[PEN-L:418] Fund flows
To whom..., Why is it that practically every month for the past couple years CNBC et al have been reporting net inflows into the stock market, both into equities and into mutual funds? How have I been missing all this net outflow? peace
[PEN-L:256] Nikkei aricle on aging Japanese capital
To whom..., I inadvertently misled C. Perelman in his search for this article. The english-language web site for the Nihon Kezai Shimbun is "www.nikkei.co.jp/enews/". The article follows and it is yet another suggestion that the Japanese are in bad trouble. Japanese Production Facilities Deteriorating At Frightening Pace TOKYO (Nikkei)-Japanese manufacturing facilities are deteriorating rapidly and are now less modern than U.S plants, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has learned. The decay of many plants may impede increases in productivity and dull the global competitive edge of manufacturing which has been a pillar of Japan's spectacular growth since World War II, economists fear. The average age of domestic factory buildings and equipment has risen from a low of 9.1 years in 1991 just after the burst of the bubble economy to 10.5 years in 1997, the Japan Development Bank estimates. This contrasts sharply with the U.S. where production equipment is being updated against a backdrop of robust demand. The average plant in the U.S. was 10.2 years old in 1996 - the first time in the past several decades that the U.S. has bettered Japan in terms of newness of equipment. During the late 1980s, Japanese production equipment grew older, but turned around in the later years of the bubble era when Japanese companies made huge investments in new facilities. The previous low of 9.5 years in 1988 was improved upon by 0.4 of a year by 1991. When the economic growth rate began slowing in 1992, equipment began to grow older. Estimates by the Economic Planning Agency reveal a similar trend, with the average age in 1997 hitting 10.1 years, the first time the EPA has seen the figure rise above a decade. The average age of U.S. equipment peaked in 1994 at 10.6 years. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Monday morning edition)
[PEN-L:214] Re: American Crony Capitalism Lives!!! -or-
When is a Loss not a Loss? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 24 Sep 1998 10:43:26 -0400 To whom..., A loss, it seems, even in this great bastion of market-rationality, risk-management and (gulp) transparency (except for hedge funds, playgrounds of the Gods) is not a question of what you owe, but whom you know. Thus is revealed the eternal achilles heel of capitalism. No matter how they try to sanitize the system, they cannot undo the instability that having so much wealth in so few hands creates. Capitalism's greatest geniuses can't smooth out the wrinkles and they have to go whining to their rich pals. What a bunch of cowards. That Meriwether, Merton and Scholes, gurus of analytical finance capitalism, should be laid low by the Russian nomenklatura is an irony so rich it's practically proof of the existence of God. peace
[PEN-L:204] Re: Re: Re: NY Review article on the economy
C. Perelman, Go to sattelite.nikkei.co.jp and look around. The story is a couple weeks old, I think, but they should still have it available. I was actually going to forward it to the list when I first read it, but it was at a time when my e-mail had gotten away from me. If you can't find it, write them. They've been very nice to me. peace
[PEN-L:200] Re: NY Review article on the economy
To whom..., My reaction to Levy's point about Japanese capital investment is that it was true some time ago but not, apparently, today. The Nikkei news service reported that U.S. industrial equipment is now newer than Japanese equipment for the first time in a great while. The Japanese crisis has been brewing for a long time, it seems. peace
[PEN-L:182] Re: Re: Re: In Response to Jim Devine's Question
C. Schaap, I'm not sure how you mean to apply this quote to the present. Would you focus us a little? peace
[PEN-L:1249] Re: South Korea as model?
C. Proyect, It still should be noted that South Korea has a larger economy than Russia. The "tiger" economies needed government money at first because, of course, cowardly capitalists want to see guaranteed returns before they put their money in. When these economies were working best, they were getting well-rationalized capital inflows at an unprecedented rate, but the cronyist elements you cite deformed the economy to the point that the currency traders violently revealed the underlying instability. The point is not whether "the market" did this or that. I think that "the market" is becoming a less and less meaningful term. The supposed market in labor, the capital markets and goods markets are very different things. Moreover, the production of many commodity goods has become more like an infrastructure project than the more classic market for finished goods. The question is really what mechanism can get capital to production fastest and best. As I see it there are four important issues. First, how is capital to get to unproven industries? Second, how do we make sure that capital investment is rationalized to demand? Third, how do we make sure that the decision-making doesn't become corrupted or produce unwarranted power among capital-distributing units? Fourth, how do we distribute risk correctly? So far, statist models have been inadequate suppliers of capital. Capitalist models, as we well know, have been shown to be unstable and, of course, produce their well-known brutality. I don't think there is anyone to put the white hat on in this debate. All the hats distributed so far are a dark shade of gray. peace
[PEN-L:1256] Re: Re: Re: South Korea as model?
C. Proyect, Capitalist cronyism deforms this economy as well. Cronyism is simply a word for putting too much economic power into too few hands. Go to the Nihon Kezai Shimbun website if you want to see an immense display of what cronyism has wrought. Nikkei down 450 point today. The South Korean economy is bigger even now than the Russian economy ever was. That didn't happen because capitalism is good. It happened because Russia was obviously under a state of siege and because the statist model is inadequate for getting capital into the markets. Nicaragua might as well be an example of my argument as yours. South America has never been anything but cronyist - Red or otherwise. Your post clearly shows what has kept socialist economic thinking behind the times. It is the very compassionate and quite reasonable-seeming emphasis on commodity goods. It's a low growth market. We are in an industrial economy. The populations of the tiger economies were desperate for basic needs as well, but considered Japan - no natural resources or commodity production capacity to speak of, certainly a paltry commodity base in relation to the population and they are still the second largest economy in the world. The reason is simply that they produced for the global industrial economy instead of chasing an unattainable dream of autarky. Autarky is, in essence, counter-socialist. Production for demand is no different from production for use or need. The idea of production for need assumes that the needy will not be able to join the industrial economy. It assumes the welfare state into existence. It think that is a wrong assumption. I think people are poor because they are prevented from producing for their neighbors and the world by capitalists who strangle the economy through a monopoly on capital. The problem is not that capitalism halts production when there is over-capacity. That's a decision that socialists have to make too. More on that later. The problem is that capitalist development in one area is not as fungible as it should be. It does not spill over as fast as it should. Therefore development does not beget development. Why? you know why, because the capitalists always start with "entrepreneurship" and quickly degenerate into speculation and accumulation. The problem with Hyundai is not just Korean over-investment. The problem with Hyundai is in Thailand, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Indonesia and Russia. Those are the economies (among others of course) that should be absorbing that car production. They can't because trillions of won got pissed away instead of invested in industrial development for which there is active demand. That being said, there is a very serious question as to who should bear the risk that an economic venture will fail. If Hyundai was a collective in a socialist Korea that had made a bad decision, who should bear the brunt of that bad decision. Risk is something the statist model is totally unprepared for. There is, in that model, no way to express risk (like interest rates on loans) and no way to do anything but socialize risk that is often created by a very small minority. Under statism, all investment is effectively at zero interest. There is no way to compare potential ventures in terms of risk. That's why statists always emphasize basic goods. There seems to be no risk. That's fine, but how do we decide to produce disk drives or analog chips? How do we know whether to go into deep ultra-violet laser lithography or spend the extra dough on x-ray lithography? It's a risky decision to the tune of billions. The productivity gains and economic stimulus of higher technology are what end up buying roof tiles and plywood for workers' homes, not the other way around. For every economic decision there is a risk/reward profile. Commodity production has both low risk and low reward. It's time socialists started thinking about risk. peace
[PEN-L:1261] Re: Re: South Korea as model?
C. Proyect, You surrender the field with typical grace. I would suggest to you that we should be concerned with the transition from industrial capitalism to industrial socialism more than "the transition from feudalism to capitalism in [newly] industrial England." If you're content to re-hash the late nineteenth century, I'll leave you to it. I understand that you're concerned with the plight of the immense number of people who live under essentially feudal conditions in an essentially feudal economy. I am too. I think the industrial economy has left them behind. However, their transition will necessarily be vastly different from the feudalism-capitalism transition spawned by the industrial revolution. The institutions of industrial capitalism have already been in place for a hundred years. Possibly you don't think the institutions of capitalism have developed in the past century or so. If so, your personal focus on history is entirely appropriate. I understand that you reject a stagist notion of development as that seems to you to doom the billions of peasants living to day to repeat terrible journey into capitalism that the English peasants went through. I'd suggest two things: First, their lives are already no picnic and peasant agriculture is an economy to be blissfully abandoned. Second, I would suggest that the best way to smooth the path to industrialism is to find a substitute for the process of primitive accumulation that made early capitalism so vicious. That primitive accumulation was necessary for development at that time because the institutions of credit and capital fungibility were not well developed. When I say "necessary" I mean that they were necessary for *capitalist* development. The Soviet system compared well to *that* system of capitalist capital formation and that's why it worked well. That was then and this is now. Now, the capital needs of the industrial economy are both more extensive and complex. It is entirely historical to suggest that a (Soviet) system that worked well for the development of basic industry in Russia before the war might not be adequate now. That does not mean capitalism is the only development alternative for modern neo-feudal economies. It does mean that socialists will have to find a *better* system for capital formation than contemporary capitalism employs, just as socialists did in 1917. What South Korea means is that capitalists have a better development answer than Sovietism. So what? That doesn't mean they have a better answer than socialism. peace
[PEN-L:1262] Re: Re: croney capitalism
C. Lear, "Jekyll" just had too much power. peace
[PEN-L:1254] Re: Re: random thoughts on russia
To whom..., There is an intriguing dynamic in Russia. The Soviet state used the super-democratic *ideals* of socialism to completely undermine civil society. Instead, they should have been creating *socialist* civil society - a far more radical and super-democratic form. In that the West will never trust Russians with another dollar unless contracts are enforceable and financial dealings are transparent, and in that these same qualities will be necessary to engender internal credit expansion, and in that elites have been so glaringly discredited so many times in Russia, this may force them to embark on the creation of a civil society that will be the equal to and might conceivably surpass the West. I think the same thing is possible in Cuba and for the same reason: the need for capital is overwhelming. I'm sure Occam's political science razor will prevail and there will just be a teaming up of labor and financial elites, but the dynamic still intrigues me. peace
[PEN-L:1218] Re: Labour and Aboriginals
C. Phillips, This seems, finally, like something that begins to address the way in which aboriginal peoples' movements might forward the cause of economic justice. It seems to me that, in Canada, the aboriginal movement has begun to create a unifying thread among the left. The green cause is certainly allied with the native Canadian cause on things like Vancouver Island logging, but I don't see a consistent position on property developing. It seems to me part of an appeal to the waning Canadian welfare state in some cases and I'm not yet comfortable with how native sovereignty movements play out in terms of political economy. peace
[PEN-L:1176] Re: Re: Real Islam or not, etc?
C. Wojtek, I think you are on the right track although I would say that Islamic fundamentalism as such is not the problem. Clearly there are people who are wholly devoted to Islam who would not engage in fascistic behavior. I do think that Islam has become the totalizing philosophy of fascistic movements. This makes sense in that nationalism (what we think of as the typical totalizing philosophy of fascism) is not quite so relevant in places where national identity has been undermined by colonialism. peace
[PEN-L:1142] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This list has some great kidders
C. Rob, Inflation is bad for bond-holders, but that does not necessarily mean it's good for bond-issuers, especially if they must, as governments must, continually re-finance their operations. It is a theoretical plus to be a bond issuer in an inflationary market, but inflation means that governments will simply be paying out more interest in the future since they have to keep interest rates above inflation rates if they don't want inflation to skyrocket. I think the people that inflation really works for are those looking to recover a one-time bond issuance by entering a goods market where they need to preserve pricing power. I think the French strategy of issuing bonds and then (essentially) devaluing currency was a bad one, but maybe Doug Henwood has an opinion. I think the reason Wall Street is not the same as stuffing money in a mattress is that securities really have no definite value. They are *promises* of future cash. The cash that actually accumulates from commerce goes back out into the economy and only a small percentage of it is actually used by capitalists for consumption at any given time. This is especially true of the stock market since a share of stock is not really even a promise of cash (Yes, there are dividends, but they are really a paltry percentage of the overall return of a stock. Many companies nowadays don't even distribute dividends, they just buy back stock to raise the price.) While there are still yo-yo's who go and buy gold, they are fewer and fewer. Modern treasure is a promisory note of uncertain future value. The fact that capitalists are willing to abandon their cash in return for these notes means that the cash can be re-invested (albeit by what are often circuitous processes). That cash then pays workers to create capitals and goods that also have uncertain value (because they haven't produced goods yet or sold yet, respectively). Clearly credit invested must generate more value than interest, if the system is to survive. In fact, I think that's why the system can survive. Otherwise, the crisis brought on by accumulation would be rapid and fatal. Fortunately for capitalists, workers have been plugging away, making a more technologically advanced world with higher and higher total product. The problem with Keynesian investment is exactly what makes it seem so conservative and sensible. It is a simple cash for value deal. It does not encourage capitalists to put their cash into these investments of uncertain value nor does it encourage an active market where this cash can go from investor/speculator to investor/speculator more and more quickly. That process of that cash portion (that "real" portion that represents actual value derived from past commerce) moving from industry to industry is fungibility. Software developer X takes his millions from the IPO by selling the stock and starts a new venture with it. That's the simple version, but there are other paths by which the cash comes back into the economy. The real trick is keeping all those capitalists from demanding their cash back at once (or even a large percentage of them from doing it). Once that happens the economy goes bust and we're all back to barter. My explanation of why this monetarist world has worked is that when investment bankers control the whole system - from industry to central banks - there is simply a greater comfort level among capitalists. There is broader understanding, more transparency, and shared customs among speculators. That makes it much easier for the capitalist to let that cash out of his greasy fingers and put it into something that provides fungibility. It also means, of course, that the interests of working people are simply overwhelmed in the process. Ultimately it's simple: the problem with capitalism is that if all those little capitalists decide to pick up their marbles and go home, the game ends. The more you can get capitalists to let others play with their marbles, the better the game you have. Keynesianism has tried to have the government provide substitute marbles and it just hasn't worked. There, I think a metaphor for capitalists that equates them with selfish children is entirely satisfactory. peace
[PEN-L:1145] Re: Fw: honesty in russia?
C. Frank, A properly positioned currency trader would have hedged for the sudden downward spike and simply increased his short ruble position. It also happened with the Japanese yen earlier this year. Intervention was simply met by more buyers for the other side of the trade. peace
[PEN-L:1146] Re: Re: Re: Speakers wanted III
C. Valis, Yes, by all means, consult The Book and pay no attention to that argument behind the curtain. peace
[PEN-L:1144] Re: Speakers wanted II
Valis, dammit, How could you be so incautious as to group C. Proyect and me together. You've forced him to reveal me as a "capitalist apologist" trying to worm my way into the pure, Red hearts of Marxists with my neo-anarcho-syndicalist, anti-primitivist/utopian rhetoric - just when I was really getting a good rebuke going, too. Now I will have to defend myself from charges of being a hippie Leninist - coiled and seething in the bosom of the Ivy League like a sleeping cat on a comfy sofa. People will think I have a good job, live on the upper west side and go to amusing Thai restaurants with leading intellectuals! All this nightly brooding about Marx and dodging heroin dealers in industrial New Jersey will come to nothing! My facade will crumble! My God, comrade, the carelessness. peace
[PEN-L:1143] Re: Global economic crisis
To whom..., Russia down, Japan down, Wall Street Down, China under three feet of water. Collapse. Panic. The glory of it all! It reminds me of the line from that poem about a world war one gas attack where the narrator describes the soldiers going for their gas masks with "an ecstasy of fumbling". peace
[PEN-L:1116] Re: Re: Re: This list has some great kidders
C. Rob, You ask whether under Keynesianism "Is credit not always available, and is that credit not generally available at much more stable and realistic rates than 'free markets' can offer over time?" and I would say "No" to both. In terms of rationality, how often are government spending projects really rationalized to economic need? I would say not often. That means that while credit is available in nominal amounts it is not targeted to need. After all, there is only so much that can be done with infrastructure and defense budgets. As for adding to availability of credit, government credit is not fungible. It pays for project X and waits for revenue to pay off the debt. The authorities that "own" the bridges and tunnels, etc. are not fungible capitals. You can't buy stock in them. The money is consumed and not re-invested. Not to be supply-side about it, but credit in the private sector does go into the big pool of capitalist accumulation wherefrom it can be drawn as funding for new industry. The reason that works is that capitalists don't keep their money under their beds. They put it into savings instruments. That means that a huge proportion of accumulated cash can re-circulate since wealth is predominantly paper. Of course if too many capitalists demand cash for their paper, you have a panic and a crisis. Absent crisis, you have the famous "multiplier" effect, which is really just leverage, as I see it. When the government invests, the best one can hope for is that "profitable" government debt will simply reduce, after some period of time, the indebtedness of the government. That *may* lower interest rates, but it may not. In any event the total effect is small. Private credit, on the other hand, can provide leverage. It seems to me that a very small increase in the degree to which a nation's productive assets are leveraged will dwarf even the most ambitious government spending because, as we know, leverage begets leverage. The way I see, it finance capitalism is simply a way to leverage the productive assets of a country more effectively (under capitalism, of course). One particular advantage finance capitalism has over Keynesianism is that Keynesianism finances a few industries more than others. That creates a "narrow" market. One of the worrisome (by which *I* mean "delightful", at least to a Marxist) things about the present U.S. equity market is that it's so narrow. A few years ago, the broader you bought across the well-capitalized averages, the better you did. Germany, by comparison, has been seeing run-ups in anything new that comes across the tape. I think that within five years you will be able to pick stocks blindly out of the Nikkei and do well. As you suggested, the Japanese style of Keynesianism leads to disaster and I think it is because when the government tries to broaden out its investment, that leads inevitably to cronyism. There is not, at present, a system that expresses the true economic will of the people across the economy in the form of credit. Socialism anyone? peace
[PEN-L:1056] Re: My point is .... please
To whom..., I have been on exactly the same track from the beginning and have found no answer to my questions or points. The track is here, I am on the track, and I have the only consistent argument on this particular line. What *is* off the track? - mischaracterization, vilification, and anti-intellectual bombast. peace
[PEN-L:1058] Re: Economic rationalism by numbers
C. Rob, Get with the program, comrade, debt is good. Don't you know that? No, seriously, I think this is just a necessary transformation from stagnant Keynesian capitalism to credit-rich finance capitalism (When I say "necessary", I mean necessary for capitalism, of course. Feel free to interrupt the process of capitalist development any time you like and good on ya'). Look, the credit markets (by which *I* mean all the securities markets) are the engine of capitalism. For them to work really well everybody has to get on the same page and stop thinking that things like politics and policy matter. The depressing thing for a socialist has to be that it will work for a while. It has worked in America longer than most thought it would and it is starting to work in Europe. Asia will take a little longer, of course, because they have to dismantle a Keynesian economy more quickly after it has turned on a dime. Australia will probably benefit greatly from the inevitable money party that Japan will become - especially if Oz takes its role seriously as outpost of Anglo-capitalism in Asia. Of course the strucural defects in the economy that will make the next big downturn into a real disaster will also deepen, as you are seeing right now, and being able to say "I told you so" will be cold comfort. Isn't capitalism fun? peace
[PEN-L:1106] Re: Re: Re: My point is .... please
C. Perelman, It has been many posts since I tried to convince anybody of anything. There has been no opportunity to even engage anybody. That's fine with me, except that *you* felt obliged to raise the stakes to the point that I felt I should defend myself. If you are finished then I am. peace
[PEN-L:1108] Re: d'arrigo strike (fwd)
To whom..., If I could advise these lettuce workers I would suggest that the Monsanto corporation shows us a good model for them to forward negotiation with the growers. It's called "Roundup" peace
[PEN-L:1105] Re: This list has some great kidders
C. Valis, As I said, we are seeing the groundwork laid for true despair when this bubble bursts. Again, isn't capitalism fun? I hope it's clear that I see *two* two questions here. First, is this monetarist transmogrification necessary *under capitalism*? - to which I answer "yes". Second, does it foreshadow disaster - likewise "Yes." The point is that you can't go back and re-institute or even save a failed structure. The Keynesian model stagnated (or led to crisis, as in Japan) because it could not provide capitalism with enough market-rationalized credit. peace
[PEN-L:1005] Re: Re: 3 Articles on Russia - Fred Weir, Reuters
C. Schwartz, Thanks for the info. You have to admit the old "He's not dead, he's just vacationing in the dacha" routine is a Russian classic, though. Who is thought to be running things if Yeltsin is actually as incapacitated as he appears? Is it Chubaiis? peace
[PEN-L:1011] Re: Re: 3 Articles on Russia - Fred Weir, Reuters
C. Schwartz, Do I understand the Buzgalin article to imply that the clan-corporates are, in some cases, using the social welfare system to solidify their power over the workers? He seemed to imply that the elites would not only withhold wages but also welfare services. If that's so, how do you break their hold over the workers? If policies favor the welfare state, the clans can use that as a weapon and if policies undermine the welfare state the people are that much more dependent on the wages that the clans dole out with an eye-dropper. Also, is there any move on the Communuist party's part to try and get the workers to organize and use their formal ownership rights or is the party simply trying to reinstate the welfare state? peace
[PEN-L:1048] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: sell-out Indians andwestern arrog...
C. Proyect, Since you;ve totally distorted my point, I'll remind you of it. My point is that the indigenous people are well and truly in the sway of capitalist property relations whether they assimilate or not. My point is that they cannot insulate themselves from capitalist property relations and I do not see their movement undermining those relations. My point is that the economy which fostered their pre-capitalist property relations is gone and vanished. It cannot be re-established, nor is it the intent of the indigenous people to re-establish their pre-capitalist economy. Since these things seem to be true, it follows that the "indigenous peoples" movement is a reformism. It is an important reformism, possibly an essential one for the indigenous people, but a reformism nonetheless. That doesn't make it bad, but I think it limits the movement's import for the proletariat. peace
[PEN-L:1049] Re: Politics versus economics
To whom..., Lou Proyect has finally tipped his hand. The idea is that a victory is a victory is a victory. I think that's clearly wrong. I have been shown nothing about this movement that suggests it undermines capitalism at all. Capitalists have disputes all the time. If the FTC wins a court case against Microsoft, is that a victory for the proletariat? Capitalists have disputes with non-capitalists all the time. Was the recent GM strike a victory? Did the "No Nukes" movement against nuclear power do *anything* to undermine capitalism? They won, but what war were they fighting? My question about the economic aims of the native Canadians was not esoteric. It was essential. We are talking about political *economy* here. peace
[PEN-L:991] Re: Re: Re: Re: 3 Articles on Russia - Fred Weir,Reuters
C. Rob, Wall Street, I think, is loathe to crack the Golden Egg of investor confidence. If stock punters so much as looked out the window they would panic. Fortunately, all they see when they briefly open their eyes is the sand their heads are in. By the way, has anyone actually seen Yeltsin alive and upright lately? This business of his not wanting to interrupt his vacation is something I remember from the old Soviet days. From what I've read there is talk in Russia that Yeltsin is incoherent. I think the guy may have had a stroke on top of the heart attack. Who knows, while he sits comatose in the dacha, his crew may be busy setting up Swiss accounts and safe passage out. Something about the Russian situation makes me want to be in a mountain cabin with a large, lead-lined basement. peace
[PEN-L:992] Re: Re: sell-out Indians and western arrogance
To whom.., I don't think it matters a damn that native Americans or any other indigenous people had or have democratic ideals. The economy they live in doesn't. peace
[PEN-L:1000] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: sell-out Indians and westernarrogance
To whom..., I largely abandoned the debate about indigenous political economy because the participants who take the opposing position simply ignored the main issue. Instead we have gotten a lot of stuff about the native political struggles which, while interesting, does nothing to answer the main question. It isn't intended to, of course, so I have simply read it and left it at that. When I noticed that C. Duquesne was getting side-tracked, I thought I would interject to try and get the debate back on track. It's essential to remember that the debate did *not* start with anyone implying that indigenous people were themselves primitive or undemocratic or that they were incapable of managing their own affairs, as has been implied. That was the second, and more important, reason for my interjection. Look at the Quebec situation that C. Craven has presented to us. What, *economically* is at issue here? Is it a people trying to re-establish a native economy? No, it's about logging rights. That's an important issue, certainly, but how is a dispute over land rights in order to do logging an issue for the mass of working people? Are the Micmac going to establish a logging collective? Can they be a model for other people? What about people who have no land to claim? I'm far happier to see that land go to the poor native Canadians, but my point is that it seems to be a reformist issue. The native Canadians are clearly looking to participate in a modern economy - as land owners. I'm not suggesting that someone else should own the land but I am suggesting that this dispute may not have all that much import for wage workers. My remark was no spitball because there is no offense in it nor is it a re-hash because the debate has yet to progress to a point where anything can be re-hashed. peace
[PEN-L:997] Re: Re: Re: Re: 3 Articles on Russia
To whom..., From what I hear the Russian Communist party is suffering a rift. I'm not sure I understand the cause but they say it has undermined Zuganov's effectiveness. Anybody have anything on this? peace
[PEN-L:998] Re: Re: korea/russia questions
To whom..., I don't know what it means, but Henry Kissinger, that champion of democracy, has said that an authoritarian Yeltsin regime "may be necessary". peace
[PEN-L:932] Re: and
C. Forstater, THe issue is not worth discussing but it seems that occasionally it needs discussing. There are practices, other than *TYPICAL* modern agricultural practices that can be demonstrated more productive (usualy just in absolute calories) given, as you said, certain conditions. That is practically meaningless. For example it may be that the Western United States could produce more meat grazing buffalo than cattle. That does not mean that primitive methods produced more meat. That means that modern agriculture is simply, because of tastes, grazing a less productive animal. The fact remains that when you compare cattle to cattle or buffalo to buffalo, modern methods produce more. Furthermore the limitations put on these studies are almost always in terms of "sustainability", the measure of which is necessarily guess work. I have seen studies that cite topsoil erosion in the heartland as proof that modern agricultural methods are less sustainable, disregarding both the fact that farmers for decades payed no attention to erosion and that now that they do no-till agriculture is taking hold and vastly limiting topsoil erosion. These studies also disregard the fact that humans do strange things (from an ecological standpoint) like ship their waste out to sea or bury it in one place, thereby interrupting the nitrogen cycle that normally re-fertilizes the land. That is not the fault of modern agriculture but the fault of people who have the very reasonable idea that they don't want raw sewage dumped all over the place, but see, at the moment, no economic need to make a large composting effort to resupply they nitrogen cycle. For that matter, another difference is that we don't live in the forest. That means two things. First it mean that the land doesn't get re-fertilized as much. It also means that there is not as much standing biomass from which to harvest and give the *appearance* of greater efficiency. Aquaculture may not seems very productive compared to fishing a spot nobody has fished for a few years, but after a while the truth comes out. Of course the main point is that primitive agriculture takes man-hours that could be better spent creating industrial goods. It also demands conditions that stymie development of an industrial economy (no roads, cities, things like that). Finally, when comparing the agricultural output of a primitive society to that of a modern society, it must be kept in mind that you are comparing 50 to 90% of the output of one society to maybe 5% of the output of the other, if that. Therefore, as I said, the comparison is farcical. peace
[PEN-L:915] Re: A reply to boddhisatva
C. Proyect, Ultimately your Friday response to my question puts forward a philosophy that "A victory is a victory." That may be true, but the question is what *kind* of victory. I think it's clear that it is a reformist victory. There is value in reformism but it is not a substitute for real progress in getting real economic rights for wage workers. First, I never questioned the claims that indigenous people have on their land and I never suggested that these claims should be abandoned. What I was questioning is what role those claims have in the struggle to liberate working people. I think they have little or no role. They may win over indigenous people to left-wing parties, but that is a very small number of people. The enthusiasm that leftist have for these causes is all out of proportion to their importance. Again, I think that enthusiasm is based on the fact that these causes are substituting for the more difficult, more frustrating cause of liberating working people from capitalism. When the native people have resolved their land claims, they will not be liberated from capitalism. They will not even be able to hide from capitalism for very long if at all. Neither will leftists. peace
[PEN-L:916] Re: land (was Reply to Ajit and Ricardo)
C. Forstater, It's clearly nonsense that primitive economies are more producitve than modern ones. It's not even worth discussing. As for the justice of the indigenous land claims, I never questioned that. The question is what value the struggle for indigenous land rights has for wage workers (by "working people" I often mean "wage workers"). peace
[PEN-L:860] Re: Re: Re: Naming names
C. Dennis, The only real Buddhists I know are in books and on TV. As for my own taste in Buddhist thought, I always get the schools confused. I never remember what is Theravada and Mahayana and why and where Tantrism comes in and leaves. Would I be revealing too much of my American Protestant culture if I said that maybe this Buddhism is too complicated and needs a little simplification? Anyway, I think I take from all schools except the tantric and tend toward the Mahayana side of things, although I think Therevada has its charms. Zen takes itself a bit too seriously, I think. As for your observation, the rejection of name and form, as I understand it, can't generate content - only reveal it. Buddhism is nicely anti-hocus-pocus that way (despite what some practitioners or prosletizers may do). peace
[PEN-L:825] boddhisatva responds
To whom, At the point I am accused of writing "virulent racism" I have to defend myself but I'll wait for a moment and first thank the people who wrote supporting me: Thanks, I'm pleased and a little surprised by the whole thing. I was pondering why I might have caused such a stir and I came up with a few reasons. First, when I get worked up I tend to post a lot which is really something I should control. While it may give the impression that I'm trying to dominate the conversation or something, I can assure you it is just a childish lack of restraint. I also may communicate badly at times. I sometimes include partial thoughts that can be misinterpreted. I also enjoy arguing and see it as a positive process. Those two last things together seem to combine to prompt people to ascribe beliefs to me that I do not have and have not put forward. I think preconceptions play a role in that process as well. I am flip and sometimes a little rude. I accept any criticism on that score although I think that I have certainly got better than I have given in this present context. Before getting to that subject, I'd like to address a criticism Lou Proyect leveled at me. It is a familiar one. When I first started subscribing to mailing lists I noticed that many discussions fell into endless pseudo-debates that were really just citation contests and battles of historical arcana. I realize that these lists are populated by academics, I know a few myself (I even live with one), and I know that the academic lives by the citation as the mafioso lives by the knife and gun. I don't find them useful. I have a personal rule that dictates I delete anything with too many proper names. I don't believe history is made by "great men" and I don't believe that the great thinkers are authorities. They may be people whose ideas have withstood the test of argument, but a person cannot cite them to shelter himself from argument. Citations are a legitimate shorthand, but I believe the most honest and useful exchange of ideas occurs when people are forced to make their own arguments on their own terms. The truth is truly what *WE* make it. Now to get to C. Craven's charge of "virulent racism" the defense is simple. The charge is so much nonsense. In fact, it's difficult to understand where it comes from, so long as we stipulate that it must come from *something* I actually wrote. My post was so short that a close reading may be in order and it may even illuminate the source and character of some misunderstanding. First, I asked what the native Canadians intended to do with the land they've won or will win in their legal battles. This is really the nub of the issue since the entire thread is about native people and their mode of production. The next two sentences are just specific restatements of the first general question. Jim Craven might have interpreted these statements as dismissive, but they can also be understood as *simple* questions. In fact when I say "These are all pretty depressed industries right now" it should suggest that I am actually considering the economic viability of the native Canadians' options. Not so to C. Craven, apparently. I further ask where, in this capitalist world, the native Canadians are going to get the money to develop the land and whether this might not endanger the very values that are meant to be preserved. Now it could be that the very suggestion native Canadians would develop lands or use capitalist money are offensive to the underlying concept C. Craven is putting forward. I hope so. I think it is a bogus concept. I think, as I have stated, that native Canadians do not want to use the land to pursue a stone-age economy. That doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the land or that they are facetious or anything else. I never suggested that and I never would. It means they're reasonable people. What I am questioning is what role this struggle, righteous though it may be, has in liberating the masses of people. If you'll remember, that is the question I first brought up in the thread. As for the quip about the Mohegan Sun casino (I've never really been there), it was meant to be provocative but it certainly wasn't racist. The waitresses at the Mohegan Sun are generally not (if the commercials are any indication) native Americans, but they *are* dressed up in a parody of native Americans. That is also true at other casinos on reservations from what I've read. What I was suggesting is that the casino industry has proved both disrespectful of native culture and entirely capitalist, employing working people in the same way any other capitalist business does and with the same lack of respect for *their* dignity. As my previous questions might have suggested, I think this was inevitable but *nowhere* did I suggest that it was the fault of the indigenous people.
[PEN-L:826] Re: Re: Re: Reply to Ajit and Ricardo
C. Proyect, The problem is that the indigenous struggles may be turning into a falseI hate to use the word, but "if the shoe fits"totem of the general struggle for liberation. The struggles bring people out of the woodwork on both sides of the spectrum, but I'm not sure they generate anything more than antagonism except for the indigenous people who have fortunately been able to get their cause out onto a larger stage. That's a considerable "except" but how large? As I've said again and again, I don't question the rightness of the cause, I do question what the embrace of that cause by the left means to the struggle for working people. peace
[PEN-L:827] Re: Naming names
Ms. Dannin, I don't use my name because I don't think it's a good idea. I've had trouble when I used my name on the Internet. If I were you, I wouldn't do it, but there you are. I think that if , somehow, an enterprising lawyer such as you decided that I was slandering someone in an actionable way she could find me and serve me with a summons. Other than that, how is it, do you think, that I am not taking "responsibility" for what I write? As for my identity, I don't have much respect for what the *real* Buddhists call "name and form." peace
[PEN-L:855] Re: Re: Micro-credit
C. Peoples, Micro-credit is just the practice of making very small, small business loans. The idea is that people can have access to credit to open shops and the like rather than relying on personal and family money as first-time shopkeepers and very small business people usually do. peace
[PEN-L:854] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reply to Ajit and Ricardo
C. Proyect, You response is simply a dodge. All it does is beg the question. Again I ask what specific change in political *economy* does granting land to indigenous people accomplish and how *specifically* does that help the struggle of working people? peace
[PEN-L:759] Re: The Political Consequences of Bhoddi
To whom..., The question is not one of capitulating to the multinationals, but of simply realizing that they are a fact of life, and so is the modern industrial economy. The question is not buying foreign floor wax for dirt floors but building, for example, factories that process local woods to make modern laminate flooring instead of selling raw logs. The East Asian "tiger" economies didn't capitulate to the West, but Toyota didn't start out in the luxury car business either. You don't go into businesses - like soft drinks - where you are simply trying to do direct substitution. Coke is good at what they do. Let them do it and let developing economies find other things to do. Import substitution is just bad economics. Who would council anyone to go into the wheat business right now (or corn or soybeans for that matter)? Of course there has to be some local agriculture but developing countries don't need to learn to crawl when they can already run industrial factories. Why is it that capitalists can open modern factories in developing nations but well-meaning leftists want to improve peasant farming techniques. You can improve peasant farming until it's perfect but you're putting a silk hat on a pig. Peasant farming sucks. It's a miserable life and no reasonable person who is not looking for asceticism wants to engage in it. What we produce *obviously* determines a very large part of our relations with the rest of the world. Right now the working people are alienated from that intercourse. That doesn't mean Coca-Cola the soft drink is evil - or the way it's produced, or the people who produce it. The corporation is evil, but that is an entirely different issue. What I am saying fundamentally is that leftists have to stop this absolute association of commerce with capitalism. peace
[PEN-L:763] Re: Preference Formation
C. Lear, As a former professional cook and chef I can tell you absolutely that people *want* sugar, salt, and buttery grease. All you have to do is balance the flavors a bit so they can really enjoy it and describe it on the menu in a way that allows them to happily fool themselves. I've served hundreds of pieces of fish slathered in beurre blanc to people who seemed to invariably remark how "light" it was - when it was covered in the equivalent of half a stick of butter. They knew what "beurre" meant, but with the addition of some wine, seasonings, and a little citrus, they didn't care. Do you think the onions and pickle relish on a Big Mac are there by accident? That's sugar to satisfy those brain cells and some vinegar to make the grease more appealing and give it that taste of buttery fatty acids. Look at what the French eat. There's no corporate influence in classic French cuisine and they are sucking down sausages and Camembert like there's no tomorrow. There wouldn't be, either, if they didn't drink all that wine. You like Thai food? Ask your doctor what she thinks about fish sauce and coconut milk as ingredients. I wouldn't mention the palm sugar, though. How about classic Chinese? Care for some salt-crusted pigeon? How about good old Beijing Duck? There's a health snack for you - soy-marinated, high-cholesterol meat, and that beautiful, crisp skin loaded with sugar, salt, and nice, pure duck fat. Wash that down with a half-pot of high-caffeine tea, run over to your cardiologist and see if she doesn't just punch you. Or, you could take you chances with a bacon cheeseburger topped with ketchup or barbecue sauce and a Coke. More sugar, less caffeine, but the cholesterol is about a wash. The only problem with American fast food is that it's so cheaply made you can taste the grease. That's why they need all the advertizing. Really good food sells itself - and then gives you the same stroke. One of the most popular additions to "fat-free" food is glycerine. Glycerine, of course, is an undigestible petro-fat that can't be metabolized so it simply remains in the gut. That's why it works as a laxative. It also gives "mouth feel" and soft consistency, especially to baked goods (it helps keep them from drying out, too). There's nothing unhealthy about taking in a bit of glycerine, and it has no taste, but ask yourself why even gourmet bakeries have been forced to go to this extreme to satisfy their customers. People want the fat, the sugar and the salt. They demand it. If one establishment doesn't give it too them, they will find another. peace, eat, drink, and be merry
[PEN-L:764] Re: re Bhoddi vs Proyect
To whom.., Look, I never said that indigenous people should give up their culture. The only thing I said about culture was that it is entirely appropriate for native people to be able to carry out rituals and entirely necessary that native people be respected. I questioned whether their cultures can survive a great shift in mode of production but it was a *question*. What I don't question is that the ancient economies of indigenous people are not viable, as C. Phillips points out. People raising children in hunter-gatherer lifestyles in modern Canada and America might be cited for child abuse. They would certainly be below the poverty line. Thus the question becomes how a group of people, isolated by prejudice and alienation from the dominant culture, can join the struggle to free the world's oppressed people - themselves included. peace
[PEN-L:765] Re: Re: re Bhoddi vs Proyect
C. Proyect, I'm all for "wresting land from the ruling class" but to do what with? Land and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee. peace
[PEN-L:766] Re: Re: re Bhoddi vs Proyect
C. Craven, So the native Canadians get the land and do what? Are they going to open casinos? Are they going to log, farm or mine? All those are pretty depressed industries right now. Where are they going to get the money to develop the land? Do you think the people they get the money from are going to respect indigenous culture? I think the last time I was playing the slots up in Connecticut, I might have heard one of the waitresses wearing a bucksking minidress saying something like "Welcome to the Mohegan Sun, victory for the working class", but I'm not sure. peace
[PEN-L:769] Re: Re: Re: Shotguns and machetes
C. Sinha, I don't think physics is cultural. Hydro-power just does more work - it has more physical capacity - than do river fish. I'm not saying that simply justifies throwing away river fish populations, not by a long shot, but the comparison C. Proyect made was false. You ask: "How can you separate forces of production from the relations of production?" That is what was once known as the 64,000 dollar question. It's not easy, certainly, but I don't think everything has been tried. My approach has always been a more syndicalist one - for which I've been labeled a capitalist stooge on Marxist lists. My focus is on capital and credit. I see capitalism as a monopoly on capital and access to credit. I believe the market is basically a democratic structure. I reject the idea that there is a real, rational, undeformed labor market that makes the the divisions of labor necessarily into class divisions. What makes class divisions is a worker's relationship with the property relations of the ruling class. Furthermore, there is clearly a difference between selling goods and selling people. A future order which included the idea of economic citizenship - real ownership rights based on citizenship and/or belonging to a collective firm - would necessarily undermine the tendency for *wealth* to accumulate, since a large measure of wealth would be thereby granted at the outset. I'm fairly indifferent to disparities in income above a certain base level. We know that the disparity in wealth dwarfs the disparity in income. The disparity in wealth also means that the owning class has access to capital - and far more importantly, credit - that gives it tremendous power. A democratization of the process of granting credit would undermine even that advantage that higher *income* earners would have in this future system. peace
[PEN-L:771] Re: Peasant Farming Sucks ???
C. Perelman, Again I say, farmers with a thousand acres of prime winter wheat land and tractors and combines are having trouble making a go of it. Peasant farming not only sucks as work, the pay is worse than any of the jobs you mentioned. Peasants aren't working in their gardens, they're working in their net worth. peace
[PEN-L:773] Re: Re: Re: Re: re Bhoddi vs Proyect
C. Craven, So what you're trying to say is that you have no answer to my questions. Is that it? I might have missed something because I was too self-absorbed to read all of your hissy-fit. peace
[PEN-L:694] Re: 2 items of interest
To whom..., So let me get this straight: Makak whaling good, Norwegian whaling bad? Isn't this obviously absurd? Isn't the issue how many whales - our common property - are killed? There are a few dozen saw mill operators in the Pacific Northwest whose mills are only designed to process old growth logs. Do we blithely end their way of life? Do we tell Massachussets cod fishermen that they are out of luck after a couple hundred years in the same business? Of course we do. It's their own damn problem and they have no more right to those resources than anybody else. If the Makah want to make the claim that they should be given a special settlement, okay, but this asserting of "rights" is not valid. You gonna let the Sioux walk into Yellowstone and kill all the buffalo because they have a "right" to hunt them? Clearly native Americans and Canadians have been screwed but you have to realize that these people are not really trying to preserve a stone-age way of life - they are trying to preserve tradition and ritual. A ritual slaughter of a few whales is no big deal. Letting people go into the whaling business is. If the Makah want to make a living off the forest, let them become forest rangers. Let them demand those jobs. Let them contract out to do Coast Guard and Department of Fish and Wildlife work off shore. That seems far more appropriate. peace
[PEN-L:695] Re: Re: banning coca cola ????
To whom.., Now we can laugh at farmers who use hoes because they don't use discers, integrated pest management, and no-till farming. We can laugh at them because they are wasting their time and breaking their backs for nothing. We can laugh at them because they are trying to make a living with hand agriculture when people with a thousand acres of prime winter wheat land and all the machinery available to husbandry can't make a lining. It won't be very happy laughter, or very kind, or even humane, but it will be laughter at something pointless. There is no excuse for living in the dark ages (except that you are being kept in them). Fertilizer use does not negate composting. Fertilizer is not some evil "chemical" - it's nitrogen, phosphate and minerals. It's completely stupid to try and somehow equate "chemical" fertilizer with pesticide or herbicide. Get a grip. peace
[PEN-L:696] Re: Inuit and the Internet
C. Proyect, This is about as socialist as a Microsoft commercial. Why don't you go and try to make your living hunting Caribou. peace
[PEN-L:692] Re: banning coca cola ????
To whom, At $50,000 per adult Yanomami, what kind of price tag are we talking? How about $100,000? How about a point or two of the net? the gross? What do the Yanomami, themselves, expect to gain from their land rights? Do they really want to live in the stone age or would they sell out to live a more comfortable life? This is an economics list. Let's talk turkey. peace
[PEN-L:691] Re: Microsoft, intellectual property and piracy
To whom..., And it doesn't matter a damn to the Microsoft market capitalization that this software is being pirated because their fotune lies in the fact that when they come out with their *next* program, people will have to buy it and their competitors won't be able to get the same kind of exposure for their competing product. peace
[PEN-L:690] Re: Guarani Indians
To whom..., The struggle to liberate people from economic oppression is not a John Ford movie. The primary problem facing the proletariat is not ranchers, for god's sake. Sure ranchers and their cousins the "family farmer" are petit bourgeoisie (and often evil-minded), but they are petit, to be sure. It's not like ranching pays all that well, either, although your cost structure is vastly improved if you just steal the land. My point is that this is yesterday's fight. Next thing you know, C. Proyect will be complaining that the railroad is coming through. peace
[PEN-L:689] Re: Democracy and indigenous peoples
To whom..., The issue is that multi-nationals are not following the illuminating wisdom of the great capitalist philosopher Meyer Lansky who said "A problem that can be solved with money is not a problem." There are some Inuit who live north of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who are living pretty fat and happy since they *sold* their mineral rights to the oil companies. From what I understand, the people who really give the Amazon Indios a hard time are the small time ranchers, farmers (those couldn't be *family" farmers - the kind of people who eliminated the wolf from America - could they?) and people who want to make a dirty dollar that will eventually kill them by separating out gold in the river sediment with liquid mercury (From what I understand Amazon gold is not commericially viable for large-scale production). If you consider the number of Amazon Indios there are and the very reasonable amount of money it would take to get them to settle, multinationals would clearly find it in their economic interest to buy the problem out of existence. After all, Merck spent tens of millions preserving a Costa Rican rain forest just for the rights to *potential* pharmaceutical discoveries. I'm certainly not saying capitalist corporations wouldn't steal instead of buy, but I suspect there is more going on here than a conflict between multinationals and Yanomami. I suspect that there are a lot more squeaky wheels looking to get the Green Grease out of Amazon development rights. The Yanomami can't be looking for that high a price. What seems more likely to me is that local mandarins are looking to horn in and get their cut before the Indios do. The point is, that whether or not the Yanomami get a good price from the multinationals is moot. What matters is that they are going to get screwed the same as everybody else unless we alter the nature of multinationals. The rest is just reformism. Of course it's important to try and save what might be destroyed or lost forever, but it's not the war - it's only a side battle. peace
[PEN-L:688] Re: Shotguns and machetes
C. Proyect, Your problem is that you live in a fantasy world. When power companies dam waterways to create hydropower they are creating something that is quite simply more valuable than the fish. It's an ugly reality, but there it is. As for the drinking water, that is obviously preserved because modern people don't need to drink out of running streams to avoid intestinal parasites - we have water treament plants. By the way, drinking out of a running stream doesn't really give you much protection from intestinal parasites either. I've tried to explain to you before that pure water doesn't come from nature, it comes from a filter. For that matter, *fish* populations are not destroyed by dams, *migratory* fish population are destroyed by dams. Reservoirs are generally pretty well filled with fish. I never implies for a second that indigenous people were savages. That is simply a lame canard. What I said is that their mode of produciton is not viable. That is absolutely true. First of all, I am all for people using rifles tohunt instead of spears if they want to, although it obviously gives them the capacity to dramatically over-hunt (and therefore, their economy is changed - Bing! is the light going on?). My point is, quite obviously, that hunting for a living is not a viable economic practice. Commercial fishing is barely a viable practice these days. People are not "land-based" that is so much Social Darwinism. People are people and the Yanomami would be a fine and noble addition to the industrial proletariat. If they want a decent standard of living - and I guess they do - they will come to the same conclusion. If we all wasted time hunting for our dinners, there wouldn't be much time left to program computers, would there? Hunting is a sport, not an economy. As I said, I'm all for protecting the Yanomami from racism and violence, but they are obviously going to get with the industrial program simply because PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THE STONE AGE! The question is how they are taken in to the larger society, on what terms and how they can be a positive force. Their respect for nature is a positive force. You know what? It's not going to slow down the advance of capitalism one little bit unless it is allied with a struggle to wrest the reigns of the industrial economy away from capitalists in order to put it in the hands of the industrial proletariat. The Yanomami are not forest creatures, they're people. They want what we want. peace
[PEN-L:659] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nature bites back
C. Proyect, First, it is both entirely Marxist and entirely *true* to say that feudal societies were more capable than hunter-gatherer societies and that capitalism is more capable than feudalism. It is by no means Social Darwinism since *I* do not associate certain people with certain systems and others with others, as you seem happy to do. I'm entirely aware that indigenous people have been done over by capitalist societies and *I* understand that members of the good old proletariat have done quite a little bit of that doing over. Indigenous people are in a process of joining the rest of the proletariat - to the extent that they are accepted into and not divided from the proletariat. The anti-racist message of respect for indigenous cultures is entirely laudable. The idea that indigenous people are not part of the proletariat is very, very, problematic. Again, I think the present fascination with indigenous people is well-intentioned and compassionate but that it represents a fleeing of intellectuals from the problems of the industrial proletariat. I think you should come to terms, publicly, with the fact that the mode of production indigenous cultures are based on is not viable. Indeed, even your cherished Amazon indios are happy to use shotguns and machetes. peace
[PEN-L:664] Re: The skivvy on the neem
To whom..., I guarantee you that the main danger to the Neem tree is if Western new-agers decide that it is latest answer to their physical and psychic torments. There won't be a Neem tree left standing if moneyed, hippie half-wits decide that this is the latest hocus-pocus that will solve their problems while helping them retain their vegetarian virtue. Most of the patents will turn out to have no value. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear how wide patents on organisms and their genomes are. It may be that "use" patents will be the way in which discoveries about genomes are protected. Patenting an entire genome has already been challenged as overly broad and vague. What's far more likely to come out of the biological patenting wars are typical use patents with royalty arrangements for people who made the initial discoveries. However, I personally think that people who believe they are going to make money by patenting genomes are going to get hosed. Use patents have been the standard for generations, and I think that it is merely the novelty of the process of decoding genomes that has allowed decoders to assert that codes are intellectual property as such. I'm sure the Neem tree is a very useful thing to people who have no industry or science. I wouldn't get upset about it except to plead with people not to encourage the cutting down of the poor trees through trade in herbalist superstition. peace
[PEN-L:665] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nature bites back
C. Perelman, My point was that we - in our *modern* economy - could learn the lesson that commerce need not be synonymous with hostility. I wasn't talking about relations *between* modes of production, but *within* the modern (or future) mode of production. It was a separate argument. For that matter I don't think that it is at all impossible to have the same kind of positive economic relationships between modes of production. Certainly the more modern mode of production will start undermining the old but I don't see this as undesirable, necessarily. The truth is that people like Coca-Cola and movies. My point was that people in more traditional economies have not, historically, been brought in to the more modern economy but simply bulldozered by them. My further point is that such bulldozering is not necessary - even while modernization and industrialization is. You are quite right to point out that capitalism undermines the positive effects of economic interaction - creating alienation. All I suggest is that progressive economists not take alienation to be part and parcel of a modern, industrial economy. An industrial economy that is more advanced than capitalism could be far less alienating - even to the point of being focused on building those bonds of mutual obligation. My point about patents is probably clearest with Coca-Cola. There is really scant difference between Coca-Cola and other colas. As I understand it, Coke's secret formula is a process patent. You could produce a drink that was effectively identical to Coke another way and people get very close even now. Virgin Cola is not an attempt to sell a better mousetrap so much as an attempt to divert some of the flow of capital away from Coca-Cola by creating an alternative brand. As far as the Neem goes, the tree is all but moot. As I said in a previous post, the patents will probably be on a process and use basis. If a firm creates a way to artificially synthesize a substance found in a plant, I see no reason they shouldn't be able to patent the process. The question is how broad the patent should be. Should it be a patent on all artificial Neem oil or only the Neem oil made in a particular fashion? This is really pretty standard legal stuff, though. As for patenting the entire Neem tree. It seems absolutely absurd to me. Effectively it would be like patenting New Jersey and them claiming all the inventions of Edison and every drug the great pharmaceutical concerns like Merck ever came up with. However, when it comes to a particular process for creating a substance derived from the Neem tree or a specific use for a specific Neem substance, I see no particular problem with it. If a use was commonplace before the patent, an accused infringer would just make the argument that the use was in the public domain and the patent was worthless. Furthermore, India need not recognize these patents if Western countries over-reach. Patents are really a protection inside borders. Between countries enforcement requires the political will for a trade sanction - especially between countries like India and the U.S.. Copyrights and patents are this nice, clear assertion of property rights and so they are simple to attack. I don't think they are what make the capitalist clock tick, however. peace
[PEN-L:663] Re: Past sins
To whom..., Comrade Proyect's post on cattle and bison will prove conclusively that bison farming is far more viable than cattle farming. It costs less. It's more sustainable. It's healthier and, well, dammit, it is just more aesthetically pleasing. I couldn't agree more. All these things are true. They are all things I've argued other places. Environmentally they are important. Economically they add up to a big "So what." Beef in America is a comparatively small industry. If you don't believe me, look at the open interest of the beef group on the Chicago Board of Trade web site and compare it to myriad other industries. Use Cattlemens' Association figures. I don't care. What you'll find is that the production of commodity foodstuffs is a very small percentage of a capitalist economy and a very large percentage of a traditional economy. In fact, that is exactly the point I am trying to make. Traditional economies are concerned about producing food while capitalist economies probably spend more money on transistors than food. Traditional economies are not viable. peace
[PEN-L:661] Re: Japan's economic situation
C. Rosenberg, I can heartily recommend the web site of the Neihon Kaizai Shinbun (better known as "Nikkei") website at www.nikkei.co.jp/enews/. They have many articles pertaining to the Big Bang, the yen's tailspin, and the failures of banks and brokerages. There are not a lot of conclusions to be found here, but there is a lot of information. peace
[PEN-L:660] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nature bites back
C. Perelman, I don't think that the destruction of peoples' societies is *justified* at all, but I do think that societies change. Clearly a small number of people are going to be left behind when society changes but that need not cause hardship or terrible conflict. The problem has always been a lack of inclusion and democracy. If the Colonists hadn't seen the native Americans in an "us and them" way, there would not have been the need for war. The colonists had technologies that native Americans would have adopted very quickly. It might not have been easy and there might have been a little haggling and arm-twisting, but there would not have been the need for conflict. In fact, there never was a need for conflict. Reactionaries on both sides would have caused problems, but not the kind of problems that lead to all-out slaughter. The native Americans had the land and the Colonists had the technologies to make the land pay. Clearly, they could have done business. One lesson we can gain from people who live in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is that doing business *can* be a way for people to come together. Creating links among people by building a network of mutual obligations is as old as society itself. We have been so conditioned by the idea that trade and commerce are inherently hostile, we have lost sight of the fact that societies can have economic as well as political and ethical fibers holding them together. peace
[PEN-L:627] Re: Re: Re: Nature bites back
To whom..., I anticipated attacks of "heartless" and "genocidal" when I questioned the value, if not the integrity, of the current trend of fascination with indigenous people. I hadn't anticipated "racist". Possibly Lou Proyect can explain how, for example, the working classes of south and central America are a different "race" from the "pure" indigenous people. Possibly he can even do it without sinking into absurd Social Darwinism, but I can't think how. Preserving cultures is a very admirable idea but Marxists understand that cultures and their modes of production are inextricably linked. The very real, possibly insurmountable, problem for indigenous people is that their mode of production is not viable in the present day. It will never be viable again and, in fact, they no longer practice it themselves - only a shadow of it. If we're talking about whether people should be abused or demeaned because of their cultural affinity, the issue is clear-cut - absolutely not. If we are talking about, for example, whether a Sioux has a destiny and class interest different from those of the rest of the American proletariat, the issue is very murky. I would say that, for the most part, indigenous people are in the process of joining the industrial proletariat of the countries that surround their lands and that this is not a process which can be stopped. Moreover, I would say there is a potent Marxist argument that this should not be stopped, and that the idea of stopping it simply divides the working class with effectively imaginary boundaries. I don't think anyone can be comfortable with the idea of cultures perishing. I know that I'm not. Yet, if cultures are, in fact, dependent on their modes of production, there seems little that can be done. What makes me dubious about this interest in indigenous people that I see cropping up on the left is that it seems to blithely ignore the fundamental economic arguments of Marxism, asserting cultural arguments over political economic arguments. peace
[PEN-L:628] Re: Re: Re: Nature bites back
C. Kruse, I should make the disticntion here between the actual fight of actual people against oppressive laws and practices that are unjust by any standard and the intellectual *flight* to this kind of movement away from the struggle of the industrial proletariat among intellectuals. The Bolivian situation that you describe of people being excluded from a political movement is clearly wrong-headed. Racism in political movements is intolerable. At the same time it does no good for people to abandon their political-economic principles. If Indios and small subsistence farmers are on the wrong side of economic history they have to be warned. They have to be supported but anti-dialectical convictions they may have can't be coddled. What good will it do? They will be run over by the capitalist machine if they don't cross the road. The era of people subsisting off the land is over and it won't come back for centuries at least. You can't choose the past over the future. peace
[PEN-L:634] Re: Copyrights and the new world order
To whom..., I've always thought that the focus on copyrights by leftists is misguided. Microsoft's code is not so valuable. After all, there is code out there that will do most of the things Microsoft's will do as well or better. What is valuable is Microsoft's access to capital. Microsoft is the crowned, midas-touched brand in the software industry. It derives its advantage, not through the quality of uniqueness of its code, but the fact that Microsoft as a brand attracts the fealty of the rest of the rest of the capitalist class. Microsoft gets access to money and deals that other software companies don't. That's their advantage. If anything, copyright protects other software developers from Microsoft. Of course, owning the rights to DOS and Windows is a tremendous advantage. However any argument about copyright has to deal with the fact that there are other operating systems out there that will run well on Intel chips. As for music and entertainment, let's consider those. Are American movies really better than movies from other countries? Actually, they are, but not because of copyright protection. American movie houses have access to money and deals that get them hot talents, excellent equipment and the access to media companies to promote those assets. Someone mentioned LeAnn Rimes. Let's consider that example. She is a big star in Country music with a terrific voice and good stage personality. If she decides to do a song (not to be mean, but, especially a Country song) it's clear that her talent and reputation can make the song a hit as much or more than the songwriter did. So how do you define the economic claim that a songwriter has to the millions Leann Rimes makes on a hit single? If not for copyright, what claim could the songwriter assert? Rimes has a vast reputation and star power. She could certainly argue that it was she, and not the song, that made the hit - especially given the fact that her people arrange and produce the song. There has to be some definite basis for a songwriter to make a claim in case of a conflict. You can't simply assume, as so many socialists do, that everyone will be on the same team. peace
[PEN-L:511] Re: Re: Re: Re: Communications for a Sustainable Future
C. Craven, Oh, I see, Proyect can as much as label his enemies right wing conspirators but my scant, absolutely qualified, even self-contradicted intimation is "slander"? Bullshit. I say again and I will repeat it because it is the main theme, the take-home point and the fundamental argument: Proyect has done this before, he will do it again. I'm speaking from experience and I am by no means alone in that experience. He's a good thinker and a good writer but he has a problem. What that problem is one can only guess. peace
[PEN-L:516] Re: Nature bites back
To whom..., There are dumber passages in dumber books, certainly, but this little gem from Mike Davis is safely on the big list of the dumb. The combination of high rainfall, more suburban encroachment with less damaging land practices and a *better* environment are the obvious causes of better predator populations in Southern California. Snakes on the beach is a tremendously good sign as snake populations in Southern California have been threatened for a long time. Hopefully the Central Valley is seeing the same kind of abundance and endangered King snakes will regain a toe-hold. That the author could cite animist omens over ecology is symptomatic of the crippling intellectual hangover from hippiedom that is "new age" thinking. While fools posture revolutionary and Green with their bourgeois trappings of "Non-western" medicine, rare plants and animals are destroyed to support this hocus-pocus. So much of the traditional East Asian sucking down of herbs and animal glands is so foolish, environmentally destructive anti-intellectual and medically bogus - even dangerous - that any educated person should condemn it and the non-thinking behind it. However, since the self-involvement of the Baby boom generation knows no limits they, who have actual health care to fall back on, have indulged themselves in Fung Shue fantasies. Meanwhile, a few decades of intimate contact between East Asia and the rest of the developed world has been squandered in terms of forwarding science AND ecology by ridding people of these nonsensical superstitions. Furthermore, I suggest to you all that the present fascination with indigenous peoples, while based on legitimate and compassionate impulses, serves the role in liberating the masses of people of a canard. I don't think it is heartless or genocidal (as will be the inevitable charge) to look at such things as the absolute numbers of indigenous people and what kind of quality of life traditional economies can effect - and with how many resources - and compare that to the needs of the swelling ranks of the billions now in the industrial proletariat. When looked at from that perspective, I suggest that the fight for indigenous rights is well-intentioned; it is a stand against capitalist rapaciousness; but it does little or nothing to forward the interests of the masses of people against those who enslave them through capitalism. I further suggest that this fight, beneath the surface, is part of a psychology of abandoning the legitimate struggles of working people in search of a purer, more wretched, more grievously and "unjustly" injured victim than the typical working stiff. That psychology is a psychology of capitulation. It is a psychology fostered in a movement unwilling to change its thinking. It is a doomed psychology. peace
[PEN-L:481] Re: Re: Communications for a Sustainable Future
To whom, Yet again, Louis Proyect is deliberately trying to undermine and ruin *another* discussion list. I have been on four lists that he has done this too and the pattern is always identical. He finds some scapegoat and then makes wilder and wilder charges until he gets people worked up. The Freedom of Information Act is his new cudgel. He threatens to denounce people as Vichy collaborators or some idiocy until he gets his way and the list capitulates. C. Proyect has a wonderful intellect and is a great contributor to the lists he's on - until he starts the inevitable nonsense. I'm not sure whether he has the nerve to do the same to Doug Henwood's new list, but I am sure he would be much happier if we all would simply face our destiny and meekly fall under Proyect's "moderation". Only in ProyectReich is the thinking pure. When C. Proyect is contributing to a list he could not be more helpful to Marxist discussion on the Internet. When he engages in this stuff he could not be more destructive if he was in the direct employ of the CIA which, given his history, is not so utterly preposterous as it might otherwise seem, although I'm quite sure that the behavior is simply rooted in childishness. peace
[PEN-L:512] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Communications for a SustainableFuture
C. Perelman, I was going to respond to you off-list, but I think it's more appropriate and useful for me to do it publically. I am warning you, as moderator of a very succesful list, that C. Proyect has done this kind of thing before. I am over-reacting, certainly, and quite consciously so. If you're not aware of what can happen then you will be left asking yourself "why" when it does happen. I have no intention of pursuing the subject any further except to say, in advance, "I told you so." I hope, really I hope, that I am wrong. peace
[PEN-L:453] Re: Re: Re: sociobiology and right-wing politics
To whom, Real Darwinism, by which I mean actual evolutionary science - a forgotten art in these days of anthropomorpizing - indicates that the "fittest" is simply that creature who, by *accident* of genetic recombination, find itself able to reproduce successfully over a significant period of time. Some human behaviors have a long-term (in the evolutionary time frame) significance (populatin expansion, predation, habitat destruction/alteration) and some are not yet proved to have a lasting effect *in evolutionary time* (pollution) Clearly the dinosaurs were not killed all at once by a "comet" but went extinct in a relatively short period of *geological time* - at least as far as we know. Of course it's possible that some dinosaur virus could have wiped them out in a century or so, but it seems unlikely. What seems more likely is that a climate change, combined with other factors, killed the dinosaurs. That does indicate that the dinosaurs were not, from the vantage point of evolutionary time, fit. We may judge human behaviors in an evolutionary scientific context in so far as they are common to other creatures. That's why I mentioned the ones I did. I think it's problematic to judge peculiar human traits in terms of evolutionary biology. peace
[PEN-L:276] Corrected Scientific American article
To whom..., Sorry, technology fever got they best of me and I forwarded an article to the list that was rife with computer-driven errors. Here is the cleaned-up version: - "Look for the Union Label: new analysis of economic data shows that unionization could maximize productivity" After nearly a century of union-management warfare in the U.S., a series of nationwide surveys showing the union shops dominate the ranks of the country's most productive workplaces may come as a surprise. In fact, according to Lisa M. Lynch of Tufts University and Sandra E. Black of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, economic Darwinism: the survival of the fittest championed by generations of hard nosed tycoons-may be doing what legions of organizers could not do: putting an end to autocratic bosses and regimented workplaces. American industry has been trying to reinvent itself for more than 20 years. Management gurus have proclaimed theories X Y. and Z, not to mention Quality Circles, Total Quality Management (TQM) High-Output Management. Only in the past few years, however, have any solid data become available on which techniques work and which don't. Businesses do not always respond to surveys, and previous attempts to collect data ran into response rates of his low as 6 percent, making their results unrepresentative. Enter the U.S. Census's Educational Quality of the Workforce National Employer Survey to, first conducted in 1994, which collected data on business practices from a nationally representative sample of more than 1500 workplaces. Lynch and Black correlated the survey data with other statistics that detailed the productivity of each business in the sample. They took as their "typical" establishment a nonunion company with limited profit-sharing and without TQM or other formal quality enhancing methods. (Unionized firms constituted about 20 percent of the sample, consistent with the waning reach of organized labor in the U.S..). The average unionized establishment recorded productivity levels 16 percent higher than the baseline firm, whereas average nonunion ones scored 11 percent lower. One reason: most of the union shops had adapted so-called formal quality programs, in which up to half the workers meet regularly to discuss workplace issues. Moreover, production workers at these establishments shared in the firm's profits, and more than a quarter did their jobs in self-managed teams. Productivity in such union shops was 20 percent above baseline. That small minority of unionized workplaces still following the adversarial line recorded productivity 15 percent lower than the baseline-even worse than the nonunion average. Are these productivity gains result of high-performance management techniques rather than unionization? No, Lynch and Black say. Adoption of the same methods in nonunion establishments yielded only a 10 percent improvement in productivity over the baseline. The doubled gains in well-run union shops, Lynch contends, may result from the greater stake unionized workers have in their place of employment: they can accept or even proposed large changes in job practice without worrying that they are cutting their own throats in doing so. (Lynch tells the opposing story of a high-tech company that paid janitors a small bonus for suggesting a simple measure to speed nightly office cleaning -and then laid off a third of them.) Even if a union cannot guarantee job security, she says, it enables workers to negotiate on a more or less equal footing. Especially in manufacturing, Lynch notes, unionized workplaces tend to have lower turnover. Consequently, they also reap more benefit from company-specific on the job training. These documented productivity gains cast a different light on the declining percentage of unionized workers throughout the U.S.. Are employers acting against their own interest when they work to block unionization? Lynch believes that a follow-up survey, with initial analyses due out this winter, may help answer that question and others. Economists will be able to see how many of the previously sampled firms that have traditional management-labor relations managed to stay in business and to what extent the "corporate re-engineering" mania of the past few years has paid off. Most serious re-engineering efforts-the ones that aren't just downsizing by another name-lead to increase to worker involvement, Lynch argues, if only because they require finding out how many people actually do their jobs. Armed with that knowledge-and with the willing cooperation of their employees-firms may yet be able to break out of the productivity doldrums. -Paul Wallich (reprinted without permission)
[PEN-L:270] Union productivity - Sci. Am.
I thought you might be interested in this small article from the August Issue of Scientific American. --- "Look for the Union Label: new analysis of economic data shows that unionization could maximize productivity" After nearly a century of union-management warfare in the U.S., a series of nationwide surveys showing that union shops dominate the ranks of the country's most productive workplaces may come as a surprise. In fact, according to lease set in Lynch of tests University and Sandra E. Black of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, economic Darwinism: the survival of the fist championed by generations of hard nosed tycoons-may be doing what legions of organizers could not do: putting an end to autocratic bosses and regimented workplaces. American industry has been trying to reinvent itself for more than 20 years. Management gurus have proclaimed theories X Y. and Z, not to mention Quality Circles, Total Quality Management (TQM) High-Output Management. Only in the past few years, however, had any solid data become available on which techniques work and which don't. Businesses do not always respond to surveys, and previous attempts to collect data ran into response rates of his low as 6 percent, making their results unrepresentative. Enter the U.S. Census's Educational Quality of the Workforce National Employer survey, first conducted in 1994, which collected data on business practices from a nationally representative sample of more than 1500 workplaces. Lynch and Black correlated the survey data with other statistics that detailed the productivity of each business in the sample. They took as their "typical" establishment a nonunion company with limited profit-sharing and without TQM or other form all quality enhancing methods. (Unionized firms constituted about 20 percent of the sample, consistent with the waning reach of organized labor in the U.S..). The average unionized establishment recorded productivity levels 16 percent higher than the baseline firm, whereas average nonunion ones scored 11 percent lower. One reason: most of the union shops had adapted so-called formal quality programs, in which up to have the workers meet regularly to discuss workplace issues. Moreover, production workers at these establishments shared in the firm's profits, and more than a quarter did their jobs in self-managed teams. Productivity in such union shops was 20 percent above baseline. That's small minority of unionized workplaces still following the adversarial line recorded productivity 15 percent lower than the baseline-even worse than the nonunion average. Are these productivity gains result of high-performance management techniques rather than unionization? No, Lynch and Black say. Adoption of the same methods in nonunion establishments yielded only a 10 percent improvement in productivity over the baseline. The doubled gains in well run union shops, Lynch contends, may result from the greater stake unionized workers have in their place of employment: they can accept or even proposed large changes in job practice without worrying that they are cutting their own charts in doing so. (Lynch tells the opposing story of a high-tech company that painted scanners a small bonus for suggest to ing a simple measure to speed nightly office claiming-and then laid off a third of them.) Even if a union cannot guarantee job security, she says, it enables workers to negotiate on a more or less equal footing. Especially in manufacturing, Lynch notes, unionized workplaces tend to have lower turnover. Consequently, they also reap more benefit from company-specific on the job training. These documented productivity gains cast the different light on the declining percentage of unionized workers throughout the U.S.. Are employers acting against their own interest when they worked to block unionization? Lynch believes that a follow-up survey, with initial analyses due at this winter, may help answer that question and others. Economists will be able to see how many of the previously sampled firms that have traditional management labor relations managed to stay in business and to what extent the "corporate re-engineering" mania of the past few years has paid off. Most serious re-engineering efforts-the ones that aren't just downsizing by another name-lead to increase to worker involvement, Lynch argues, if only because they require finding out how many people actually do their jobs. Armed with that knowledge-and with the willing cooperation on their employees-firms may yet be able to break out of the productivity doldrums. -Paul Wallich (reprinted without permission of any-goddamn-body)
[PEN-L:146] Re: Re: Why Do Markets Crash?
C. Coyle, Japan's situation is more like that of the US in the 20's. They are the ones refusing to raise interest rates despite a highly artificial price structure and diminishing productivity. The BOJ is artificially stimulating a bias for capital to move to America, as America was stimulating a bias for capital not to leave London = same direction, outward. The impetus may be diferent but the effect is very similar. I think Japan will have another crunch if not an outright crash. Their market, however is so depressed that it's volatility is to the upside. What do you think will happen when even modest percentages of Japanese savings come out of the postal system and head off shore? Compare the numbers to even their foreign exchange reserves. There are so many potential yen to come to market that it is not inconceivable that one might see the yen at 200 to the dollar again. And, as an added bonus, for your yen you get all of one and a half percent interest. Who is going to buy all that debt the bridge bank is supposedly going to securitize (or cause to be securitizeed as they raise capitalization standards for banks)? At two percent? three? four? It seems to me that when low interest rates no longer stimulate an economy - whether in stagflation or the liquidity trap - capitalism has become undisciplined and requires punishing interest rates - or a revolution, we can play it that way too. peace
[PEN-L:537] Re: Stephen Jay Gould
Test response
[PEN-L:502] Asian hot-pot
[Please tell me if this message already got to the list, I think I've had trouble with my e-mail) To whom.., Several days ago it was remarked that Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore seemed not to suffer as much from the East Asian economic flu as the rest of the region. However, anyone who read last week's Sunday New York Times Magazine article by Michael Lewis and has been keeping tabs on economic news from East Asia, and who is not Dennis Redmond, will be getting the uneasy feeling that this crisis is a bad one for economists. This because it seems that the Sinophone countries may not so much be better than their neighbors at keeping economies afloat but at cooking books. Singapore, whose "closely held" leadership has always made its numbers suspect now predicts a very serious contraction in the second half of the year to explain how its estimates of better than five percent growth will actually look more like two percent. China's leadership is even more closed. Hong Kong is China, and in Taiwan a number of recent stories seem to show fault lines in what was believed to be the most solid East Asian economy. The Taiwan dollar is at a seven-year low (along with the yen, of course). There have been calls for the government to bail out the *stock market*. And things like the fact that the huge and connected China Development Corporation has decided to buy a very large stake in the money-losing Texas Instruments-Acer DRAM venture (as TI gets out quick) seem to indicate that all is not market-rationalized and Fung Shue in Taipei. Governments may trustable in the aggregate for revenue numbers but for profit numbers you have to trust the private sector, especially in East Asia. These numbers have not been of the highest quality when they were even available. While a profitless industrial economy may be a laudable goal *under socialism*, under capitalism it is called a crisis. The East Asian elite seem to have embraced Marx's theory that the rate of profit tends to fall and made it their own, creating a simultaneous miracle and catastrophe. One might call it an encapsulated dialectic. This from the people who brought you Yin and Yang, I guess. To be serious for a sentence, isn't the crisis a question of class? I think Marxists might have predicted that the mandarins would screw the pooch, but then who listens to Marxists? Not Chinese Communists, that's for sure. peace
[PEN-L:500] Re: realist postulate
Test1
Re: Econ. 101 revisited
C. Devine, I would also add to this the fact that companies are keeping a lot less cash on their balance sheets. They use it to buy back stock or to buy other companies. This means that they cannot finance new inventories out of cash and simply raise prices to try and recover losses due to inflation. Instead, they have to go into the debt markets and their new inventories have to give adequate return on equity. This really can't be accomplished through raising prices because Greenspan makes sure that the bar is set too high for inflation to make up for interest costs. The new corporate concepts of "debt is good" and return on equity undermine corporate complacency and make them increase profits through re-structuring. Naturally workers get the shaft. There's no problem with high employment in this scenario because the companies will simply not get into businesses that cannot make up for their interest costs. Employment rises not to a percentage maximum but to a profitability maximum. As long as the capitalists can make up new games (like Internet companies) that get people paid, there's no downside until there is one. At that point we have demand-pull deflation, the most deadly of all economic diseases, right? At the end of the bubble companies will be borrowing against technologies for which there is a structurally inadequate market. I guess the signs of that would be production of goods for the high-end and not the low end - the rich selling to the rich. Clearly that is already starting to happen. Something else that may be buoying the economy is the phenomenon of sub-prime lending. As we extend more credit to the working classes, we effectively raise their incomes in the short term. That's good until the market for things that they are buying starts to flatten and companies have found themselves committed. Securitization of debt helps to keep that from happening, but it also means that defaults strike more generally. Yet even here when defaults start, the interest rates on these instruments goes up and that pressures overall interest rates quite directly in this super-hedged economy. peace
Re: Media myopia II
C. Eisenscher, What you describe is the mechanism that plants use in generating energy and oxygen during photosynthesis. Obviously there is tremendous interest in replicating this process industrially. However, I think that the hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells referred to use the opposite process. In other words, they use some sort of catalysis to combine oxygen and hydrogen (without exploding) and take out the electrical energy generated in the reaction. The "without exploding" part is pretty important. Having pure oxygen and hydrogen on board a car during a crash would not be fun. That's one of the tricks in developing fuel cells: how to generate/contain the gases in a non-explosive manner. peace
Re: Tentacles of the Eurostate
C. Redmond, You wrote "Asia will mark time until Japan discovers the magic bullet of multinational Keynesianism." That seems remarkable to me. What would you call the government-inspired credit boom that got East Asia to where it is now? The Tiger expansion seems to me the very poster child for "multinational Keynesianism". It might also be a good substitute poster child for the March of Dimes - crippled from birth with the congenital defect of crony capitalism. Where does crony capitalism end and Keynesianism begin? peace
Re: Gates Leads Rally Against Government (fwd)
Valis, The answer is: Short-term self-interest. Why would Compaq, et al, not want Windows '98 to come out? After all, they *sell* Windows '98. Besides capitalists hate competition and love monopolies, especially in the short-term. peace
Re: Social movement against Indian dam (endorse, please!)
To whom..., These "answers" about dam projects are totally inadequate. Natural-gas-fired power plants still produce greenhouse gases and natural gas is not available in all areas or as cheap as coal. It is also a non-renewable resource. Riverine environments are not "destroyed" by even thoughtlessly constructed dams. They are altered and migrating species suffer badly. That is a reason to change damming practices, not to abandon the practice. The "respondent" claims at once that dams produce disease (an idiotic simplification) *and* that they reduce wetlands where the very insects to which he backhandedly refers breed. Clearly it can't be had both ways. To what extent dams eliminate floodplain habitat obviously depends on the land at the reservoir's edge which, of course, becomes a new flood plain. Dams are often built in steep valleys where narrow floodplains are drowned, but they need not be. In fact dams can create vast floodplains and vast wetlands if they are built so that flatter land is flooded. Try and sell that to local politicians: flooding *more* land for the sake of a better natural environment. Clearly the claim of drowning fertile land is stupid since the point of the endeavor is to control erosion and provide irrigation. It can be said that dams slow river flows and create stiller water downstream. However, one of the major problems facing developing areas is development along the historic floodplain. Even if a significant verge is left, this activity increases flows during flood periods. Damming, therefore can be an intelligent way to manage inevitably pressured floodplain verges. As for fishing, the reservoir produced is often as or more productive than the river that preceded it, especially if large areas of flatter land are flooded. I don't think that trees are much more important ecologically than plankton or weeds, so that is pretty much a wash (although, again, it depends on the verge that is left - if flooding cuts off forest areas from each other or there is no forest left along the shore of the reservoir that can be deleterious, but that depends on good planning). Lakes also provide tourist interest and recreation. As for agriculture, I am no fan of traditional farming. I believe it is wasteful, back-breaking labor better left to machines working large spreads. Small farmers are a doomed anachronism. The economics of staple farming on even thousand acre spreads are difficult. That improved irrigation resources might encourage irresponsible farming practices by making the land *more* arable has nothing at all to do with the dam and everything to do with the regulation of agricultural practices. Finally, conservation is nice and desirable, but it does not provide fuel for development. It is a way to make an existing system more efficient and delay or prevent the need for new infrastructure projects. The existing systems in the third world are woefully inadequate and new infrastructure projects should only be delayed for so long as it takes to make them smarter, more effective, and a better engine to provide a better living for the proletariat. That means competing with the forces of capitalism for control of infrastructure, not abandoning infrastructure altogether. peace
Re: Social movement against Indian dam (endorse, please!)
P.S.- What is the deal with "indigenous" cultures in India? Is there a culture in India *less* than a couple thousand years old? peace
Re: The Karl Marx Question
C. Proyect, Tai-chi is actually just for exercise. What Jackie Chan and the other Gung-fu movie fighters do is called Wu shu. Gung fu, in its many forms, is for actual fighting while Wu shu, which has been around for centuries as well, is a corollary discipline performed strictly for show. In other words, you may be right. peace
Re: I need help with a study
C. Perelman, Make sure you include flood abatement effects in your study, but then I'm sure you will. Downstream property values will rise when they are less subject to flood. Any study done in advance of a flood control system for a like drainage will give you figures for the boost downstream property values should get. It depends on what the downstream land is used for. peace
Re: I need help with a study
C. Perelman, So what is the downstream land used for? peace
Yen Blues
To whom, Results of a Bridge news poll are interesting: BRIDGE JAPAN POLL: Firms' most desired dollar/yen rate at 115-120 By Rika Yamamoto, BridgeNews Copyright BridgeNews Tokyo--May 1--The most desirable dlr/yen exchange rate cited in a BridgeNews survey of major Japanese corporations is between 115-120 yen. Of 191 firms surveyed, 24 or 17% said this level would be best for their company. The next largest group--17 firms or 12%--said the most desirable dlr/yen rates would be between 125-127.50, followed by 15 firms or 10% that said a rate of 120-122.50 yen to the US dollar would be best. Bridge News surveyed corporate planners at 191 major Japanese firms with capital of 1 billion yen or more about business conditions and expectations for financial markets. The survey panel, which is contacted every month, included planning managers at 102 manufacturers and 89 non-manufacturers. The results of the survey on firms' desirable dlr/yen exchange rates are as follows: Q. What dlr/yen rates does your company see are desirable? Below 110 110-115 115-120 120-122.5 122.5-125 Total 10 (7%)11 (8%) 24 (17%) 15 (10%) 11 (8%) Manufacturers 3 (4%) 8 (11%) 10 (14%) 11 (15%)5 (7%) Non-manufacturers 7 (10%)3 (4%) 19 (5%) 4 (5%)6 (8%) 125-127.5 127.5-130 130-135 Above 135 NO reply Total 17 (12%) 7 (5%)9 (6%) 2 (1%)39 (27%) Manufacturers 14 (19%) 4 (6%)7 (10%) 1 (1%)9 (13%) Non-manufacturers 3 (4%) 3 (4%)2 (3%) 1 (1%)30 (41%) End With the yen around 132-133/dollar we have to wonder what these people are thinking about. I have two guesses: First, it may be that, in the minds if the respondents, an improved Japanese economy may be implicit in a "desirable" dollar/yen rate. Thus they would not be commenting on the forex situation so much as their hopes for the future. Second is the uncomfortable conclusion that they may actually be more concerned about import/raw materials cost than export competitiveness. That, as far as I can see, is a very bad signal. It suggests that Japanese companies are focused on short-term cash-flow questions rather than recovery and investment strategies. What else could it mean? Any ideas? peace
Re: The Karl Marx Question
To whom..., I think that the first thing a budding socialist should do is learn about the strengths of capitalism. Specifically I think a socialist should understand the processes that create credit and the legal structures that create contracts and corporations. Without robust and even expanded alternatives to these structures, socialism will have little chance of surviving past the initial enthusiasm of the revolution. Secondly, a socialist might study the culture of meritocracy where false consciousness is bred. Judo seems to me a very appropriate metaphor since, in that sport, you have to turn aside the strengths of your opponent. It seem to me that you could think of the class struggle as a contest between a bourgeois boxer and a proletariat judo player. The former has a lot of upper body strength and can deal out a lot of damage. The former has to get close, take his licks and throw his opponent. Third world countries have a tremendous advantage in terms of social "leverage" because the gap bewteen poor and rich is so large and the numbers are so unbalanced. For that reason, false consciousness and meritocracy arguments do not work well. To carry the judo metaphor forward, these have a low center of gravity. The problem has always been developing alternatives structures (the physique of the judo player) so that when they throw their enemy he does not land right on top of them again, and they remain upright. peace
Re: Social movement against Indian dam (endorse, please!)
C. Bond, In lieu of the proposed dam, what would you propose to supply power/water/flood control? I am no fan of big dams because of the way they effect the riverine environment, at the same time my understanding is that smaller dam/flood-control-reservoir projects actually drown more net acreage and cost more. I'm in favor of them, but where is the money to come from and more importantly where is the political consensus to come from? I may not agree with LM on most things, but they have a point: holding back development in that region is not an option. Therefore hydro-power seems like a sensible thing to undertake espcially in India. First, India has great need for better water management. Second India has a lot of coal and they will use it to generate power if cleaner sources are not made available. peace
Re: Ganja
C. Coleman, Pot growing seems to have replaced moonshining in many rural counties in the south. Friends who do rock-climbing have told me that in some areas of West Virginia and Kentucky, locals admonish them to stay on the trails so they don't stray into someboby's patch and get shot. An interesting note: The first person condemned to die in accordance with the federal "drug kingpins" law is a southern pot grower/seller. peace
Re: on David Harvey
To whom, All I can say about Harvey is that I ate crabs with him one time and he semed like a little bit of a stiff. His wife[girlfriend?] seemed nice, though. A latina if I remember rightly, C. Bond? BTW C. Bond I think we have a mutual acquaintance or two. I know a couple people who remember you from Hopkins. peace
Re: May day
To whom..., For Marxists it's worth considering that mayday predates unions and socialism. The celebration of nature and love that mayday has always represented can get lost in images of parades inspired by class struggle. That older tradition reminds us that class struggle is not just about winning, but about the prize one wins - community. As reds and greens come together, the mayday that celebrates spring is reborn into the mayday that conjures images of Red Square (for that matter, earth day is Lenin's birthday as well). Neither are the may pole and the red flag and picket sign so far away from each other. They are all affirmations of community and hopes for a prosperous future. In that way, while it is clear the Clinton's mayday is a sham and a mockery, I don't find it too depressing, as an American. There will come a day when patriotism does not sting so badly. There will come a day when honoring one's country will be honoring the true and whole community that makes up that country. There will come a day when the stars and stripes are no more fearful than a maypole. Screw Clinton, he can't ruin my mayday. Best of luck everyone, and let us, as socialist, go " a maying". peace
Surviving the Botton Line
To whom..., PBS in New York has had a show on recently called "Surviving the Bottom Line". It is squarely reformist liberalism, but there were a few things that I took note of. First, all violent commie radicals must be warned: hands off Al Dunlap! This man is not to be harmed by any socialist because he is perhaps the most hideous living example of capitalist ideology living today. He must be preserved as an inspiration. Leaving aside what the man does, what he says is so offensive that he inspires socialistic tendencies in mere liberals. Equally offensive but more interesting were two other CEO's who exclaimed that capitalism as currently practised cannot last. Lucent's chief decried concentration of wealth. Northwest Airlines' chief actually said that 'Capitalism needs a bill of rights" in order for it to survive. As the kids say" "Things that make you go H." Holland was then trotted out as a place where capitalism does come with a bill of rights. Jaded as I am, I have to admit that what was said about Holland intrigued me. It didn't intrigue me as an answer to anybody's problems per se, but I was curious how deep the social commitment in Holland goes, how well it is actually doing economically and how it is positioned to survive the new Euro Europe. So, I thought I'd ask the experts (that's all of you, as far as I'm concerned) while I try and dig something up. peace
Re: Marxism-International exchange on David Harvey
To whom..., Marxists who waste their time denouncing cars are doomed. peace
Money flows
To all..., I need advice where to look for a good study comparing money flows into the stock market (or liquidity in general) and stock prices. I'd appreciate it very much. peace
Re: David Harvey's anomie
C. Dennis, Isn't being pro-marijuana being pro-market? Give the people what they want. peace
Re: Pfiesteria outbreaks
C. Kruse, I've posted way too much today, but I'll define my terms anyway. By development I mean the economic and industrial infrastructure needed to make the stuff, sell it and finance it. I'm speaking of this separately from the property relations that mold development's development. I do that because I think too many Marxists confuse commerce and capitalism. peace
Re: Liebig's Law and the limits to growth
C. Moore, What you're saying simply does not hold empirical water. Predators always "go for it". They don't get it and they die. Except for parasites, non-human predators, even pack predators, are opportunistic. If they don't get an opportunity, they're finished. Mustelids, for example feed constantly, voraciously and even wastefully, but they don't kill off their prey species because they can't. Actually the only animals who come close to eating all their own "seed corn" are grazing herbivors who have the demonstrated ability to create desertification in arid climates. All this has no bearing on economics as far as I can see. peace
Re: Liebig's Law and the limits to growth
C. Rosser, No, I'm sorry but you are off. We know that there is evidence of exogenous shocks, most compellingly an asteroid hit, during the extinction period. What we do not know is what that shock caused. Asteroid hits don't kill a planet full of dinosaurs. Small dinosaurs survived well, yet their cold tolerance is even worse than that of large dinosaurs. What actually happened once the environment changed is a matter for speculation. It could be that the environmental change merely prevented the dinosaurs from coming back from an existing threat. We have relatively little idea what plants were like at that time. There could have been a dramatic shift in plant biology. New species with poisonous defences could have sprung up. Trends in forestation could have been responsible. The dinosaurs could have grazed themselves out of existence. It's impossible to know. The important thing is to keep an open mind. The message of evoutionary biology is that things *always* change. peace
