[PEN-L:12346] Re: Re: Some sponsors of Johns Hopkins Institute forPolicy Studies

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:21 PM 10/4/99 -0400, Michael Hoover wrote:
>> Polish Solidarity, in many
>> ways the prototype for the anticommunist movements that swept Eastern
>> Europe in the name of free markets and Civil Society. The intellectuals who
>> participated in these movements had a deep hatred for Stalinism and instead
>> of opting for democratic socialism, they became convinced that a marriage
>> of Jeffrey Sach's economic ideas and liberal democracy would work. 
>> Louis Proyect
>
>While I don't disagree about the role that dissident intellectuals in the 
>Committee for Worker Defense (KOR) ended up playing (and it is ikely that, 
>for some, the demand for free trade unions was always about establishing 
>Western-model), I maintain that Solidarity's origins were in Polish 
>workers asserting their primacy, in effect, justifying tactic of mass 
>strike as championed by Rosa Luxemburg.  Of course, the movement would be 
>transformed - Walesa emerged as most visible leader, perceiving himself 
>to be voice of moderation, later martial law was imposed, including 
>imprisonment.  Solidarity that Jaruzelski legalized in 1988 and that won 
>99 out of 100 seats in Senate in 1989 was quite different grouping.   


Michael, I am surprised that you responded to this hogwash.  It is one
thing to have a bona fide debate on worker's movements around the world
that often include religious, conservative, nationalistic, or pro-US
overtones and a quite different thing to respond to insinuations posted by
a snitch for the sole purpose of character assassination.  Let's stick to
the former withour giving the legitimacy to the latter.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12343] Re: Some observations on leadership, was Re: NGOs...

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:34 PM 10/4/99 -0500, Carroll Cox wrote:
>
>Your phrase "self-appointed leaders" (or at least its evaluative
implications)
> however id obscurantist. *All* leaders are in the first instance self-
>appointed -- or should we say self-nominated. Those led of course make
>the final decision on who leads, but without that self-nominating rpocess
>this option of approving or rejecting would not be available. (This is one
>of the subtopics on which *WITBD* retains current validity.) And one
>feature which, at least at times, characterizes successful self-appointed
>leaders is their capacity to identify groups actively seeking such
>leadership. The classical example, I believe, is *Report on an
>Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan*.


-- snip ---

Carroll, let's keep separate things separated.  There is a difference
between a genuine social movement -- i.e. one that has real support in a
population or its segment -- and one that exists mostly in the imagination
of moral entrepreneurs striving for a recognition.  It is my opinion that
Louis Proyect not only is an example of the latter, but a very unscrupulous
one the top of it.  He seems to specialize in inquisitorial personal
attacks and smear campaigns against people to whom he imputes inferior
motives.  See for example his posting [PEN-L:11948] Open letter to NACLA,
Susan Lowes and Jack Hammond to which nobody except myself bothered to
respond.  I am quite surprised that this snitch, his provocations and
character assassinations are taken seriously or even tolerated on this
listserv.  I guess it is a sad testimony to the state of mind of many
"Leftists" in this country who cannot tell shit from an argument anymore.

While we are at that, my critique is not intended just against
personalities like those of Proyect and others, but but against the
practice of moral entreprenurship that in my view started to dominate the
Left discourse.  It seems to me that many Left intellectuals do not have
much to say anymore, other than knee-jerk contumacy and nostalgic longing
for the glorious struggles of the past, but they still have ambitions to a
celebrity or a leadership status.  So to cover up their intellectual
shallowness and having nothing to contribute, moral entrepreneurs use a
strategy of highjacking the issues that carry some currency in the broad
population, and use them as vehicles for self-promotion.


The trick lies in selecting an issue that raises general condemnation, and
then to distinguish oneself from the crowd by adopting a holier-than-thou
attitude toward that issue, usually by expressing self-righteousness,
making grossly exaggerated claims and personal attacks against anyone who
is insufficiently zealous.  One of such issues, perhaps the most hackneyed
one since even the Republicans oppose it, is racism.  Others include school
violence, gender inequality, foreign policy, the Holocaust, etc.  

Since all these are real issues and real grievances - it is difficult to
expose faux claims made mainly for self-promotion without provoking a
suspicion, fueled by the angry accusations of the moral entrepreneurs
themselves, of being insensitive to or even denying the real issues.  The
signs to look for include: inquisitorial zeal and angry accusations,
exaggerated, grandiose, all-embracing claims, treating disagreement as a
personal offense, self-righteousness, high volume of personal attacks in
debating issues, reliance on dogmatic interpretations of scriptures rather
than on empirical support in making a point, cock-sure certainty in making
pronouncements, blurring the distinction between facts and personal
interpretation of them, and equating personal views with the interests and
views of the claimed constituencies.  To add flesh nad blood to this
argument, the postings to this list and pen-l by Blaut, Brown, Furuhashi,
and Proyect often exhibit all or most of these signs od moral entreprenurship.

 

wojtek

[PEN-L:12320] Is the Left brain-dead? (more on social effects)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

The Proyect's Revolutionary Project has been innundating this list with
various posting whose common theme is claiming a social effect of some
demon manufactured by the self-appointed warlocks of the revolutionary
struggle.  First, we heard about the effects of colonialism on European
development, then he pulls a Petras claiming the evil effects of NGOs on
developing societies.  

The Petras's piece, in essence, tells us several anecdotes about NGO
cooperation with the authorities in Latin American countries, sparkled with
vagues insinuations about external fundings, and concluding from that
"evidence" that NGOs played a significant role in depoliticizng the
revolutiuonary impetus of the masses.  Let's leave aside the
pseudo-revolutionary jargon of this piece and focus on its way of arguing
instead.  These anecdotes, if true and accurate, show that some voluntary
agencies have other goals than fighting a revolutionary war.  But we do not
know how representative these anecdotes are of the whole NGO sector, and
more importantly, what is the effect of that sector on  society and
political process, including a revolution.

To show the claimed effect of subverting the revolutionary masses, Petras
must demonstrate two things:

1. That there is a reasonably expected course of a revolution (or radical
political action) that the massess would most likely follow; ie. the masses
would engage in some vagues hinted by Petras form of class war instead of
pursuing a course of action they have actually taken, such negotiations,
comprimise, and political reforms; and

2. The NGOs had and "effect" on that revolutionary struggle, that is, they
either altered the revolutionary potential itself, or the course of action
Petras envisioned for that region.


How can these two claims be demonstrated empirically?  One way of
demonstrating claim # 1 is comparing several countires that shared similar
conditions, such as similar type of economy, similar demographic and
geogrpahic characteristics, similar social institutions, similar type of
social conflicts, similar outside influences - and similar outcomes - that
is, outbreak of a revolutionary struggle.  On that grounds we can say that
since conditions ABCD lead to several revolutions in the past, we can
reasonably expect that these conditions will produce a similar results in
the future.  Such a consluions is by no means certain, but at least it is
plausible.  In fact such arguments have been constructed (cf. Jeffery
Paige, _Agrarian revolution : social movements and export agriculture in
the underdeveloped world_).

Second, to demonstrate the claimed effect of NGOs on this revolutionary
struggle, we would proceeed in  a similar fashion.  That is, we would
instances of countries that have conditions ABCD as outlined above, and
then countries having conditions ABCD as above + strong presence of NGOs
and no revolutionary outcome. Based on that evidence we could then conclude
that the NGO presence has an inhibiting effect on revolutionary struggle.

However, the self-appointed revolutionary leaders and their upper west side
mouthpieces do not want to be bothered by facts.  The inevitability of the
revolution is proclaimed ex cathedra as a given.  Anyone who does not
belive that is a reactionary, a racist, and an agent of eurocentric
pseudo-science.

And the inhibiting effect of NGOs?  Obvioulsy the revolution did not break
out as the self-appointed revolutionaries had predicted, so someone must
have sabotaged it (being conspirators themsleves, those morons are
apparently incapable of thinking in other than conspiratiorial terms).  But
who?  Let the inquisition determine it based on the usual selection
criteria: anecdotal evidence and political animosity.  The likely suspect
is selected based on political animosity, and then anecdotal evidence is
concocted showing the "anti-revolutionary" nature of that suspect.  That is
enough of the "revolutionary justice" - guilty as charged and a bullet in
back of the head.

I find it really surprising that otherwise intelligent people on this list
fall for such bullshit.  Is the Left totally brain-dead?

wojtek



  

[PEN-L:12305] Re: RE: NGOs are the source of all evil in the world

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:51 PM 10/4/99 -0400, Nathan Newman wrote:
>As I argued, there are wonderful people in many NGOs, often more wonderful
>than many of the union bureaucrats who frustrate and piss off anyone with
>progressive views.  But the difference is that the funding constituences for
>most political NGOs exert profoundly conservative limits on those wonderful
>NGOs, while the working class member-funders of unions ultimately exert
>radicalizing and anti-elite pressure on those union bureaucrats.  And it's
>by socialism from below inclination that leads me to bet on the union
>bureaucrats with the right poltical pressures over the nice NGO leaders
>accountable to profoundly conservative forces.


Nathan, three quick points.

1.  I think you are exaggerating the evel of private funding of nonprofit
activities.  In most countries, private giving - which includes both
wealthy sponsors as well as small-timo donors, falls well below 10% of all
revenues - in the US it is a big higher - about 13%.  Most of the money
(90%+) comes from service fees, sales of goods, membership dues etc.  and
government service contracts.  In most cases, private money is not only a
minor revenue source, but comes from multiple sources, which furtehr
dilutes the influence of individual donors.

2. The influence of nonprofits, NGOs and voluntary associations on politics
and political participation is far from being established.  Although the
argument that NGOs "absorb" the radical energies flows around from time to
time, it seems to be mostly a "sour-grapes" rant of the self-appointed
leaders of the proleteriat without any empirical support.  A much better
empirically supported view (including my own) comes from social
mobilization theories of  movement participation, which claims that
partcipation in voluntary associations creates social connectedness that
facilitases participation in other forms of collective action.  

Moreover, voluntary associations are not a uniform category - they include
a whole range of entities with diffrent political orientation, agendas,
etc.  Many such associations engage in government lobbying on behalf of
their consitituencies.  Of course, "true revolutionaries" lurking in the
lunatic quarters of the internet scorn such reformist policies, but the
fact of the matter is that such lobbying is perhaps the most direct form of
political participation in a democratic society.  

Moreover, volunatary organizations sometiems enter into cross-national
coalitions to increase their political clout vis a vis their domestic
governments.

 
As to the connection of voluntary associations and labor issues, i think
that the mobilizing aspect of such association can only benefit unionism,
In fact, AFL-CIO under Sweeney tries to built a network of progressive
organizations (e.g. Jobs with Justice coalition).


3.  Voluntary organizations do not form a unified bloc - they represent a
multitude of interests, some conservative, other liberal, still other
parogressive and radical.  Moreover, different organizations operate in
different ways, some form self-help groups, other provide services, still
other lobby political authorities, buld coalitions, disseminate information
etc.  Not only different organizations push in different political
directions, but different types of efforts can have much different effect
under diffrent social, political or cultural conditions.  In that light
claiming tha these organizations have a single general effect, good or bad,
on society and polity is simply bullshit - babbling of people who want to
attract popularity but do not have much to say.


In any case, there is much hoopla about 'civil society' and its supposedly
beneficial effects, but there is much confusion about what 'civil society'
is, and thre is even less solid empirical evidence of what that effect, if
any, actually is.  I agree that much of that talk is simply
public-relations campaign and wishful thinking designed to divert attention
from government failures to provide adequate puiblic services. But that
does not mean that all that is but empty talk, let alone a conspiracy of
subvert the revolution, as the lunatic left maintains.  Voluntary
association can be and are a valuable resource for labor organizing and
progressive coalition building.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12300] Re: Re: China had no mechanical clocks

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:36 AM 10/4/99 -0700, Ricardo Duchesne wrote:
>> That's what he says! But Blaut, of course, has no serious answers to
>> the fact that China never invented a mechanical clock, so he wraps
>> his arguments in false accusations, misreadings, and emotional -
>> unscholarly - remarks about eurocentrism. Obviously, he will let this
>> criticism pass, too,



So why do you keep responding to his missives?  Would you also try to
convince an X-files fan that UFOs do not exist and there is no government
conspiracy to cover that existence up?

Sometimes silence tells more than thousand words.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12296] Re: Wojtek's Works? (was Re: Jim Petras on Imperialismand NGO's)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:43 PM 10/2/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Max wrote:
>>LP has yet to give
>>any sign that he has read one word of Wojtek's academic
>>work, or of anyone else's at JHU/IPS.
>
>Actually, I'm a bit curious as to what Wojtek has written as an academic.
>I don't intend to engage in any personal attack on this list at all (any
>difference that I have with him, I've already expressed elsewhere).  It's
>just a matter of idle curiousity -- does he publish the sort of arguments
>that he has offered on this and other e-lists, for instance, on race &
>racism?  My hope is that he's mainly published on the issue of public
>transportation or something like that.
>
>Yoshie


Yoshie, appearnetly you showed no interest in my academic work before that
snitch Proyect started his intrigues to smear me through guilt by
association.  How strange, espcially that there are computerized databases
allowing literature search.  Aren't you familar about their existence, or
you simply want to second Proyect's inquisition project? 

A point of clairification - there is a clear difference in my mind between
race/ racism and the perception of race/racism by members of this listserv.
  I understand that this diffrence might not exist in the minds of the
self-appointed fearless leadres of the proletariat, such as yourslef and
couple of others on this list, who never doubt that their perceptions are
anythig but the true and accurate depition of reality.  I do not share such
a view - most of what your comments refer to pertained to the opinions of
selected listserv members, including your own, on the subject matter -
which in my opinion either border with delusions or are self-promotion
tricks by manufacturing controversy. 

wojtek

 

[PEN-L:12294] Re: RE: NGOs are the source of all evil in the world(RE: S

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:17 AM 10/2/99 -0400, Nathan wrote:
>That is what philanthropic funding does - it creates clear markings between
>those issues and expression that are acceptable - by giving them money and a
>greater political megaphone - versus those views that are unacceptable and
>marginalized.
>

-- snip ---

>
>No, you are compromised in the academy because you lack democratic
>accountability.  In Gramscian terms, such academic intellectuals
>systematically displace the voices of more "organic" intellectuals who are
>rooted in the mass movements.  Just as NGO leaders - often just such organic
>intellectuals - often dovetail their advocacy to attract philanthropic
>funds, so too do academic intellectuals tailor their views to attract
>research dollars, advancement in career or other benefits.  Now the
>tailoring in the academy may take the form of following postmodernist
>currents of research, using multivariate regression number-crunching or
>following whatever form of academic rhetoric is considered most prestigious
>at any time, but in any case, the intellectual advocacy in academic responds
>quite decisively and obviously to a whole host of pressures that belie any
>comment that it lacks compromise.


Nathan - I generally respect what you post to this list, so do not let the
X-files rhetoric of the Proyect Brigades obscure and confuse the subject
matter being discussed.  There is a big big diffrence between charity,
philanthropy and NGOs (the latter term is used mainly outside the US and
often as an oppostion to philanthropic charity), nonprofit organizations,
and social movement organizations.  In fact, philanthropic funding is a
minor source of revenues of nonprofit revenues.  Moreover, most nonprofits
(a concept different from NGO) provide specific services to local
communities (like health, social work, job training or economic
development) that have nothing to do with politics. Most of their revenues
come from fees they charge for their services and government subsidies on
behalf of individual recipients of those service (especially high in
Europe).  

NGOs, especially in Latin America and Eastern Europe can be best described
as social movement organizations, as they grew out of social movements.
While it is true that some NGOs receive Soros money, most foreign suport
for such entities come from European Community government programs, such as
PHARE.

The bottom line is that if you want to have a rational debate on the role
of various forms of social organizations (nonprofits, philanthropic, NGOs,
social economy, social movement orgs, etc) on political activism, let's
define the terms, geographical setting and issues - but for chrissake, do
not let inquistorial delusions of some deranged individuals set th etone of
that debate.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12285] Re: NGOs are the source of all evil in the world (RE: S

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:24 AM 10/2/99 -0400, Jim Blaut wrote:
>When you say, "... And radical movements often spin-off of
>such NGO-funded efforts, as occurred in the US with the heavily
>philanthropically-funded civil rights movement - much to the dismay of
>those funding it," I hope I may assume that you're not saying: the civil
>rights movements primarily owes its success to philanthropic funding.


Bad history, sociology and geoagraphy - do some reading about diffrences
between philanthropy, NGos, nonprofit organziations, social movement
organizations in different countris, and then report back to us what you
have learned.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12283] Re: Re: Lou is out of line

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:56 PM 10/1/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:

>Rod, let me take this opportunity to explain the importance of ideological
>promotion of NGO's in underdeveloped countries. NGO's are funded by the
>same people who fund the CIA and local cops and soldiers, the families who
>own and control the major corporations in the United States. This includes
>both liberals like the Rockefellers and Fords. It also includes families on


Louis, I suppose you have some empirical basis for that lunacy - not just
voices telling you that.  It is my suspicion that you simply babble about
things you have no clue about as you do in most of your nonfiction
writings. So for the starter, what do your think is the level of total
private support of nonprofit activities in the US and Europe: 10% 30% 50%
60% 90% of their revenues?  How much comes from service fees or government
contracts?

Delusionally yours

wojtek

[PEN-L:12280] Re: Some sponsors of Johns Hopkins Institute for PolicyStudies

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:59 PM 10/1/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>No, Steven. There is a connection. Wojtek has been attacking academics and
>activists who target imperialism and racism. I view this as quite a
>conservative stance, not radical at all. There is imperialism and there is
>racism and our job is to fight it. 
>
>I could never figure out why somebody connected with IPS would promote such
>right-wing notions, so I did some poking around on the JHU website. I
>discovered that Wojtek is a researcher with a think-tank called IPS whose
>mission is to promote the spread of NGO's. NGO's are one of the main
>instruments of imperialist co-optation today. They were funded by George
>Soros all throughout Eastern Europe and helped to destroy left-wing
>opposition movements by promoting bogus ideas based on the free-market and
>"civil society". They are also a powerful weapon against peasant and labor
>struggles in Latin America and Jim Petras has written excellent articles
>recently exposing them. Fidel Castro threw them out of Cuba because he
>figured out what they were up to. As I stated in my last post, the NGO of
>today serves the same social function as Christian missionary outfits in
>the 1930s--to defuse social struggles and get the masses to put their hopes
>in do-gooders rather than themselves. If you think writing papers on behalf
>of their spread is politically neutral, then I humbly have to disagree.
>

Louis, this is really embarassing.  I think you should stick to writing
fiction and movie reviews.


Delusionally yours

wojtek

[PEN-L:12124] Re: Re: Re: Re:PEN-L Re:Eurocentrism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:59 PM 10/1/99 -0400, Barkley Rosser wrote:
>Wojtek,
> Math is of European origin?  Last I checked
>the zero came from India through the Arab world.
>I have even seen some claims that the Chinese
>had the zero before the Indians (eeek!).
>And "algebra" is from an Arabic word.  Tsk tsk, :-).


True.  But they did not use it in the way it is used in the US and to some
extent in Europe - as a singular indicator of science-worthiness (cf.
scientism, positivism, nc economics) and human worth (SAT, GRE etc.).

Moreover, the point is not in the invention but in application, or I shall
say, diffusion.  To make a point, a jet-propulsion engine (i.e. a device
moving on the jet propulsion principle) was first invented in around 100 BC
in Alexandria, but I had wait for its application for another 2000 years.  

wojtek




>Barkley Rosser
>-Original Message-
>From: Wojtek Sokolowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Friday, October 01, 1999 12:35 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:12108] Re: Re:PEN-L Re:Eurocentrism
>
>
>>At 12:49 PM 9/30/99 -1000, Steve Philion wrote:
>>>That sounds like caricature, did Brenner ever say any such thing? I don't
>>>think his argument came to one of no support for third world struggles.
>>>How could the likes of a James Petras, to mention just one non Eurocentric
>>>Marxist have much to do with him or his arguments against Wallerstein?
>>
>>---sinip
>>
>>
>>>This I would agree is a real problem, one not unclosely tied to the
>>>sectarian, even cultish, nature of "Marxist" parties in the US. Not so
>>>much the Marxism of a non-sectarian, non-cult member Robert Brenner.
>>>
>>snip
>>
>>>extracted value than say workers in El Salvador?  That doesn't mean that
>>>workers in Sweden are 'superior' to El Salvadoran workers...nor that the
>>>former are beneficiaries of imperialism...
>>
>>
>>Steve, your comments are right on target and point out to some real
>>problems with the self-appointed anti-Eurocentrists.  For one part, their
>>strategy seems to be based on a simple positive/negative sign reversal,
>>embodied in that once popular in liberal circles "politically correct"
>>(original term, not mine) map of the world with the South pole up.  It is
>>basically a simple vertical flip of some-old fashined imperialist rhetoric
>>- any person of the European origin who does not show proper deference to
>>the Black or the Latino man is automatically labeled an eurocentrist, a
>>racist or worse. Basically, the old male pecking order in reverse.
>>
>>But beyond this sad rhetoric there is a much larger and more important
>>issue - pointed to by the last postings by Jim Craven - which criteria are
>>being used to "evaluate"  cultures and peoples?  In my exchange with Jim
>>Craven I that suggested different peoples/cultures faces much different
>>sets of conditions and challenges and develop unique solutions to those
>>problems.  We cannot therefore judge one culture by the standards of
>>effciency or superiority adopted in another culture because they are simply
>>incompatible.
>>
>>To illustrate that, Native American cultures stressed the importance of
>>balance between all elements of the natural and social environment - and by
>>those standards capitalist conquest of nature and conspicuous consumption
>>are sure signs of ineffciency and inferiority.  In the same vein, the
>>balance achieved by Native Americans is viewed as stagnation and thus
>>inefficiency and inferiority by capitalist standards.  So the point is to
>>avoid getting into the male pissing contests whose efficiency is bigger
>>than whose - and instead focus on the adaptability of human societies to
>>very diverse conditions.
>>
>>This, however, is not what the self-appointed anti-Eurocentrists do.  In
>>(otherwise justified) reaction to imperialist rhetoric that judges every
>>culture by standrads adopted by the conquering power and obviously finds
>>them falling short - these anti-Eurocentrists deny the obvious instead of
>>rejecting the standard.  In other words, to defeat Eurocentrism they defy
>>the common sense and claim that non-Europeans are or have been on a par
>>with the Europeans in the European-defined game.  In so doing, however,
>>they essentially accept the Eurocentric or rather academe-centric criteria
>>by which peoples and cultures are judged, and which essentially boil down
>>to high scores on a standard math and sciences test.
>>
>>Math, math-based science and tec

[PEN-L:12120] Re: Eurocentrism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:25 PM 10/1/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>Wojtek, I am trying to understand where you are coming from politically.
>Your animus around these questions is found among right wing social
>democrats, like Todd Gitlin and the Dissent Magazine crown. It is also
>found in the right wing of the Democratic Party, including Jim Sleeper who
>wrote a book called "Liberal Racism" that makes many of the same points you
>keep making. It is also found the old-line neoconservative movement. Hilton
>Kramer's magazine "New Criterion" makes identical points each issue as does
>Reagite David Horowitz in Salon, the online magazine. Except that you feel
>the need to throw in some Marxish jargon from time to time, but clearly you
>are hostile to Marxism and prefer conventional social scientists like
>Schleppenkrank. You used to sign your posts Johns Hopkins Institute for
>Policy Studies, which used to confuse the hell out of me since IPS never
>utters rightwing manifestos. But as it turns out, the Johns Hopkins IPS is
>another animal altogether. It is a think-tank run by a former OMB
>bureaucrat, which turns out policy papers promoting NGO's. My impression is
>that the kind of NGO's that your employer promotes are designed to hoodwink
>the masses and make it more easy for the vampire Capital to suck the blood
>of dependent countries dry. Right? In point of fact, the outfit you are
>professionally affiliated with is just another arm of the imperialist
>ruling class, an informal adjunct of the CIA, State Department, Voice of
>America, the USIA, Freedom House, etc. Right?


Louis, I think you are wasting your time by trying to apply your
conventional wisdom to ferret out my political leanings.  Although I've
worked for the instituions whose names would make hair raise on your back -
i've never been in the so-called "loop" of people trusted by the management
- the sole relationship with my employers (including the current one) was
selling my technical skills (labor power if you will) rather than my soul.
Can make a comfortable living that way, but will not make a career.

I ma not a groupie of any intellectual celebrity in this country - i have
no interests in who's who (to the point that i flunk a class on new york
intellectuals taught by a former partisan review hack)  the sectarianism of
the US left makes me laugh, and I am getting rather annoyed by culture wars
waged by different factions.  

I am pretty "out of the loop" on almost everything - which btw was my value
to some of those employers i mentioned earlier, they knew that i would say
what i think rather than sneak a hidden aggenda of this or that political
faction.  I generally make up my mind based on what I see around me rather
on what I read (i btw belive that oftentimes reading substitutes thinking)
-- so please do no try fit what i post here with any of the sources you
cite - I hardly read them, let alone follow their orthodoxy.  I do not care
very much how my views are labeled politically as long as that label does
not have the word "orthodox" in it.  Orthodoxy is perhaps the only thing i
consistently avoided in my entire adult life.

As to my "marxist jargon" - I am not a marxist groupie, Iview Marx as a
social scientist not a prophet. Some of his observations were right, some
off the mark, some dead wrong. I have no problems taking the former and
mixing it with views of other social scientists, and dumping the latter.

As far as my views on proletarian revolution, racism, eurocentrism, vampire
capitalism, imperialism, oppression or hoodwinking of the masses etc. etc.
are concerned - here they are.  First, these are all demons, bogy men
invented for the consuption of leftish cult groupies in the US.  Second,
American intellectuals who routinely use those words to describe reality
around them  are either: (i) leftish cult groupies whose intellectual
development was arrested in their early adulthood due excessive infatuation
with exotic substances and ideas, (ii) self-styled celeberities vying for
attention of those groupies, reverends without followers if you will, or
(iii) paranoid maniacs in serious need of professional assistance.  In any
case, I consider them relatively harmless because they are safely removed
from anything that smacks of real power or influence in this country, but
if that was to be changed - that would be a reason of a serious concern.

cheers,

wojtek

[PEN-L:12111] Re: Who coined the phrase "knowledge worker"?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:08 AM 10/1/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Does anyone here know who coined the phrase "knowledge worker"?  The
>Atlantic Monthly says the phrase is Peter Drucker's "own coinage".
>Can anyone confirm/deny this?
>
>


It's been around in the literature on professions, Magali Sarfatti Larson
might have used it in her 1977 book _The rise of professionalism : a
sociological analysis_.  Also, if memory serves, I think Heidegger used the
term "research worker" in his essay _The time of the world picture_.  Don't
have time to verify that but it could be a good point to start.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12109] Re: Re: China's anniversary

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 06:58 AM 10/1/99 -0700, Bard deLong wrote:
>I don't know. The Kuomintang was a strongly nationalist and 
>anti-imperialist party too.
>
>It certainly has done a better job governing Taiwan--which is 
>nobody's colony or neo-colony these days--than the CCP has done 
>governing China...


Ah Brad, you are comparing apples and oranges again.  Anyone can drive a
passenger car, but it ain't so easy to drive a semi-trailer without
automatic transmission and power-assisted gizmos.

What makes you think that the Kuomintang would do a better job in the
mainland?

wojtek

[PEN-L:12108] Re: Re:PEN-L Re:Eurocentrism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:49 PM 9/30/99 -1000, Steve Philion wrote:
>That sounds like caricature, did Brenner ever say any such thing? I don't
>think his argument came to one of no support for third world struggles.
>How could the likes of a James Petras, to mention just one non Eurocentric
>Marxist have much to do with him or his arguments against Wallerstein? 

---sinip


>This I would agree is a real problem, one not unclosely tied to the
>sectarian, even cultish, nature of "Marxist" parties in the US. Not so
>much the Marxism of a non-sectarian, non-cult member Robert Brenner.  
>
snip

>extracted value than say workers in El Salvador?  That doesn't mean that
>workers in Sweden are 'superior' to El Salvadoran workers...nor that the
>former are beneficiaries of imperialism...


Steve, your comments are right on target and point out to some real
problems with the self-appointed anti-Eurocentrists.  For one part, their
strategy seems to be based on a simple positive/negative sign reversal,
embodied in that once popular in liberal circles "politically correct"
(original term, not mine) map of the world with the South pole up.  It is
basically a simple vertical flip of some-old fashined imperialist rhetoric
- any person of the European origin who does not show proper deference to
the Black or the Latino man is automatically labeled an eurocentrist, a
racist or worse. Basically, the old male pecking order in reverse.

But beyond this sad rhetoric there is a much larger and more important
issue - pointed to by the last postings by Jim Craven - which criteria are
being used to "evaluate"  cultures and peoples?  In my exchange with Jim
Craven I that suggested different peoples/cultures faces much different
sets of conditions and challenges and develop unique solutions to those
problems.  We cannot therefore judge one culture by the standards of
effciency or superiority adopted in another culture because they are simply
incompatible.

To illustrate that, Native American cultures stressed the importance of
balance between all elements of the natural and social environment - and by
those standards capitalist conquest of nature and conspicuous consumption
are sure signs of ineffciency and inferiority.  In the same vein, the
balance achieved by Native Americans is viewed as stagnation and thus
inefficiency and inferiority by capitalist standards.  So the point is to
avoid getting into the male pissing contests whose efficiency is bigger
than whose - and instead focus on the adaptability of human societies to
very diverse conditions.

This, however, is not what the self-appointed anti-Eurocentrists do.  In
(otherwise justified) reaction to imperialist rhetoric that judges every
culture by standrads adopted by the conquering power and obviously finds
them falling short - these anti-Eurocentrists deny the obvious instead of
rejecting the standard.  In other words, to defeat Eurocentrism they defy
the common sense and claim that non-Europeans are or have been on a par
with the Europeans in the European-defined game.  In so doing, however,
they essentially accept the Eurocentric or rather academe-centric criteria
by which peoples and cultures are judged, and which essentially boil down
to high scores on a standard math and sciences test.

Math, math-based science and technology it develops are a uniquely European
response to environmental challenges - but it is not the only possible or a
superior response.  My favorite example are !Kung bushmen who developed a
unique cognitive skill that allowed them to survive in their arid
environment.  Facing the chronic shortage of drinking water, they learned
how to extract water from the roots of desert plants.  In the spring, they
would walk through the desert looking for the plants accumulating water in
their roots and then memorizing their location.  Few months later, they
could return to the same location and dig out the root even though the
upper part of the plant had withered away and there was virtually nothing
on the surface that would indicate the presence of the root.  Of course, by
those cognitive standards a math-wiz getting the top GRE score would be
considered a moron and a burden to the !Kung society (in all likelihood,
they would not let him die and they would take care of him). 

Thus, the best way to counter the imperialist  pissing contest of
superiority/inferiority would be to reject the standards that measure human
worth by successes in math and science.  But the "problem" with that
solution is that math and science are *meritocratic* standards, and
meritocracy is the cornerstone of the academe-centric view of the world.
Rejecting  math and science as the basis of human "merits" is tantamount to
undercutting the academe's own claim to power, privilege and superiority.  

In that context, the strategy of denying the obvious and claiming that
ascribed characteristics, such as ethnicity or nationality, have no bearing
on attaining competence in European-invented games seems to b

[PEN-L:12093] Re: Jobs & Education: A Query

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Yoshie, check out _The Credential society : an historical sociology of
education and stratification_ by Randall Collins (New York : Academic
Press, 1979). 

However, your question is somewhat wrongly stated, since in all likelihood
most jobs college graduates get *nominally* require a college degree.  

I would frame that question differently - as the question of de-skilling
that affects both the workplace (cf. Braverman) as well as academic
training.  That is, on the one hand  jobs require less and less high-level
cognitive skills (i.e. making evaluations and judgments, applying them to a
specific situation and then executing them) and more and more routine
tasks.  On the other jand, the academic training (especially at the
undergrad level) moves away from developing high-level cognitive skills
toward following well established routines (c.f. standardized multiple
choice testing).  

So what we might find is that credentialism is in fact an epiphenomenon of
a much deeper process of deskilling cum dumbing down of the very large
segments of both the labor market and the academe.

wojtek




At 06:10 PM 9/30/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Does anyone have data on the proportion of jobs in the USA that require
>college education?  Any good article on credentialism?
>
>What's the proportion of college graduates who get jobs that require
>college education?
>
>Yoshie
>
>

[PEN-L:12054] Re: RE: Re: Re: China's post-1400 technologicalstagnation

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:31 AM 9/30/99 -0700, Jim Craven wrote:
>Hi Wojtek,
>
>Which of the below mentioned did I do? Name calling is out and just gave my
>views in respectful answer to yours; I don't remember making any
>accusations; as for "flat earth", it was the Euros who popularized that
>notion as the Mayans had it figured out around what some would call 3780
>something "B.C."  that the earth could not be "flat" and that the regular
>and predictable positions of certain stars meant regular and predictable
>movements around the sun rather than the sun around earth; otherwise the
>Mayan calendars (one 365 days more accurate than the Gregorian or Julian and
>another of 260 days or a sacred calendar) would have been impossible.


-- snip


Jim, that remark was not directed at you but someone else by that name -
sorry if you took it personally.  "Flat earth geography" was in essence a
sarcastic allusion to (i do not want to get more personal than that).  This
was my way of protesting the inquisitorial drivel accusing Brenner et al of
hidden agendas and basically deviating from the party line. Brings the
worst kind of memories from my 'previous life' - self-proclaimed leaders of
the people making political careers by fighting demons and witch hunting
(cf. Milan Kundera, _The Joke_  for anywone interested in a more literary
desrirption of that practice).  

I think we should refrain from political labeling, third-person guessing
what the author "really" meant to say and other forms of ad hominems - and
as you can tell youreself I generally keep my postings free from such
stuff.  But that will not, of course, stop the inquisition from accusing me
from being possessed by the demons.  

AS to the nature of psn-l debating, we can of course treat it as a form or
personal psychothrapy and vent our frustrations with the world (and other
people I admit being guilty of that sometimes) - but you surely agree that
this will not get us very far.  believe it or not, I treat this list as an
important source of information, perhaps even more valuable than major
newspapers, because it is a genuine discusion forum and exchange of
interesting information rather than spin or pushing intellectual commodity.
 I thus expect, perhaps unrealistically, a certain level of
matter-of-factness, information with empirical relevance or a clear plan
for an action. 

Having said that, however, I also think that we should recognize the limits
of our knowledge - there are certain things which we simply cannot answer
in a matter of fact manner, perhpas because the task is too grandiose, the
problem is poorly formulated, the terms are too vague, or perhaps there are
no adequate data.  Ignorans et ignorabimus.  Bringing up such questions is
tantamount to asking about the meaning of life and is bound to provoke
ideological rant and flame war (that's perhaps why the inquisitorial types
love this kind of questions).  So I am all for your propostion to re-switch
the questions to the issues we can address in a matter-of-fact manner.  

I do not think that anyone on this list even used the word "primitive" in
the reference to non-europeans or described europeans as morally superior.
So bringing the issue of eurocentrism in this context is at the very least
fighting the windmills - if not a deliberate provocation to start a flame
war.  

>

As to:
>is intended as some kind of caricature of what you have said. But I do
>wonder why not more discussion of some non-Euro topics and sources
>sometimes.


Good question.  I think part of it is that our consciousnness is determined
by our being, hence we are concerned with the issues immediately
surrounding us.  I experienced taht myself when I go back to my old country
- I often find that i have little in common with my old friends and family
- so we do not have much to say to each other except to rumminate the
memories of 'good old times.'  Whne we start talking about more current
issues (such as neo-liberal policies being implemented there) we start
talking past each other and they accuse me of either ignorance, arrogance,
or malice.  They do not treat me as one of them anymore and they don't want
an "outside" spin on their domestic issues.  I think such spin is
inevitable when Americans, regardles of their political orientation, start
talking about peoples and cultures outside their own country (this is one
of the main reasons why I hate NPR). 

Which brings us to the following dilemma - should we abstain from a spin on
countries/people  other than our won and focus on problems of our own
society, or should we be more polite on start commenting on the affairs of
other nations, ineavitably form our point of.  But this way or another, the
self-proclaimed inquisitors will fire a broadside of ethnocentrism anyway.

wojtek

[PEN-L:12029] Re: Nuclear accident in Japan

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:27 PM 9/30/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>More reactions feared at Japan plant  
>
>Nuclear accident 'unprecedented' for Japan; 2 workers critical  

--snip

>Nonaka said Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force's chemical warfare unit was
>ready to be deployed at the accident site but that it lacked relevant
>experience. Government sources later said that as a result Japan would be
>asking the U.S. military for technical help. 

-- snip
>The government, besides postponing a Cabinet reshuffle, set up a task force
>of top ministers to investigate the accident - the first time such a step
>has been taken in Japan for a nuclear accident. It also sent specialists to
>the area to monitor the radioactivity. Japan has 51 commercial nuclear
>power reactors that provide one-third of the country's electricity. That
>relatively high level of nuclear use has made Japan a magnet for
>anti-nuclear activists. Greenpeace said Thursday's accident "confirms our
>fears. The entire safety culture within Japan is in crisis 


Sounds too familiar.  Lee Clarke (my professor at Rutgers) argues in his
_Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster_ that much of
the so-called risk management especially in energy production industry is
really a smokescreen to placate the public that the procedures are 'safe'
whereas there is notheing that can be done to prevent a disaster when in
actually happens.  His favorite example is the US Post Office's contingency
plans to deliver mail after a nuclear war.

wojtek



 

[PEN-L:12020] Re: Re: China's post-1400 technological stagnation

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:48 AM 9/30/99 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote:

>Finally, are other people besides the two Jims, Ricardo, and a few others
>interested in this thread?  Or should I demand in this cease once and for
all in
>24 hours?


I vote for "cease and dessit" within 24 hours- it degenerated into flat
earth geography, wild accusations and name calling, imho.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11992] Re: Gerschenkronism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:07 PM 9/29/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>You got to be careful recommending these authors, Wojtek. There was a big
>witch-hunt in the 1950s to weed out professors who were disciples of
>Alexander Gerschenkron and things are starting to look menacing after Waco
>and other FBI crackdowns. Are you familiar with the story of Lenny
>Lipschitz, a sociology professor here at Columbia who led a secret study
>group on Gerschenkron at his Riverside Dr. residence in 1957? It turns out


No. But the witch-hunt hardly surprises me.  I consider gerschenkronism
more damaging to the US imperial and neo-liberal mythologies (it refutes
the notion than x-USSR was the satan incarnate i.e. a communist state) than
any other school of thought.


wojtek

[PEN-L:11990] Re: Re: Re: moral entrepreneurship (was: "Free labor" asaprecondition forcapital)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:04 PM 9/29/99 -0400, Barkley Rosser wrote:
>Wojtek,
> Minor point.  You grew up in the Second World,
>even if it is no more.   Hey, without a Second World
>there can be no Third World.


Technically true.  Although imho the second/third world distinction is more
racist than Blaut & Co. make of the first world.  Although Soviet block
countries are on a par with many  developing countries of Latin America and
Asia, as  far as GDP-related measures are concerned - Eastern European
intellectuals do not want to be put in the same category as "banana
republics" and they highly resent being considered 'third world' (that was
even noted by Janine Wedell in her _Collision and Collusion: The Strange
Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe_).  So calling them third world gives
me a pleasure usually associated with profanation of nationalistic altars.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11968] Re: Open letter to NACLA, Susan Lowes and Jack Hammond

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:19 AM 9/29/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>Mario's only response to all this has been a paranoid and demagogic rant
>about how Yankee racists should keep their nose out of Colombian politics,


Mario's response is NOT a paranoid and demagogic rant.  He provides a clear
assessment of a situation based on his and other's obsoervation.  We may
disagree with that assessment, but we cannot say it paranoid or dogmatic.  

More importantly, nowhere in his letter he uses the phrase 'Yankee
racists'.  The only context in which the word 'racist' appear is

>>I am forced to respond now, however, because of what I perceive to be an
>>overtly racist discharge that closed the letter below: "It appears to me

which appear to me a very carefully worded and reserved comment about the
text rather than a person.

As to his quoted observation:

>>It is mighty easy for someone sitting in a comfortable high rise on the
>>upper east side of Manhattan to launch into some pseudo-intellectual
>>diatribe about how "civil society" is getting in the way of truly
>>revolutionary change in Colombia; it is entirely different living the


I can only add that what I really hate about certain type of US
intellectuals is their temerity to solve problems  all over the world, but
not being able to pull together even a modestly progressive political
action in their own country.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11956] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 07:50 AM 9/29/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>
>yours truly) have made several times. If one believes in the Weberian
>"Protestantism caused capitalism" theory (which I do not), the Catholics


Jim, I think that is a rather distorted view of Weber's theory, which is
much more subtle.  It deals with the issue of the relationship between
political/economic power and cultural institutions.  Rather than saying
that cultural instituions (religions, value systems) cause certain economic
development (like capitalism), Weber treats them as instruments of that
development.  That is, social groups or classes that gain economic or
political power try to legitimate their power by using cultural
institutions as instruments to that end.  That instrumentality, in turn,
depends on "elective affinity" that is, certain values, beliefs, or
behaviors embedded in a particular cultural institution that are
particularly useful for the interests of the power group in question.

Thus, the usefulness of protestantism over catholicism was differences in
work ethic - while catholicism stressed the concern with wordly affairs
should be limited to the level necessary to surivive, protestantism anxiety
and the need to 'prove' oneself in the material world.  That made
protestant ethic useful to instill behavioral traits that were desirable
from a point of view of those profited of the labor of others.  That is,
there was and elective affinity between protestant "arbeit macht frei"
ethics and capitalist insterests which explains the popularity of
protestantism among nascent capitalists.

In essence I interpret Weber's view of cultural institutions as an extnsion
of Marx's idea of linking the class interest of those who control the means
of material production to the regulation and distribution of the production
of ideas.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11955] Re: moral entrepreneurship (was: "Free labor" as aprecondition forcapital)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:05 PM 9/28/99 -0500, Mathew Forstater asks:
>What is one to say to this?  This is so disheartening.

in response to my remark:
>>Max, I am totally with you on that, I do not think third worldism is about
>>political struggle, abroad or here - it is a kulturkampf waged by
>>intellectuals in the symbolic realm of blame and guilt.  It has the signs
>>of a religious guilt trip cum denying the obvious to claim a moral victory
>>written all over it.



Mat, I think truly disheartening is that such ideologies exist.  I grew up
in a developing country, a 'third world' if you will, and I am thoroughly
familar with the genre.  It is the countless allovariants of a single
theme: scapegoating, i.e. attributing causes of what happens in a society
to external forces and factors.

Its purpose is generally to mobilize support for- and deflects criticim
from- the local ruling elite or the nationalist/isolationist faction of it.
 It is, in effect, saying 'we as the nations and its leaders are valiand
and brave, work hard and do all the right things, so if things do not work
as expected, it is because those damn Yanks or Ruskies meddle in our
internal affairs and rob us of our precious resources.  If anyone is
interested, I can tell some really amusing stories of that genre, e.g. how
an ant (Poland) supported an elephant (Russia).  I can even match them with
the festung-amerika variety how all those damn foreigners conspire to rob
hard working US-ers of their way of life.

I think that the fundamentally reactionary and pro-status quo character of
blaming imperialism for all national woes should be quite apparent.  It
diverts attention from domestic problems, binds common people to the ruling
elites, fosters bigotry and nationalism.  It usually served as an
ideological prelude to witch-hunts and purges in the former Soviet bloc
states.

 
The anti-imperialist mythology is also present in the US academy and its
offshoots, but it serves a different function here -- that of the merit
making.  In medieval Europe, merit making was the practice of alms giving
(usually by the nobility) to the poor not to relly help them, but earn a
'merit' for the giver in this life as well as the afterlife.In the same
vein, certain academics earn 'merits' by paying the lip service to the
'wretched of the earth' (the farther away, the better) and fighting the
imaginary demons (imperialism, racism, eurocentrism, capitalism etc.) on
their behalf.  That allows them to take a high moral ground, earn a
mini-celeberity status among graduate students and maverick intellectuals
for their 'controversial' and 'uncompromising' stance, look down on their
colleagues as suckups and lackeys of the status quo, or deflect any
criticism of their shoddy scholarship as being 'ideologically driven.'

That is not to imply that there is no outstanding scholarship on the above
named subject (e.g. Barrington Moore, Jeffery Paige, Alexander
Gerschenkron, Dietrich Rueschemeyerto name a few), but that the gems are
often surrounded by trash, moral-intellectual entrepreneurship.

One more thing.  You may wonder why I am so concerned with what appears to
be a realtively minor aspect of the culture wars waged in this society.
Well, academy is where i work.  So instead of fighting monsters in distant
and exotic places (which is what many US academics love to do) - I believe
that we need to do some stable cleaning much closer to home, perhaps even
in our own instiutions and ranks.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11951] Re: Indigenous Efficiency

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:57 PM 9/28/99 -0700, Jim Craven wrote:
>The real "savages" are all wearing uniforms and three-piece suits and acting
>oh so "civilized" and "efficient".


If I remember correctly, the Canadian government outlawed for some time the
practice of potlatch, solely because it was s antithetical to the holy
spirit of capitalism.

While we are at that,  the idea of potlatch (=ritualistic feast + giving
gifts to visitors at the 'expense' of the village chief) had an important
function of attracting new people to a village (the 'wastefulness' of
latter days potlatches so bemoaned by westerners was simply a result of the
decimation of the indigenous population).  It thus follows that humans were
a scacre resource in the indigenous economy.  That is also consistent with
the practice of prisoner taking by many tribes to replace the deceased
members of their community.  Those prisoners were adapted to the new
society as equals, and given the functions that the deceased member
performed.  That further explains why white women kidnapped by the tribes
often refused to return to the 'white' society when they had a choice -
they were simply better treated by the indigenous people than by white men.

Now it is quite clear to me that in a situation when the total population
is on average stable, you can can economize by balancing the existing
resources.  That is you may have periodical shortages of material
resources, but you can solve these shortages by simply transfering the
surpluses from more abundant periods (saving).  Those inter-periodical
redistributions do not affect the long term balance.  But that is not the
case when shortages are endemic i.e. you either face a persistent shortage
of labor (i.e. the "systemic' situation the latter day potlatches tried to
avert by 'local' i.e. redistributive means), or the opposite, population
growth puts increasing strain on the existing resources.  It is not
possible to solve these persistent shortages by redistributive means,
including obtaining new resources from outside of the system - at least not
in the long run.  You need to eliminate the cause of the problem, that is,
either stabilize population growth or increase the volume of resource
production.

So its seems to me that indigenous and capitalist economies dealth with two
much different problems that makes them very difficult to compare and say
which one is 'more efficient.'  As you correctly pointed out, capitalist
economy was 'inefficient' form the indigenous point of view, because it was
geared to achieve a different set of objectives than the indigenous economy
- the constant growth of resource production instead of balancing the
existing resources.  In the same vein, the indigenous economy may appear
'ineffcient' preciesely for the same reason - it is not designed to
generate constant growth of production (which it views as wasteful excess).

Regardless of ideological pronouncements and rivalries, every society (and
every living species for that matter) needs adequate material resource base
to survive.  The social and economic institutions are mere adaptations to
the procurement of adequate material resources under given circumstances.
That does not mean that old institutions die when their usefulness for
resource procurement expires.  It means that a society dies if it does not
develop adequate  social-economic institutions when the usefulness of the
old ones expires due to changing material conditions.

My intention is not to defend the excesses of conspicuous consumption
characteristic of late capitalism, or its numerous paradoxes and
aberrations, such as social inequality, hunger and povert amidst of plenty,
the undemocratic character of the organization of production etc.  While
these problems are very serious and must be eventually solved (that's what
unites people on this list, despite petty differences, no?) - i do not
think that we as society have an option of returning to a pre-capitalist
society, no matter how appealing its customs and instituions may appear to
us.  Unless, of course, someone wants to take an alternative route to
restoring the resource/population balance - a "final solution" to "surplus"
population.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11919] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: units of analysis (was:wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:05 PM 9/28/99 -0700, Jim Craven wrote:
>So when we get to the level of analyzing what is being produced and
>distributed and the probable social consequences (and even consequences on
>individuals purchasing) of that which is being produced, when we consider
>the "how" to produce in wider terms and with longer time horizons than that
>allowed by NC theory or capitalism itself, when we include social costs and
>benefits paid by whom and for whom, when we include freedom from despotism,
>alienation and manipulation in our "utility functions", when we account for
>true costs and on whom they fall in our "production functions", etc etc
>capitalism is one of the least "efficient" (in a much more wider and humane
>notion of efficiency) systems known whose inexorable and inner/defining
>contradictions and structures produce dynamics and trajectories of
>destruction far more than creation and overall waste and tragedy far more
>than efficiency and prosperity; that is, if it is the broad masses of people
>that matter and not just a chosen/elect few.
>


Jim, I do not think we disagree on the terrible human cost of
industrialization and development - although I would not go as far as
saying that it made most people worse off.  Surely, there are groups that
suffer more than other, but on average people are better off.  Surely, the
living standards around the world are far below those in the US or Europe,
but if you compare the standards of living under feudalism, you must
certainly acknowledge that there has been significant progress.

However, I think you make too much of the concept of efficiency - in my
view it is an abstraction that outside nc is used primarily as a claim to
justofy managerial decisions.  That is to say, there is little no "utility
function" calculation, efficiency maximization etc. in managerial behavior,
but there is plenty of group think, social climbing, sucking up, lining
one's own pockets etc, covered with the veil of efficiency maximization.

Thus, curbing managerial power and democcarization of the workplace (and
politics) can substantially reduce the level of misery you mention without
necessarily rejecting the whole notion of industrial, urban economy.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11916] Re: Re: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:54 PM 9/28/99 -0400, James Blaut wrote:
>As of this minute I'm ceasing to respond to your s...  stuff, just as I
>decided some time ago to ignore Duchesne (on H-world and wsn), who at least
>is civil.


As if you responded to my questions previously.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11912] Re: Re: Re: white hope?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:55 PM 9/28/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>The main racism among black petit bourgeoisie ( there are no black big
bourgeoisie) is among black Reaganites like Clarence Thomas who are
anti-black racists. including their espousal of the concepts you put on
this post. There is not such thing as black anti-white racism, but
prejudice. The notion of  Black racism against whites, and that it is
growing , is a main stay of racist ideology 1999 (and that is a scientific
statement).
>
>

Charles, the 1999-style racism is much subtler than the crude white/black
kkk variety which your language implies.  Its function is much different too.

It is not crude anti-black (or anti-white) racism anymore - but race based
identity politics.  The "enemy" is no longer simply a concrete person of a
different skin color but a racialized bogy man, a non-descript abstract
identity hinting some undesirable traits associated with 'races', such as
the 'criminal' the 'welfare mother' the 'racist' the 'neo-nazi' the
'anti-semite/holocaust denier' etc.

The main idea is to produce race-based identity that can be manipulated for
political purposes.  As we all know, an outside threat generally boosts
solidarity and thus can be manipulated to create such an identity.  So the
trick is to manufacture a sense of outside threat without offending too
many people.  Abstract identities with racial innuendos but not explicitly
identifying real persons do that trick rather well.  That is what I mean by
playing a 'race card' - a politician or moral entrepreneur erecting such
'racialized' bogy men not to direct frustration at a scapegoat ('lynching
mob' racism) but to reinforce sense of racial identity and manipulate it to
its own polical goals.  

Bell used that quite extensively (e.g. one of his trick was distributing a
manufactured Aryan Brotherhood pamphlet endorsing O'Malley), but to his
detriment -  he started as the forerunner but could manage to get only 17%
of the votes.

Another point.  If I were to allocate the sources of bigotry, I'd say that
about 50% of it originates in the machinations of politicians and moral
entrepreneurs, perhaps 40% originates in negative personal experiences
involving a member of another ethnicity or culture which most people
erroneously attribute to the personal traits rather than different
expectations, norms of behavior, type of interaction etc.  (it is a well
know psychological mispereception), and only about 10% in more-or-less
bigoted attitudes and beliefs.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11904] Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:47 PM 9/28/99 -0400, Louis Project wrote:
>system. For every South Korea or Taiwan, there are 20 stagnant countries
>that have even failed to begin to address the tasks of industrialization
>and modernization. Interestingly enough, the US has just committed 1.5
>billion dollars to fighting the guerrillas in Colombia, a classic instance
>of the irrelevance of Marxist schemas of 1848 to today's underdeveloped
world.


Perhaps we should abandon th eterm 'capitalism' altogether.  What is th
euse of the term that throws apples and oranges into one category.
Clearly, there must be something else going on that affects modernization
than being labeled 'capitalist' which does not even have an unambiguous
empirical meaning. I read that I am not alone here, Barkley Rosser has
similar concerns.  

wojtek

[PEN-L:11903] Re: Re: white hope?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:42 PM 9/28/99 -0400, Charles B. wrote:
>
>>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/28/99 03:10PM >>>
>The police endorsed Bell (the current president of city council) as the top
>law and order guy who btw shamelessly played the race card.  The church
>leaders endorsed Stokes who promised them a greater role in service
>provision and privatisation of some city services.
>
>(((
>
>Charles: The whole concept of "playing the race card" and the ideology
attached to it is racist. 


I agree, it's a case of the growing phenomenon of black racism.  As I see
it, it the effect of black embourgeoisment.  Black politicians and moral
entreperneurs use in essentially the same way as white politicians and
moral entrepreneurs do - as a claim to attract supporters and followers,
sell their intellectual commodity (books, lectures, etc.), attain
celeberity status, etc.  Sad but true testimony of the entrapments of the
commodified US politics.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11894] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:29 AM 9/28/99 -0700, Jim Craven wrote:
>
>We also note how the concepts of "efficiency" are tied-in with central
>"axioms" of NC theory including the shit about "normative" versus "positive"
>e.g max output of what?/input and we note how much of the concepts of
>efficiency are tautological i.e. efficiency defined under capitalism leads
>to the tautology that capitalism best achieves "efficiency" when the system
>provides definitions of "efficiency" that are mere descriptions of what
>capitalism does: capitalism produces/reproduces capitalism. We also talk
>about time horizons and narrow parameters concepts of efficiency and also
>short-run maximization versus long-run contradicitions and destabilizations.


Jim, I agree that the nc concept of efficience is highly problematic on
both empirical and ethical grounds.  However I used that term in a
nontechnical way, meaning that capitalist economy is capable of producing
more than its predecessors.  That is an obvious fact and there is no point
denying it.  The problem is not with the volume of capitalist output but
with its upwardly skewed distribution.  If the actual producers of wealth
could participate in the consumption of what they have produced in
proportion to their contribution to the production process rather than
their class or social status - there would be no problem with capitalist
efficiency.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11891] white hope?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:16 PM 9/28/99 -0400, Louis P. wrote:
>The context is Wojtek's hatred for "third worldism" in general, which was
>articulated a couple of weeks ago in his excitement over the prospects for
>a law and order "white hope" Mayoral candidate in Baltimore.


White hope?  So how come that he got more (about 30%) black votes than two
other leading black candidates Bell and Stokes who received 17% and 26%
respectively.  As i hear, it is the poor blacks who are most excited about
the change of guard - they are tired Schmoke paying a lip service to
'black' issues while stuffing the pockets of his proteges and mignons.  The
alleged 'white hope' was the only candidate who promised not to privatize
city services (a major employer of blacks in B'more) and fire top city
bureaucrats the chief of police, the director of public works and the
director of public housing (all white males) tainted with corruption.  Ok,
he did not get endorsed by church leaders, but that's a plus, no?

The police endorsed Bell (the current president of city council) as the top
law and order guy who btw shamelessly played the race card.  The church
leaders endorsed Stokes who promised them a greater role in service
provision and privatisation of some city services.

I think people grew smart enough to see through those paying a lip service
to "racial concerns" - which was the point I tried to make about the election.

wojtek






 

[PEN-L:11878] Re: RE: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:23 PM 9/28/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>I think the issue here is Wojtek's claim that capitalism
>is "more efficient". Because the capitalist mode of
--snip 


Charles, capitalism *is* efficient (thanks to its superior technology and
organization) to the point it can afford conspicuous waste and survive -
which no other form of economic organization could.  It is an obvious fact
- there's no point denying it.  Capitalist economic superiority was the
main point Marx tried to make vis a vis utopian/moralistic socialists.  His
criticism of capitalism was not about the efficiency or even destruction of
pre-capitalist societies and institutions - but about the distribution of
surplus.   So the point is not to explain the history of capitalist
development differently, but to change its fundamental flaw - skewed
distribution.  That is what makes Marx's view *progressive* looking to the
future - as opposed to sentimental defences of pre-capitalist rural idylla
which makes much of today's left a *reactionary* force, defending the past.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11870] Re: Re: taking stock

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:10 PM 9/28/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>It can not be reduced to "free labor". Portugal took sides in the Spanish
>war of succession between England and France, choosing the former. Part of
>the treaty included exchange of port for woolen goods, which was to the
>advantage of England. England had superior weaponry and could dictate
>commercial terms to the Portuegese. We should not make the mistake of
>creating a reductionist category called "European capitalism". Within


But that undermines if not contradicts the significance of looted American
wealth - England's superior military organization and technology prevailed
over the spoils of plunder.  So we need to ask what made England so
superior prior to extorting the gold the Portuguese stole form America.
While I am not denying the role of accident, I would above all look at
internal institutional factors for an explanation.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11865] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: taking stock

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:56 AM 9/28/99 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>Charles Brown wrote:
>
>>England and Holland had both colonial systems and free labor , and 
>>so they were able to capitalistically accumulate the colonial 
>>treasures of Spain and Portugal when the later were not able to 
>>because they did not establish free labor.
>
>Sounds right to me. What's wrong with that, Jim Blaut?
>


I'm not Jim Blaut, but I see a problem.  We need to know why Spain or
Portugal did not establish free labor while England and Holland did.  That
brings us back to the crucial importance of internal institutional factors.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11862] Re: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:07 AM 9/28/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>of the earth, just as one can believe (as a "third-worldist" theory might)
>that capitalism in Europe arose simply because Europe was lucky enough to
>get there first in conquering the rest of the world and then turn around
>and criticize the rest of the world for not being able to resist Europe's
>attacks. 
>


To pursue that point even further, Gerschenkron makes a somewhat similar
argument by claiming that timing of the development is crucial - those who
got there there first got an edge over those who did not.  However, he
seems to be more dialectical and instituitional about that process - he
believes thatthe latecomers can overcome their backwardness by borrowing
superior organization of the economy from early developers and adapting
them to their own conditons (this is, btw, how he explains the origins of
Soviet "communism").

I find that argument more compelling than the third worldist accounts that
emphasize the importance of gold and slave labor, because it gives due
credit to the key importance of technological and institutional innovation.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11859] Re: Re: Re: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:57 AM 9/29/99 +1000, Rob S. wrote:
>developments (a better word than progress') in Europe.  And perhaps this
>the point that Wojtek is actually making (sorry if I'm ascribing a load of
>ill-considered crap to you if you weren't, Wojtek).
>
>You do good sarcasm, Louis.  And I reckon you know it when you see it.  So
>'fess up, and lay off with that 'racist' stuff.


Rob, as you said, I tried to be sarcastic.  Unfortunatelly, saracasm often
does not sail very well in this medium.  I wonder why

The sarcasm was prompted by my earlier exposure to an ttempt to
'deconstruct' a political-economic system, namely central planning in
Eastern Europe.  Some neo-liberal hacks had problem accepting the fact that
central planning, which according to the received hayekian wisdom was
supposed to be structurally inefficient, did in fact produce considerable
economic development in EE.  So they tried to "deconstruct" that by
claiming that most central planning successes were due to external factors,
such as 'inherited' industrial base or foreign credits - to make it appear
that it was the efficient capitalist West that "really" developed Eastern
Europe.

A similar strategy seems to be pursued by our resident third worldist
champions (I wonder where do they get those ideas from?)  except that they
shoot themselves in the foot by claiming an external factor.  While the
neo-liberals can believably claim economic superiority of Western
economies, the third worldists beg a question  "if the plundered wealth
brought from the outisde was so important for european development, why did
not those from whom it was plundered use it for their own development?"

cheers,

wojtek

[PEN-L:11850] Re: Blaut's critique of Brenner

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:25 PM 9/27/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:

>you. I wish to hell you would exercise a little restraint and stay out of a
>discussion in which you have nothing substantial to add.
>

I take exception to that.  I think i do have something to contribute by
asking the right kind of substantive questions.  I simply do not buy the
functionalist logic of Jim Blaut, which you seem to support as well, that
simply because something existed (colonialism) it must have had an
important social funciton (like making capitalist development possible).  I
would like to see an emprical proof of that importance (not mere assertions
of it) which I was unable to find in the arguments posted to this thread.
A lot of citations and digressions, but not a proof.  So I dropped a few
sugestions what kind of empirical evidence I would find convincing - which
is an elementary case study approach and which both you and Jim B. deride
by name calling.  Well, you need to provide that empirical evidence and do
so in a way that is clear to the reader.  You surely do not expect
reasonable people to accept a claim simply because it debunks a strawman of
'eurocentrism', do you? 

wojtek

  

[PEN-L:11843] Re: Re: Re: Re: "Free labor" as a precondition forcapital

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:10 PM 9/27/99 -0700, Max S. wrote:
>
>To me any negative connotation to "Third worldism" does not stem
>from any interest in discounting any Third World struggle in the slightest.



Max, I am totally with you on that, I do not think third worldism is about
political struggle, abroad or here - it is a kulturkampf waged by
intellectuals in the symbolic realm of blame and guilt.  It has the signs
of a religious guilt trip cum denying the obvious to claim a moral victory
written all over it.

It has no implications whatsoever on the political struggle, except perhaps
alienating American and European workers by asking them to accept their
collective guilt before they can be admited to a 12-step program of the
third world revolution.  

wojtek

[PEN-L:11840] Re: Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:57 PM 9/27/99 -0400, Jim Blaut wrote:
>Talk about illogical positivism!

-- snip---

>you mock. That is typical of your empty scientism.
>


I read that you are basically not concerned with the empirical
demonstration of the effect of colonialism on european capitalist
development, right? 

Since I do not buy your functionalist logic that something that exist (e.g.
colonialism) must automatically have a significant social function
(contribution to capitalist economy), could you tell me why should I or
anyone on this list accept your view over, say, that of Ricardo D. who
believes that colonialism was not that crucial?  

At the very least, Ricardo takes into account institutional factors in that
development, of which you do not seem to have much to say.  That is at
least one reason to like his story more than yours.  Would you be happy
with an attempt to explain the economy of the US that focuses mostly on the
foreign trade balance, while ignoring the organization of the firm, the
structure of government, economic policies of various administrations,
labor laws, unions, lobbying groups etc.?

And one more thing.  If I were to accept your point of view that colonial
exploitation significantly contributed to world's economic development, I
would be really grateful to the Europeans for masterminding that
exploitation, its human cost notwithstanding.  For it would seem that
before the European arrrival those third world dummies could not put
together a system of more effcient utilization of the riches on which they
were sitting for centuries.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11764] Re: Blaut's critique of Brenner

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:44 PM 9/27/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>Wojtek, you have an obligation to try to read some of the material being
>discussed before posting so frequently and so provocatively on the subject.
>When you use a term like "politically correct", you are really acting like
>a smart alec. Your latest post shows no sign of a willingness to take the
>discussion seriously. I only wish you would stay away from this thread and
>post on subjects you have some familiarity with. Do some homework, man.
>What's the matter with you.


Lou, in fact, I did read most of what has been posted on this issue to this
list - and I gave my interepretation of it in the brief summary I just
posted.  Sorry if I missed something, but much of that appeared to me as
erudite digressions with with little or no relevance to the subject matter
being discussed: whether colonial exploitation was a necessary or a
sufficient condition of european capitalist development.

As I read Michael's appeal for a rational and collaborative effort to
explore the subject matter - I see that, above all, as an empirical
argument that is transparent and clearly understood by all participants,
rather than showing-off one's reading list, which I do not feel compelled
to do since I left graduate school.  

So please read my comments as a call for logical and empirical clarity in
that debate, rather than an attempt to throw a monkey wrench into it.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11754] Re: Blaut's critique of Brenner

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:45 PM 9/27/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote in reply to my:
>>So in essence, Blaut crticizes Brenner for not being au courant with the
>>Zeitgeist of revolutionary struggle - i.e. for not being politically
>>correct as we would say it today - rather than for proposing a theory that
>>cannot suffciently explain empirical facts that his own can.  Am I missing
>>anything?
>>
>>wojtek
>
>I am going on record as protesting this sort of "intervention" from Wojtek,
>which is an open attempt to subvert the scholarly goals of this discussion.
>I understand that Wojtek is on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University, so
>I would have expected him to draw upon scholarly resources there in order
>to make an intelligent contribution to the discussion and not frame it in
>terms of Rush Limbaugh's radio show.


Lou - I am not an economic historian, I do not claim any special *factual*
knowledge on the subject matter.  I trust the resident experts to do so.  I
do, however, know how to make a valid argument.  So what I would like to
see is that claims are presented in an orderly and a matter-of-fact way, so
the peons, such as  myself, can have a clear understanding what exactly is
being argued, and how the material being presented is relevant to that
argument.  

So far, the main point of the posted passage I have been able to grasp is
that the 'received wisdom' on european development is 'eurocentric.'  In my
textbook, an old theory is rejeected and a new one accepted if there are
facts that the old theory cannot explain and the new one can - rather than
because the old theory is less politically expedient than the new one.  So
I would like to see some factual basis for the rejection of the recieved
'eurocentric' wisdom and the acceptance of the new 'third-worldist' one.

So far, the factual references to the subject matter I was able to grasp
from the postings to this thread can be summarized as follows:

- the received 'eurocentric' wisdom does not take into account certain
facts, such as and technological advances of non-europen countries, e.g.
China, and colonial exploitation - which the europeans pursued and
non-euroepans did not.

Again, in my textbook, the difference in emprically observed outcome is
explained by comparing cases that, ceteris paribus, differ only in that
outcome and the hypothesized factor causing that outcome.  That leads me to
thinking that I am being told that China and Europe were 'ceteris paribus'
- i.e. similar - except the presence and absence of capitalist development
(outcome) and the presenece and absence of colonial exploitation (cause).

Do you really think that anyone who has a dash of common sense will believe
that?  Or perhaps I missed something?  

wojtek

PS. Excuse my irreverence toward story telling and eruditism, but I really
do not think that consumption of intellectual commodity would bring me any
closer to the understand how the real world works, even if that earns me
being put on a par with Rush Limbaugh.

w.

[PEN-L:11746] Re: Blaut's critique of Brenner

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:07 PM 9/25/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>I just put this out as a webpage at: 
>
>http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/brenner_critique.htm
>
>Here are the first few paragraphs:
>
>This article was published in ANTIPODE: A RADICAL JOURNAL OF
>GEOGRAPHY,26,4,(1994):351-76.
>
>ROBERT BRENNER IN THE TUNNEL OF TIME
>
>J.M. BLAUT University of Illinois at Chicago
>Euro-Marxism went into eclipse during the period when liberation movements
>were decolonizing most of the world. In this period, the idea that the
>colonial or Third World has been, and is, unimportant in social development
>was not popular among Marxists. After the end of the Vietnam War, however,
>this point of view became again popular, and indeed became the Marxism most
>widely professed in European and American universities. Today we witness
>the curious phenomenon that Euro-Marxists are quoted with approval by
>anti-Marxist scholars, who can use them to show that "real" Marxist
>scholarship supports some of the same doctrines, theoretical and practical,
>that conservatives do.
>
>Robert Brenner is one of the most widely known of Euro-Marxist historians.
>His influence stems from the fact that he supplied a crucial piece of
>doctrine at a crucial time. Just after the end of the Vietnam War, radical
>thought was strongly oriented toward the Third World and its struggles,
>strongly influenced by Third-World theorists like Cabral, Fanon, Guevara,
>James, Mao, and Nkrumah, and thus very much attracted to theories of social
>development which tend to displace Europe from its pivotal position as the
>center of social causation and social progress, past and present.
>Euro-Marxism of course disputed this, and Euro-Marxists, while strong in
>their support of present-day liberation struggles, nonetheless insisted as
>they always had done that the struggles and changes taking place in the
>center of the system, the European world, are the true determinants of
>world historical changes; socialism will rise in the heartlands of advanced
>European capitalism, or perhaps everywhere all at once; but socialism will
>certainly not arrive first in the backward, laggard, late-maturing Third
>World.1



So in essence, Blaut crticizes Brenner for not being au courant with the
Zeitgeist of revolutionary struggle - i.e. for not being politically
correct as we would say it today - rather than for proposing a theory that
cannot suffciently explain empirical facts that his own can.  Am I missing
anything?

wojtek

[PEN-L:11745] Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 07:03 PM 9/24/99 -0400, CHarles Brown wrote:
>

>
>Charles: I must say , I don't see how you avoid an abitrariness problem at
the level of selecting your unit. I recall well this problem in studying
anthropology when we were trying to decide how to draw boundaries around
cultures or groups.  Selecting the part can be just as arbitrary as
selecting the whole.
>
>I mean the point on a production unit is that , today, production is so
social, the division of labor so complex, calling it global is almost not
an exaggeration. So, a factory, a production unit, has connections all
across the globe, etc.
>


Charles, of course every unit of analysis is to a significant degree
arbitrary.  What I was suggesting was to:

- construct units of analyis that closely correspond to the percpetions of
social actors, rather than those of the researchers; it is quite frequent
that social actors act on behalf of organizations, much less common than
they act on behalf of a social class, bur acting on behalf of a 'world
system?? ? - gimme a break!

- construct units of analysis that allow for empirical comparisons, that
is, examining the effects of a hypothesized factors under the 'ceteris
paribus' conditions; such comparisons are nuts and bolts of empirical
science (without that we enter the realm of religion and ideology); the
less aggregated (i.e. simpler) the unit of analyis, the easier it is to
find cases that are empirically similar in certain respects (ceteris
paribus)  and diffretent in the hypothesized effects (counterfactual); thus
it is possible to find organizations that are similar in many respects and
differ only in a few respectes, but it is very difficult to find
nation-states that are similar in many respects but differ only in a few;
as far as a 'world system' is concerned, however, it is a single sui
generis case - so what is the basis for a comparison? what is the
counterfactual?  by selecting such a large unit of analysis we effectively
abandon the realm of empirical science and enter that of story-telling and
mythology i.e. we are confined to finding only corroborating evidence and
apriori precluding any effective falsification of our stories.
Consequently, the thirdworldist stories of some this list's contributors
are as good as, say, the "white man's burden" - they are accepted based on
their emotional appeal rather than empirical evidence.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11741] Stratfor on Financial Controls and on Malaysia

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

STRATFOR.COM
Global Intelligence Update
Weekly Analysis Septemer 20, 1999

World Bank Reverses Position on Financial Controls and on Malaysia


Summary:

The World Bank reversed its opposition to short-term
capital controls and announced that Malaysia's experiment with
capital controls was, in effect, a success. Since the World Bank
acts on the distilled essence of conventional wisdom, this means
that the international financial community no longer regards either
capital control or Malaysia's prime minister as taboo.

The most important short-term consequence of this change will be on
Japan, which has toyed with the idea of capital controls.  But more
importantly in the long run, the rehabilitation of Mahathir from
lunatic to visionary will bring his other ideas into play.  Of
particular importance is his idea of a regional Asian bloc
excluding the United States, based on the yen and Japan, with
capital controls as a regional management tool.  Neither of these
outcomes is intended by the World Bank or the IMF, but both are the
embodiment of the unintended consequence.


Analysis:

The World Bank has executed an important and somewhat startling
reversal of position on Malaysia's use of capital controls to solve
its economic problems.  Joseph Stiglitz, the World Bank's chief
economist, said Sept. 15, "There has been a fundamental change in
mindset on the issue of short-term capital flows and these kind of
interventions - a change in the mind set that began two years ago."
He went on to say that "in the context of Malaysia and the quick
recovery in Malaysia, the fact that the adverse effects that were
predicted - some might say that some people wished upon Malaysia -
did not occur is also and important lesson."

These were not casual remarks.  They were made during the
presentation of a key World Bank annual document, the "World
Development Review," and were meant to be taken seriously.  Indeed,
Stiglitz's comments came a week after the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) praised Malaysia for its skillful handling of capital
controls.

These comments represent a fundamental shift in the international
economic establishment's understanding of how that system works.
The economists at the World Bank and the IMF are not particularly
original or imaginative, and their track record in predicting and
managing the twists and turns of the international system is not,
to say the least, impressive.  Thus, viewing their policy shifts as
contributions to economic theory is not particularly useful.
Stiglitz and his colleagues at the World Bank and the IMF are not
people who go out on the limb with dramatically novel idea.  They
like to move with the herd.

That is what makes Stiglitz's statement extraordinarily important.
It shows that the herd is making one of its periodic migrations.
The World Bank's chief economist doesn't lead the convention.  He
is a superbly sensitive weather vane - he follows it.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the World Bank was committed to
massive, government-run infrastructure projects, reflecting the
conventional economic wisdom at the time that the state is the
appropriate engine for economic growth, at least in the developing
world. During the 1980s, when the conventional system shifted to
the view that the free market was the most efficient means of
capital allocation and economic growth, the World Bank slowly and
painfully shifted again.  They stuck with the free market position
throughout the Asian meltdown.

Now, two years after the bloodbath, they are slowly shifting again,
not only endorsing capital controls, but praising their own arch-
nemesis, Malaysia's Mahathir. Stiglitz is following the new
conventional wisdom: capital controls are chic.

Whether capital controls are good or bad doesn't really matter.
What matters is that they have been accepted by a highly
politicized, extremely powerful segment of the international
community that the World Bank/IMF complex is part of and serves.
This is the international financial community, understood as the
national bankers, the leading international banks and the political
elites to which they connect.

Stiglitz's comments reveal that the 20-year love affair with a
purely free market approach to international financial flows is, if
not coming to an end, nevertheless being severely modified.  There
are now cases in which market regulations are not only tolerable,
but also a good idea.

This will lead to interesting debates among economists, most of
whom will argue that controls create inefficiencies that will
retard recoveries and damage economies. The problem is that these
economists tend to approach these issues from an isolated angle.
Stratfor's view has been that economic crises increase the pressure
on governments to take steps that stabilize the situation in the
short run, even if they affect the economy negatively in the long
run.

For example, assume that political chaos is something to be
avoided.  Assume further that the economically opt

[PEN-L:11731] Re: binary passions

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:35 PM 9/24/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>The gold began to flow just when Portugal signed the Methuen Treaty with
>England in 1703. The treaty crowned a long series of privileges obtained by
>British merchants in Portugal. In return for some advantages for its wines
>in the English market, Portugal opened its own and its colonies’ markets to
>British manufactures. In view of the existing inequality of industrial
>development, this proved disastrous for local Portuguese manufactures. It
>was not with wine that English textiles were paid for, but with
>gold—Brazilian gold—and in the process Portuguese looms were paralyzed. Not
>content with killing its own industry in the bud, Portugal destroyed the
>seeds of any kind of manufacturing development in Brazil: until 1715 sugar
>refineries were banned, in 1729 it was made a criminal offense to build new
>roads in the mining region, and in 1785 local looms and spinning mills were
>ordered burned. 

-- snip --

This passage (and what follows) demonstrates that:

1. Britain already had superior industry befor the large scale plunder by
Portugal developed;

2. The Portuguese started plunder to pay for the British industrial goods

3. The plundered gold did not help the Portuguese industry, au contraire,
it cripled it.


The only logical conclusion that follows is that plunder was detrimental to
the development of self-sustained industrial capitalism and the plunderes
and his gold were soon parted by a country that already had sufficient
industrial strength.  

In short - plunder was neither sufficient nor the necessary conditon for
industrial capitalism - it developed in England basically on its own
internal factors; although industrial capitalits surely benefited from
being paid with the plundered gold.


That basically makes sense - the fact that US weapons manufacturers are
paid by third world client states with money that local dictators squeeze
out of the working class in their countries - does NOT mean that the third
world exploitation is either necessary or sufficient condition for the
development of the military industrual complex in the US - although it
makes the fat cats richer.


wojtek

[PEN-L:11659] Re: Role of Total Foreign Trade

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:14 PM 9/24/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>I don't know what your deal is, Ricardo, but you are stuck in the 1980s on
>a lot of these questions. I recall that you posted once on how the Mayans
>self-destructed because of anti-ecological farming practices. This too was
>an argument based on out-of-date evidence. More recent scholarship has
>refuted this claim rather definitively. I might add that Blaut takes up


Lou, this is not computer business - newer is not necessariy better - the
fact that someone came up with a new intellectual commodity (interpretation
of facts) does not mean it is any better than the "1980 stuff."  Not
everyone on this list is an economic historian cum cultural anthropologist
(I am ceratinly not) - so it would be useful to briefly state how the new
research is relevant to the argument at hand, instead of giving obscure
references.  I'm trying to do that in my postings.

>this question as well. It seems that part of the Eurocentrist arsenal is a
>belief that capitalism did not take hold in places like Africa and Central
>America because of "shifting agriculture" practices which involve burning
>fields and then moving on to new locales. It turns out that such practices
>do not damage the soil at all since fires were not allowed to get out of
>control and were appropriate to less than fertile soil conditions.


I do not understand why such a view is eurocentrist.  Slash-and-burn
agriculture does create a different institutional dynamics that can hve
impact on the stability of society.  First, slash and burn agriculture is
not "stationary" in the sense that the forest is burned every year or two
in a different location.  Second, this type of agriculture requires precise
timing - too early (too much moisture) makes burning difficult and seeds
can rot, too late (to dry) seeds may be burned.  That creates the need for
'intelectual property" - the knowledge of astronomy.  So the priests who
can tell the time from their astronomical observations give their
intellectual commodity to the peasant in exchange of food (that's what all
intellectuals do) - an dthat forms the basis for the urban development.

The problem is however, that when the burden of supporting the growing
cities becomes to heavy - the peasant can take their cultivation elsewhere,
especially taht after a while he can learn the secret of timing himself,
and is not dependent on the priests' 'intellectual property rights'
anymore.  Remember, that he has to slash and burn a new plot every year or
two - so all he needs to do is select a plot that is farther away inthe
forest away from the city's influence.  The peasant can sustain himself,
but the city cannot in a long run, and collapses.

That pattern is consistent with the fact that while the Mayan people
survived to this day, their cities collapsed well before any conquest,
European or otherwise.

what is so eurocentric about it?  If anything, it can teach Europeans and
US-ers a lesson or two - namely that dependence of 'intellectual property
rights' alone can be a very short lived strategy indeed.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11656] Re: binary passions

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:09 PM 9/24/99 -0500, Mathew Forstater wrote:
>One of the issues I am trying to get at is that there were egalitarian
>societies, non-stratified societies, classless societies (the being
>obviously some controversy here--for a change!), and it is important to have
>a more subtle analysis I believe than the impression given by Wojtek below.
>There are also all kinds of "mixed" systems, or systems with differing
>levels and degrees of internal stratification or not, etc., and also just
>different systems period.  To seriously address the issues that are implied
>and suggested by Wojtek's post--whether he meant to or not--we need to--as
>Carroll has remined--do some theory.  We need a general theoretical
>framework--let's make the theoretical framework explicit, explore and
>develop it (by the way, for anyone who cares, this was exactly [one of]
>Darity's criticism[s] of O'Brien, but that got lost in the shuffle).


Before we agree on a theory, we need to agree on the unit of analysis.  As
you correctly observed, there are all kinds of "mixed systems", meaning
that in any particular social-historical setting, there are differet kinds
of units of production.  Some of them may operate in a "capitalist" mode
(i.e. employing wage labor to produce commodities for exchange, profit
maximizing, accumulating, etc.) whereas other do not (for example, peasant
households, artisan shops, etc.).  Thus, lableing such a "system" as
'capitalist' or 'pre-capitalis' is a pars-pro-toto fallacy, we focus of
those cases that we a priori label important while ignore other.

This is of fundamental importantce to answering the question whether
colonial exploitation was a suffcient/necessary/contributing condition of
capitalist development.  WEstern countries were not showered with pludered
gold, falling like manna from the sky.  Au contraire, plunder was a highly
organized activity - meaning that there were institutions that financed and
organized expeditions, and there were institutions that received and
controlled gold brough from the Americas.  Moreover, those instituions had
contacts with certain other institutions, both domestic and foreign and
have little or no contact with still other instituions.  

So to answer the question at hand we have to examine how the availability
of plundered resources affected the structure and behavior of (i)
instituions (organizations) that directly received/controled those
resources, (ii) institutions that collaborated with those that directly
controlled the resources, (iii) institutions that controlled/regulated
these organizations that received the resources (iv) institutions that had
no contact or competed against those organizations that either directrly
received the resources or that benefited from those resources directly, etc.

That would suggest organization rather than the nation state (let alone
'world system' where everything is connected with everything so all we can
do is hold hands and hope for synergy instead of doing a rational analysis)
to be the proper unit of analysis.  It is not unreasonale to presume that
capitalist mode of production started at the level of individual
organization (firm) and then spread out to other fields, geographical
regions, countries.  

So it is worthwhile to examine where the first capitalist firms emerged.
In Spain, where the plundered gold was received.  Certainly not.  So
clearly, the availability of the plundered resources was not the suffcient
condition.  But that does not rule out the necessary condition.  But the
problem with the necessary condtion is this.  A firm might have been able
to switch to the 'capitalist' mode of production solely because of the
availability of the plundered resources - as the third worldist crowd on
this list suggest.  But it might have also switched to that mode of
production solely because it was denied those resources, and in order to
overcome their disadvantage, it had to develop a more efficient form of
production/exploitation of domestic resources.  

In both cases, the availability of plundered resources can be considered a
necessary condition of capitalist development, but each one tells a very
different story.  In the first instance, capitalist development was a
direct result of resource availability, in the second instance - it was a
response to competitive disadvantage created by availability of pludered
resources to some but not all organizations.

Moreover, we need to examine the response to 'capitalist innovation' by
other institutions/organizations, governments, organized religion,
nobility, guilds, etc.  Which one were supportive, which ones were hostile?
Under what conditions?

Again, the proper unit of analysis to answer that question is organization,
not nation-state, let alone abstractions like 'world system.'  Only when we
can test some empirical hypotheses at that level, we can come with a theory
of capitalist development.


wojtek

[PEN-L:11633] Re: wojtek

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:11 AM 9/24/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>The problem with Wojtek's proposal below is that it is anti-dialectical:
he reverses the priority of the whole over the part. One MUST start with
the largest "unit", the whole system. You must, despite the difficulty of
it, start with " the world system". This error taken to its typical
bourgeois level places the "unit" at the level of the individual, and then
it derives the characteristics of the group or the "social" from the
individual. Thus, capitalism is explained by the "rational man(sic)" who is
an individual, Robinson Crusoe. 
>
>This is an error of Cartesianism.


Charles, with all due respect, i disagree.  I lean toward philosophical
nominalism and tend to view 'wholes' as nothing but figments of human
imagination, platonic ideas imbued with 'real' existence - or a way of
interpreting the world, if you will.

More precisely, a 'whole' can be either a product of assembling and
aggregating individual units of analysis in a partricular way (e.g.
statistical sample), or something that has a 'real existence' (e.g. an
assembly of individuals forming an organization).  Thus, it is of key
importance to distinguish between the 'whole ' as contsructed by the
researcher, and the 'whole' as existing independently of the researcher's
cognitive processes, existing in the objects being studied.

For example, neo-classical economists do not make that distinction.  They
assume that the form or rationality that guides their research (e.g. utlity
maximisation) is also the form of rationality that guides human behavior
they study.  In other words, they tend to belive that all human actors know
what the nc researches do.  based on that, they describe the "whole" (i.e.
equilibrium, which is a property of the system of exchange i.e. a whole) by
simply agregating those individual rationalities which are reflections of
their own rationality. That is why, imho, nc economics is pure science
fiction incapable of predicting a single fact.

If we start with "naturally" existing wholes - i.e. social assemblies that
exist in the minds and behavior of people who form them, not just in the
mind of the researcher - we came closer to empirical science than to
tautologies of th enc variety.  For example, in a particular historical
setting, certain units of production may operate in a "capitalist" mode
(i.e. employing wage labor to produce commodities for exchange, profit
maximizing, accumulating, etc.) whereas other do not (for example, peasant
households, artisan shops, etc.).  Does that mean that the "whole" i.e.
entire nation-state where both kinds of units exist is capitalist or
non-capitalist?  Of course, the decision is arbitrary, a typical
"half-full, half-empty" dilemma, and thus subject to ideological
interpretations.

If, on the other hand, we focus on individual units of production (instead
of nation states or even larger wholes) as the unit or analysis - we avoid
that arbitrariness, and may actually learn something about the nature of
capitalist institutions, instead of assuming that a priori, by definition.

cheers,

wojtek

[PEN-L:11630] Re: Re: Re: RE: binary passions

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:57 PM 9/23/99 -0500, Mathew Forstater wrote:
>right, wojtek, your position of favoring internal factors is "scientific"
>while one who through careful study reaches the tentative conclusion (always
>subject to possible revision) that "external" factors are of primary
>importance must subscribe to some "irrational" worldview of some kind.
>


Exactly.  You see, brigands, plunderers, warlords etc.  existed for
centuries almost since the beginning of history and on every continent -
Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.  Although they all thrived on
plundering other societies - not all of them could turn the plundered
riches to a social-institutional system capable of sustaining and
reproducing itself.  Moreover, even those who could e.g. the Incas or the
Aztecs - built a very different social system form that of the European
capitalism.  

It is, therefore clear that it is not the resource availability per se, or
even how those resources were initially acquired, but the internal
(institutional) features of societies that use them that needs to be
examined to explain the differences between the societies in question. 

Now, you surely agree with me that if the issue at hand was just an
empirical explanation of economic development in Western European - it
would not generate passions it does.  I lived in the underdeveloped part of
the world long enough to understand the role of ideology and religion to
dupe people with a sense of national pride and cultural superiority.  That
is hardly anything new - religion has always been the opium of the people.
My main objection is that self-styled marxist use marxist rhetorics to that
end.  There is a certain perverted irony in using marxism to create a
religious cult, no?

wojtek


PS. What I really abhor about a great deal of the US leftism is its
cultish, idealistic and moralistic bent.  Yuk!

[PEN-L:11568] Re: RE: binary passions

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:41 PM 9/23/99 -0400, Max Sawicky wrote:
>I don't understand why it's not possible to think that the 
>combination of internal changes within Europe plus imperialism 
>combined to produce capitalism as we know it. Why is such a 
>passionate matter of either/or dispute?
>Doug
>>
>
>Looks to me like the subtext to the essentiality of
>colonialism argument is that capitalism itself is
>not a stage of historical progress, relative to
>its predecessors, but merely a different form of
>the same underlying misery and oppression.
>
>No progress means little scope for reform, plus
>the irrelevance of the working class in the 
>industrialized countries, particularly white
>workers in the U.S.  Ergo the implied
>necessity of third-worldist revolution.
>Lin Pao (sp?) and Che are still with us.
>Morbid symptoms and all that.


Max, I would also like to call attention to the religious aspect of it -
third worldism is a form of a messianistic cult of the kind that were
popular in the 19th century Europe (originating in the hegelian right, if
memory serves).  Essentiaslly the idea was to self-portray a disadvantaged
nation or a group of people as the "messiah of nations" that is, a nation
whose suffering significantly contributes to the 'salvation' i.e.
prosperity of other nations.  This way, disadvantaged groups could
vicariously overcome their marginalization and see themselves as the 'pivot
of the world.' Kind of biblical eschatology ("the wretched of the earth
inherit the kingdom of heaven") without the other-worldly mumbo-jumbo.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11567] Re: RE: Re: wojtek

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:51 AM 9/23/99 -0400, Max Sawicky wrote:
>WS:  . . .  You also dismiss my argument that you may not have sufficient
>empirical evidence to sort out effects of different variables by simply
>calling it "babble."  Well, my friend, if you ran a multiple regression with
>twelve variables plus interaction effects and six cases - you would be
>laughed out of the stage.  What makes you think that a case-based approach
>is any different, from a methodological point of view. . . . >>
>
>Tho I agree JB has been a little too big for his britches,
>I wonder what the above means for historical analysis.
>More often than not there are not sufficient cases to
>use statistical tests of hypotheses; or the question
>is too broad to admit of analysis via a data set. So
>where does that leave historians, both economic and
>otherwise?


Max, imho the problem is how you construct your unit of analysis - the
bigger the unit (e.g. nation-state), the fewer cases you get while the
picture becomes more complicated and difficult to analyze.  My suggestion
would be constructing a unit of analysis at a relatively low leve of
aggregation, e.g. a firm/organization instead of the nation-state or,
goddess forbid, 'the world system.' This way you can:

- effectively address the problem of human agency versus environmental
influences
- get enough emprical material (cases) to run meaninful comparisons, both
within and between nation-states;
- get enough cases to meet the 'ceteris paribus' and provide counterfactual
- whi8ch is necessary to analytically separate and demonstrate the claimed
effects of individual variables.

For example to adress the question of 'what made capitalism work and
reproduce itself' - it would be more fruitful to analyze the basic unit of
production under capitalism and, say, fedualism and see what they share in
common and how they differ - rather than addressing issue at the
nation-state level and trying to guess th efactors that brough about a
capitalist 'system.'  To my knowledge, Russian historical economist A.V.
Chayanov used that approach quite effectively.

To summarize, i'd say keep your cases (units of analysis) simple, multiple
- to ascertain comparisons and analytical separation of effects, and
empirically verifiable (is there a counterfactual to your case?), do not
loose human agency from sight, and stay clear of nation-states and world
systems.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11544] Re: colonialism etc

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:30 PM 9/22/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>I am not sure what you mean by "switching to capitalism". Capitalist
>property relations existed throughout Latin America in the 1800s. The
>problem is that the form of capitalism practiced did not conform to
>Jeffersonian mythology. Instead of plucky, self-provisioning farmers, you
>had the plantation system with quasi-feudal social relations (debt peonage,
>etc.) The central illusion of bourgeois politics in Latin America is that
>the plantation system could be abolished without abolishing capitalism
>itself. Today, all of these countries (Colombia, El Salvador, etc.) employ
>very modern capitalist technology (airplanes dispensing pesticides,
>computer databases, genetically modified seed, etc.) but lack even the most
>elementary rights of a bourgeois democracy, including the right of free
>association in order to form unions. I am afraid your schema does not
>address existing reality.
>


I think you got a point when questioning the meaning "switching to
capitalism."  What I had in mind is "industrialization Western-European
style."  The argument I proposed runs as follows:  both, the "Asian Tigers"
(esp. Taiwan and Korea) and Latin American countries started in the "same
place" - they were latecomers to industrialization, they shared colonial
past and vestiges of feudal social relations, yet they differe in the
outcome of their industrialization project.  The 'tigers" are much more
successful.  How can we explain that difference?  The conventional 'wisdom'
says work ethics.  My explanation is 'land reform.'  The 'tigers' were able
to neutralize the power of landed elites through land reform, Latin
American countries were not - which your passage acknowledges.  Since
landed gentry is a major obstacle to industrial development (their
interests as food producers and exporters contradict those of industralists
for whom food is a cost, and who depend on imports), neutralizing them as a
class makes a diffrence between successful and unsuccessful industrualization.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11538] Re: wojtek

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:53 PM 9/22/99 -0400, Jim Blaut wrote:
>"The sufficient condition can be questioned by the
>counterefactual of Spain and Portugal that in th einitial
>phase of colonial expansion seemed to be main beneficiaries
>of colonial exploitation. The Spaniards, for example, are
>'credited' with plundering virtually ALL Inca gold.  Yet,
>both countries became thrid rate industrial and military
>powers by the 18th century -  which indicates that plunder
>alone was not a suffcient condition for the capitalist
>takeoff."
>
>Spain and Portugal were the conduit through which the
>merchant-protocapitalist community in NW and Central Europe
>and Italy acquired the wealth from colonialism. This is
>perfectly well-known. The lack of development of Spain and
>Portugal is of no theoretical interest in this discourse.


Jim, I think this passage exemplifies the fundamental difference between
your and my position on the subject.  I am an empirical scientist, not an
erudite, I am concerned with emprical facts, not their interepretations in
the literature.  The empirical fact is that countries that benefited the
most directly from plundering South America were not able to transform that
advantage into a capitalist system (i.e. system that reproduces itself).
That seems to me a very important counterfactural evidence to the claim
that colonial exploitation was a sufficient condition for capitalism.

Your strategy seems to be declaring that fact irrelevant by a semantic
gimmick - calling the countries in question "conduits."  That is, you
implicitly affirm the fact that these countries passed their riches instead
of using them for capitalist development, but call it by a different name
and consider the case closed.  That may be good lit-crit, but poor
empirical science.  An inquiring mind would like to know what *internal
factors* made the difference bewteen "conduits" and "accumulators" i.e.
ordinary brigands who plundered civilizations for centuries, and
capitalists, a uniquely modern phenomenon.

In the same vein, you use a semantic gimmick to dismiss my argument about
the necessary condition.  I stated that neither Germany, Sweden or Japan
received any meaningful benefits from colonial exploitation - which is an
emprical fact, if the "meaningful benefits" are defined as those reaped by
Spain or England.  You dismiss that fact by changing the subject and saying
that the countries in question "partricipated" in colonial ventures
(without giving specific examples of the magnitude or character of that
'participation').  Well, my friend, Turks, Poles and Yugoslavs also
'participated' in the German post 2nd world war economic miracle - as
"guest workers."  Would you say that Turkey, Poland or Yugoslavia owes its
post-war development to their 'exploitation of the German economic boom?"

You also dismiss my argument that you may not have sufficient empirical
evidence to sort out effects of different variables by simply calling it
"babble."  Well, my friend, if you ran a multiple regression with twelve
variables plus interaction effects and six cases - you would be laughed out
of the stage.  What makes you think that a case-based approach is any
different, from a methodological point of view.

To summarize, your strategy seems to be based on drowning your causal model
(if any) in a constant stream of quotations, name dropping, and literary
references.  That makes good literary criticism or talmudic scholarship,
but do not quite qualifies as empirical science.

regards,

wojtek

[PEN-L:11503] Re: colonialism etc

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:55 PM 9/22/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>
>The question that needs addressing is not how and why feudalism in Europe
>evolved into capitalism, but how the particular "world system" got created.


I do not believe that there is a 'world system' other than the one in the
minds of wallerstein & co.  i'm more on the nominalist/historical
contingnetism side on that issue.

As to the rest, I agree.  However, the lack of success in the countries
that switched to capitalism relatively late (e.g. 20th century), that might
be simply a result of timing rather than their "intrinsic" characteristics.
 That is, they would have been more successful if they did not face
competition from more developed capitalis countries who got a head start.
It is like with theater seats, the worst ones go not necessarily to the
dumbest, but to those who came in late.

OTOH, we need to explain the differences between latecomers, such as "Asian
tigers" and most of Latin America, which is often used to support the "work
ethics" (ie, individual arguments).  One possible explanation is the land
reform - or more precisely, eliminating the landlords who are the major
obstacle to capitalist progress.  "Asian tigers" had one, Latin America did
not (except Mexico).  Another possibility is the geo-political location, or
"so far from god, so close to the united states" as they say in mexico.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11491] Re: colonialism etc

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:13 AM 9/22/99 -0400, James Blaut wrote:
>Most of the arguments for this uniqueness doctrine fall
>back on putatively unique psychological qualities:
>mentality, rationality, venturesomeness, inquisitiveness,
>inventiveness, aggressiveness, bloodthirtyness, the Judeo-
>Christian ethic, etc., etc. Many arguments focus on social
>institutions, not individual psychological qualities:
>family, market, polity, etc., etc. But most of these 
>latter sorts of arguments are also grounded in a conception
>of pre-1500 European people as having the unique
>psychological qualities. Apart from a general tendency to
>reduce the social to the individual, there is the fact that
>it is very difficult to explain how and why some
>collective, institutional feature appeared in Europe and
>nowhere else (or more progressively in Europe, or much
>earlier in Europe) without postulating that human beings
>somehow "thought it up." (I'll briefly take up the notions
>about Europe's  supposedly superior natural environment
>later on. They are less prominent in the debates today.) 


Hmmm.  So in essence, you argue against a racist argument claiming moral
and intellectual superiority of the European male (females did not count in
politics).  I guess it is a straw-man in the context of this list, but it
can be argued that such views are shared by a certain segment of the
population, so a rebuttal is warranted.

Methinks, however, that your rebuttal in essence re-confirms rather than
rebuts the psychological reductionism that underlies the superiority
argument in question.  As I see it, you argue that, far from being morally
and intellectually superior, European males were exceptionally evil - as
they achieved their superiority through plunder and exploitation of others.
 In other words, it is still moral/intellectual properties of individuals,
except the value placed on them is negative rather than positive.

For that reasosn I find the entire debate along these lines rather
unconvincing.  I myself prefer an institutional argument focusing on the
(quite coincidental) institutional arrangement and distribution of
resources.  I think Barkley (whose views I highly value) hit the nail on
the head by claiming that while the need for gold due to trade imbalance
intensified exploration and exploitation, it does not explain the
capitalist takeoff.  I voiced a similar argument in my discussion of
necessary and suffcient conditions posted to this thread.

In my opinion, European capitalism is institutionally different from its
feudal predecessor as well as social systems elsewhere in its unique
capacity to privatize profits while socializing (externalizing) the cost of
production. Privatization of profits and freedom from social obligations is
what greatly facilitated capitalist accumulation.  It's quite simple, the
more you take in and the less you have to give away due to your social
obligations, the more you can accumulate.

Under feudalism, the lord extracted suprplus form the peasants, but also
had certain obligatiopns toward them - such as defence or support in the
time of famine.  Slavery may effectively externalize the cost, but not by
socializing it (i.e. costs are externalized on a group that is essentaially
alient to a society), so other than slave owners members of that society
also benefit by being spared bearing the full cost of production (absorbed
by slaves).  By contrast, the capitalist could extract surplus without
having any further obligations toward the rest of society (i.e. working
class).  That sets capitalism apart not just from feudalism, but from
social systems outside europe at that time.  That dramatic change is marked
by the enclosures in England.

So what we need to explain is what made that radical departure possible.  I
do not think I can produce an exhaustive explanation of this forum without
committing myself to further research.  In most general terms, however, I
belive that the key to that explanation lies in what sociologists call
social integration, or cohesion between diffrent social groups and classes.
  The factors that weakened that cohesion in Europe, also made it easier to
privatize the prifits while externalizing the cost of production on the
rest of society.

Among such factors I see the following:

- institutional separation of religion and state and centralisation of
secular power which was high in Europe, but almost nonexisting in the
islamic world and far east;  religion was what united the king and pauper
in the middle ages; secularization of state weakened that cohesion;

- "interlocking directorates" or international network of aristorcacy,
intermarriages and enthronement of foreign aristorcrats, very extensive in
Europe; while it promoted ruling class solidarity that was instrumental in
large scale colonial projects, it alsoe weakened social cohesion within a
society (i.e. separated the rulers from the rest of society);

- urbanization - the growing imporatne cof urban economy promoted di

[PEN-L:11450] Re: Re: Re: Re: colonialism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

A question to Jim Blaut:

I am not quite sure what are you trying to demonstrate in this and related
threads:

- that slavery and colonial exploitation created economic benefits for
slave owners and pludereres?  - that seems an obvious and uninteresting
conclusion.


- that slavery and colonial exploitation was a key element in capitalist
development? - that seems a moot point for several reasons.  First we need
to define what kind of "condition" we are talking about - is it a necessary
condition?, a sufficient condition?,  a contributing factor (but neither
necessary nor suffcient)?

The necessary condition argument can be rebutted by showing instances of
countries that pursued capitalist development without any meaningful
benefits of prior colonial exploitation or slavery - exmples include
Germany, Sweden, or Japan.  

The sufficient condition can be questioned by the counterefactual of Spain
and Portugal that in th einitial phase of colonial expansion seemed to be
main beneficiaries of colonial exploitation. The Spaniards, for example,
are 'credited' with plundering virtually ALL Inca gold.  Yet, both
countries became thrid rate industrial and military powers by the 18th
century -  which indicates that plunder alone was not a suffcient condition
for the capitalist takeoff.

The contributing factor argument is trivial, unless we specify the exact
conditions and exact nature of that contribution.  That endeavour, however,
seems to me problematic for methodological reasons,  Unless one insists on
a simple, monocausal explanation of capitalist development, we must assume
many pre-conditions and contributing causes.  For example, geographical
location that favors exchange with different cultures (Middle East, Far
East, as well as the legacy of previous cultures, mainly Roman and Greek
transmitted to Europe via Arab connection), type of economy and
agriculture, social institutions, type of military conflict, type of
interaction with foreign countries and cultures, the type and level of
colonial exploitation, the pre-existing class structure, the importance of
cities and unrban economies, cultural and religious heterogeneity, type of
leadership, knowledge and technology etc.  

All those conditions and their combinations represent different variables
that must be considered in different combinations to evaluate their
contribution, if any, to the outcome in question (i.e. capitalist
development).  Just to illustrate the complexity of teh task, the twelve
variables I just listed can produce 144 different combinations if each
those variables has only two values.  The problem is, however, that we do
not have enough cases to make all the relevant comparisons to sort out th
ecombinatins that re important from those that are not - in fact, we have
more possible variables than cases, the latter being limited to a handlful
of Western European nations, and perhaps Japan and the US.  

In this situation, we simply have no way of analytically separating the
exact set of conditions that "account for" capitalist development in Europe
but not elsewhere.  The best we can do is to form an "educated guess" which
means forming different opinions that cannot be proved or disproved by
empirical evidence.  That is avery sobering thought, indeed.

wojtek

[PEN-L:11228] Re: Capitalist development

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

PS.  I am apalled by the systematic exclusion of historical accident,
especially on the Left which is infatauted with hindsight rationalizations.
 But I would go as far as saying that perhaps three fourths of history
(both national and persons) is a result of accident, being in the right
place at the right time with the right set of attitudes or resources, only
one fourth to conscious planning forward.

I think people are ultimate opportunists, most of what they experience is
due to chance rather than their own abilities, but then they look back at
their fortunes or misfortunes form the hindsight and cast themselves as
rational planners and masters of their own fate, or victims of some evil
superior rational force.  They cannot accept the fact that their lives are
affected by accidents that have no purpose or meaning.

wojtek

 

[PEN-L:11226] Re: Re: Capitalist development

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:42 PM 9/17/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>If one blames all of E's rise on exploitation, then in some ways it's a
>critique of the periphery that allowed itself to be conquered and
>exploited. If, on the other hand, one blames it all on capitalism's (or
>Europe's) internal dynamic, it's quite a critique of capitalism and/or
>Europe, considering what that dynamic did to the rest of the world. 
>
>I don't think the blame game should guide historical understanding.
>


This was precisely the point I tried to make by objecting to the
"exploitationist" explanations of the European development.  As in case
every historical "event" or "development" - it was a dialectical
interaction of past institutional history and accumulated knowledge (from
all over the world, to be sure), geo-political location, accident, and
opening opportunities.  Oftentimes, it was impossible to predict the future
consequences of current events, e.g. the nclosures in England. 

Howver, when viewed form the hindsight, these events can be ex-post facto
arranged into logical trends that suggest the existence of some some master
plan (or conspiracy) which is then attributed to the actors who "produced"
these events.  This is teleological thinking, akin to attributing
purposefulness to evolution.

IMHO, the key to understanding historical events is the analytic separation
of the actual motives and intentions of social actors form the unintended,
latent consequences of their actions.  To illustrate that, th elords
enclosing the comon lands in England were unlikely to be motivated by a
desire to start an industrial revolution.   However, their action led to
the creation of the proletariat which, with the combination of other
factors, was instrumental in the industrial revolution a hundred or so
years after.  But there was neither necessity not master plan (or
"conspiracy") in that development - just a series of coincidences.

In the same vein, it is easy to ex-post-facto blame Soviet leaders like
Stalin for the deaths resulting from their policies.  But people who do so,
basically fail to perform a rather difficult intellectual task to ascertain
whether these policy makers had sufficient knowledge to fully predict the
consequences of their policy or what were their actual intentions.

It is easy to speculate from the vantage point of the hindsight, attribute
what we know today to the state of mind of historical actors, and either
glorify or condemn them ex-post-facto.  That may have some
psychotherapeutic or ideological value - but beyond that, it is witchcraft
not science.

wojtek


PS. virtually every known historical civilization engaged in some form of
plunder, exploitation, and systematic killings of their adversaries.
Sometimes these plunders paid off, sometimes it did not, sometimes were
irrelevant.  Take for example Spain - the conquistadores plundered
virtually all gold of the Andes - more then everyone else at that time -
but despite all the riches they plundered, Spain quickly became a
thrid-rate power by the 18th century.  The Germans, otoh, were largely
exluded from the spoils of the colonial plunder, yet they became first
class power.

[PEN-L:11094] Re: Re: Re: Capitalist development

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:05 PM 9/15/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>The "Europeans did it mostly themselves" argument is captured very well in
the Robinson Crusoe myth. Crusoe's help didn't arrive until Friday.
>
> The White Man's Burden is a variation of this myth. Europeans conquered
the world to help everybody, not to rip them off.
>
>The historical myth is refuted indirectly quite well  in the same way that
the current myth is : Why didn't the Europeans just stay in Europe if they
weren't getting a lot from the colonies and slavery ? Adventure is not a
plausible answer. 
>
>>The economies and societies of the peripheral world were destroyed,
>>annihilated, plundered, large number of people were killed, directly and
>>indirectly, but this is not what the development of capitalism depended
>>upon.
>
>What was the motive for all the destroying, annihilating, plundering ?
Gratuitous evil ? Come on. What are you saying ? That they thought they
were going to make treasure, but as it turned out they didn't make much,
and should have just stayed in Europe ?



Charles, the ethical aspects of colonialism aside - if the wealth of
European capitalism originated in the third world, why did not that wealth
produce economic development on a par with capitalism outside Europe prior
to the plunder?

As to the motivation of European colonial expansion - obviously the
Europeans did it because they perceived some benefits - that is a
tautology.  Those benefits may vary from seeking fortune and glory to
escaping poverty, feudal expolitation or religious persecution in the old
world.  But that is much different by saying that Europe would not develop
economically had not it been for the colonial plunder.  For one thing,
Europe could embark on such plunder because it had been already more
economically and militarrly developed than the peoples they conquered.
Without colonialism, European colonialism would have most likely taken a
different turn (it is always difficult to rationally approach that subject
because no counterfactual to history exist) - but it would certainly
continue to accumulate.


Clearly, European development has its roots in the institutional history
and geopolitics that go as far as the Roman Empire - like the political
fragmentation and perpetualconflict that promoted the devlopment of
military technology, or the exchange with middle eastern and asian cultures
that proomoted the development of science, etc.  

wojtek

>

[PEN-L:11010] "intellectual" property rights

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

A posting of another list.  While reading this, it is hard to avoid the
conclusions that intellectuals are in the dire need of a forced labor camp,
just as doctor Stalin presecribed.

wojtek


>Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 12:12:37 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Peter Kosenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [stormingheaven] "intellectual" property rights
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Delivered-to: mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Mailing-List: list [EMAIL PROTECTED]; contact
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>List-Unsubscribe: 
>
>From: "Peter Kosenko" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>Well, again, I don't have time to respond at length to everything, but if
you want to see a good example of Wotjek's contention that intellectual
property rights are subject to extreem abuse, check out the article in
yesterday's Los Angeles Times "Will Cyber Patents Stymie Hollywood Giants?"
>
>http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/CUTTING/t81909.html
>
>Some businesses are now trying to patent "business processes" that are
unrelated to any particular technology. One company, for example, claims to
hold a patent to "the very concept of delivering movies and music over the
Net."  In other words, it believes that it can extort a fee from anyone who
develops any actual technology to do the same, and from any businesses that
try to set up a similar form of movie or music distribution.
>
>One might call this the revenge of the MBA.  Apparently, enough people
were turned out with MBA degrees who failed to get real jobs, so they are
busy as squirrels writing up business plans and trying to "patent" them as
a means of extortion.
>
>Peter Kosenko
>
>
>--- ONElist Sponsor 
>
>ONElist:  your connection to people who share your interests.
>
>
>
>

[PEN-L:11009] Baltimore primaries

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Yesterday, Martin O'Malley won the Democratic nomination for the mayoral
election to be held in November.  Since Democrats outnumber Republicans by
the ratio of 9:1 in Baltimore, O'Malley is virtually certain to become the
next mayor.

There are several interesting aspects of that election which suggest that
identity politics based on ideological claims and promises (race, religion,
pie-in-the-sky) lost while hard-nosed political-economic realism (promise
of economic development, quality of life, pro-active government) especially
among the black voters.  


1. Race.  O'Malley, who's white, won a 53% majority in the predominantly
black (about 70%) working class city, running against two black candidates
(Carl Stokes and Lawrence Bell) endorsed by the local politcal machine and
black churches.  Stokes received endorsement of all major black churches in
the city, city bureaucrats, Baltimore Sun and Afro-American (two major
local newspapers), while Lawrence Bell was endorsed by the police and
firefighthers unions.  OTOH, O'Malley received endorsement of key black
political leaders, including Kweisi Mfume.

O'Malley run the most "rainbow" campaign stressing inter-racial unity over
divisiveness.  Stokes voiced the same theme, but stronger appeals to the
black voters to "vote alomg race lines."   Bell repeatedly tried to
race-bait his opponent, and mobilize his support by frequently voicing
accusations of racism.  Moreover, the BUILD coalition - primarily composed
of black churches, flooded the city with posters "Do not waste your power,
vote BUILD" which was a thinly veiled appeal to vote black, since both Bell
and Stokes claimed affiliation with the coalition.

 

Stokes received 26% of the votes, while Bell - 17%.  O'Malley victory
hinged on a substantial chunk of the black voters (about 30%) "crossing the
race line" and endorsing his candidacy over that of his two black
opponents.  For a fuller coverage of that aspect of yesterday's election see

http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/editorial/story.cgi?section=cover&storyid=115
0140225047


Clearly, racial politics played by politicians and pundits were rejected by
a significant part of black voters.  Whites voted predominantly for
O'Malley, although a sizeable white minority endorsed Stokes.



2. The most often cited by the media commentators reason behind the
surprisingly strong O'Malley's victory was his strong crime
prevention/quality of life message.  While these are undoubtedly important
concerns, especially in black neighborhoods, the fact of the matter is that
all three candidates focused primarily on these issues.  What distnguished
O'Malley from his opponents, however, was his concrete proposals to address
these issues on the governmental level.  Stokes advocated a "grassroot
mobilization" approach, such as involving local churches and NGOs, or
getting citizens involved in policing and street cleaning operations.  At
one point, he offered to give out brooms to all citizens willing to clean
up their neighborhoods.  Bell came up with vague slogans to fight crime and
cited his endorsement by the city police.

It seems that the voters prefered the pro-active government approach to
city problems proposed by O'Malley to self-help grassroots tinkering hinted
by Stokes or law-and-order credentials of Bell.



3. Change.  O'Malley campaign prominently featured promises of sweeping
changes, including firing the top city bureaucrats (the chief of police,
the director of public works, and the director of public housing)
implicated in numerous scandals, and charges of corruption and
discrimiantion.  Stokes also promised a change but was much more vague
about it - he said he would ask the top bureaucrats to "reapply" for their
jobs, but refusing to tell whether he would re-hire them.  Bell did not
have much to say on the subject except vague promises.

It seems that the voters were fed up with the indeptitude of Schmoke (the
current mayor) administration promising much but delivering little, and
endorsed someone who promised to take concrete and decisive steps to change
the status quo .


4. Privatization.  O'Malley was the only candidate who declared his
opposition to the privatization of city services.  Stokes hinted he would
privatize some services.   Moreover, O'Malley was the most anti the
let's-cut-taxes-while-delivering-more-public-services attitude.  Stokes
with his private business background was more inclined toward it.  O'Malley
was also the only candidate who acknowledge the city's fiscal problems due
to shrinking tax base, and promised to counteract that trend by attracting
more people to the city.

While the antiprivatization aspect of the O'Malley campaign was virtually
ignored by the mainstream comentators, in my opinion it was an important
factor in his electoral victory.


5.  Economic development - O'Malley proposed the most specific strategy to
increase economic development and reduce unemployment (which is twice the
national average).

6.  Enviro

[PEN-L:10976] Re: Why China Failed to Become Capitalist

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:25 PM 9/14/99 -0400, Doug and Charles wrote:
>Charles Brown wrote:
>
>>Charles: Given the G-7 ,aren't there only about 7,  main imperialist 
>>countries ? That's 1.4 to 1.7 main colonies per imperialist center.
>
>Don't forget the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Scandinavia, 
>Spain, etc. There are probably about 20 main imperialist countries 
>all together.
>
>>Do you have a way of calculating the profits made by imperialism 
>>from its main investment targets ? Why else would Ford and GM, etc, 
>>move plants to Mexico and Brazil, etc., except a much higher rate of 
>>profit ?
>
>Yes, of course, but about 70% of the stock of foreign direct 
>investment is inter-imperialist, and the main reason for that is 
>penetrating new markets with local production. If you believe the 
>official stats, MNCs aren't making outlandishly superprofits on their 
>"Third World" investments.


IMHO, you treat profiting from the third world countries too literally - as
if capitalism was incapable of boosting production on its own.  As I
understand marxist critique of capitalism - it is NOT productivity that is
capitalism's weak spot, but externalities.  In other words, the unresolved
social externalities of capitalist production will eventually topple
capitalism despite its superior productivity - it is an economic "law of
entropy" of a sort - the energy will be there, but most of that enrgy will
be unavailable to do useful work.

If you think in terms of analogies to thermodynamics, every system must be
able to dispose off its extenalities to generate surplus.  Take, for
example, air conditioning unit, which blows cool air from the one end, and
warm air from the other.  The warm air is the byproduct of generating cool
air, thus it is an "externality."  But for the air conditioning unit to
"work" - that externality must be properly disposed off, or 'externalized'
- i.e. by placing the unit in a window, so the warm air blows outside.  If
you place th eunit in the middle of the room, or if the "outside" cannot
absorb the heat generated by the unit anymore (e.g. temperature being too
high), th eunit will be "working" (i.e. its parts moving), but no use-value
(cool room) will be generated.  

The dependence of the air conditioner on the "periphery" (outdoors) is not
the dependcy on the energy source (electricity) but the dependency on
absorption of its byproducts.

To apply that analogy to the relationships beteen the developed core and
third world countries, the third world countries are not the engine of
capitalist growth, but the dumping ground for capitalist externalities.
Some of that dumping is literal e.g. waste disposal - which otherwise would
choke the developed countries and cause social unrest or even a rebellion.
Other forms of "dumping" involve sales of surplus production, for example
military equipment, which is a major US export item.  It matters little
that a lion share for military sales is borne by the US taxpayers - the
public support for  the military-industrial complex is not included in its
balance sheets, only sales are - and these turn as profits of the
capitalist class.  After all, keynesianism turned out to be a wonderful
mechanisn of socializing the costs, while keeping the profits of the
capitalist industry private.


Another form of absorption has to be viewed in the context of degradation
of labor or deskilling produced by capitalist rationalization.  This
process, well studied by marxists (cf. Braverman), has two main byproducts:
low-skill, low-pay jobs operating high-tech machinery, and the growing
numbers of "reserve army of the unemployed."  In the marxist scheme, that
immiseration and reserve army were supposed to bring about a proletarian
revolution - but the revolution did not materialize.  Why? Because these
two externalities, deskilled labor and reserve  army of the unemployed have
been effectively absorbed, thus deflecting theior effect from the
capitalist "engine."

The third world played a significant role in that absorption in two ways.
First, most visible way, is the provision of labor power to fill the
deskilled low paying jobs.  This is the way capitalism worked since its
incpetion, relying on peasant masses so impoverished, thatthye see a low
paying employment in the industrial core as a social advancement, and
accept working conditons that "seasoned" working class would not.  As long
as capitalists have a supply of such labor force, i.e. as long as the most
shitty jobs can be filled with immigrants supplied in amply numbers by the
third world countries, the capitalist class needs not fear a proletarian
revolution.


The second form of absorbing the externality of capitalist
"rationalization" of work is fostering the aliegiance to the "reserve army"
to the ruling elite.  This is done by "social keynesianism" or a host of
public sector, educational, and cultural instiutions providing sinecures to
those who cannot be productively employed.  The third world's role in that
exter

[PEN-L:10963] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why China Failed to Become Capitalist

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:28 AM 9/14/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:

>According to the US ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1999, Table B-105,
>total imports from non-Industrial countries in the first 3 quarters of 1998
>(at an annual rate) equaled 414.9 billion US$, which is more than 45
>percent of total US imports. 


Is that $415b the value of the imports at their wholesale or retail value?
If the former, the thousand or so percent markup at retail will generate
what, some $4,000 billion in profits for the capitalist class in the US, no?


wojtek

[PEN-L:10962] Re: Re: Re: Re: Why China Failed to Become Capitalist

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 06:50 AM 9/14/99 -0700, Brad DeLong wrote:
>Lenin's idea that the prosperity of the industrial core is critically 
>linked to a poor periphery from which the core can buy raw materials 
>was perhaps true (but perhaps not) in 1900. (The best example of 


Was not that originally Rosa Luxemburg's idea?  The critical linkage being
constant expansion, cheap labor power source, new markets rather than
straightforward expolitation.  Using an analogy to automobile - the
periphery is a radiator rather than a gasoline tank - its main function is
dissipation of excess heat rather than the provision of the propellant.
Since from a marxist perspective, it is the "excess heat" in the organic
composition of capital that will bring capitalism to its meltdown - third
world plays an important function of absobing that heat and keeping
capitalism alive.  If that is the case, that is even more true today than
it was in 1900.

 

>This I don't see at all. The consumers who shop for clothes at Target 
>and T.J. Maxx *are* workers (well, are me too)...
>
>


Let's see...  A T-shirt that cost $0.50 to produce in one of Asia's
sweatshops sells at $12 at Target, which gives  what -  about 2,500% profit
margin.  How is that supposed to benefit the working class buyer is beyond
me - unless perhaps we accept the advertisers' Orwellian logic that
spending is saving. 

wojtek

[PEN-L:10947] Re: Re: Why China Failed to Become Capitalist

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 08:31 PM 9/13/99 -0700, Brad DeLong ponders:
>Brezhnev. I know how to evaluate material welfare. I don't know how 
>to evaluate the bad karma from living in a society in which the 
>police shoot children on the one hand or living in a society in which 
>dissidents are sent to mental hospitals on the other...
>


Brad, that is really a no-brainer, so i am nonplussed by your hesitation.
You can choose to be a dissident, but you cannot choose to be a poor child
- so there is really no choice for a rat-choice person here.

Martyrdom is the free choice of postmortem glory over the comfort of
mundane life.  So noone else but the individual himslef should be held
responsible for making that choice.  But noone chooses one's parents or
their social class.  Hence, every rat-choice person should respect not only
the choice of a dissident to martyrdom but also a political systema that
makes that choice possible - and condemn the system that mistreats people
because of their ascribed status.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10700] Big Brother Microsoft

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Microsoft has a website in which it asks visitors about their opinion re.
the antitrust suit in which it is involved - and promises to forward the
expressed views to elected officials.  The "catch" is, however, that each
time I write an opinion that is critical of Microsoft, I get an error
message and my opinion gets nowhere.  Typical Microsoft.

Therefore, I decided to publicize my opinion on that matter myself.  BTW,
Microsoft is NOT on the recipient list because they do NOT provide thier
email address to the public.  

Here is the copy of my opinion that Microsoft did not want to forward as
advertised.




I wholeheartedly support the government action against Micrsoft and wish
the government acted sooner and more decisively.  I would like to see
Microsoft broken up (as AT&T several years ago) and its main product,
Windows, nationalized.  Here is why.

Monopoly is not necessarily bad - it can be used to enforce common
standards and thus reduce transaction cost (waste) resulting from
incompatibility of products.  However, Microsoft is NOT using its
near-monopoly status to enforce common standards and reduce transaction
costs i.e. waste.  It is using its monopoly status to force obsolescence
and thus INCREASE transaction cost to users.  

Therefore, breaking up Microsoft's monopoly in general, and removing
Windows from Microsoft's control and placing it in public domain will
reduce forced obsolescence and waste it produces.  It will thus benefit the
consumer.

Wojtek Sokolowski
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD 21218

[PEN-L:10622] Re: Re: Re: Re: more musings...

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:43 AM 9/3/99 -0500, Paul Phillips wrote:
>Perhaps I should have said "lasting" rather than "permanent."  
>However (and also in response to Jim), the point I was trying to 
>make is that organized labour tends to radicalize, become more 
>militant, and grow during economic upturns rather than in periods of 
>depression.  I did my PhD thesis on the British Columbia labour 
>movement in the inter-war period and I started out with the 
>assumption that labour would be radicalized and vitalized by the 
>depression.  However, despite the establishment of some 
>communist and socialist unions and organizations, the main 
>bodies of labour became increasingly conservative as they shrunk.  
>It was only with the coming of the second world war and the 
>consequent full-employment did labour begin to revive and, 
>politically, move to the left.  Inflation made labour far more militant 
>than did unemployment.  
>
>I was merely suggesting that this is the more general case though 
>food riots and other forms of unorganized revolt may be the product 
>of dispair.  However, they usually do not produce any lasting 
>organization or institutional change.


It is a theoretically interesting point.  Davies (sp?) proposed a causal
arguemnt in 1970 which he called the J-curve model.  His argument goes as
follows: periods of economic expansion produce higher expectations about th
efuture.  As long as economic expansion matches the rising expectations
everything goes smoothly, but at certain point the expansion growth starts
to deline (resembling a letetr J turned sideways), but expectations still
rise - see diagram:

"
 "
  "
   " .. 
"  .  .
 " .
  " .


" - expectations
.. - economic expansion

As the gap between expectations and actual growth widens, that is likely to
produce dissatisfaction and the breakdwon of social order.

So from that point of viewm you are only partially right - labor
unrest/movement is preceded by economic expansion, but triggered by a
growing gap between expectations and what that expansion can actually deliver.

If this argument is correct, a similar effect would be accomplished without
a recession, by expectations growing at a faster rate than economic growth
(e.g. as a byproduct of consumer culture).

A separate issue is the sustainability of the labor movement after it
emerges.  During an economic downturn, the resource base to sustain a
movement is shrinking and employers are certainly less accommodating - so
that works against sustainability.  On the other hand, downturns may also
destablize th ebalance of power among the ruling elite, and certain parts
of that elite may seek aliances among popular interests groups and
movements, thus creating a window of opportunity for those movement to get
their foot in the doors of power. That argument was propsed by Charles
Tilly in _From Mobilisation to Revolution_, and certainly fits the pattern
of labor unrest in Eastern Europe.

To summarize, I would add the follwoing dimension to your argument:
expectations (fueled by a long period of expansion) and opportunity
structure (fueled by shifting balance of power in the ruling elite).  If
that reasoning is correct, we may see some serious labor movement emerging
sooner than we think.  The gap between "irrational exuberance" expectations
 and the economy's ability to deliver (even without a sudden crash) will
likely grow, and the dems may find themselves loosing their power share in
the 2000 election.  The growing dissatisfaction may push people toward
organized labor, whereas the Democrats may reach oout to it "from above" to
boost its power.

Any thoughts?

wojtek

[PEN-L:10597] Re: more musings...

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:39 AM 9/2/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>We should also look at the bright side of the Bolivianization process. The
>decrease in worker insecurity -- corresponding to the shrinkage of the
>importance of the "good jobs" in the primary sector -- also means that
>employees are less loyal their employers and thus perhaps more willing to
>rebel against the latter. The shrinkage of the primary sector (the relative


That means, above all, industrial sabotage which can kick the employers in
their financial balls.  Can you imagine the extent of damage one
disgruntled employee can create in high-tech industry?  An this form of
class truggle is virtually immune from military attacks.  For example, when
the 'worker's' government in Poland sent the army against striking shipyard
workers in 1971, the army easily pushed the workers off the streets, but
when some of the workers retereated to the shipyard and threatened
sabotage, the army did not pursue.

Are there any stats on the incidence of industrial sabotage?
How feasible is to organize 'strategic sabotage' as the means of class
struggle?

wojtek

[PEN-L:10567] Re: RE: Re: evaluations of profs.

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:28 PM 9/1/99 -0400, Max S. wrote:
>My impression of alumni associations is they are, in
>the case of undergrads, for people too involved in
>college football, or for graduate school, those
>dedicated to continue sucking up to faculty till
>the end of time.
>


true. but what i was proposing would imbue them with some use-value for
their alma mater.  as far as axe ginding is concerned - my rage usually do
not last more than 15 minutes so i'm perhaps a bit biased here - but do you
really think of many people who would wait a few years to get even with
their profs?

wojtek

[PEN-L:10564] Big Foot

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:47 PM 9/1/99 -0400, Louis P. wrote:
>Besides claiming to have found Big Foot tracks all across North America, Dr
>KRANTZ, like his colleagues, says the grainy film shot in 1967 as ultimate
>proof. "When I saw the film I was sure it was just a man in a suit," he
>said. "But we've studied that film in every possible way and there is just
>no way that it's a hoax." The footage, shot in California by a rancher, is
>so revered that the conference was organised to coincide with its 30th
>anniversary. In the former Soviet Union, where sightings of the "Snow Man"
>or "Humanoid" are reported on a regular basis, the conference attracted
>dozens of anthropologists, zoologists and even mathematicians. One by one,
>professors hailing from the Arctic North, the Caucasus and the mountains of
>Tajikistan climbed on to the rostrum to announce their findings. 
>
>The participants, displaying different alabaster casts of tracks found
>around the world, believe the Yeti may be a living Gigantopithecus, an
>anthropoid ape, the so-called link in the chain of human evolution. But
>John Greene, a Canadian, acknowledges that until a Big Foot is found and
>properly analysed, he will never be taken seriously. Dmitri Bayanov, the
>author of Big Foot - Fact not Fiction, is convinced that it is just a
>matter of time until he and his assembled Big Foot experts will be
>respected for their work. "Just remember this: when scientists found fossil
>remains and said they belonged to dinosaurs and Neanderthals, they were
>also dismissed as crazy," he said. 



I remain skeptical.  For a species of human-like creatures to exist, they
must mate, reproduce, forage, find shelters etc.  which implies (a) that
they must exist in sufficient numbers (one or two specimens will not do)
and (b) there must be some material signs of their existence - both
artifacts and remains (dead bodies, skeletons, the young, sick or old
individuals who cannot hide as effectively, etc.).  I find it hard to
belive that no such material signs -- other than footprints and sightings
which are easy to fake -- have been found so far.

Any thoughts?

wojtek

[PEN-L:10560] Re: RE: Re: RE:"MODERN SCIENCE is a product of capitalism"

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:35 PM 9/1/99 -0700, Jim C. wrote:
>deductions and applications, then it is obvious from the products, that
>Indigenous cultures have been employing "scientific method" for a long long
>time--even in non-Indigenous terms.


I never doubted that.  I read Levi-Strauss as an antidote to my catholic
college education.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10550] Re: RE: "MODERN SCIENCE is a product of capitalism"

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:50 AM 9/1/99 -0700, Jim C. wrote:
>If "modern science" is the only "science", then why is it that Incas,
>Aztecs, Mayans, Mississippians and other Indigenous cultures were able to
>construct cities and structures that, in terms of scale and precision, could
>not be duplicated with the most advanced measurement and engineering methods
>and instruments available today? Why is it that Indigenous cultures have had
>remedies for various ailments for thousands of years and dietary regimens
>that "modern" science is only now discovering (yew bark, green-lipped
>mussels, Noni plant etc)? Why is it that Indigenous cultures have
>traditionally employed non-linear and non-reductionistic paradigms that
>"modern science" seeks today after the failures and irrelevance of the
>ultra-reductionistic, positivist and linear paradigms and methods?
>
>The reductionist separation of scientific "method" from the content and
>focus and scope of "scientific method" alows this notion of "value free"
>or non-class or non-system specific "science". It is a myth in my opinion.



Jim, I think you are confusing science with scientism - which is a form of
positivist ideology.  You have to distinguish genuine scientific research
from intellectual commodity production at universities.  Oftentimes, the
product is pre-dtermined before the methodology is applied. i.e. needed
conclusions are supplied by the sponsor, or a "discovery" is needed to
obtain tenure, funding, patent rights or celebrity status.  In such cases,
indeed, scientific method is nothing more than a ritual, ex post  facto
rationalization to prop us the intellectual product.

But that does not mean that the method is useless when applied to genuine
research. There is plenty of opposition among genuine researchers to
various reductionisms.   

I think part of the problem is your discipline - economics, especially the
us variety, is pretty positivist and reductionistic, comparing to other
social sciences.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10545] Re: evaluations of profs.

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:40 AM 9/1/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>>All merit systems, whether based on peer review, administrative
>>review, student review, or some combination have one ultimate
>>effect: they increase the power of management. Can you imagine
>>what student reviews of a progressive professor would have looked
>>like in the early 1950s?
>
>it's important to remember that student reviews of faculty were a
>progressive demand by students at Berkeley in the 1960s. And I think that
>there are some in my department who need to have some severe evaluation
>because they've been treading water for decades. (That is they teach
>poorly, do no research, serve on no committees, but get good course evals
>'cause they're easy on students.) 
>
>I think the key question is _who_ management is. I think universities
>should be worker cooperatives, in which case the management would be the
>faculty as a whole. But student evals would still be needed, to prevent
>excessively protective in-group mentality. (There's a book review in the
>current BUSINESS WEEK of a book about how the medical profession winked at
>a serial killer among their ranks, because he was "one of them.") 
>
>any thoughts? 
>


evaluations are important, but not in the form of anonymous spamming or
popularity contest.  I'd rather see evaluations by students who graduated
(thus have no ax to grind) and supply a narrative on how the curriculum
contributed to their career, identify courses that were particularly useful
as well as those that were not so useful, explain why etc. - and no
anonymity.  This way, alumni associations would at last play a useful role
in the academe by conducting these evaluations.

as to faculty management - goddess forbid - profs are often not only
pompous asses, but prima facie capitalists, exploiting the intellectual
labor of grad students and ra's under the intellectual property laws i.e.
by attaching their name to what academic proletariat produced.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10540] Re: How would PEN-L'ers rate?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

That sounds like a good recipe for popularity contest and hollywoodization
of teaching - idiots who cannot act/teach being propelled to the status of
celebrity by popularity ratings and ticket sales.

Some possibilities of this pseudo-democratic idiocy:

- religious right or republicans organize a campaign to purge a 'pc'
instructor, they pose as students and spam the site with negative
evaluations - which cannot be verified because of anonymity

- an instructor wants to become an intellectual celebrity - s/he spams the
site with positive evaluations of his/her course, again impossible toverify
because of anonymity.


Question: how is this diffrent from the 'peer review' process that guides
much of academic publishing?  Is not it the same kind of crap behind a
pseudo-democratic strorefront?


wojtek



>NY Times, September 1, 1999
>
>To Professors' Dismay, Ratings by Students Go Online 
>
>By IAN ZACK
>
>John Moriarty, a 21-year-old business major at the University of Texas, was
>eager to enroll in a marketing course whose "syllabus sounded really
>intriguing." 
>
>But first, like many collegians, he sat down at his computer, logged on to
>the Internet and availed himself of a new online resource: course
>evaluations written anonymously by other students. 
>
>The critiques, in the style of brief movie reviews, said the professor in
>question was distant, his research outdated and his lectures uninspiring.
>And if the mini-commentaries were not blunt enough, the numerical ratings
>were, hovering around 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. 
>
>"I thought, 'Oh, boy, that's probably not a good course to take,' "
>Moriarity recalled. 
>
>And so it goes at colleges across the country. As students sign up for fall
>classes, they are turning the tables on the teachers who have long held
>sway over their grade point averages and job prospects. 
>
>Emboldened by the communal power and the democratic ethos of cyberspace,
>they are heading to Web sites where they can lambaste professors they deem
>poor, sing the praises of those they like and scout out courses before
>adding them to their schedules. . .
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/biztech/articles/01eval.html
>
>
>Go to http://www.collegestudent.com/national/rateclasses/ for student
>ratings of courses
>
>
>Louis Proyect
>
>(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)

[PEN-L:10523] Re: Re: Bonelessness...

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 06:48 AM 9/1/99 -0700, Brad deLong wrote:
>>I have heard Phil Harvey of Rutgers Law School use this story on more than
>>one occasion in public presentations.  No matter how much dogs are trained
>>to be good bone gatherers, as long as the number of bones remain fixed,
>>there will still be dogs left without bones.  Even if all dogs had excellent
>>training, this still holds.  So training may be good, but by itself it does
>>not address chronic bonelessness.  If affirmative action programs are
>>instituted, some dogs may be assisted in getting bones, but others will be
>>displaced, leading to continued bonelessness as well as resentment...
>...
>
>
>Do y'all allow your students to learn that employment in the United 
>States has risen from 66 million in 1960 to 133 million today?
>
>The U.S. economy has lots of problems, but a fixed and ungrowing 
>supply of jobs is not one of them. And to suggest that 
>education-and-training programs are a scam because there is a fixed 
>supply of jobs seems to me to be very, very, very wrong...
>
>
>Brad DeLong


Brad, I do not think that 'fixed' job supply - as you claim - is the moral
of the story.  It is labor market segmentation (if you recall that
institutionalist argument of 1970s and 1980s) - that is, white purebread
male dogs getting the prime choice bones, whereas the female and coloured
ones ending up with the scraps.  You surely cannot deny that the gap
between "primary labor markets" and "secondary labor markets" widened since
1960s - not top mention the fact that a significant share of secondary
market jobs have been exported overseas.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10480] Re: Re: re: Single-Payer National Health Insurance

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:08 AM 8/31/99 +, Patrick Bond wrote:
>Is this true? The small insurance folk put out endless inane 
>commercials which (U.Penn Annenberg School media researchers 
>convincingly show) tipped the public consciousness-balance. The small 
>business lobbyists beat up on wavering members of congress. It was 
>quite a revealing war; there's a debate between Skocpol and Navarro 
>about how to interpret it. I think the Clinton folk wanted a 
>relatively universal coverage plan that would at least have got some 
>95% into 'coverage,' but under the rubric of a handful of big 
>national plans marketed by the Jackson Hole group of big insurance 
>companies (led by Aetna, Prudential, etc). That would have been most 
>profitable for the Jackson Hole firms, with respect to the mix of 
>cross-subsidies and access-limited health services that would 
>maximise both insurance premium/investment profits and health-system 
>utilisation profits (a completely contradictory mix, of course, which 
>managed care has brought into the same organisation).


The main point raised by Hitchens is that it was not the insurance industry
opposition that killed Clinton's health reform, as Hillary claimed.  In
fact it was written by big insurance companies with their benefit in mind.

Consistent with that view is the argumewnt proposed by Navarro that
industrial execs did not like Clinton's idea either, mainly because of its
byzantine design that would offer few real savings while taking away their
important bargaining chip (health insurance) with labor.




>>...
>> I do not think that cost-efficiency should be of primary concern to the
>> Left for a number of good reasons, chief among them being that insurance
>> companies can take of that.  
>
>But they don't. They cut access and quality dramatically in the 
>process of destroying overaccumulated health capital, but the 
>share for admin keeps going up (to pay for expensive MBAs who sit 
>between physicians and patients, saying the latter can't get the 
>specialty care the former recommend because the averages don't 
>justify it). Surely outrageous CEO salaries are surface evidence of 
>massive overhead loading? There are plenty of studies on this, 
>including by the Harvard group who lobby for a national health 
>system.


What they do in practice is another thing.  I was really arguing that, at
least in theory, efficiency can be taken care of by the "market forces" but
universal coverage - not.  Even conventional economists admit that (the so
called market failures).  So from that standpoint, universal coverage is
entirely in the domain of political struggle, whereas efficiencly may be
taken care of by more conventional economic forces, at least in theory.

 
>
>> A much better strategy is to focus on universal coverage - which as I have
>> argued - can be achieved by institutional arrangements that are not limited
>> to a single payer public insurance scheme.  
>
>Do you want Hillary's big insurance co's running everything? 


Of course not.  But having to choose between a universal health care plan
run by a handful of large co's, and cherry-picking perforemed by the
"democratic plurality" - I would certainly prefer the former.  But I have
no problems with central planning and teaching the multi-culti crowd some
discipline and the value of work either.  Diversity for diversity's sake is
liberal bourgeois crap.


>Putting them out of business through a single-payer is surely the 
>first necessary if insufficient step towards more thorough-going 
>reform of capitalist health care?

I certainly agree, but I would not hold my breath to see it happen.  Maybe
some day during my life time, but not in the foreseeable future.  That is
almost certainly too long for people who have no access to health insurance
now.

>
>(Sorry I missed you in Baltimore last week, Wojtek... no transport 
>left me less flexible than I thought.)


no problem - perhaps some other time, looks like i'll be stuck in this dump
for some time.

cheers

wojtek

[PEN-L:10479] Re: request on teaching

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:01 PM 8/30/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Penners,
>
>   I had replied to Mitch's questions off-list.  But
>since Michael thought the questions of general interest, 
>I'm forwarding my responses to the list.
>
>   Ellen Frank
>
>1. Especially in introductory classes, how do you balance conveying 
>information and helping students to think critically?
>
>Introductory classes, in my opinion, are not fundamentally about
>conveying information.  Look at an introductory textbook - all
>theory, very little hard facts.  The object of an introductory economics
>course is to indoctrinate, to teach a theory uncritically.  It's fairly
>easy
>to subvert this intent (and teach students to think critically) simply
>by assigning readings that take issue with the textbook.   I use the 
>Dollars and Sense readers and other materials.  


Anothe suggestion is to include texts on economic sociology and sociology
of organizations that generally adopt a critical view og the prevailing
economic instiutions, there is w whole bunch of publications - check for
book and articles by Richard Swedberg, Charles Perrow, DiMaggio, Mark
Granovetter, Fred Block  - also Kathy Ferguson, Nancy Hartsock, Barbara
Reskin for a feminist perspective on the subject.

Another good resource is the bi-montly _Dollars and Sense_ and the readers
they put together.


>
>2. How do you evaluate the development of your students as critical 
>thinkers?
>
>I ask for a lot of compare and contrast papers.   I organize debates.
>I also have students do an investigative project, finding out
>all they can about a particular market or program and compare
>the actual to the textbook ideal.


Another thing that I tried was linking theory with student's own experience
- especially on the job.  For example, in one class (intro to sociology) I
covered the topic of deskilling ("strandard" Braverman's text) and then
asked students to find examples of that process (or its opposite) in the
places they work.  Other assignments may include the analysis of different
interaction types at the workplace (cf. Burawoy, _Manufacturing Consent_)
and asking students to do a similar analysis of their own workplace.


>
>
>3. How important is it to you that classes be structured democratically?
>
>I'm not sure what it means to structure a class democratically, at least
>in introductory classes.  When I started teaching, I tried very hard
>not to be authoritarian, to seek students input and so on, but the nature
>of an introductory course is that I know alot more than the students and 
>I have a much better sense of how they learn than they do.  I do try
>not to lecture too much and I always stop talking immediately when
>a student raises his/her hand.  I don't require students to raise their
>hands, actually, and sometimes, if I have a very motivated and talkative
>group of students, my classes turn into free-for-alls.  But I reserve the
>right to pull rank and move on.  


I tend to agree with Ellen on that - "democracy: is often seen as a lack of
structure and does not help very much.  The students are expecting to learn
something from the instructor - otherwise they would not be in the
classroom - and that by definition implies an unequal relationship = it
makes to sense to pretend otherwise.  But that, of course, does not mean
teaching a clas in an authoritarian manner.  IMHO, the key here is to make
the classroom experience relevant to what students do outside the
classroom, especially at work.  This way, not only do they learn something
of practical significance, but will also have a chance to contribute
something other class participants (including the instructor) do not know.
For example, one paper on deskilling I just described and which I remember
quite vividly because I learned something from it was written by a female
student who worked as a cashier at a local supermarket, and described how
the introduction of the bar codes changed their job - a truly exciting
stuff.  


>
>
>4. How much freedom do you have to plan your own syllabus, or to alter
>your syllabus so as to better meet the needs of students?
> 
>Well, nobody's standing over my shoulder telling me how to teach
>and my colleagues are generally supportive of pedagogical 
>experimentation.  But I work within the context of  broader
>institutional and social constraints.  I need to be cognizant
>of discipline boundaries, to make sure my courses
>transfer to other institutions, to give grades that will be
>understood by graduate institutions and so on.  


A good idea is to check the syllabi put together by experienced teachers.
I know that the American Sociological Association sells such sample syllabi
for economic sociology and organizational sociology - check their website
for more info

http://www.asanet.org/

also check _Dollars and Sense_ based in Somerset, MA they may have
soemthing to say on that subject too.

I would be a bit reluctant recommending the same for "mainstream" econom

[PEN-L:10380] Re: Re: re: Single-Payer National Health Insurance

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:08 AM 8/25/99 -0400, Ellen Frank wrote:
>Means-tested consumer subsidies, I hate to tell you, have been bad
>news in almost every market where they've been used.  Higher-education
>being one egregious example, nursing homes another.   
>Consumer subsidies in imperfectly competitive markets
>drive up prices.  In health markets, where being poor (and eligible for 
>a subsidy) is correlated with being sick, subsidized insurance, in 
>addition to raising prices,  has consistently led
> to problems of cherry-picking and denial of benefits.  These problems
>have plagued the Medicare and Medicaid HMO experiments, which are,
>operationally, a form of means (or age)-tested consumer subsidies.


I reply:  While you make a valid point, you are still conflating economic
efficiency with universal coverage.  What I am arguing is "we should strive
to achieve universal coverage through the politically available means and
screw economic efficiency for a while."  What you are replying is "yes, but
the politically available means will be vastly inefficient."  

I think a way of of this talking past each other is rephrasing the problem
as follows: is achieving universal coverage at the expense of vast economic
inefficiency and cost to the public still worth the effort?


>Focusing on cost-efficiency is essential, though.  Traditionally, all US
>government interventions in the health care market have set off waves
>of profiteering and price-gouging.  A plan that doesn't address that is 
>worthless, IMO.   


Again I agree, but the problem is that economic efficiency must be
sacrificed to some extent due to entrenched political interests tha toppose
more efficient institutional solution (single payer).  So again, the real
question is not everything or nothing at all, but to what extent can we
compromise on efficiency to achive universal coverage?


 
>Actually, I think we need to be more creative than this.  I would argue
>that the only way
>out of this insurance-HMO-for-profit hospital mess is to develop
>alternative health
>care delivery systems that bypass the market entirely.  Community-run,
>publically
>owned clinics, for example, that are universally accessible.  


Well, but that can have a very similar effect to cherry picking in reverse
- a community based nonprofit helath insurance coupled or not with a
delivery system -- will predominantly attract those rejected by private
insurers, and that would drive the costs through the roof.  A similar
scheme is proposed by the socialist mayoral candidate in Baltimore (Bob
Kaufmann) who wants to use it as the means to drive the auto insurance
premiums down.  To my knowledge, similar insurance scheme was used in New
Jersey, and the nonprofit insurer attracted predminantly high risk drivers
rejected by other plans - which made one of the most expensive plans.  The
nonprofit scheme would work only if it was a single payer - universal
coverage would socialize the cost of high risk individuals thus lowering
the average premium, whereas the nonprofit distribution constraint would
take away the incentive for price gouging due to the monopoly position.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10372] re: Single-Payer National Health Insurance

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:25 PM 8/24/99 -0300, Alexandre Fenelon wrote:
>
>I think there are some troubles with your position, which is the same of
>the World Bank: Private insurance for the rich and middle classes and
>public health system for the poor. 

--- snip

Alexandre and others voicing similar views:

I think you are misreading my position.  I am not arguing that the
market-for-the-rich, public-system-for-the-poor solution is superior to a
single system.  In the ideal world, I would like to see a public single
payer system because such a system provides both, transaction cost savings
(economic efficiency) and universal coverage.

We do not live in the ideal world, however, and as many on this list
correctly pointed out, the attainment of a univresal single payer system in
the US borders with impossibility in the current political climate.  In
this situation, the Left has two choices, either (a) kiss the public care
system's sweet ass goodbye or (b) make a strategic decision to strive for
the most politically desirable, under the circumstances, elements of that
system.

In my posting I argued that universal coverage is more politically
important for the Left than economic efficiency, so this is the aspect
where the Left should concentrate its effors and resources.  I also argued
that universal coverage can be achieved through alternative institutional
designs that do not necessarity involve a single payer.  One such
possibility is the means-tested public subsidies of health insurance
premiums (social keynesianism of a sort).  I did not argue that this is the
most cost-efficient solution (it is NOT) - but that it is probably the most
realistic one, given the current political climate - especially that
insurance companies are likely to support it (they would gain new business).

To summarize, the choices are:

1. the status quo - inefficient, no universal coverage
2. single payer system - efficient, universal coverage, extremely difficult
to implement
3. mixed system (i.e. means-tested subsidies) - inefficient, universal
coverage, relatively easy to implement.

The interest of the Left include (a) serving its 'natural constituency'
(low and moderate income, working class) who will benefit more from
universal coverage than from economic efficiency, and (b) establishing its
political salience by scoring some political victories. It thus follows
that in the short run, the Left should pursue option (3) rather than (2).
Once universal covergage is estabslied, that does not preclude future
efforts to make the system more efficient by reducing transaction costs
(single payer option).

wojtek





>1st-It will probably not achieve universal coverage, since there are
>people who are neither poor enough to be included in the public system 
>not rich enough to get a good private insurance plan.
>2nd-By submitting the majority of people to market logic, you will let
>many persons undercovered, since coverage of private insurance is not
>adjusted to the individuals necessity, but to the amount of money a
>person can pay for a private insurance.
>3rd-(and maybe the worst)-A public system designed to cover only the
>poor will have a poor quality, since the middle class have more efficient
>means to make political pressure to improve the healthcare quality. By
>getting those people out from the public system, you will worse the
>healthcare quality.
>
>I'm medical oncologist and work in Brazil (whose reality is different
>from the US). Here we have a one payer health system, althought it
>is under heavy pressure from our right wing government, and so isn't
>working well. I assure you that if this system didn't exist or if it
>was restricted to the poor (who, in my country, are very poor), something
>like 50% of the population wouldn't have access to cancer treatment.
>
>
>Alexandre
>
>

[PEN-L:10370] Re: economists are weird

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 08:51 PM 8/24/99 -0400, Doug Henwood quoted:
>ABSTRACT:
>  There is a secret paradox at the heart of social contract
>  theories. Such theories assume that, because personal security
>  and private property are at risk in a state of nature, subjects
>  will agree to grant Leviathan a monopoly of violence. But what
>  is to prevent Leviathan from turning on his subjects once they
>  have lain down their arms? If Leviathan has the same incentives
>  as his subjects in the Hobbesian state of nature, he will
>  plunder them more thoroughly than ever they plundered themselves
>  in the state of nature. Thus the social contract always leaves
>  subjects worse off, unless Leviathan can fetter himself. And how
>  can Leviathan bind himself, if he can always impose confiscatory
>  taxes or choke off trade through inefficient regulations? This
>  Article suggests that schemes of progressive taxation, in which
>  marginal tax rates increase with taxable income, may be seen as
>  a useful incentive strategy to bribe Leviathan from imposing
>  inefficient regulations. Income taxes give Leviathan an equity
>  claim in his state's economy, and progressive taxes give him a
>  greater residual interest in upside payoffs. Leviathan will then
>  demand a higher side payment from interest groups to impose
>  value-destroying regulations. Of course, progressive taxation
>  imposes its own incentive costs, by reducing the subject's
>  private gains. However, these costs must be balanced against the
>  gains from correcting Leviathan's misincentives, and it may that
>  such gains exceed the costs of progressive taxation.


Of course, the problem with that reasoning is the conceptualization of
gov't as a single individual who has 'self-interest.'  That is a blatant
fiction.  Organizations or 'fictitious persons' do not have self-interests,
only 'physical persons' do.  In which case, the actions of an organization
result from some form of combination of the interests of the organization's
staff - as the institutionalists maintain.  Thus, we need to examine the
self-interest of individual actors as well as their power within the
organization to explain how that organization ("leviathan") behaves.

In this specific case, while government staffers may find it in their best
interest to increase the tax base (wage increases, job tenures), that is
not so for the elected officials.  The latter's main source of income (in a
long run) is not their public sector's salaries, but payments received in
various forms (e.g. political contributions, speaking fees, contracts, or
after-the-term-in-the-office sinecures) from the constituents.  It thus
follows, that such individuals' self-interest is to protect the interest of
their paying clients i.e. constituents whose best interst is maximizing
private wealth my minimizing taxes (the prisoner's dilemma applies here).

Moreover, it is the elected officials (congress-men and -women, the prez)
who decide the interest rates.  It thus follows that the 'self-interest of
Leviathan' - to sue the authors' terminology - will be determined by the
elected officials, whose self-interest are aligned with the highest bidder,
whose self-interest include minimizing the taxes - even though in th elong
run it may cause Leviathan to fail to fulfill its mission of enforcing
social contract.  

To summarize, the authors' conceptualization of the 'Leviathan problem" is
fundamentally flawed in that it fails to account for the collective nature
of that entity, and the prisoner's dilemma influence on its behavior.  That
is an 'internal criticism' i.e. using the conceptual framework of the
rat-choice approach assumed by the authors.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10357] re: Single-Payer National Health Insurance

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:31 PM 8/25/99 -0500, Steve Perry wrote:
>
>Out here in Minnesota--whose gift to the world was the HMO system--
>there have been quite a few interesting folks involved with the single-
>payer question. Early in his first term, Paul Wellstone was seriously
>interested in pushing single-payer initiatives--not that he thought it
>was practical to attempt it nationally at that point; his notion was to
>pursue measures that would make it easier for states to do single-payer
>experiments and thus try for a groundswell that way. But he was 
>seduced by Hillary Clinton during her '93 March to the Sea, and
>he's never made a noise about it since, to my knowledge. (By the way--
>why does everyone persist in claiming that the Clinton plan failed,
>just because it wasn't passed into law? It's quite obvious that the
>administration's move in the direction of HMOs touched off a merger
>mania that made her plan--minus some of its rube goldberg 
>convolutions--into reality.)

-- snip 

Two points.  First, Christopeher Hitchens argues that Hillary's "reform"
was, in fact, a move designed by big insurance firms and received a
relatively mild oppsotion from smaller guys in the insurance biz. So it was
hardly a propaganda blitz that "killed" that initiative.  Au contraire, the
whole "initiative" was a scham never intented to be implemented as advertised.


Second, health reform involves two conceptually different issues - the
cost-effectiveness and the universal coverage.  "Single payer" or more
generally - public insurance schemes are designes primarily to address the
cost-effectiveness issue by reducing transaction costs that are significant
in this business.  It does not automatically lead to universal coverage -
in fact the acclaimed public health care systems under state socialism were
NOT truly universal - for example, self-employed were not covered.
Moreover, not every procedure was covered - only those available in public
health care facilities.

Universal coverage does not require a single payer solution - it is
possible to attain by means-tested public subsidies of insurance premiums.
That is, you buy your insurance from a market vendor, and if you cannot
afford one -  government subsidies will make up the difference between what
it costs and what you can afford.

So it makes a lot of sense, from the Left's point of view, to make that
conceptual distinction clear.  As katha p. & others pointed out, changing
the status in the insurance biz will be extremely difficult politically,
and the left should focus their energies on issues that really matter to
its constituents, i.e. working class.

I do not think that cost-efficiency should be of primary concern to the
Left for a number of good reasons, chief among them being that insurance
companies can take of that.  Moreover, "government health care" has become
one of the buzz-words that provoke a knee jerk reaction on the right - so
fighting for a single payer system is not the best strategy for the left,
except perhaps for scoring symbolic points in a kulturkampf.

A much better strategy is to focus on universal coverage - which as I have
argued - can be achieved by institutional arrangements that are not limited
to a single payer public insurance scheme.  

wojtek

[PEN-L:10348] socialized medicine (was: no brainer: abortion is killing. so what?)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:57 PM 8/24/99 -0500, Carrol wrote:

>Socialized (or single payer) health care exists only in those advanced
>capitalist countries where it was achieved *before* the insurance
>industry achieved its present political strength. I have encountered
>few left prophecies so wildly optimistic as this one. I hope Kelley is
>right, but I suspect revolution would be easier than getting
>socialized medicine through Congress.

Socialized medicine does not equal single payer.  The Single-payer
arrangement mply lowers the transaction cost of health care delivery (i.e.
reduction of administrative staff hospitals must hire to find out what is
covered by the plethora of insurance plans, filing paperwork required by
them, etc. as well as administrative staff of insurance agencies providing
coverage).  So it is primarly a cost-efficiency issue.

The most politically important (at least for the left) aspect of socialized
medicine is universal coverage and that does not require a revolution.  In
fact, such coverage does not even require a marxist ideology to justify it
- neo-classical concept of "market failure" (or public good) will do the
trick.  In other words you can keep private health insurance "as is" with
one important exception - treat all uninsured persons as a "market failure"
which becomes the responsibility of the state.  The state provides health
insurance to those people either through a commercial or a not-for-profit
insurer by subsidizing the premiums.  The state's cost is then passed on
either taxpayers directly or as an uninsured surcharge to private health
insurance plans (pretty much in the same way "uninsured motorist" covrage
works in auto insurance industry).

The bottom line is that attaining "socialized medicine" in the sense of
universal coverage is much easier than it appears -- all it takes is
effective lobbying to include permium subsidies for the uninsured in the
budget.  Striving toward a single payer is a distraction from that goal.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10332] Re: Narrow economism

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:57 AM 8/23/99 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote:
>I want pen-l to be relevant to what goes on in the economy.  The banter
>and exchanges about cultural and political matters are useful.  They
>round out the list and make it more entertaining.
>
>On the other hand, I would like to see us create a body of knowledge
>that can be useful to activists and workers for social change.  For that
>reason, I welcomed the recent exchanges about the Asian crisis.


It seems to me that there is a "third way" between the Scylla of
culturalism and the harybdis of macro-economism: institutional analysis
that combines both cutural and economic aspects of collective behavior.
IMHO, however, pen-l does not seem to be flooded with institutional analyses.

wojtek

Re: political practice [was ebonics; was anecdotage]

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:35 AM 8/24/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>
>>ahh hell, i'll just call it a tie and leave it at that.   kelley
>>
>
>Kelley also wrote to Carrol:
>>>Wojtek ought to stop worrying about campus politics, which
>>>are of far less political impace (even during the '60s) than he seems
>>>to think.
>>
>>geewillickers, and here i thought that this was woj's point.
>>
>
>
>I sure hope that's the case (with regard to both of the above).  You've
>already spent another 12 k on yakking about 'academia,' 'identity
>politics,' and whatnot.  Wojtek's professed idea, as you noted on lbo
>yourself, is 'campus politics' hardly matters.  The correct response to
>what doesn't matter much, however, is to leave it alone so as not to waste
>one's breath.  The problem is he doesn't practice what he preaches.


Two quick points.  First, while campus politics hardly matters outside the
campus, it seems to define the Left, because there is hardly any left left
outside the campus.  Thus, my argument was that the Left should focus on
the "out-of-campus" issues to gain out-of-campus relevence.

Second, you seem to assume that getting involved in a certain political
practice is a matter of individual choice - hence your comment on
practicing what once preaches.  That seems to me as the cornerstone of the
mainstream ideology of choice - since individuals "choose" to be rich or to
be poor, among many other things, there is hardly any need to discuss the
"system."  In the same vein, since individuals "choose" to engage in campus
id politics or out-of-campus organizing, there is hardly any need to
discuss the nature of academic labor and the institutional ramifications of
knowledge production.

Since there is hardly any need to argue on this list about the substantial
systemic influences on what appears to be "individual choices" - - the
falsehood of your position seems quite apparent.  That brings to focus a
remark kelley made elsewhere about the importance of "middle level
analyzis" of the organizational constraints knowledge workers face in the
process of knowledge production.

To bring those two points together: self-reflective and critical analysis
of the process and constraints of knowledge production (i.e. something that
listservs like this one has been set up for) seems to be the most
promissing, if not the only, _collective_ (as opposed to illusory
'individual choice') way of overcoming the trap of out-of-campus
irrelevance the Left got itself into.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10229] new virus

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

from: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2316716,00.html

The author of Win32.Kriz, discovered recently by researchers, sounds as if
he or she has an ax to grind against religious folks. 
 
 
 
 Inside the virus is a text string with a poem full of expletives
criticizing those who preach religion: "I don't wanna hear it, coz I know
none of it's true," the author writes, according to anti-virus research
firm Kaspersky Lab. 


 Victims of the virus -- who can be anyone using Windows 95, Windows 98 or
Windows NT -- can expect a load of trouble. The virus kills the CMOS
memory, overwrites data in all files on all available drives, and then
destroys the flash BIOS by using the same routine that was found in the
"Win95_CIH" virus, also known as Chernobyl. 

--

Interesting.  I would not have much against this virus, if it infected only
PCs of religious fundamentalists.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10228] Re: Re: Re: [stormingheaven] ebonics?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:50 PM 8/19/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>Ditto.
>
>Charles Brown
>
 "Mathew Forstater" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/19/99 01:44PM >>>
>Rejection of the notion of "underclass" or the rejection of the view that
>Ebonics lacks "full conceptual complexity" is fully compatible with the
>general approach that recognizes the primacy of material reality (even while
>rejecting a simplistic and dichotomous treatment of the relation of the
>material world and symbolic systems, or material reality and consciousness
>and its products), and fully compatible with the approach that insists that
>it is "impossible to discuss language while abstracting form [sic] social,
>economic conditions that produced it."  In fact it is just such abstraction
>that the critics of Ebonics are guilty of!
>
>Furthermore, it is the notion of "p-c" that is reactionary, as well as
>patently false in the sense that most of the views that are dubbed "p-c" are
>in fact in no way held by a majority, or even a minority with political
>power, to be "correct."  The label "p-c" is used all the time to
>delegitimize all kinds of progressive efforts.  While we're at it, the term
>"underclass" is also reactionary.
>
>The idea that those who take Ebonics seriously do not favor redistribution
>of wealth and income or believe economic and social justice has a negative
>impact on cultural expression is rubbish.  It is false, Wojtek.
>"Impoverished consciousness and impoverished means of communication" of the
>"underclass"..."keeps people from achieving their full human potential"
>???!!!  Am I alone in finding this disturbing?
>
>Perhaps I will be dismissed as "p-c" or accused of privileging symbols over
>material reality.
>
>
>Mathew Forstater


I think you both are missing the point.  My criticism was directed not at
the speakers of Ebonics (the debate whether it is a language or a dialect
appears to me rather academic), but against the idea of using a language as
ammunition in culture wars.  First, some right wing crackpots came up with
the idea of "English as the official language" then other right crackpots
started attacking bilingual programs.  It was obvious to me that this was a
right wing provocation designed to divert attention from real issues, such
as growing economic inequality.  So when somo=ebody responds with the same
kind of argument only in reverse, focusing on a language rather than
material conditions of people who use it - that seems to me like a total
diversion from real issues.

If I were to choose between multi-culti policies and those aiming at
providing anyone with a decent job, health care and social safety net in an
"English only" environment (English is NOT my native language) - I would
choose the latter without thinking twice. 

wojtek

[PEN-L:10227] Re: Re: Re: New Urbanism (was Race....)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:30 PM 8/19/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>Perhaps you could tell us about the local political projects that you got
>into with your neighbors -- their successes, failures, compromises, etc.
>Other people might be also interested in discussing what is being done in
>local politics.
>
>BTW, you reply didn't touch the two points in my post: (1) "They tend to
>leave untouched the most devastated & deserted downtown areas..."; (2) "the
>choice for many is between urban slums and suburban slums, or current rents
>and higher rents."  Any thoughts on them?
>
>>What really turne me
>>off is the idealistic left that seemingly puts symbols and lifestyles
>>before material reality - and opposes urban development because it dislikes
>>yuppie lifestyles.  I find such attitudes antithetical to marxist
materialism.
>
>Does it ever occur to you that those who do not fully agree with you (while
>agreeing with you on many points) are not motivated by what you call
>"dislike of yuppie lifestyles" but concerns about higher rents we may not
>be able to pay?


Many, is not most Baltimore's 'gentrification' project take place in most
devastated areas, albeit there are many other devastated areas untouched by
new development.  But Baltimore is in a really bad shape and a much more
massive effort is needed to reverse the current decline.

I admit that my views of gentrification are shaped primarily by my
Baltimore experience - where the degree of neglect is unbelievable to most
visitors - and other cities may face quite different problems.  I think
your concern over rent increase might be real - but this often happens
without new construction.  For example, in Cambridge, MA they did it by
abolishing rent control at the state level (they tried the same trick in
NYC with the backing of that piece of chicken-shit Pataki, but it did not
work) and then jacking up the rent without any new construction.  So
"gentrification" was accomplished by mainly legal maneuvers and aimed at
already viable communities.  I also heard that real estate interests in
that area oppose new construction construction because it would lower the
rent.  That is a polar extreme of what we have in Baltimore where most
communities are slums rented out by absentee landlords (who profit by
renting substandard facilities to Section 8 tenants) - so in that context
"gentrification" means demolition of boarded up buildings and replacing
them with low- to moderate income housing.

But as far as philosophical idealism (i.e. supremacy of ideas over matter)
is concerned, I am alergic to it.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10226] Re: Baltimore gentrification

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:12 PM 8/19/99 -0400, Louis Proyect quoted:
>The Washington Post, November 24, 1984
>
>Is Baltimore Truly Back?;  New Showcase City Faces Old Problems 
--snip 
>But before his arrival, the city's black Interdenominational Ministerial
>Alliance had urged that the rally be held elsewhere, preferably in a black
>neighborhood. The Rev. Douglas I. Miles, the group's president, called the
>harbor development "anathema to the black community. It symbolizes all the
>injustices the local administration [of Schaefer] has perpetrated on the
>black community." 
>
>Bobby Cheeks, president of the Baltimore Welfare Rights Organization, said
>the black community has "consciously been left out of the decision making"
>by Schaefer. He said there has been no vigorous housing code enforcement
>and that many children suffer from lead poisoning as a result. He also said
>that few city contracts go to minority firms (in the two most recent
>quarters, according to the city purchasing office, minority firms were
>awarded 12 percent and 21 percent of the city's business) and that only 2
>percent of the city's corporations are run by blacks. 
>
>Most blacks, he said, "have no jobs, and little hope of getting jobs." 
>
>The city's unemployment rate, 7.4 percent in August, is nearly one-third
>higher than the statewide average of 5.2 percent. 
>
>While Cheeks sees merit in Schaefer's attempts to get suburbanites to move
>into the city, bringing with them their high incomes, small families and
>low social costs, he charged it is being accomplished by displacing poor
>blacks, who are "intimidated" into being uprooted from neighborhoods to
>make way for gentrified renewal. 
>
>Another official of the welfare rights group, Sharon Garner, complains that
>there are thousands of persons, most of them mothers and children, waiting
>for public housing but the mayor "is not trying to rehabilitate buildings,
>although there are plenty of empty places." 

--snip

>Yet some blacks see a racial bias in Schaefer's support of gentrification
>and his insistence that the city must attract middle-class (read white)
>residents, who pay more in taxes than they cost in services. 


Well - after 12 years of Schmoke's rule (Baltimore's first black mayor), he
gets the same rap from the same folks, whereas even Shaefer's enemies think
warmly about his years - there were even rumors about him running again
this year.  Of course, Schmoke followd the same policy of showering
downtown corporate development with money while doing little for the
so-called neighborhoods.  One of his most controversial ideas was East
Inner harobor development - a 40-stroy hotel - which many believe will be
turned into a casino when completed.  Schmoke is viewed as a mignon of the
gambling interests - which is particularly cynical, given that it is the
poor and mionorities who spend most of their income on gambling.

The rant about "uprooting black neighborhoods" seems to me like complete
bullshit devised by subrurban whites afraid that the "uprooted" population
would move to "their" neighborhoods.  This is their nightmare they
reiterate ad nauseam each time I talk to them.  The fact of the matter is
that "uprooted neighborhoods" are dreadful housing projects, infested with
crime and filth, and constructed in1950s and 1960s to 'contain' blacks in
the downtown area (that used by nothing but abandoned railroad yards).  

As to attracting middle class development - it seems like another invention
of Baltimore politicos who love to play the race card when it suits them.
The city is seggregated to be sure, but many new developments benefitted
low and middle income blacks.  Again this rap sounds to me like if someone
in the suburbs wanted to get this development money instead and played the
"race card" to accomplish that.

However, the main point that Baltimore's problems are due largely to
declining industrial base is well taken.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10220] Re: New Urbanism (was Race....)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 06:10 PM 8/18/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>I agree with the first paragraph here (the importance of not putting the
>cart before the horse), and I share your concern about suburbanization &
>the disappearance of public spaces, but stated thus, the description of the
>problem may lead to an ultimate quietist conclusion: we might as well give
>up on social movements until capital gets around to resurrecting urban
>living and making American cities look more like European ones (to borrow
>the terms of comparison from one of your posts on gentrification).  Does
>this explain your enthusiasm for gentrification?


I reply (ws):  what I meant by saying that is that today's social movements
cannot use the organizing strategies of the past because those startegies
of the past took for granted social solidarity networks that existed then
but do not exist now.  New social movements must use diffrent mobilization
strategies that take advantage of new forms of social ties or even create
their own, such as networking among voluntary associations.  In short, it
is much harder to organize now than it was then.

As to my support for gentrification - yes, it can promote the development
of social proximity and social ties that are virtually impossible in the
suburbs.  I live in an urban empowerment zone which is, by your
terminology, a gentrified ghetto (after the inhabitatns of crack houses and
related establishments were kicked out).  It is an ethnically mixed (mostly
black, some whites, a few latinos and other) neighborhood inhabited by
moderate income people (teachers, truck drivers, social workers, office
clerks - wold you call them yuppies?) that provides many opportunities for
socializing and participation in local politics - which I found
particularly attractive vis a vis the semi-suburban area adjacent to the
johns hopkins campus where I lived before.

>
>Coming back to the topic of gentrification, I think that the current
>interest in 'urbanity' among city planner-types isn't likely to bring back
>public spaces + microstructural ties of the kind you're talking about
>above.  They seem more interested in a kind of theme-park simulation of
>urbanity.  They tend to leave untouched the most devastated & deserted
>downtown areas, focusing instead upon replacing the funky parts of cities
>that are well inhabited and do give people a sense of living in a
>neighborhood by upscale renovated houses & condos and retail
>establishments; alternatively, they create a faux-urban space in a newly
>incorporated area.  Both of these are happening in Columbus; the latter
>experiment is called Easton.  Meanwhile, displaced urban residents from the
>former type of development of course won't go to gated communities, since
>the choice is not between urban slums and gated communities, as someone put
>it here; the choice for many is between urban slums and suburban slums, or
>current rents and higher rents.


I reply (ws): My main counterargument against the reasoning presented above
is that it mixes symbols and lifestyles on the one hand, and economics and
real life conditions on the other.  I do not particularly like yuppie
lifestyles, but that does not prevent me from recognizing the fact that any
development needs an economic base, and yuppies provide such a base,
whereas the "bohemians" and ghetto dwellers do not.  You cannot build your
cities on ideas and symbols - you need people with income to pay for public
services.  It was the flight of those people to suburbs that impoverished
cities and reduced the level of public services.  So attracting these
people back to the cities, even by building "theme parks" is a good thing,
because it will have a "neighborhood effect" of improving city life in
general.  Nedless to add that _any_ urban construction, even if it is a
theme park, creates jobs and thus benefits the urban poor (unless of course
one believes that these 'theme parks' are not created by human labor, but
appear out of thin air by the sheer power of ideas).

Again, I find yuppie lifestyle quite boring and unappealing - but such
aesthetic reasons do dot prevent me from supporeting policies that aim at
tapping their tax dollars to boost urban economies.  What really turne me
off is the idealistic left that seemingly puts symbols and lifestyles
before material reality - and opposes urban development because it dislikes
yuppie lifestyles.  I find such attitudes antithetical to marxist materialism.

wojtek

"Wenn ich 'Kultur' hoere, entsichere ich meinen Browning." - Hanns Jochst  ;-)

[PEN-L:10216] Re: [stormingheaven] ebonics?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:08 AM 8/18/99 -0700, you wrote:
>From: Peter Kosenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>"Ebonics" is a difficult issue, so let me try it.
>
>Unfortunately, stereotypes are partially true.  A
>language that develops in the absence of other
>resources becomes an impoverished language in
>certain ways.  Ebonics has grown up primarily
>among uneducated blacks, hence the effort to treat
>it as a "full-blown" language is a little off the
>mark.  This is not to say anything about its
>pronunciations or even about the value of people
>who grew up learning to speak it, just that a
>language that is basically confined to dealing
>with basic life issues will probably have full
>emotive complexity (nothing wrong with that) but
>not necessarily full conceptual complexity.

---snip  
>
>Saying things like this can get you in trouble
>with the politically correct, since it will be
>assumed that you are "ridiculing" people who speak
>Ebonics rather than pointing out that historical
>and social circumstances have limited the dialect.



That is an excellent argument.  It is impossible to discuss language while
abstracting form social, economic conditions that produced it.  Language is
merely a reflection of material reality that produced it, albeit it has an
"institutional history' that outlives the material reality that gave birth
to a certain form of expression.  Impoverished reality of an underclass
produces impoverished consciousness and impoverished means of
communications.  That is a very powerful anti-poverty arguement: we should
abolish it, because it prevents people from achieving their full human
potential.

The p-c crowd, however, adhers to an idealistic viewpoint where symbols are
more important than material reality.  Thus symbolic expressions produced
by underclass arre just as "valuable" as symbolic expressions of everyone
else.  Material poverty is "compensated" by symbolic richness.  It is not
difficult to see the reactionary nature of such idealistic pc attitudes in
the preservation of social inequalities: it is, in fact, tantamount to
saying: they can thrive on symbols, so we do not need to redistribute
material wealth.  Or worse yet, "we should not redistribute material
wealth, because that may kill their 'culture'".

wojtek


>
>Of course, under different circumstances, Ebonics
>could have become a full language, just as there
>are physicists at Italian universities who speak
>ordinary everyday Italian and also an Italian that
>has been wrapped around the subject of physics
>over many hundreds of years.
>
>In other words, speaking and understanding ONLY
>Ebonics isn't going to get you into medical
>school.
>
>On the other hand, speaking and understanding only
>limited, everyday English isn't going to get you
>there either.
>
>Before I leave off, let me say that just because
>people aren't "sophisticated" doesn't make them
>worse people. 
>And just because they've got big bad educations
>doesn't necessarily make them better people. 
>That's another other issue.
>
>Peter Kosenko
>
>In response to the below:
>
>> Of course, Ebonyx IS proper grammar, it is just a different
>> dialect. When British people come to our schools, do we consider them to be
>> using improper grammar, or do we just say that they are speaking a
>> different dialect, the so-called "British English" (or whatever term you
>> prefer)? My experience is that they are excused for their unforunate
>> heritage and their pronunciation of "colour" is tolerated.
>
>> Ebonyx (pronounced YO-bahn-iks) is a dialect that receives a
>> special treatment. While British accents, Texan, Texan Crude, Bostonian,
>> and New England accents tend to revive associations made in the brain
long ago, Ebonyx is specially treated > as being a mark of 'stupidity'.
That this dialect is treated this way and that it is isolated from other >
dialects for special classification as "poor grammar" is only reflective of
the racial stereotype of 
>> Africans.
>
>
>=
>Peter Kosenko
>Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>URL: http://www.netwood.net/~kosenko
>Netwood Design Center URL: http://ndc.netwood.net/
>=
>"Man is a rational animal.  He can think up a
>reason for anything he wants to
>believe."--Benjamin Franklin
>
>--- ONElist Sponsor 
>
>Start a new ONElist list & you can WIN great prizes!
>For details on ONElist’s NEW FRIENDS & FAMILY program, go to
>http://www.onelist.com/info/onereachsplash3.html
>
>
>
>

[PEN-L:10138] Re: Re: Re: Abortion: another angle (2)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:04 PM 8/17/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>Michael Keaney wrote:
>>Does the wider community have a legitimate interest in the fate of the
>>unborn child? Is it an adequate defence of a woman's ability to choose
>>freely to insist upon  a conception of her body as private property with
>>which she may do as she pleases? If so, how do we deal with prostitution,
>>pornography, euthanasia, self-mutilation, "irresponsible" behaviour of
>>pregnant mothers (e.g. smoking, substance abuse)? Where do rights come from?
>>How are they divined, or are they constructed, and in either case, who by?
>
>The USA has gone in a direction of punishing with imprisonement what you
>call "'irresponsible' behaviors of pregnant mothers,'" and this policy
>trend is likely to continue.  'Socialist' Romania (the surreally
>'pronatalist' state) banned abortions, made contraceptives unavailable, and
>imposed mandatory pregnancy tests upon the female population.  'Socialist'
>China took an opposite tack and has enforced its one-child policy.  Japan
>imported Viagra but damned male conservatives have made the pill
>unavailable.  Steralization abuses, overuse of C-section, etc. have been
>well publicized.  In sexist societies, an 'interest in the fate of unborn
>child' comes in the form of punishment, surveillance, and psychological &
>behavioral control of women.  Reproductive capacity of women has been made
>a medium of dehumanization & subordination of women by men and the State,
>often in the name of 'protection' of fetuses, of women themselves, of
>moralisty, of society, and indeed in some cases tragically of 'socialism.'
>And I am opposed to population control or political demography for this
>reason.  To rewrite Foucault, both bodies and souls are prisons of
>womanhood.
>
>I add that such punishment, surveillance, and control of women has never
>led to the well-being of children who are already born.


Yoshie, while I agree with your position that excessive concern with the
well-being of children is often a pretext for control of women by men - a
point can be made that no control at all can lead to the same effect.  For
example, Heidi Hartmann (following Max Weber's concpet of family) argues
that defining family matters as "private" in 17th century England and thus
exempting them from public scrutiny deprived women of protection offered by
kin groups, and essentially subjected women to arbitrary power of the male
head of household - which Hartmann argues lead to the strengthening of
patriarchy under capitalism.

The main point is that both excessive 'socialization' and excessive
'privatization' of reproductive health can be detrimental to women.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10137] Re: Re: Re: Re: Race,Sacrifice,and "Dignigy"(wasRe:Abortionand other wedge issues)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:38 AM 8/17/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>
>Charles: OK. However, the residential pattern was very unequal and
segregated by class and race in 1949. I am not sure that that "structure"
has worsened in the last 50 years, and it has not improved as much as
"advertised" by the "home of the free" cheerleaders. 
>
>Also, compartimentalization of society through id politics sounds like
"consciousness" to me. I thought your were discussing "structure". How is
id politics "structural" and not "consciousness" ? 



I use the terms "consciousness" and "structure" in a somewhat technical
sense - as they are used in social movement mobilization theory.
"Connsciousness" variables essentially refer to your belief system,
wheteher you share the movement's ideology and if so, to what degree.
"Structure" or "microstructure" as they call it - refers to social
proximity to the movement itself, for example wheteher you know someone
active in a movement, how close that person is to you, whether you have
available free time for movement participation, etc.  It has been
consistently found that "consciousness" variables (i.e. a belief system
that is consistent with a movement's ideology) is a poor predictior of
movement participation, whereas "microstructural" variables are generally a
good predictor.  

Later on, the theory got a bit more sophisticated and said that
consciousness changes as a result of movement participation.  That is, a
person joined a movement without sharing its goals - simply because his
girlfriend, a neighbor, or a friend was already involved in the movement
and 'recruited' him (e.g. asked him to come to a meeting, etc.).  As that
person started to attend meetings, and then perhaps getting involved in
various activities (tabling, demos, etc.) his consciousness started to
change as a result of that, becoming more and more aligned with the
movement's ideology.  So after a while, the movement participants basically
espoused that movement's ideology, but that congruence was a _result_ of
their participation, and NOT the _cause_ of it.

However, most idealistic philosophies put the "cart before the horse" and
screw up the causal links, so ideas and consciousness become "causes" of
material events.

My argument is that since today's organization of daily life led to
considerable fragmentation, alienation and compartmentalization of society
- the micrstructural social ties conducive to social movement recruitment
are much scarcer than they were a few decades ago.  Furthermore, the
disappearance of public spaces (thanks to suburbanization) makes it more
difficult to stage demos - and even if they are staged, their impact is
much more limioted because social life is spread over a larger area, and
geographical distance exponentially reduces the impact of any public action.


>Charles: This is a real one of those "yes and no"  type things. You are
correct that overt , open bigotry was made inappropriate , impolite and
somewhat illicit by the Civil Rights movment ,i.e. reform movement. But the
Reaganite counter-reform movement did not confront this directly, but
rather got around it by being racist in actions but saying explictly that
it is not. And in fact, the Reaganite counter reform went so far as to say
the main problem of raciism today is the problem of Blacks being racist
against Whites in "reverse discrimination" . This is the line of both the
KKK and the U.S. Supreme Courts ( white and black robe wearers agree on
this). Anti-affirmative action is a main aspect of this. Thus, Reaganite
counterreform has reversed the Civil Right reform effectively. The
structure has been reversed to the equivalent of what it was 50 years ago.
The racist consciousness that accompanies this new racist structrure is
different in form , but not in content from the!

Of course most social movement face counter-movements or reaction - and
"reagan revolution" is an example of it.  Of course, the ratfuckers wanted
to turn back the clock and return to the 'good ol' days of open nigger
bashing' as you argue - but they very fact thay they could not and had to
soften and qualify their bigotry is precisely the point I was trying to
make - that we live in an "kinder and gentler society" where raw bigotry is
not longer acceptable.

Of course that does not mean "progress" in a way that it will ultimately
lead to the demise of bigotry - rather it means bigotry with a "human face"
or rather "professional politeness."  That is both a good and a bad thing -
it is good because it is less rabid than raw bigotry, but it is bad because
it does not provoke outrage that raw bigotry did.  However, ideological
reaction to raw bigotry means little in terms of movement participation, so
I'd say that on balance things are a bit better than they used to be.



>>Charles: These things are more in the public discourse today than you are
>allowing. Read these lists. After being so definitely refuted in the past,
>their return and existence today is in a w

[PEN-L:10122] Re: Re: Re: Race,Sacrifice,and "Dignigy" (wasRe:Abortionand other wedge issues)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 04:21 PM 8/16/99 -0400, Chareles wrote:
>
>Charles:  Why is it do you think that the way you tell it "consciousness"
is not corresponding to "structure"  ?  Are you saying this "perfect soical
control" is exercised through "structure" and not "consciousness" ? Let me
get this straight. Are you saying that mass consciousness has progressed,
but the structure has gone backward ? If so, since activists can't directly
change "structure" (or can they), do we just sit on our hands and wait for
the structure to change itself , like a big clock winding on, mechanically,
automatically, inevitably ? Is the revolution an entirely objective
process, with no role for the subjective factors ?
--snip

>Charles: I'm joking about the past. But do you really think the
"structure" never goes backwards and it is all an inevitable, straightline
forward march and progress ? Or are there periods of reaction, zig zags ?


It think it's a zig zag.  I also think that the structural conditions for
mobilization for a collective action deteriorated quite considerably as
compared, say, to the civil rights era.  Main reasons: residential pattern
and comparmentalization of society through id politics.  I also think that
general consciousness improved a little bit comparing to 50 years ago in
the sense that open bigotry is not acceptable as it used to be.  This is
far from a "revolutionary" consciousness - more along the "kinder and
gentler nation" lines.

>
>
>Charles: These things are more in the public discourse today than you are
allowing. Read these lists. After being so definitely refuted in the past,
their return and existence today is in a way more outrageous than in 1949.

Nothing got "definitely refuted." These ideas were not kosher for some
time, mainly because of their hitler connection - but the idea of
differential moral worth of different groups of people have never been
refuted - it is the backbone of academic hierarchies and meritorcacies,
more american than baseball and apple pie.  I am suprised that the
intellectual commodity manufacring - so eager to please the yuppies
yearning for the "being unique and special" status has not used the racits
bigotry more openly as they did in the past (cf. S.J. Gould _Mismeasure of
man_) - i view it as a sign of modern progress and civility.

>  
>
>(((
>Charles: I don't know, there was a study posted on LBO-list saying 45% of
academic social scientists and other academics thought biological race had
something to do with the differences between Blacks and Whites. In a way,
that that could be so high today is more outrageous than in 1949.
>


see above


>
>Charles: You must not being living in the same America that I am. In the
Reaganite counter-reform publically stigmatizing social and ethnic groups
while denying one is doiing it is all the rave.

But they do not stigmatize in the same way as they used to - they
stigmatize sub-groups, not entire groups.
There is a big difference between saying (1) "blacks/latinos/polacks/_
are lazy, anti-social blah blah blah"  and (2)
"blacks/latinos/polacks/_ on welfare are lazy, anti social, blah, blah,
blah."  The first one clearly implies innate inferiority (the backbone of
"old" racism) - since the whole biologically defined group is affected by
the purported description.  The second one does not, because it implies
that not all members of the group in question are lazy and anti-social,
only some of them.  I see it as a certain progress from those blatantly
expressed 50+ years ago (again, cf. Gould _Mismeasure of Man_).


wojtek

 
>
>And as you say, anyway, deeds (structure) are becoming less equal. The
words (consciousness) seems a sort of Orwellian coverup of reality.  
>
>
>Charles Brown
>
>
>

[PEN-L:10106] Re: Re: Re: Race, Sacrifice,and "Dignity" (was Re: Abortion and other wedge issues)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:24 PM 8/16/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>suppose you are indulging yourself in the same imaginary solution by your
>reference to the "lit-crit crowd," who presumably are the only denizens of
>academe, unlike, say, social scientists who have nothing to do with the
>"shadow of ivory towers."


Ah, not at all - they are all members of the schmoozing/scribbling class,
paper pushers, symbol manipulators, intellectual commodity producers if you
will.  The idea here is that the so-called "education" can brainwash people
much more effectively than anythying else, inculcate them with the culture
of the scipture and make immune to the concerns of the real world.  Working
class, by contrast, lacking exposure to such indoctrination is more open to
the conerns of the real world, even though it does express those concerns
in the savvy way found among symbol manipulators.

This, btw, is not meant to dismiss the importance of education and
knowledge but to say that today's academic institutions are perhaps 75%
about symbol manipulation (underwriting credentials, producing spin,
manufacturing intellectual commodity) and 25% about learning and producing
knowledge.

wojtek

[PEN-L:10105] Re: International Inequality Comparisons?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:15 PM 8/16/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Can anyone direct to any good, preferably online comparisons of
>inequality in both income and wealth across countries? I am aware of
>James Galbraith's working paper at CEPA and am looking for any other
>data sources and tables clearly presented if possible
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>Dave Dorkin
>


try _Luxembourg Income Study_.  Also _World Development Report_ has tables
with gini index and income distribution by quantiles for most countries in
the world.  

wojtek

[PEN-L:10103] Re: Re: Race, Sacrifice,and "Dignigy" (was Re:Abortionand other wedge issues)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:12 PM 8/16/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>
>Charles: Not to be a pessimist or a smart ass, Wojtek, but , I swear to
god, the movement 50 years ago seems to be ahead of the movement today in a
lot of ways. Somehow this progress in attitudes is not translated into
progress in action, practice, changing the world.


True, but social conditions are much different today than they were 50+
years ago.  It is virtually impossible to organize social action in the
burbs - where most of th epeople now live.  Perfect social control - they
only way out is to kill yopurself and perhaps take a few people with you.
So I do not think this failure has much to do with consciousness - I think
people today are both more aware of bigotry in most forms and also less
tolerant of it - however, social inequality is increasning and structural
conditions getting much favorable for a collective action.  So it is a
"structural" failure rather than the absence of "proper" consciousness. 


>
>I'd almost rather have the old stereotyping about the poor. At least the
stereotypical poor  included Blacks and Whites then.


I think you are glamorizing the past.  Eugenics, purification of race,
sterilization - not to mention lesser forms of bigotry - wre the norm in
public discourse some 50+ years ago.  Crap like "Bell Curve" were passing
for bona fide science.  Today, they are almost universally recognized as
fraud, excpet perhaps in ceratin echelons of the schmoozing class.  Not to
mention the fact few people would dare to publicly stigmatize the whole
social or ethnic group anymore.

wojtek

>

[PEN-L:10096] Re: Race, Sacrifice,and "Dignigy" (was Re: Abortion and other wedge issues)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:33 PM 8/16/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote:
>That said, it was and is not inevitable that class antagonism gets deformed
>into a racist form. All workers make sacrifices on the job (and in fact
>black workers generally make bigger sacrifices than whites under the same
>employers), but not all workers translate such resentment into racism and
>the scapegoating of blacks on welfare.


But looking at it from another angle, it could be a sign of a certain
progress.  Fifty or so years ago, the presence of a social ill (poverty,
inability to support oneself) would lead to a summary stereotyping of an
antire ethnic group - as it was the case of not only blacks, but also
eastern and southern euroepans (cf. the notorious polish, jewish or italian
jokes).  Today, however, such stereotyoping is strongly qualified by
restricting it to a _segment_ of an ethnic group (e.g. welfare recipients).
 Even most conservatives (save for a few kkk and neo-nazi crackpots) would
not extend that stereotype to an entire ethnic group - which theoy would
rountinely do not so long ago.

Based on my own observations, scapegoating welfare is a backdoor that
allows at least some blue collar workers to escape racism.  I heard more
than once blue collar workers (both black and white) denoucing housing
projects and welfare, and at the same time vigorously denying claims of
being racist.  Unlike the lit-crit crowd that leads protected lives in the
shadow of ivory towers of academe, these people deal with social ills
produced by poverty on the daily basis.  So the fact that they attribute
those effects to a socially constructed phenomenon (welfare) instead of
natural one (ethnicity) is quite remarkable - and puts them on a par, if
not ahead, of the lit-crit crowd. 

wojtek

[PEN-L:10094] Re: Re: Campus Area Gentrification

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:04 AM 8/14/99 -0700, Sam P. wrote:
>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>> 
>> So urban development, gentrification or whatever you want to call it is
>> bad.
>
>Not necessarily. Gentrification is not all bad. Starbucks has good
>coffee (I'm told). Subway makes their own bread too. What I'm
>criticising is how gentrification kills diversity to the point where
>every urban (not to speak of suburban) area becomes exactly like any
>other. Distinctive character is killed.
>
>  Then what's an alternative - urban ghetto, suburban gated community?
>
>  I'll take the urban ghetto, at least you can smoke in the
>establishments there. Urban ghetto's have been transformed into decent
>places to be through collective action. Holly Sklar wrote a book on the
>Roxbury area of Boston, I believe.
>


Bad choice, IMHO, just as bad as the other one.  Poverty sucks - every
aspect of it is absolutely reprehensible.  To paraphrase the Old Man, the
problem is not to valorize it culturally (e.g veneration of poverty-related
subcultures, or the variety of noble savage mythologies ad nauseam
reiterated by many leftists), but to change it.  That means, making the
life styles now enjoyed by the upper classes to everyone.  In other words,
making boutiques, art galleries, cafes, bookstores, theaters, symphony
halls, condominiums, parks, spas, clean crime-free streets etc. available
to the working class - not just the yuppies.  That also means that instead
of knee-jerk opposition of everything that smacks of gentrification - the
Left should demand more gentrification that includes the working class, low
and moderate income people.  

We have to distinguish between the aesthetic and the social/economic
aspects of urban development.  Planet Hollywood and yuppie boutiques may
not be as aesthetically appealing as, say, bohemian art galleries and
cafes.  Urban malls (such as the Gallery in Baltimore or Galeria in Boston)
may be nothing more than a collection of chain stores found in every
suburban mall in the country.

But their aesthetic qualities (or lack thereof) notwithstanding, the urban
development aka gentrification is different from suburban sprawl in several
important respects.

1. Environmental protection.  Suburban sprawl almost invariably means
destruction of vast natural areas, not just for new homes with large yards,
but parking lots and roads.  That also means more automobile traffic and
more pollution.  Gentrification, by contrast takes place in urban areas and
oftentimes involves creation of new green areas.  Moreover,  residential
density makes vialble public transportation possible.

2. Public spaces.  There are no public spaces in suburban sprawl -
everything is private, including shopping malls.  Tha means that security
guards have every right to kick you out, if they do not lik eyou behavior
(e.g. if you distribute Mumia Abu Jamal literature or sell alternative
art).  City strets, by contrast are public spaces - they can house
commercial areas that are open to the public (as opposed to paying
customers).  Add to that other puboi cspaces, such as plazas, parks, subway
stations etc.  

3. Public service efficiency.  Urban development (aka gentrification) means
bringing moderate/high income peopl eto the city, thus adding their income
and property taxes to the city budget.  That means more money for public
services.  Moreover, higher population density in the cities means more
efficient delivery of those services (i.e. more tax dollars per mile of
roads, public transit, school, police precinct, etc.)  

4. Social integration.  Higher residential density and public spaces create
more opportunities for interactgion between people of different social
backgrounds, even if such interaction is often very superficial.  OTOH,
suburban sprawl is the epitome of seggregation and alienation.

Many Leftist fail to distinguish between aesthetic/symbolic and social
economic aspects of urban development.  They hate social inequality, hence
they hate people in high income groups and their culture and lifestyle,
which by implication involves knee jer reaction against gentrification.
That is a very naive, idealistic and utopian position. A more realistic one
would be opposition to the core cause - i.e. social inequality, rather than
its epiphenomena, such as yuppie life styles.  

If the city wants to build a high income condo project - that is fine (more
tax revenues).  Instead of opposing this project, the Left activists should
use it as a platform to demand a second one - aimed at providing low and
moderate income housing, preferably in the same area.  If the city wants to
bring in a Planet Hollywood of Hard Rock Cafe to the downtown area - that
is fine.  Again, the left should use it as a platform to match that
development with one aimed at serving the working class - recreation
centres, public libraries, parks, etc.  Every "market rate"

[PEN-L:10010] Re: Re: Campus Area Gentrification

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:38 AM 8/13/99 -0700, Sam Pawlett wrote:
>In light of recent Pen-L threads on urban questions, I'd would highly
>recommend an excellent new book called *Lockdown America* by Christian
>Parenti which I've just finished. It reminded me a lot of *City of
>Quartz * by Mike Davis except it covers all of America and has a bit
>different scope. Parenti touches on the political economy of US urban
>decay and gives a detailed,scathing and frightening account of
>"Zero-tolerance policing", the social control of "quality of life"
>campaigns, "Business Improvement Districts", disastrous urban
>"renaissance" projects like convention centers, stadiums and theme parks
>as well as the "broken window" criminology of James Q. Wilson and
>others. Parenti goes into the policies of Giuliani and the effects they
>have had throughout the nation. He also gives detailed case studies of
>San Francisco, Indianapolis and Baltimore. Perhaps most frightening is
>his account of the rise of private prison industry  and paramilitary
>policing. 
>   He argues that, basically, poor urban neighborhoods have become
>police states. The urban poor and homeless are obstacles in the path of
>developers seeking to create "urban hip" areas of the kind so 
>effectively lampooned by The Baffler. Further, poor whites are the shock
>troops for the creation of these neighborhoods who eventually become the
>victims of them. The "scene" is created by poor students and
>"counter-culture" types who are then forced to leave because of rising
>costs (property values.) 


So urban development, gentrification or whatever you want to call it is
bad.  Then what's an alternative - urban ghetto, suburban gated community?

I just returned from London where I spent a few days.  Gee, if Baltimore
had only half of London's amenities, it would be a truly wonederful place
to live.  So if you ask me to choose between borded up houses and a
gentrified neighborhood, the choice is clear, at least for me.

Fortunately, Europeans do not face the dilemmas American social engineers
do - they know cities are viable.  

wojtek

PS. I checked out amazon.com for parenti's book, it won't be out until
september.