of the right-wing, deficit obsessed neoliberal program they are all advancing. As Alexa pointed out in frustration when she had a press conference of health care policy, they kept (that is the media kept) asking her about Manning's extremist, anti-Quebec views and ignoring the issue of health care. 2. The NDP's decision to accept that the Liberal's are highly likely to be returned is based on good solid electoral strategy. In the last election, the NDP was sandbagged by voters combining behind the Liberals to get rid of the hated conservatives. The Liberals ran as the left -- but when in power, they governed from the right (as they usually did) but to a more extreme right because of the lack of a left opposition. In this election, if voters are worried that the two extreme right parties (Conservatives and/or Reform) are going to win, then voters will again desert the NDP for the Liberals, allowing again for a centre right Liberal government pressured only from the extreme right with no even social democratic left influence in protecting the welfare state -- the erosion of which under the Liberals is the cause of rising poverty, particularly of children, the rise of a 2-tier health system, the decline in the social wage, etc. etc. No the Canadian welfare state, such as it is, is no utopia, no partridge family psychedelia, and the 70s no golden age, but they were still headed in the right direction, which we can't say now. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10325] Tom Walker's pronouncements
I find Walker's denounceations from on high of the NDP's current election platform and position within the on going debate to be both uninformed and counterproductive. As one of many economists across the country that was involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in developing the alternative federal budget (which the NDP nationally has virtually adopted), I am offended by Walker's ignorant attack on the policy that so many of economists and other representatives of non-goverment- tal and women's and labour groups developed. In short, he should do some of the work, or shut up. Paul Phillips, Economics, Manitoba.
[PEN-L:10317] Bill Burgess Misinformation
A quick check of th World Fact Book shows that, of all the major industrial (G7 and OECD) countries, Canada has the lowest percent of military expenditure as % of GDP with one exception, Japan. (Canada, 1.6%: Japan 1.0 %). Perhaps this is not insignificant as I suggested in my post, but it is surely minimal and I would argue virtually a minimal level necessary for air-sea rescue, coastal and fishery servailance, and contribution to peace keeping. I gather from Bill's comments that he thinks that Canada's peace keeping efforts are "imperialistic". Well, perhaps he might make his point in one specific case or another, but I would like to see him defend this position in Cyprus, Bosnia and/ or Haiti. I am not a militarist (though I spent 5 years in the military), but I think a lot of the criticism of the military is a crock, based on misinformation on what they can, and do, do. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10259] Re War and Primitive Accumulation
Max, in his response to my request for references in Marx to war ---> public debt ---> exploitation of workers ---> primitive accumulation implies disagreement with Marx and the relationship of war to public debt and defends public debt contracted to finance social services. I should point out my interest is not in the current situation (which is hardly one of primitive accumulation in any case.) In Canada today the military budget is miniscule and, thanks to the invaluable help the Canadian forces were in fighting our recent floods, I would hardly want to cut them any further. Furthermore, as a strong supporter of keynesian demand management, I would hardly want to cut spending on social programs at a time when unemployment is running at almost 10 per cent. My question was in reference to a research project I have under way about the impact of the 1st World War, in particular on how it was financed and the effect it had in consolidating industrial capitalism and creating a rentier class and promoting class conflict which broke out at the end of the war (Winnipeg General Strike in particular but also the farmers' revolt through the Progressive Party.) The Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1939) explictly blames the financing of the war for the emergence of class and regional conflicts but without any theoretical understanding or interpretation. What I am attempting to do is a reinterpretation of the accepted 'conservative' view of the importance of the war. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba ps. Max, thanks for the reference to epn.org -- a very useful site for progressive and liberal web pages. For the rest of pen-l-ers, note that I have receive only 3 responses on suggestions of progressive web sites. No one else have any recommendations?
[PEN-L:10219] War and Primitive Accumulation
In his section on primitive accumulation in volume one of Capital, Marx writes: "The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of pof primitive accumulation The destructive influence that it exercises on the condition of the wage-labourer concerns us less however, here, than the forcible expropriation, resulting from it, of peasants, artisans, and in a word, all elements of the lower middle-class." Somewhere, I have the recollection, that Marx linked the growth of public debt with wars (there is a passing reference in the above quoted section to "maritime trade and commercial wars" but nothing very substantive.) Does anyone recall if, and where, Marx links war with debt, with taxes transfering wealth from the workers and the middle-class to capital - i.e. as part of the process of primitive accumulation? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10165] Progressive web sites
Pen-l-ers, At a benefit dinner for Canadian Dimension the other night, I was asked by a retired United Church minister who is now part of a collective of clergy who publish a progressive newsletter on social issues, if I could give him the addresses of progressive web sites (specifically with regard to NZ, but also US, Canada, etc.) which he could monitor for up to date info and opinion of a progressive or radical nature. I mentioned Doug Henwood's and EPI's site but I didn't have the URPs handy. In any case, he wants to put together a listing of the most useful progressive web sites so I am asking all on the list to send me their selection of the best progressive web pages. (Remember, this is for laypersons and retired clergy, not professional economists or related.) If you don't think the list would be interested, send your suggestions to me directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] If I get any response to this request and there is any interest, I will post the top 10 or 20 suggestions to Pen-l. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba.
[PEN-L:9990] Feudal economic relations
I have some difficulty with Wojteck's association of feudal labour relations with labour abundance. I have always associated feudal (and other forms of 'unfree' labour) with labour shortage. to be blunt, the ruling class imposes 'unfree' labour bondage because 'free' labour is too expensive. for references see Evsey Domar, "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: a Hypothesis," *J of Ec History*, march 1970: or my article on the subject, "Land Tenure and Economic Development: a comparison of Upper and Lower Canada", *J of Canadian Studies*, May 1974. Nasvidinje, Paul Phillips, Economics, University College University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9802] May Day
May I wish you all an affirmative May Day (a happy May Day would be a bit much). There are still so many out there that are suffering from the ravages of capitalism that they deserve our sympathy, but more than that, our organized help. At the moment we are battling the ravages of nature, the flood of the century. But when that battle is over, let us battle the deprivations of inequality, poverty and homelessness! Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9719] Globalization
Pen-lers, I have had some enquiries by a member of the general public about a number of issues relating to corporations, the environment and globalization. Specifically, he asked "if you knew of a single useful source of information on the negative effects of globalization (a scientific paper or even a thorough magazine article would be fine.)" I promised to post his request on the list and ask for a suggested reading list that would be accessible to the intelligent lay person. Suggestions? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:9495] Geometric mean CPI
Can anyone tell me simply how the geometric mean CPI is calculated. I know how the Laspeyres is computed but have not come accross the geometric calculation. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba.
[PEN-L:9356] Re: requiem for social democracy
Ken Hanley, in discussing the introduction of medicare in Saskatchewan in the early 1960s, called it a social democratic move but he did not think that the CCF referred to themselves as social democrats at that time. As it happens, I was leader of the young CCF on the Campus of the University of Saskatchewan in the year leading up to the medicare election. (I was leader of the opposition in the mock legislature, the premier of the government of the mock legislature was Roy Romanow, now premier of Saskatchewan and leader of the NDP. At that time he was leader of NatCreCon, an actual registered party in Saskatchewan but for purposes of the university elections, a kind of Rhinoserous Party.) We did refer to ourselves as social democrats and used it more or less interchangeably with democratic socialist. Those more to the left were democratic socialist, those more to the right, social democrats though, to the best of my memory where one drew the line was self designated. Again, if I remember correctly, the Senior party thought we were too far left and often refused the designation socialist for the softer social democrat. I am what I call a "veteran of the Saskatchewan Civil War", the battle for medicare which was won in the streets and not directly in the legislature. When the doctors went out on strike to oppose single-payer, socialized insurance, we took to the streets handing out flyers, knocking on doors and demonstrating. Despite some consessions to the original proposals (e.g. opting out of the direct payment, restrictions on community clinics, etc.), we won the basic principle and, though not revolutionary, the political agenda in Canada in the area of medical and health services has never been the same since, though a concerted attack is underway led by multinational medical corporations and the neoliberals in Canada (Liberals, Conservtives and Reform), to reverse this substantial reform. Only the NDP (and the seperatist BQ) is mounting any campaign to save health care from a two-tier, semi- privatized system. In that regard, I think it is worth fighting for the NDP during election years, and becoming the left-wing non-parliamentary opposition in intra-election years. This has been the strategy of Cho!ces, the social justice coalition in Manitoba which has pioneered the development of alterntive budgets at the Municipal, Provincial and Federal levels where the broad coalition of social action groups, labour and us socialists/ social democrats/left liberals academics develop through democratic consultation and consensus an alterntive budget which is released a day or two before the official budget. (By the way this was done in Saskatchewan this year, before the NDP budget.) One problem we have is that this year, the Alterntive Federal Budget developed by CHo!ces and the CCPA (Cdn. Centre for Policy Alternatives) with hundreds of social action groups and unions accross the country, has been more or less completely adopted by the national NDP as its election budget. Kind of difficult getting respectable :-) Nasvidinje, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9279] Slovenia
Just a couple of comments on Barkley's and Ken's posts. 1. The problem after the constitutional amendments of 74/76 was that the banks were made subsidiary to the enterprises and, with the demise of the state investment funds, this means that the enterprises could invest out of borrowed funds, not out of internal savings. (Though this was formally outlawed, it was unenforceable). As a result enterprises borrowed from their capitive banks who used the republic banks as lender of last resort to finance these borrowings and the republic banks resorted to the federal bank as their lender of last resort. The result was, as one would expect, inflation -- but that, of course, only further encouraged the enterprise to finance investment in this manner (at negative interest rates.) As Horvat argued, the result was too much investment, not too little as the Ward Vanek critics suggested. i.e., the soft-budget constraint was on the banks, not the enterprises, though this is not to deny that local authorities also came to the aid of large companies to protect employment. But this points to a second problem, the bias in the 1974/76 constitution to large monopolistic enterprises and barriers to entry without which the market socialist model (a la Schweikart or Horvat or Ellerman) breaks down. 2. Re the regional disparities problem. My original visit to Yugoslavia in 1986 was to study the problem of inter-regional development in a federal system under worker self-management. Two problems were prominent. One was that Slovenian (or Croation or whatever) firms could not invest in other regions in supplyer firms. This created problems for Slovenian firms (some of those that I interviewed) in that they couldn't develop raw material supplies needed for their enterprise. Nevertheless, they did -- there were something like 2,000 associated enterprises with Slovenian firms at the time of the breakup -- though, of course, their investment was lost in the breakup. The second problem was the National Fund for the Faster Development of the Lesser Developed Regions. This was the 1.86 % tax on Slovenia Croatia and the more developed parts of Serbia to finance investment in the poorer south. The problem was that this fund could not be targeted by the national government (because of the autonomy of the republics.) So the money was turned over to the governments of the poorer regions, many of which could not absorb it. For example, there was considerable unhappiness in the contributing republics to the funds allocated to Kosovo that were used to build a beautiful but extremely expensive national library in Pristina, rather than to promote economic development. The decentralization of planning and decision making had made national economic planning impossible. 3. Re corporate taxes: Ken, I think you are wrong here. Most taxes were levied by the firms themselves in conjunction with their local commune to support the level of services (education, research, health, community) that the local community wanted. I.e. the dominant form of taxation was payroll taxes imposed by negotiation between the enterprises and the local governments. It was very much like the participatory process advocated buth others recently. I have no way of judging just how democratic it was, but I do no from my co-author at the University that the faculty and staff met regularly to decide what part of their grant would be spent on social programs, benefits, salary etc. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9235] co-ops and worker owned firms
Jim, I came across another article that deals with the theory of the worker owned firm, B. Horvat, "The Theory of the Worker- Managed Firm RevisiteJ of Comparative Economics, I, 1986. Paul
[PEN-L:9233] co-ops and unemployment
Jim, I know that Horvat has written many articles oposing the Ward-Vanek model and I have them somewhere, but where is the question. One reference I do have is "The Illyrian Firm: An Alternative View: a Rejoinder" *Economic Analysis and Workers" self Management*, 1986. I do think that anyone who has the slightest interest in market socialism, workers self-management, etc. should read Horvat's 1982 book *The Political Economy of Socialism*, ( M.E. Sharpe). I think this is one of the best visions of an alternative society -- a utopia many may denounce -- but a vision yet worth persuining. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba. Nasvidinnje!
[PEN-L:9221] co-ops and unemployment
Jim, I find it somewhat ironical that we, who rail against the neoclassical model, accept a neoclassical model to judge the behaviour of co-ops, socially owned firms etc. The Ward-Vanek model begins with the same assumptions as the standard neoclassical -- maximization, methodological individualism, substitution (choice theoretic), and market clearing equilibrium, plus (of course) a measurable marginal product of labour and capital. If you do not accept these axioms, then there is no reason to expect the Ward-Vanek results. If, on the other hand, you begin with institutional economics axioms, then you would get the expectations that appear in reality. Horvat's point all along has been that people do not behave in the way postulated by Ward-Vanek. If one looks at the Yugoslav experience or the Mondragon experience, Horvat is right. Behaviour is not determined by individual maximization in theory or practice. Paul Phillips Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9208] Slovenian/Yugoslavia
Dear friends, After Louis' last piece of venom that attacked, not only me, but my acquaitances that may (or may not) agree with me, but who have never heard of Louis Proyet, I must withdraw from further discussion on pen-l. I will not unsubscribe, for that would deprive me of the pearls of Doug and Jim and Michael et al., but it appears that in my area of interest, rational discussion is not possible without L P's irrational and incomprehensible attacks. It is unfortunate that a so called socialist hasn't the decency to engage argument and rather resort to ad hominum attack and personal ridicule, even when there is not the slightest material reason for doing so. I would like to continue the stream Slovenia/Yugoslavia with Barkley, Paul, Jim and all those actually interested, but it appears to be impossible on pen-l because of Louis. You are all (except Louis) invited to continue the stream personally off list if I can figure how to do it. Nasvidinje, Paul Phillips, economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9204] Slovenia/Yugoslavia
Yes Jim, there is too much on our plate. Unfortunately, marking essays and setting finals etc. does not give me time to respond to all the discussion but, a couple of points: a) no Louis, I was not talking about Bruno Hzladj, whom I don't know but Dimitar Mircev whom I have known for 10 years. b) in my original studies in Yugoslavia in 1987, the rate of income per capita Slovenia/Kosova was 5:1, at the end of the war, 15:1. i.e. there was considerable convergence until the interregional transfer of investment funds began to slow up. c) it is Horvat who rails against the Ward/Vanek model as empirically untrue -- in fact just the opposite. d) the problem with the guestworkers was not the cutoff of jobs, but the decline in remittances and the problem that added to the debt crisis already set off by American and German monetarism. e) Yugoslav trade before the collapse was approximately equally divided between the Communist countries and the west, but to pay the interest on the debt that was entirely in western currencies, it had to raise a surplus in the west. I deal with this in my February 1990 article in Monthly Review. So much more to respond to but I don't have time now. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9186] re:Slovenia
Unfortunately our e-mail has been down for the past couple of days so I have not been able to respond to the Slovenia thread until now at which point it has gone off in several directions. Let me begin by quoting Branko Horvat in a private correspondence he sent me after I had sent him a long paper on the rise and problems of the yugo economy-- "as usual in Yugoslavia", he wrote, "it is not quite so simple." That was the jist of my response to Louis. Neither is the debt problem so simple. I did write upon this in an article in Monthly Review. I am not trying to impress anyone with quotes, just that I can't reproduce a decade of articles and analysis in a few short lines here. But in order to understand the foreign debt problem that developed in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, one has to understand the internal political (regional- enthnic) problems at the time that Tito was dying around 1980, and the structure of the banking institutions that resulted from the constitutional changes i the mid-seventies that -- and this is for Louis -- were motivated by Kardelj's utopian conception of the ideal Marxist state. Now I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for this utopia (Djilas' claim that it was his is, as far as I have been able to authenticate, absolute nonsense), but it led to a breakdown in rational economic planning which we try to illustrate in our book. The reason that I said I couldn't deal with it on Pen-l is that our argument/evidence is 120 pages which (obviously) I can't reproduce here. However, let me say one thing in defense of my "utopia". A year ago I took part in a workshop with Slovenian union shop stewards on how to maintain control of the work place -- through ownership and through trade union and political action. My presentation was on the threat to workers participation and control of the North American model. They were miles ahead of North American workers. If I can quote one business commentator "... the main reason for the attractiveness of internal subscripition [worker buyouts] lies basically in the sense of commitment that employees have to 'their' companies. Oviously, the majority of employed Slovene citizens consent to a property struct which assures the continuation of the existing [self] management structure without introducing major change." Boy! does that rile the apologists for neo-liberal capitalism!! In short, I think there are very good lessons from the Yugo experience, particularly in Slovenia, for socialists and marxists. Also, as my good friend, the Ambassador or Macedonia to Slovenion, points out, don't write off Macedonia. It is doing better than the western press ignores. Nasvidinje, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:9158] Re: Slovenia
I think Barkley is quite correct about the relative success of the Slovenian economy. The unemployment rate peaked at 9.1 % (ILO definition) in 1993 and had fallen to 7.4 % by 1995, well below the German rate. GDP had recoved to about 97 % of the pre-breakup maximum by 1995 and real wages stood about 5% higher than the were in 1990 before the war. Inflation in 1996 was estimated at 10 % and the real growth rate at 3 %. Much of this is detailed in my article with Bogomil Ferfila in *Slovenija*, "The Slovene Economy: the First Five Years", Summer 1996. I am in the process of updating this article but existing trends seem to be being followed. Re the property/ownership situation, the majority of the economy is now privatized but the privatization scheme has left control largely still in the hands of the workers/unions -- so much so that the managers have been complaining that nothing has changed. I hope to get to Slovenia next year to do a survey of managers to find out if that is still the case. Barkley is also correct about FDI. Of the more than 1500 privatization programs received by the Slovene Agency for Restructuring and Privatization by April 1995, only three involved foreign participation. Re the analysis of Yugoslavia outlined by Louis, it certainly doesn't appear much like what I saw in Yugoslavia over the last 10 or so years. Ferfila and I give a much different interpretation in our book *The Rise and Fall of the Third Way: Yugoslavia 1945-1991*. In fact, one of the causes we cite for the collapse of the country was the imposition of utopian schemes by the top theoreticians (e.g. Kardelj in particular) rather than working through praxis to modify the system. However, the whole argument is too long to present here. In short, I would agree with Barkley that both its success and its failure makes Slovenia a useful (though flawed) model for a feasible socialist alternative. Nasvidinje Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8949] Re: Cuba
Just a footnote to Steven Zahniser's comment. I have been told (by a usually reliable source) that the Swiss embassy in Havana is filled with American businessmen doing business with Cuba and mascerading as Swiss to avoid US law. Paul Phillips
[PEN-L:8939] Re: Cuba
Bill Burgess writes: This is exactly what Jesse Helms has been saying and the justification for the Helms-Burton legislation that I, and the Canadian government, has been opposing. And I think Bill is wrong, very wrong and that the propagation of this view hurts Cuba and Canada. First, as I mentioned in my diary of the Cuba visit, I went down on an aircraft and returned on an aircraft that included at least two delegations of Canadians, funded by the Canadian government, one in medicine, the other in technical education. I took books down to add to a collection that had been started by our University. All of this was public aid and, in 2 of the 3 cases, funded by the Canadian government. As anybody who knows us knows, I am no great fan of Lloyd Axworthy (though we have appeared on the same program/ platform on occassion) but his support for technical and other aid to Cuba (his 14 points) is admirable and I don't think entirely motivated by imperialist greed as Burgess suggests. I think it is very destructive of Burgess to suggest that Canada's support of Cuba's right to self-determination is based on corporate self-interest. As indicated, this is Helms' position. But I think it is also quite incorrect. Canada may not support the revolution, but our position has always been the right for the Cubans to make their own decision. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8935] Cuba
Blair, Perhaps I was being a little extreme, but then trying to starve into submission 10 million people, depriving the sick of medicines etc., seems to me to be pretty extreme imperialism. Paul Phillips
[PEN-L:8919] Marilyn Waring
I have used the Waring video in my classes, in particular Women and the Canadian Economy, very effectively. It is very good on the issue of the degrading of women's contribution to the economy and *as a result*, the degredation of the environment. But it is shallow on the question of capitalism as the cause of the problem and her environmentalism is very "Tory" -- the old golden pastoral age of sheep and dung. In fact she was here promoting her most recent book a couple of weeks ago ( I missed her as I was in Cuba) but my students who attended on my recomendation were not impressed -- she had reduced all her analysis to shit (dung). Within limits, therefore, her video is useful. But it is no substitute for analysis. Paul Phillips
[PEN-L:8917] Cuba
I would like to thank Shawgi for posting Fidel's speech and the Granma article on the net. I would also like to point out, in furtherence of his previous posting about Walmart's decision to take Cuban made PJ's out of their Canadian stores, that the company under Canadian pressure decided to sell Cuban PJs again but that now the American government is again trying to enforce US law in Canada by pressuring (prosecuting?) Walmart's American head office. This is the most intolerable form of American imperialism that I can imagine. It disgusts me that Americans put up with such clearly anti-humane behaviour on the part of their government. I suspect that one of the major reasons why Canada has continued to support Cuba is that we would like to have the guts to stand up to the American bully, but that since we don't, we will cheer on the little guy who has the courage to do so. If this is so, "Three cheers!". Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8882] Re: Cuba
Bill, According to my figures, GDP for Canada in 1933 was 70.2% of GDP in 1929, a ~ 30% drop compared to the approx 50% drop in Cuba. If these figures are correct then the drop in Cuba was over 50% greater in Canada. Paul
[PEN-L:8871]
([EMAIL PROTECTED] [130.179.16.26]) by for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:21:53 -0600 (CST) From: Helen Osman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:21:51 -0600 (CST) Subject: Cuba visit(long) To: phillps Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:21:51 -0600 (CST) This is a fairly long digest of our recent visit to Cuba. I hope the purists on the list will find it neither too "artsy feely" no to non-analytical to be of interest. To Jim D., I will return to the NAIRU battleground as soon as I can recover from the blissful contentment of sun and ocean breezes, et al. Reflections on a Cuba Visit by Paul Phillips The Helms-Burton law in the US which penalizes foreign corporations conducting business in Cuba was the final incentive for my wife and I to take a short "sun holiday" in that beleaguered Carribean country during the University of Manitoba's February mid-term break. Relief from a brutal winter and exhausting work schedules was, of course, the prime motivation for "snow birding" to warmer climes but our choice of Cuba was also a political statement in opposition to the extra-territoriality of America's vindictive and punitive approach to Cuba. We had always wanted to visit Cuba, to see for ourselves what was happening in this small country that the US is so paranoid about and which has suffered so much economically from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the continuing US economic embargo. So we also combined a little business with pleasure by spending one day at the University of Matanzas, about 35 kilometers west of the main tourist resort strip of Varadarowhich is booming with construction of huge, grand tourist hotels, joint ventures with Spanish, Italian and Canadian partners. While at the University, we met with the Deans of the Physical Education Faculty and presented them with a promotional Spanish language video of the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. (Donna, my wife, is Manager of Communications for the Pan American Games.) We visited the Canadian Studies library at the University, an initiative that began at the University of Manitoba, and donated some books that we had brought with us; and we had an extended discussion with the head of the economics department about the state of the Cuban economy and its prospects. As well, as I had just finished a (co-authored) draft of the entry on "market socialism" for the forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, I was interested in Cuba's experience with market oriented reforms designed to combat the crisis that the end of Soviet aid and the American embargo had engendered, a subject we also talked about. Obviously, one week's observation of daily life in Cuba and one day of conversations with Cuban economists does not an expert make, but nevertheless, I would like to share some observations and reflections on what I saw and learned. The Tourist Experience We flew from Toronto to Varadaro and then on to Havana by Cubana Airlines, the Cuban national carrier, in a Russian built Ilusyian aircraft. (Interestingly enough, it was smoother and much quieter than the DC 9 we had flown in from Winnipeg to Toronto.) The trip took an hour more than necessary because, being a Cuban airline, it could not fly through US airspace and had to fly east to the Atlantic, down the Atlantic coast, and then west to Cuba. This was just the first example of how US policy has not only added to the cost of Cuban business, but also has contributed to global ecological degradation by unnecessarily increasing fossil fuel consumption. From Havana, we were transported by modern (Japanese) minibus to Santa Maria del Mar 22 kilometers east of Havanawhere our hotel was located on a very beautiful and extensive stretch of Gulf beach. The hotel, built some 20 years ago, had seen better days but was clean and comfortable, everything (satellite TV, radio alarm, air conditioning, elevators) worked and the service was friendly and efficient. The food was plentiful and of good quality just boring. Cuban music, art and dance may be spicy and unique, but poor Cuba must have inherited her food genes from England, except perhaps for the beer and bread which were quite excellent. We stayed at Santa Maria because it was relatively close to Havana and we are inveterate urban prowlers when on holidays. The problem is how to get from the hotel to Havana. Public transport in Cuba has totally broken down, again the result of the American embargo and the lack of domestic supplies of petroleum, a commodity that Cuba had (prior to 1989) imported from the Soviet Union at what were, in effect, subsidized prices. Cuba, I was told, now produces about 25% of the oil it consumes and, with help from Canadian and European oil companies, hopes to increase domestic production through exploration and development. This Canadian and European assistanc
pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
Doug, 1 liner. What does M&A stand for. Paul Paul Phillips, U of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8590] Nairu, market socialism, etc.
Ah, at last, some substantive discussion. If we can now avoid the flames and irrelevancies ... Two important streams are now developing -- just when I am off to Cuba for R &R and for research (:-)) that I would like to persue. One is the market socialism stream. I have just finished the first draft of the EPE entry on market socialism along with Jim Stoddard, and am waiting for the flack. I am conviced that there can never be any concesus on 'market socialism'. Be that as it may (as a veteran fan of the Yugoslave system), and the flames from the central planning enthusiasts, I think it is the central debate now in the "reopolitic". The second important stream is about Nairu and the labour market. Jim asks about my ancestry, but I am proud to say, I (or none of my family, except in an indirect way) had anything to do with A.W. Phillips and his curve. I say indirect since my grandfather was a Welsh coalminer who came to Canada and was instrumental in establishing control over the mining area of BC in this period for the union. His work with the union undoubtably raised the Phillips curve! But I am sure that is not what you meant. Jim's comments, to me, seemed to equate the long term to the short term. What I would really like is to see what he really meant in distinguishing between long and short term. But I will be awaY FOR the forseable (great term) future. I would like to see a real debate on these issues. On the Pkt network they have "seminars" based on specific papers on such issues. I think this is intellectually very superior to some of the flame wars we have had. Michael, how about it. Hey, I'll report back on Cuba's beaches. Yea Helms-Burton! Paul Phillips, Economics, Univseristy of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8562] Nairu, etc.
I beg to differ with Tom Walker but not with the basic point he makes -- that there is a need to modify, change, update etc. our institutions to keep up with social and technological change. If he looks carefully at what I said,however, it was to emphasize that the verticle Phillips curve acceptance (and the causes for it) clears the way for the neo-lib agenda which, in the absenc e of alternative institutional change only serves to hurt labour for the benefit of capital. Unfortunately for Tom's position, the Nairu/NRU analysis is based on neo-lib assumptions which makes favourable institutional change outside the pall of acceptable policy solutions. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8559] Nairu,etc.
(The Devine) Jim responded to my comments about the illogicality of heterodox economists even accepting NRU OR Nairu as the basis of macroeconomic debate by talking about shifts in the institutions governing the labour market and the effect that this can have on the trade-off between inflational and unemployment. Now, of course, no one can deny that institution change can improve or reduce the efficiency of the trade-off i.e. can shift the Phillips curve (though I reject the sexist and classist explanations for the shift offered by orthodox economists as explained in my last post). But Jim seems to ignore the whole point I was trying to make. Whether one is talking Nairu or NRU, you have to accept a VERTICAL PHILLIPS CURVE by definition. There is no trade-off. Nairu stands for Non-accellerating inflation rate of unemployment. i.e. below that unemployment rate inflation must continue to accelerate so that attempting to reduce that level of unemployment will automatically accelerate into runaway inflation until that Nairu rate of unem. is reestablished at which the rate of inflation will stabilize. That means you can not reduce unemployment through macro policy without first changing the institutions (destroying unions, capping wages, reducing minimum wages, UI payments, deregulating labour markets, etc., all the elements of the neo-con agenda.) This is what is so dangerous in accepting this approach. Now with Bill M's, my own, and someone else on the list that posted on this the "class stuggle rate of unemployment", this problem is averted because it isn't the rate of unemployment that is the determinant, but rather the rate of inflation acceptable to the capos which is also compable with the minimum rate of profits acceptable to the capos. It forces the debate onto not why wages and employment must be contained, but why profits and rentier income have accelerated to the point where unemployment has had to rise to keep wages down so that productivity gains can be expropriated virtually entirely by property. Paul Phillips, economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8513] Long waves
Barkely suggests we may be on the beginnings of a long wave (swing) upswing by referring to the fact that investment/GNP has been rising. Others have poo-pooed the whole concept of long waves, a subject I don't want to debate at this time. I do, however, want to make two points. The first is that, a few weeks ago I made a rash offer to post a bibliography of work on regualation and SSA theory with respect to the long wave on Pen-l and several people took me up on that offer. I went back to my computer and have been unable to find my reading list file for my graduate class. My face is red. I have no excuse (except perhaps technological incompetance). I have all the articles piled up on my desk but, alas, the onerous task of teaching deserving students means that I can not input all this material at this time. Please accept my apologies. The second point relates to the regulation theory approach to economic phases which stresses the relationship between the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation. In a rather simplistic interpretation, the 1850-1896 growth/stagnation period was marked by an extensive regime of accumulation and a competitive mode ofregulation. The 1897-1940 period, by an intesive regime of accumulation and a competitive mode of regulation, the 1945-199?, an intensive regime of accumulation and a monopoly mode of regulation. Following Boyer's analysis, one could argue that the current stirrings of expansion are based again on an extensive regime of accumulation and a monopoly mode of regulation (under the umbrella of global capital). If this is true (as was the case in the 1850-96 period) economic growth measured in total (measured) output increases, quite dramatically in some cases, though *per capita* income/output is stagnant. Incidentally, this is the case for Canada inthe 1870-96 period. I have not seen comparable data for the US though I believe this is also true for the UK. In any case, this means that the stagnant real wage but macro growth scenario is quite compatable with long wave theory. It also, however, suggests that the next upward swing will be pretty dismall for all but the propertied class. Cold Comfort from Manitoba Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8512] Nairu, etc.
Not only have I got Jim D responding in hot denial, also my other colleague and (usually) agreeable friend, Barkely R. :-) Hey, none of it was personal nor were my comments directed to anyone personally. In fact, (if I must confess) I had deleted the comments from my mail and was only responding to a kind of technical acceptance of the idea of NRU/Nairu which I find totally anathema to radical *or* post Keynesian analysis. I think we all agree (?) that there is nothing "natural" about the rate of unemployment. Does anyone disagree? What I find more insidious is the concept of Nairu -- the non- accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. What does this imply? Is it not a long-run vertical phillips curve? And what does that say? YOU CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT THE LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT WITHOUT ACCELERATING INFLATION (presumably into hyperinflation). Put another way, it means acceptance of the monetarist line. It rejects -- not only the bastard Keynesian Phillips curve analysis of the 1950s-1970s -- but also **all** Keynesian/ postKeynesian concepts of a horizontal Phillips curve (see, for example, Wheeler in Piore, Unemployment and Inflation.) In short, before we can even talk about employment and macro policy, I think we must divest ourselves of any NRU/Nairu polutants and look again at the determinants and mechanisms of the excercize of economic power in the distribution of income and the determination of prices, at both micro and macro levels. NRU and Nairu are both related ideological constructs that, as long as we keep arguing about them, will deflect us from analyzing the real causes of exploitation and misery. In northern frozen solidarity, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8490] Nairu, etc.
First, to Jim, my complaint was not specific to you but, as you know, there is a similar discussion going on on PKT which is even less progressive and I sort of conflated the two streams. I just want to make a couple of points in response without dealing at this time with the segmented labour market or war experience stuff. My biggest complaint is with the expression the "natural rate" (Nairu or NRU). Pray tell, what is "natural" about it? To accept the notion is to accept the monetarist vertical Phillips curve which is to deny Keynesian, post-Keynesian, post Keynesian, Kaleckian, institutional, Marxian or any other heterodox approach to macroeconomics. Even Lipsey in his 1954(?) article pointed out that the choice of unemployment rate was a *policy decision*, which depended on the choice of social welfare function. I am not saying that the Phillips curve has not shifted out (though I think this is greatly over estimated). I don't buy the standard arguments -- the growth of labour market regulation, unionism, UI etc -- which have been in decline since the sixties in the US and the 70s in Canada; or the growth in female participation which has, as the recent report by Dave on the US market indicates, increased competition for jobs such that male wages have shown a precipitous drop. Incidentally, as Piore himself notes in his 1972(?) introduction to *Unemployment and Inflation*, he saw the whole US market "tilting" to the secondary labour market which should, by Nairu type thinking, have resulted in an inward shift in the Phillips curve. Now, if you started calling it the CGRU (the Capitalist Greed Rate of Unemployment), I might be less critical. Bill M, if I remember correctely, has an alternative expression which is closer to the mark -- but please don't call it natural. Perhaps we should call the US homicide rate the "natural rate of murder". Makes as much sense. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, U of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8481]
Dear Pen-lers: Phil O'Hara, who is in the final phase of editing the encyclopedia of political economy, needs some help. He is teaching a subject he has never taught before - International Economics 400 at Honors level - and in the light of the enormous burden of the epe needs some help with possible references and course outlines that may be of help. Anything you might be able to send him would be much appreciated. Any topics or references which you think might help students understand the world economy or the international economy at honours level would be useful. He was thinking of including some material on Kaldor's Laws (BOP constraint; economies of scale; cumulative causation); business cycles and waves at the international level; international political economy issues; economic policy within the world context; maybe exchange rates; Kaleckian models for the world capitalist economy? He is hoping to include quite a bit of heterodox material (maybe even some work on development and the environment from a world context). Anything you could suggest or offer would be very helpful to him and especially the epe project! His details are as follows: Email address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phil O'Hara, Department of Economics, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Australia 6001. Telephone: +61-9-351-7761 (work) +61-9-451-2618 (home) Fax: +61-9-351-3026 = === Phillip O'Hara, Department of Economics Curtin University of Technology GPO Box U1987, Perth. 6001 Australia email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: +61-9-351-3026 Tel: +61-9-351-7761 (work - message machine) : 451-2618 (home) === Encyclopedia of Political Economy === Entries in Need of Writers -- Business Cycles: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] Schumpeterian Political Economy: Major Cont. Themes [2000 words] International Political Economy: History [1700 words] Endogenous Growth and Cycles [1400 words] Rate of Return Controversy in Sraffian PE [1000 words] Methodology: History of in PE [1700 words] Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism in PE [1200] International Network for Economic Methodology [400 words] Environmental Accounting [1200 words] Social Control of Business [1200 words] Centralised Private Sector Planning System [1400 words] Financial Innovation [1500 words] Justice [1400] Conference of Socialist Economists [1000 words] Please do let me know if you are interested, or can suggest possible writers. They would have to be written by late February at the latest.
[PEN-L:8473] UnemploymentNAIRU etc.
I am having a little difficulty believing I am on a 'progressive' economics network and yet reading the stuff that is being posted. 1. during the war (2nd WW) the unemployment rate fell to around 1% without any structural and frictional constraints but within the framework of a strict f (that should be) fiscal and monetary policy framework. So it is not the economic constraints that determine the rate of unemployment, but the political (class power) constraints. 2. In the post-war studies, the Phillips curve analysis gave an approximate trade-off of 3-4% inflation for 3-5% unemployment. What has changed? What is the great structural change that caused this tradeoff to jump to this new, mythical, NAIRU (or NRU) of which there is nothing natural except the gullibility of the population and the culcability of the polititians. 3. The dual (segmented) labour market analysis is so much more sophisticated and complex than the version given here that I weep for our profession. It is frustrating to see such simplistic first-year neoclassical analysis passing off as so-called radical analysis. Get with it! Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8366] re: The Pack is Back
Just a point: the packers may be the only US football team that is community owned, but at least three CFL teams (North American pro football) are community/socially owned, including our own Winnipeg Blue Bombers. It is interesting to note that in a league that has been beset by financial problems and franchise losses, it has been the community owned that have been the most stable and the most able to retain fan support. Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
[PEN-L:8266]
([EMAIL PROTECTED] [132.241.3.10]) by for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 20:48:16 -0600 (CST) by pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu (8.8.4/8.8.4) with internal id SAA03881; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:10 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:10 -0800 (PST) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: boundary="SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu" Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure) This is a MIME-encapsulated message --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu The original message was received at Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:09 -0800 (PST) from hircismus.net.CSUChico.EDU [204.119.194.10] - The following addresses had permanent fatal errors - <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (expanded from: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) - Transcript of session follows - ... while talking to spam.ecst.csuchico.edu.: >>> RCPT To:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <<< 550 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... User unknown 550 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... User unknown --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu Reporting-MTA: dns; pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu Received-From-MTA: DNS; hircismus.net.CSUChico.EDU Arrival-Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:09 -0800 (PST) Final-Recipient: RFC822; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Action: failed Remote-MTA: DNS; spam.ecst.csuchico.edu Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:10 -0800 (PST) --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> id SAA03879 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:09 - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED] [130.179.16.47]) by for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 20:48:00 -0600 ( Date:Thu, 16 Jan 97 20:01 CST To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OMDear Pen-lers, As many of you know, there is in preparation the Encyclopaedia of Political Economy (EPE) under the general editorship of Phil Ohara at Curtin University in Perth Australia which involves quite a number on this list and also PKT. This major volume is to be published by Routledge. Unfortunately, (for various reasons) there are still a number of entries that do not have authors and as the publishing deadline is fast approaching, Phil is seeking writers and asked me to post the list of items wanting authors to this list. Now, from the discussion on this list, I know there are experts here that could write these entries in an evening, or who know who can. I appeal to them to e-mail Phil at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and offer your expertise. Paul Phillips 51. Entries in Need of Writers (as of 16 Jan 97) 53. 54. Business Cycles: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] 55. 56. Work, labor and Production: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] 57. Unions [1400 words] 58. 59. Increasing Returns to Scale [1500 words] 60. Verdoorn's Law [1200 words] 61. Okun's Law [1200 words] 62. Capital Reversing [1500 words] 63. Rate of Return Controversy [1000 words] 64. 65. Methodology: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] 66. Methodology: History of in PE [1700 words] PAUSE: 67. Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism in PE [1200] 68. International Network for Economic Methodology [400 words] 69. 70. Environmental & Ecological PE: History & Nature of [1700 words] 71. Environmental Accounting [1200 words] 72. Quality of Life [1 500 words] 73. 74. New Institutionalism [1400 words] 75. Social Control of Business [1200 words] 76. Centralised Private Sector Planning System [1400 words] 77. 78. Finance Capital [1000] 79. Financial Innovation [1500 words] 80. Crime [1500 words] 81. Justice [1400] 82. Rent Seeking and Vested Interests [1400 words] 83. Overhead Costs (J.M. Clark)[1200] 84. Conference of Socialist Economists [1000 words] 85. 86. Please do let me know if you are interested, or can suggest 87. possible writers. They would have to be written by mid-late 88. February at the latest. 89. PAUSE: 90. 91. 92. = 93. 94. Phillip O'Hara, Department of Economics 95. Curtin University of Technology 96. GPO Box U1987, Perth. 6001 Australia 97. email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 98. Fax: +61-9-351-3026 99. Tel: +61-9-351-7761 (work - message machine) 100.: 451-2618 (home) --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu--
[PEN-L:8266]
([EMAIL PROTECTED] [132.241.3.10]) by for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 20:48:16 -0600 (CST) by pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu (8.8.4/8.8.4) with internal id SAA03881; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:10 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:10 -0800 (PST) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: boundary="SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu" Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure) This is a MIME-encapsulated message --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu The original message was received at Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:09 -0800 (PST) from hircismus.net.CSUChico.EDU [204.119.194.10] - The following addresses had permanent fatal errors - <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (expanded from: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) - Transcript of session follows - ... while talking to spam.ecst.csuchico.edu.: >>> RCPT To:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <<< 550 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... User unknown 550 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... User unknown --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu Reporting-MTA: dns; pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu Received-From-MTA: DNS; hircismus.net.CSUChico.EDU Arrival-Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:09 -0800 (PST) Final-Recipient: RFC822; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Action: failed Remote-MTA: DNS; spam.ecst.csuchico.edu Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:10 -0800 (PST) --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> id SAA03879 for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 18:48:09 - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED] [130.179.16.47]) by for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 20:48:00 -0600 ( Date:Thu, 16 Jan 97 20:01 CST To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OMDear Pen-lers, As many of you know, there is in preparation the Encyclopaedia of Political Economy (EPE) under the general editorship of Phil Ohara at Curtin University in Perth Australia which involves quite a number on this list and also PKT. This major volume is to be published by Routledge. Unfortunately, (for various reasons) there are still a number of entries that do not have authors and as the publishing deadline is fast approaching, Phil is seeking writers and asked me to post the list of items wanting authors to this list. Now, from the discussion on this list, I know there are experts here that could write these entries in an evening, or who know who can. I appeal to them to e-mail Phil at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and offer your expertise. Paul Phillips 51. Entries in Need of Writers (as of 16 Jan 97) 53. 54. Business Cycles: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] 55. 56. Work, labor and Production: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] 57. Unions [1400 words] 58. 59. Increasing Returns to Scale [1500 words] 60. Verdoorn's Law [1200 words] 61. Okun's Law [1200 words] 62. Capital Reversing [1500 words] 63. Rate of Return Controversy [1000 words] 64. 65. Methodology: Major Contemporary Themes [2000 words] 66. Methodology: History of in PE [1700 words] PAUSE: 67. Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism in PE [1200] 68. International Network for Economic Methodology [400 words] 69. 70. Environmental & Ecological PE: History & Nature of [1700 words] 71. Environmental Accounting [1200 words] 72. Quality of Life [1 500 words] 73. 74. New Institutionalism [1400 words] 75. Social Control of Business [1200 words] 76. Centralised Private Sector Planning System [1400 words] 77. 78. Finance Capital [1000] 79. Financial Innovation [1500 words] 80. Crime [1500 words] 81. Justice [1400] 82. Rent Seeking and Vested Interests [1400 words] 83. Overhead Costs (J.M. Clark)[1200] 84. Conference of Socialist Economists [1000 words] 85. 86. Please do let me know if you are interested, or can suggest 87. possible writers. They would have to be written by mid-late 88. February at the latest. 89. PAUSE: 90. 91. 92. = 93. 94. Phillip O'Hara, Department of Economics 95. Curtin University of Technology 96. GPO Box U1987, Perth. 6001 Australia 97. email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 98. Fax: +61-9-351-3026 99. Tel: +61-9-351-7761 (work - message machine) 100.: 451-2618 (home) --SAA03881.853469290/pitbull.ecst.csuchico.edu--
[PEN-L:8175] Farriers
I hope it was on Pen-l and not PKT but there has been a stream that has disparaged farriers (for the unitiated, working class people who treat horses feet -- formerly known as blacksmiths.) This is totally inappropriate. First of all, if you have ever done it as I have, it is backbreaking work. Farriers should be praised as the greatest of the working class. But, I think that the real reason is that readers of this list think that riding horses is a luxury, a measure of moral degradation, a sinful extravegance that should be taxed out of existance. Well, you are nuts. I have two horses for the purpose of playing polo. It is an ecologically benign sport (unlike most other sports) which gives me and the horses great pleasure. (You don't think they like it? Well come and see me when I yell into the pasture "polo" and they come running up to be saddled.) My wife and I have also ridden the (fox) hunt (not a live hunt) for a number of years which the horses really enjoy. So don't knock the farriers. They also do the feet of the so-called "working-horses", the heavy (draught) horses that are still used here, and the light horses that are still used in Ontario by the Old Order Mennonites as their prime sources of transporation and motive power. And they do the feet of my horses that are my prime recreation vehicle. Far more ecologically benign than those of you who play golf or ride bycycles on paved hiways. Nayhh! Paul Paul Phillips University College, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:8173] Long Waves -- and a better question
It seems to me that this whole discussion is taking place around a very limited understanding of long wave/swing theory, of which Schumpeter's model is only one (of many) theoretical variants. First, there is the implication in this stream that there is some form of cyclical nature to this phenomena (which by the way is developed statistically in some detail and with impressive econometric evidence in van Duijn's book, _The Long Wave in Economic Life_) but there are two views on that. One is that the long wave is sinisoidal (i.e. wave-like) implying that the upswing is a consequence of the downswing; the other that it is sigmoidal, implying that each wave has a unique initiating factor. The first, for instance, is implicit in the Social Structure of Accumulation model where institutional change is endogeous, the second in people like Mandel and the French Regulationists where change is exogenous, or at least not determinate in the model but determined by war, autonomous technological change, etc. Models have been developed for technological change -- e.g. the "septic tank" model that requires the buildup of a minimum quantum of investment inducing opportunities to promote a "fountain" of investment. Others that deal with investment in infrastructure that, using purely mathematical models, produces 'waves' of economic acitivity (e.g. Forrester). The SSA model utilizes the delays in the adjustment o institutions for the periodization of the long wave phenomena. In fact, the Schumpeterian explanation is one of the weaker models of long-waves, though it can be utilized quite well to explain long-wave development cycles/swings. There is a host of theoretical models, some of the best being developed by our late and greatly lamented colleague, David Gordon. Since I have taught a graduate seminar in Long Wave, Social Structure and Regulation Theory, I would be willing to share my reading list with anyone really interested. But, be forwarned, it is long and may take some time before I can send it. To Doug and Barkley, I think you should move beyond the very limited Schumpeter model and look at a lot of the other models and explanations of long waves in economic activity. If nothing else, it makes great heuristic tools/ Paul Paul Phillips, University College, University of Manitoba.
[PEN-L:7941] Cuba
I, like many others on the list, were someone taken aback by Louis' outrageous reaction to what to me seemed to be a very important and interesting question posed by Peter. Nor did I take Peter's question to be some sort of Hayekian theoretical response to Louis narrative of events in Cuba, but rather a practical question, what was the role of central planning and the market in Cuban economy and how is the central planning function made operational. Indeed, for economists interested in policy in socialist, or potential socialist, economies, these are important issues that have been under debate for most of this century. While obviously, they have become more important since the demise of the Stalinist command system and the renewed interest in market socialism, they have been present since the debate over the NEP in the 1920s. I, for one, would like to see some debate on this issue -- and some description of the planning mechanism in Cuba -- preferably after the next week (as many people will have signed off for the holidays, including myself). In some of the discussions I have read recently, planning in a market socialist system should (an can?) only be indicative planning. Others, hold to the view that only the capital market need be comprehensively planned (a la Lange). As I understand what is happening in the foodmarkets of Cuba today, basic subsistence levels are planned and distributed outside of the market, surplus to these needs distributed by the market. In any case, I hope to visit Cuba in the relatively near future and wonder if anyone has any contacts among economists in or around Havana who speak English and might be will to spend a few hours with a visiting economist interested exactly in this issue -- how much market and how much plan, and how is plan implemented. Someone who wants to know (really Louis!) Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:7812] Stiglitz to WB
Doug writes: >are the probems of the third world the result of >information asymetry? Yea, Doug: They know more about the US than the US does about them. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:7811] Serbian Crisis
Just a quick response to Barkley and Sid. According to local news reports, the workers did not support some union leaders' calls to join the demonstrations, which doesn't surprise me very much. In the interviews with the workers, they were more concerned with work and wages (and a fear of losing their jobs) than they were with the political basis of the demonstrations. As to the dominant faction in the demonstrations, in all the pictures in the newspapers here, the dominate face on the signs the protesters are carrying is that of Vuk Draskovic, the Serbian ultranationalist leader. Some other were Serbian Orthodox Church posters. I did not mean to imply that the US was directly involved in the organization of the original demonstrations, though since they have occurred the US has obviously been backing the opposition with threats to the Milosevic government of economic sanctions etc. (Interestingly, when similar numbers of Canadian workers carried off demonstrations in Toronto and Hamilton protesting neo-liberal economic oppression on the poor and the public in Canada, the US pretended it didn't even notice. Shades of Milosevic). What I meant is that the US has been carrying on a campaign of destabilization agains Yugoslavia, past and present, for 6 or 7 years and will not giveup until it has a captive, rightwing government in place. Milosevic, whatever his faults, is not a US puppet. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:7742] Re: Opposition in Serbia
A short response to Barkley's queries and Marianne's brief comment. First in direct response to Barkley's question about "to what extent does workers' management survive in Servia?" Unfortunately, I have to say, I don't know. I was supposed to visit Yugoslavia this spring but because of a mixup in arrangements, I got only as far as Slovenia and a weekend on the Croation coast. That was one of the things I had wanted to investigate. The last time I was there, which was one week before the sanctions were imposed, the state of affairs was somewhat confused -- as they usually are these days in Serbia. Officially, self-management had ended and the managers were in control, in capitalist style. Unofficially, according to the managers I talked to, although not required to do so they had maintained their workers' councils as managing boards so that, in effect, there was little change. But that was -- what is it, 4 years ago? What has happened since I do not know. I suspect a lot will depend on how effective the unions have been in maintaining a position of power in the workplace. This certainly has been a significant factor in Slovenia. I shudder a little at the prospect of the current opposition coming to power. If the news reports we get here are accurate -- and given my experience with the reporting throughout the Bosnian conflict, I don't have that much confidence -- but if true, the leader of the opposition is Vuk Draskovic who, as you may remember, was the right-wing nationalist who exerted strong pressure on Milosevic to promote Serbian nationalist goals, in collaboration with the Orthodox Church. As the war went on, he moved somewhat to the centre, in part to distance himself from the neo-fascist Sesl and the Serbian Radical Party. However, the liberal-democratic opposition that was supported by many of my academic friends, was fragmented, weak, and unable to mobilize any popular support, in large measure because it was led by ivory tower academics more concerned with theoretical debate that popular organizing. I would suspect, however, that the opposition may not have much support among the rural Serb population where Milosevic did have a strong power base. Among the blue collar workers, it is more problematic I suspect. With 40% (?) unemployment, it may well be highly divided. In some respects, the opposition reminds me of the Tianamen Sq. protests though I would not expect with the same final results. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the US is supporting the opposition or even that it may have been involved in organizing the protests. But if it serves to bring to power the people who the news reports suggest are behind it, this may not be good news for the people of Yugoslavia or for the regions. But then the death and destruction wrought by US policy in the former Yugoslavia is so enormous and sickening that a little dose of killing and starvation in Serbia would hardly be noticed. On a different, but related, topic, it is interesting to note that the Anglican (Episcopal) Church of Canada has advised its members not to take winter holidays in the US but to holiday in Cuba as a Christian gesture to oppose Helms-Burton and American imperialism against Cuba and the starvation of the Cuban people. (This is the same church that in Britain is known as the Conservative Party at Prayers!) Dovidjenje, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:7205] pomo and opera
Maggie, Are you really saying that when you really found out what the pomos were saying that you gave up reading them entirely? Don't blame you, but the music is still beautiful! Paul
[PEN-L:7160] Pomo and Opera
Bill mitchell likened the understanding of pomo with that of opera and the need for "translation". On that I do agree. I did publish a couple of articles in the leading Canadian post modern journal (which has since died due I believe to lack of subscription support) but, to be honest, the only articles I understood were those I wrote myself. I find the language of post modernism to be inpenetrable, not unlike the abstract math of modern neoclassicism. I keep asking students and colleagues alike -- "what does it mean in terms of the behaviour of people.?" Usually, the answer is as inarticulate as the original. And that brings me to my favourite topic, opera. Since bill is a jazz fan, I can be an opera fan. Yes he is absolutely correct. The opera introduced "surtitles", a projection of a short translation of the libretto (words) on a screen over the stage to allow those people (the majority) who do not speak or understand the language the opera is being sung in, to follow the story line of the opera and to understand the language and emotions of what was being sung at the time. Surtitles were first introduced by the Canadian Opera Company which was the pioneer in the field in the 1970s I believe. The Manitoba Opera Company introduced them shortly afterwards, when I was vice president in charge of production and as a result of my motion that we introduce surtitles in order to make opera more accessible to young people and the "great unwashed" who had neither the time nor money to buy and study translations etc. As a matter of fact, for a number of years I did the translations of the texts from Italian or French and reduced the total text down to a "running simultaneous translation" that made narrative (and poetic) sense without trying to translate every word. We then transferred all the text to slides and I keyed every slide to the appropriate bar of music in the score. During the opera, I (or someone who read music) sat beside the camera person and told him/her when to change the slide as the music progressed. (You can't do it with a computer because different singers and different conductors on different nights sing the opera at different rates, never mind that the audience applauds longer on different nights -- eg longer on Saturdays and shorter on Tuesdays.) Some, perhaps even bill, might say why not sing it all in English. Well, I am not a snob and am quite comfortable with opera in english. Many companies make that kind of compromise -- particularly the English National Opera which I think does all its productions in English. Unfortunately it is not that simple. I remember going to a production of Nabucco in Ljubljana where the principles sang in Italian and the chorus sang in Slovenian. Since I had just sung the opera as a member of the chorus in Italian, I had some difficulty in following the Slovenian chorus version. Nevertheless the music was, as always, beautiful. But the point is, the way opera is written is that the libretto (the poetry) was usually written first and then given to the composer who fitted the music to the words. It is difficult, then, to translate the words to fit the music. If you read some of the English translations of words for existing music, it is quite ludicrous, sometimes even changing the meaning itself. The fact is, french music is writen in the cadence of french language, Italian music to Italian language, German music to german language, Russian music to russian language etc. For the recitative (the chanted dialogue between arias and ensembles) translation is not usually a problem. For the arias and ensembles it is. In some cases we do the ultimate compromise -- sing therecitative in English and the set musical pieces in the original language. So what has all this to do with pomo. Well, surely they (or someone) has to translate their foreign tongue into one the majority of us can understand. Unless they do, they will be like the conservative opera companies, catering only to those who know the language, or who care only for the sound and not for the content. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:6771] Urban Growth and Professional Sports
Dear Pen-ers, Not that long ago there was a discussion on the net of the relation between public expenditure on professional sports facilities and urban welfare (I forget how defined). A PhD student came to me today to ask about formal models of urban economic growth with respect to professional sports teams as "infrastructure" for a "world class city". I argued that, in fact, professional teams tended to be *negative* externalities relative to amateur teams which is the opposite of which the city and the (right-wing) provincial government argued when they wasted 30 million supporting the Winnipeg Jets for the year before the private owners negotiated the best price to sell (Interestingly, the owners transferred legal ownership out of the province to a numbered company in Quebec during the time so they could avoid paying capital gains taxes on the transactions.) But all of this is perhaps irrelevant. Our student wants to know, what is the litterature about urban models of sports (cultural) expenditure on subsidies and/or infrastructure on economic growth (welfare?). He is interested on the concept of "externalities" in the provision of sports (cultural/recreational) teams/facilities rather than the more usual multiplier effects of such expenditures. You may reply to me privately at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or, if you think this is of more general interest, to the list. My (and Our student's thanks), Paul Phillips, Economics and Labour Studies, University of Manitoba. Winnipeg, Manitoba. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:6599] re: Big Mac Attack
On most occassions I agree with Doug. But now I am confused. Within the last couple of weeks two empty blocks at the end of my block have been cleared and new construction begun. One, is to construct a new McDonalds outlet -- the other to construct a new Wendy's" outlet. Now I shouldn't let personal preferences dictate but I have never ever liked any McDonalds product. (When I visit my grandchildren I always give them the option, any restaurant except McDonalds) But I realize as an economist that they are the market leader. (God knows why). Now Doug is arguing that they are competitive? I find this quite ludicrous. There is oligopistic competition ( go read Galbraith) but it should probably be better described as rivalry rather than competition which,for better or worse, has become typified in neoclassical economics. Once one accepts a non-comptetive product model (and labour model), the whole edifice of neoclassical minimum wage analysis becomes a crock of ... Why are we even bothering?
[PEN-L:6070] re: rethinking overdetermination
I am a little suprised at a kind of a-historicism and cultural insensitivity of Bill and Doug with respect to both classical music (in particular opera) and fold music a la Seeger et al. With respect to opera, Verdi's music was considered so politically dangerous by the elite that he was heavily censored on a number of occasions by the political authorities. Case in point was the original version of Un Ballo in Maschera (Masked Ball) which involved the murder of royalty in Sweden -- he was forced to change it to a murder of a politician in Boston if I remember correctly -- with the bad guys named Sam and Tom. He was, himself, politically active being elected a senator after the unification of Italy as a liberal though he resigned because he did not like political life. However, his songs for the freedom of enslaved (read political) peoples were extremely powerful and extremely popular with the common people and a rallying cry against political despotism. Two pieces, in particular, became quite famous for their appeal to the masses, the chorus of the oppressed from McBeth, but most particularly, the chorus of the Hebrew slaves from Nabucco. It was the anthem of the revolutionary movement in Italy and when Verdi died, his funeral procession was lined with hundreds of thousands of working Italians who all new and sang it as the procession passed by (Va pensiero!). If you have ever heard it or sung it, it really 'swings' and gives one goosebumps. It is still so popular that Nana Mouskouri wrote an upbeat 'freedom' version of it and released it on one of her most recent "Classique" album. I heard her sing it at a sold-out concert a few years ago in Winnipeg -- and the people at the concert were not 'the elite' but mainly working-class people. So a great deal of that music can, and still does, move common people. Another case in point, at the local folk-music, jazz and local rock performance centre, each year near easter, they sponsor a "sing-along" Handel's Messiah. The place is packed and, believe me, not with the hoi poloi -- though the conductor is usually the conductor of the Ballet co. By the way, one of the most recent popular CDs released in Winnipeg is a jazz trio, featuring the piano jazz of the conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony orchestra. Now as to folk music. Bill is a little young to remember, but for many of us the Weavers were what woke us up to political action. And I can remember marching in the aldermaston anti-bomb marches in London in the early 1960s with 44-50,000 people singing "ban the bomb forever more" which was originally based on a Welsh children's hymn "Calon Lan" and taken by Welsh miners to the US where it became both a white gospel song and, in turn, the miners union song, "union miner". Over the last few years I have sung with both the local opera company and with the Winnipeg labour choir, a choir put together orignally to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. When we sang at one union function and ended with the labour anthem "solidarity forever", the labour audience jumped to their feet their fists in the air and sang along, some with tears running down their cheeks. So don't tell me that kind of music doesn't have the power to inspire and to bring emotion to people, including a lot of young people. At the winnipeg folk festival this year there were 30,000 people -- a hell of a lot of them teen agers. An when a Celtic bank started a fast number, there would be a thousand of them dancing in the grass. So don't tell me it doesn't swing either. By the way, if it makes any difference, one of my favourite performers is Bruce Springsteen. Have any of you listened to his latest, "The Ghost of Tom Joad". Time to go listen to some music. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:5895] Medicare
A short respose to Shawgi Tell on Canadian medicare. 1st, there are difficulties, primarily with reduction in funding by the Federal government (though the provinces are not blameless here). 2nd, there was a great need for reform in the system since it discouraged _pre_ventative medicine in favour of crisis intervention medicine and it encouraged high cost institutional care rather than home care and other alternatives. 3rs, there is a real bias toward capital intensive hospital care in our system -- a bias that is expensive and, in medical terms, inefficient. The problem is that these probems can not be addressed easily at the federal level which can only dictate the level of funding. Furthermore, the real escalation of costs has been in the cost of drugs that have skyrocketed since Canada gave in to American pressure and extended the patent protection to international drug companies such that the cost of drugs now exceeds the cost of physician services in Canada. In order to dealwith this problem, we will probably have to cancel the Can-US free trade agreement. This may be a necessary precondition of providing affordable health care in Canada -- and probably the US as well. Nevertheless, Shawgi Tell's analysis is symplistic and does little to help us save medicare in Canada. On the line for health care, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:5033] Payroll taxes
I have been invited to do an article for the local newspaper on the pros and cons of payroll taxes and their effects on employment. Does anyone on the list have suggestions for studies, articles, etc. that they could recommend? Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:3674] Graduate Schools in Sustainable Development
Pen-lers, I have a student -- a very good student -- who is looking for a university to do a graduate degree in. She is interested in a non-neoclassical approach to environmental economics and sustainable development. She has a particular interest in institutional economics as a framework for further theoretical work in this context. She asked me for advice as to where I would recommend she might apply to -- not necessarily this year, but next year when she finishes her honours degree. She is not limited to North America, only to English speaking institutions. Can some on the list give me suggestions of where she might consider applying? Thanks, Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:3329] Bercuson
Ken Hanley posted a negative review of David Bercuson's work yesterday on the net. I would like to qualify somewhat this view. Bercuson did some quite excellent work early in his career. He worked with Kenneth McNaught,a well respected social democratic historian, in his PhD thesis on the Winnipeg General Strike. His book on the One Big Union _Fools and Wisemen_, though not without problems, is still a very good book. I contributed to his collection on Canadian federalism, more years ago than I want to mention, though I still think the volume is worth reading. (Hey, naked promotionism!). However, I think his more recent work is rightwing, nativist (in the worst sence) and anti-intellectual. I consider it rather sad to see the degeneration of a rather accomplished scholar to a kind of narrow "reformer". But then, I have been told that the whole history department at Calgary (devastated by cutbacks) has been reduced to a department of regimental military historians celebrating death and gore in the past, and ignoring society, past and present. In sorrow, Paul Phillips
[PEN-L:3246] Classics
At Manitoba we require history of thought at the honours level as a requirement for an honours degree. Anyone entering the PhD program is required either to have honours level history or thought and at least one course in economic history, or if the student doesn't have them on entry, must take one full year of history of thought and one full year of economic history. We, therefore, offer history of thought at the 4th year honours level every year, and a graduate course every other year. But then we also teach graduate and honours level theory courses in alternative macro (post Keynesian and Marxian) and alternative micro (Marxian and Neo-Ricardian). In all these various courses, the classics are read in the original. Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:2872] property and brogas
I have to agree totally wil Leo Casey "The notion that property can be enforced as antything less than a civil right, that is, within the state, (!!!)is, quite simply, dead wrong." My point exactly. And for those of you who don't know about Brolgas (from Barkeley's post), here is the verse from my favourite song: "The pelican and the crane they came in from the plain, to amuse the company with a Higland fling; The dear old bandicoot played a tune apon his flute, and the native bears sat round them in a ring. The BROGA and the crow san a son of long ago, The frill-necked lizard listened with a smile, and the Emu standing near with his claw up to his ear, Said, "Funniest thing I've heard for quite a while." Ask Bill what a Broga looks like! (Steeve might be able to help?) Mishiveously, Paul, Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:2858] Rousseau on property
I am afraid that my rather crude attempt at levity on this matter was taken rather too seriously than I intended by Justin. At the same time, there was a point behind it. I object to the idea that property rights are "granted" by the state. Indeed, I would argue (and this is the point of the quote from justice Bazalon) that the causation is the reverse -- the state was created to protect the rights of private property. The courts have merely given the stamp of legal protection to property rights claimed by those who have already accumulated property. This was the point of the quote of Proudhon and was in keeping with the "quotes of the day" from St. Thomas More and (help me out Peter), St. 'A'. And, to finish it off, my slogan "expropriate wealth" was in keeping with the belief, so strongly advance by Trond, and supported by Judaic teaching, in the necessity of a 'jubilee'. But, perhaps I missed something? Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:2841] Rousseau on property
Why are we quoting this long dead promoter of individualism? Why not Proudhon? "Property is Theft"! Or, why not look at contemporary American jurisprudence. "Property is never for long anything more or, really, anything different from what some politically appointed court says it is." (David Bazelon, in David Mermelstein, ECONOMICS, (1970)). "Expropriate wealth!" Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
