Re: The Road to Serfdom
In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:31:32PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Mises main target was Marx and the Marxists. Maybe, but the Austrians also opposed the plannist schools that were popular between the two world wars in Europe. There were leftist non-Marxists such as the followers of Edward Bellamy and rightist plannists such as Stackelberg. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Rather, it was that real-world markets do not correspond to the textbook ideal of markets, which doesn't exist in reality, while real-world markets have a large number of imperfections that prevent them from serving socialist-democratic goals. It's the pro-market socialism side that puts forth that markets are good, or at least better than central planning, which is BAD. Frankly, I think that the whole plan vs. market discussion misses the point (i.e., the need for democracy as part of the abolition of class and to avoid the inequality-generating characteristics of both markets and central plans). Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I don't want to get into defending Charlie Andrews' concepts (since I don't agree with them completely). But the idea involves not profit-max but minimization of costs, subject to constraints imposed by the democratically-run government and the system of enterprise governance that Charlie describes. If I were to point to an analogy, it wouldn't be China but to the non-profit foundation sector in the US. Obviously, that sector serves those who donate money, but in Charlie's scheme, that sector is different. Jim -Original Message- From: Martin Hart-Landsberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 1:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Jim, the notion of competing enterprises was precisely at the heart of the Chinese position in the early days of reform. But how do you promote competition, well you need some sort of profit inducement. So, early on the Chinese encouraged firms to operate independently and pursue profits. But, competition also means change and response to market needs. Thus, critical to the entire process is labor market flexibility, or the freedom for management to hire and fire workers. In fact, the Chinese state encouraged foreign investment at each stage of the reform process, including joint ventures pretty early in the process, because it saw foreign capital as setting the basis for capitalist labor relations and encouraging profit maximizing in the state sector. In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... Marty Quoting Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Shit, Justin, if this keeps up, Condoleeza is going to throw her handbag at me. Point is, can we not find an axis of discussion (a mode of discussion) that would be amenable or palatable to Michael P. ? It's his list, I'm a guest, I don't want to piss him off, we need Michael P. But there may be another angle of discussing the topic, PEN-Lers are always so good at this, at a different take on the same subject? Yes, the weather is improving. There is a difference in the heterodox socialist lexicon between (1) Greenies, (2) Greens and (3) the Green Party (4) The Irish Republican Movement. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 3:28 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:42 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:36:51PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. Who thought that the plan should mimic market outcomes . . . On the basis of actual planning experience in postwar Poland, he later became much more of a market socialist. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
At 6:28 AM -0700 8/9/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote: That markets are BAD is axiomatic The Markets might be Good if they came without Pains of Bankruptcy and Unemployment. -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: The Road to Serfdom
S'all right, I haven't the time or energy for it either. jks --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:36:51PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. Who thought that the plan should mimic market outcomes . . . On the basis of actual planning experience in postwar Poland, he later became much more of a market socialist. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
--- Martin Hart-Landsberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... ta-da-doomthe coninuation of wage-slavery, classes, the State and all the undemocratic baggage that goes with that sort of political-economy. Not that the more Mao inspired system of State controlled commodity production didn't result in much the same system with, of course, variations on all the abovementioned themes. China is richer these days because the wage-slaves are more productive than ever. The same is true for the USA where according to the New York Times, The Labor Department reported that productivity -- the amount that an employee produces per hour of work -- rose at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the April to June quarter. That was the best performance since the third quarter of 2002. The question is, Who controls and owns the social product of labour, the marketeers or the producers? Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Mike B writes:China is richer these days because the wage-slaves are more productive than ever. they're richer (per capita) partly because richer and productivity are measured in terms of GDP, which ignores non-market costs and benefits. Jim -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 2:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom --- Martin Hart-Landsberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... ta-da-doomthe coninuation of wage-slavery, classes, the State and all the undemocratic baggage that goes with that sort of political-economy. Not that the more Mao inspired system of State controlled commodity production didn't result in much the same system with, of course, variations on all the abovementioned themes. China is richer these days because the wage-slaves are more productive than ever. The same is true for the USA where according to the New York Times, The Labor Department reported that productivity -- the amount that an employee produces per hour of work -- rose at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the April to June quarter. That was the best performance since the third quarter of 2002. The question is, Who controls and owns the social product of labour, the marketeers or the producers? Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. Well yeah, but how? Suppose you were advising the S Korean government - what would you say? Or the Haitian government? Years ago, at a little roundtable on the World Bank organized by Susan George, a bunch of us were gassing on in our usual radical manner when a former official in Manley's finance ministry in Jamaica said, You have no idea what it's like to have to come up with $100 million in hard currency next week. I've never forgotten that. He's right - I had no idea, and still don't. But I think about it a lot. Doug
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Hi Grant, Well there is a lot surrounding the issue but I would say first of all that the left should be careful to endorse a strategy of growth that promotes exports in one country at the expense of worker well-being in others. So, rather than just see China as practicing some wonderful economic strategy that other countries could adopt (and here the right might say that the strategy is free-market and the left might say state direction), we should see that China's exports are coming from FDI that is leaving Mexico because Mexican wages were starting to rise although they were still below their 1994 level, and being redirected away from ASEAEN countries where there is still great poverty as in Thailand and Indonesia. And the process is squeezing South Korean workers as well as China has become the favorite location for South Korean investors. Already about 55 percent of South Korean workers are now classified as daily or temporary, as opposed to regular. South Korea is not only losing FDI to China it is not getting much anymore from US and Japan. Thus the government is now seeking to restrict workers even more and open up new free investment zones with all sorts of benefits to foreign investors which domestic firms now want. So, the first point is that we need a broader frame to understand China's recent growth and that frame should make us realize that China's economic gains are not generalizable but rather are a reflection and in turn intensification of capitalist dynamics that work against workers. In China itself it appears that workers are increasingly not benefiting as the economy moves to export directed growth. Studies are showing that while wages are rising, workers have much greater costs for health care and housing which means that they are not getting ahead. Moreover urban unemployment is now approaching 13 percent and that does not include the hundred million peasants who are in the cities looking for work. Beyond that it is my impression that FDI flows are becoming increasing concentrated in fewer and fewer third world countries and not going to the poorest. And in many cases those countries that are joining in the process of export growth as part of transnational production networks are seeing no increase in their value added and thus no real development gains. That is not to say that at a given moment some countries are not increasing their exports and more workers are not gaining new wage jobs. But it does not appear that such activity is sustainable or bringing any lasting benefits to workers. You should see the Trade and Development Report 2002 for some really interesting stuff about the lack of value added for countries involved in export production organized by transnational corporations. So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. I hope I am addressing your question which is a good one and not talking past it. Marty Quoting Grant Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi Marty, The question is: helpful to whom? The case of Mexico is often raised when this question comes up, but the overall trend in terms of the flight of capital is from more developed countries to less developed (which, by definition, does not include S.Korea, Malaysia or Singapore). It's bad news for wage earners in developed and semi-developed countries. This includes me, but I find it hard and --- I would say futile --- to begrudge those in China, Kenya, Vanuatau, wherever. Regards, Grant.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
JKS writesI concede it, marketsa re BAD, or maybe good in theory but BAD in practice, whatever. Democracy will make everything great. Efficiency is a bourgeois notion. I never said that anything was BAD. In fact, that was the point of what I said, i.e., that I never said that markets were bad. And I NEVER said that democracy will make everything great. Rather, the only legitimate way to run a country -- or the world -- has to be based on the active democratic consent of the governed (and NOT the tacit consent so loved by Locke and his followers). Rule by elites or markets must be subordinate to democratic principles. If markets undermine democracy, that's a point against them. Further, I NEVER said that efficiency was a bourgeois notion. One thing I do know is that markets do not encourage efficiency, except following the narrowest definition fo efficiency, i.e., minimum _private_ cost, where private cost is cost to the decision-maker (the wealth controller). That definition of efficiency is part and parcel of bourgeois propaganda. A more sophisticated and more complete definition of efficiency has been used as part as critique of markets (cf. Albert Hahnel). Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 4:02 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Right here, right now, Mike Ballard. Look, are you trying to provoke me into participating in this discussion? You know that Micahel P is going to shut it down immediately. Besides, I am too tired and busy to do this now. I concede it, marketsa re BAD, or maybe good in theory but BAD in practice, whatever. Democracy will make everything great. Efficiency is a bourgeois notion. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Leave me alone. jks Rather, it was that real-world markets do not correspond to the textbook ideal of markets, which doesn't exist in reality, while real-world markets have a large number of imperfections that prevent them from serving socialist-democratic goals. It's the pro-market socialism side that puts forth that markets are good, or at least better than central planning, which is BAD. Frankly, I think that the whole plan vs. market discussion misses the point (i.e., the need for democracy as part of the abolition of class and to avoid the inequality-generating characteristics of both markets and central plans). Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
No. It was not my intention to open a thread. On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 02:56:20AM +0200, Jurriaan Bendien wrote: Michael, if you want to open another thread, go ahead... my own philosophy is that the whole problem or art is how one can thread a thread into another thread that ties a solid knot into the thread one was operating on. I mean, you might like a thread for a while, but then you feel you need to get into another thread, but you still have the previous thread, and you have to thread that previous thread into another different thread, so that you can start another new thread yourself. In my own life, I have a bit of a threading problem at the moment, which I have to resolve somehow (difficult, since I don't have a lot of friends here who can help out with the warp and woof), but anyway I will try to stay out of the thread you appear not to like, even although you said previously You are welcome to do what you want. Regards Jurriaan - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
My understanding is that the reason why Michael Perelman opposes pen-l discussions of market socialism is (1) we've had them before, mostly killing the subject, and (2) they degenerated into a tone similar to the one below. That said, I see nothing wrong with a pen-l discussion of market socialism. Maybe some new points will come up, though I doubt it. Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 6:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:42 AM
Re: The Road to Serfdom
- Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:00 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Actually, there are three things. Humor is also forbidden. === There is no 3rd thing! [Monty Python]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
- Original Message - From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] The real disagreement between Keynes and Hayek was identified by Keynes... (as being about) the question of knowing where to draw the line between intervention and non-intervention. Keynes's criticism of Hayek was that he accepted that the logical extreme of no intervention at all was not possible, but gave no guidance in The Road to Serfdom as to where the line should be drawn. This was the same criticism made later by the libertarians. But unlike them, Keynes thought that it was a matter of practical judgement, not principle. He acknowledged that Hayek would draw the line differently than he would, but criticized him for underestimating the practicability for a middle course. He also argued that since Hayek accepted that a line had to be drawn, it was disingenuous of him to imply that 'as soon as one moves an inch in the planned direction you are necessarily launched on the slippery path which will lead you in due course over the precipice... Keynes proposed his middle way as a means of harmonizing individualism and socialism'. - Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996, p. 159-160. == http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg07575.html
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Michael Perelman wrote: Actually, there are three things. Humor is also forbidden. I didn't know that. I suspected it was more a case of self-censorship :) Joanna
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I don't believe I've engaged in this argument over market socialism since the days of the first Spoons marxism list -- and I'm not going to now. But I have a sort of external observation. However socialism arrives, if it ever does, not much will change overnight. So early socialism will be, tautologically, a market socialism in process. I presume that jumbled market socialism will exist in a context of high political participation (after all, any socialist regime will arise, peacefully or violently, out of a mass movement and the revolutionizing practice which such a mass movement implies) -- and _that_ is the context in which it will be possible and necessary to debate the ways in which the market will be modified, transformed, eliminated, etc. I think it is the nature of the issue that debates on it at present will just go round and round, see Omar the Tentmaker. Carrol
Re: The Road to Serfdom
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Right here, right now, Mike Ballard. Look, are you trying to provoke me into participating in this discussion? You know that Micahel P is going to shut it down immediately. Besides, I am too tired and busy to do this now. I concede it, marketsa re BAD, or maybe good in theory but BAD in practice, whatever. Democracy will make everything great. Efficiency is a bourgeois notion. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Leave me alone. jks Rather, it was that real-world markets do not correspond to the textbook ideal of markets, which doesn't exist in reality, while real-world markets have a large number of imperfections that prevent them from serving socialist-democratic goals. It's the pro-market socialism side that puts forth that markets are good, or at least better than central planning, which is BAD. Frankly, I think that the whole plan vs. market discussion misses the point (i.e., the need for democracy as part of the abolition of class and to avoid the inequality-generating characteristics of both markets and central plans). Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Actually, there are three things. Humor is also forbidden. On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 07:42:29PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael, if you want to open another thread, go ahead... my own philosophy is that the whole problem or art is how one can thread a thread into another thread that ties a solid knot into the thread one was operating on. I mean, you might like a thread for a while, but then you feel you need to get into another thread, but you still have the previous thread, and you have to thread that previous thread into another different thread, so that you can start another new thread yourself. In my own life, I have a bit of a threading problem at the moment, which I have to resolve somehow (difficult, since I don't have a lot of friends here who can help out with the warp and woof), but anyway I will try to stay out of the thread you appear not to like, even although you said previously You are welcome to do what you want. Regards Jurriaan - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Well, I don't know whether markets are BAD; they're just not as good as human intelligence and good will. Joanna andie nachgeborenen wrote: You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael, if you want to open another thread, go ahead... my own philosophy is that the whole problem or art is how one can thread a thread into another thread that ties a solid knot into the thread one was operating on. I mean, you might like a thread for a while, but then you feel you need to get into another thread, but you still have the previous thread, and you have to thread that previous thread into another different thread, so that you can start another new thread yourself. In my own life, I have a bit of a threading problem at the moment, which I have to resolve somehow (difficult, since I don't have a lot of friends here who can help out with the warp and woof), but anyway I will try to stay out of the thread you appear not to like, even although you said previously You are welcome to do what you want. Regards Jurriaan - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
At 11:37 AM -0400 8/11/03, Doug Henwood wrote: So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. Well yeah, but how? Suppose you were advising the S Korean government - what would you say? Or the Haitian government? Supposing that anyone in Haiti and South Korea wants advice from Progressive Economists, I'd think that Progressive Economists' clients are likely to be Haitian and South Korean workers' and peasants' organizations, rather than their respective governments. What would you say to workers and peasants in Haiti and South Korea? You wouldn't recommend that they cut their labor costs so that their nations' products will become more internationally competitive, would you? And yet, the theory of export-led growth almost inexorably leads to that conclusion. Nevertheless, empirical evidence appears to be mixed as to whether more promotion of exports actually causes more economic growth. Cf. A. Cuadros, V. Orts, and M. T. Alguacil, Re-examining the Export-led Growth Hypothesis in Latin America: Foreign Direct Investment, Trade and Output Linkages in Developing Countries, http://www.etsg.org/ETSG2000/Papers/Cuadros.pdf. Laszlo Konya, Export-Led Growth or Growth-Driven Export? New Evidence from Granger Causality Analysis on OECD Countries, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=254090. Emilio J. Medina-Smith, Is the Export-Led Growth Hypothesis Valid for Developing Countries? A Case Study of Costa Rica, http://192.91.247.38/tab/pubs/itcdtab8_en.pdf. Now, back to an alternative to an illusory ELG -- the alternative that workers and peasants would prefer would likely be domestic demand-led growth at moderate rates, combined with education and empowerment of women and enforcement of gender equality (which leads to lower fertility rates, thus lessening population pressure that demands a rapid economic growth rate). -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://solidarity.igc.org/
Re: The Road to Serfdom
You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael, if you want to open another thread, go ahead... my own philosophy is that the whole problem or art is how one can thread a thread into another thread that ties a solid knot into the thread one was operating on. I mean, you might like a thread for a while, but then you feel you need to get into another thread, but you still have the previous thread, and you have to thread that previous thread into another different thread, so that you can start another new thread yourself. In my own life, I have a bit of a threading problem at the moment, which I have to resolve somehow (difficult, since I don't have a lot of friends here who can help out with the warp and woof), but anyway I will try to stay out of the thread you appear not to like, even although you said previously You are welcome to do what you want. Regards Jurriaan - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: Should we be building more of our critique on contemporary international developments by focusing on the dangers of export-led growth as a strategy of development. I was surprised when in Cuba to find so many economists there in awe of China's export led growth and eager to try and figure out what to do to replicate it. In other words, it seems that export success has become a critical measure of success even for those on the left. But what's a small country with a tiny internal market and little external finance to do? I don't know the answer, but it seems a lot of leftists don't appreciate the difficulty of the question. Doug
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I am not going to start, but this a rule that is not applied to any other discussion, that no one is not permitted to make a point that Michael thinks has been made before at some point. If I wanted to discuss the well worn territory of how markets are BAD, this rule would not apply. And of course this rule is not how discussions or understanding proceeds in any context. So the rule is equivalent to a ban on the topic. And, Jim, it aint me who created the bad tone here: I thought we had quite civil and (from my point of view, anyway) fruitful discussions of the issues before Michael issued his ukase. It's the ukase that I resent. But it's Michael's list; he wants a market free zone, who am I to object. jks --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right. If someone had something to say that has not already been said here, fine, but the discussion the last few times went nowhere. On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 07:45:45AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: My understanding is that the reason why Michael Perelman opposes pen-l discussions of market socialism is (1) we've had them before, mostly killing the subject, and (2) they degenerated into a tone similar to the one below. That said, I see nothing wrong with a pen-l discussion of market socialism. Maybe some new points will come up, though I doubt it. Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 6:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as
Re: The Road to Serfdom
In response to Doug's comments (below): I hope I did not give the idea that I thought there was some simple set of policies that countries could follow that would relatively quickly and painlessly produce development. But that said, if I were advising South Koreans I would certainly not say that development would be advanced by implementing policies that increase so called labor flexibility which means making it easier to layoff workers and use temporary workers. Or that development would be advanced by creating massive special economic zones where foreign owners and workers can have their own housing, where English would be the official language, where foreign companies would be allowed to establish their own for profit schools and hospitals (but Koreans could not although they can use the facilities), where foreign investors would get to avoid many labor and environmental regulations, and so on. But that is what the Korean government is doing. And all because it sees export led growth as the only way forward and critical to that is attracting more and more foreign direct investment. I doubt that you would think that those are good policies. And I also doubt that you would think it helpful for stable development if all the countries in the region intensified their competing with each other to produce the same export goods for the same markets, with labor costs and conditions being sacrificed to win the competition. Wasnt that a part of the underlying cause of the 1997-98 crisis? So, yes, capitalism is not hospitable to development. It appears to becoming increasingly less so. That is not the same as saying that third world countries are not participating more in the international division of labor. They are, but all the indicators certainly suggest that this activity is not leading to what I would imagine you and I would call development. So, doesnt it make sense to be critical of export-led growth strategies even if we recognize the difficulties involved in developing a new strategy. I would think offering that critical perspective in the context of an engagement with on-going struggles of workers in those countries is precisely what we should be doing. Marty Quoting Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. Well yeah, but how? Suppose you were advising the S Korean government - what would you say? Or the Haitian government? Years ago, at a little roundtable on the World Bank organized by Susan George, a bunch of us were gassing on in our usual radical manner when a former official in Manley's finance ministry in Jamaica said, You have no idea what it's like to have to come up with $100 million in hard currency next week. I've never forgotten that. He's right - I had no idea, and still don't. But I think about it a lot. Doug
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Marty said: Well there is a lot surrounding the issue but I would say first of all that the left should be careful to endorse a strategy of growth that promotes exports in one country at the expense of worker well-being in others. I have neither the intention nor the ability to promote such a strategy :-) I just think it's where we're at, at least in the short term. So, rather than just see China as practicing some wonderful economic strategy that other countries could adopt (and here the right might say that the strategy is free-market and the left might say state direction), we should see that China's exports are coming from FDI that is leaving Mexico because Mexican wages were starting to rise although they were still below their 1994 level There has also been a phenomenal growth in domestic private capital in China over the last 20 years, and not just in the form of Hong Kong's re-integration (although annexing an economy which is bigger than those of Finland and Norway has to have some benefits!). See, e.g. this article: While reviewing the development of the national economy in 2002, Qiu Xiaohua, deputy director of China's National Bureau of Statistics [NBS], said the state-owned economy had contributed one-third to the overall development of the national economy while two-thirds came from the non-state-owned economy. Private business had become a major non-state-owned economic power to boost the rapid and sustained development of the national economy, Qiu added. NBS statistics showed that Chinese privately-owned financial assets exceeded 12 trillion yuan (US$1.45 trillion) by the end of 2001, and in the same period, state-owned assets totaled only 11 trillion yuan. That is to say, China's private assets have exceeded those of state-owned enterprises and institutions, Qiu said. http://asia.news.yahoo.com/030224/4/scxm.html and being redirected away from ASEAEN countries where there is still great poverty as in Thailand and Indonesia. There are the matters of the late '90s Asia Crisis and the political fallout from that. Indonesia is somewhat aimless at the moment, largely because the revolution of 1998 failed to change anything behind the scenes (or that much in front of them for that matter --- hence the rise of Islamism there). Indonesia is also a _lot_ a less developed than Thailand, which is now well on the road to recovery. e.g. The Thai economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, official data showed Monday, prompting the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to raise its 2003 growth forecast amid a push for more consumer spending. Gross domestic product grew 1.5 percent, seasonally adjusted, slowing from a revised 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the government's economic advisory board said in Bangkok. That was faster than the 1.3 percent median growth forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of nine economists. Thai stocks and the baht gained after the government raised its full-year growth forecast by half a point to 5.5 percent, faster than last year's 5.2 percent rate. The demand for new houses is so strong that some developers are being pressed to speed up completion, said Pumipat Sinacharoen, vice president at Asian Property Development PCL, the country's No. 3 homebuilder. Last week, Asian Property received bookings for 120 of 150 units it put on sale in a project in Bangkok, he said. From a year ago, first-quarter GDP grew 6.7 percent, beating expectations of a 6.2 percent gain. That annual growth rate is the fastest pace that Southeast Asia's second biggest economy has recorded in three years. The Malaysian economy, the region's third biggest, grew 4 percent in the first quarter and Indonesia, the biggest economy in Southeast Asia, expanded 3.4 percent in the three months to March 31. We have introduced several new vehicles because demand is very strong, said Chatchai Bunnag, president of Ford Motor Co.'s Thai unit. http://www.iht.com/articles/99658.html And the process is squeezing South Korean workers as well as China has become the favorite location for South Korean investors. Already about 55 percent of South Korean workers are now classified as daily or temporary, as opposed to regular. South Korea is not only losing FDI to China it is not getting much anymore from US and Japan. Thus the government is now seeking to restrict workers even more and open up new free investment zones with all sorts of benefits to foreign investors which domestic firms now want. This is, in a perverse way, a tribute to the well-known organisation and militancy of S.Korean workers, who have driven up the price of their labour relative to Chinese workers; which, of course, is not to say that Korean workers should back down. So, the first point is that we need a broader frame to understand China's recent growth and that frame should make us realize that China's economic gains are not generalizable but rather are a reflection and in turn
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Maybe I'm not reading carefully enough, but did you answered Doug's question about what your alternative would be? You say what you would not advise them to do, but that's really not an answer. I'm sure they could come up all by themselves lots of reasons why what their approach has serious problems, but if you can't tell them what they might do instead, they aren't any better off. Thanks, Anders [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/11/03 12:33PM In response to Doug's comments (below): I hope I did not give the idea that I thought there was some simple set of policies that countries could follow that would relatively quickly and painlessly produce development. But that said, if I were advising South Koreans I would certainly not say that development would be advanced by implementing policies that increase so called labor flexibility which means making it easier to layoff workers and use temporary workers. Or that development would be advanced by creating massive special economic zones where foreign owners and workers can have their own housing, where English would be the official language, where foreign companies would be allowed to establish their own for profit schools and hospitals (but Koreans could not although they can use the facilities), where foreign investors would get to avoid many labor and environmental regulations, and so on. But that is what the Korean government is doing. And all because it sees export led growth as the only way forward and critical to that is attracting more and more foreign direct investment. I doubt that you would think that those are good policies. And I also doubt that you would think it helpful for stable development if all the countries in the region intensified their competing with each other to produce the same export goods for the same markets, with labor costs and conditions being sacrificed to win the competition. Wasn't that a part of the underlying cause of the 1997-98 crisis? So, yes, capitalism is not hospitable to development. It appears to becoming increasingly less so. That is not the same as saying that third world countries are not participating more in the international division of labor. They are, but all the indicators certainly suggest that this activity is not leading to what I would imagine you and I would call development. So, doesn't it make sense to be critical of export-led growth strategies even if we recognize the difficulties involved in developing a new strategy. I would think offering that critical perspective in the context of an engagement with on-going struggles of workers in those countries is precisely what we should be doing. Marty Quoting Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should be endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of working class interests. Well yeah, but how? Suppose you were advising the S Korean government - what would you say? Or the Haitian government? Years ago, at a little roundtable on the World Bank organized by Susan George, a bunch of us were gassing on in our usual radical manner when a former official in Manley's finance ministry in Jamaica said, You have no idea what it's like to have to come up with $100 million in hard currency next week. I've never forgotten that. He's right - I had no idea, and still don't. But I think about it a lot. Doug
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: The difficulty in export-led development certainly should be clear in the case of Mexico. It succeeded over the 1990s in attracting lots of fdi and export growth. But at the cost of hollowing out its domestic industry. Now a bit of wage growth and rising currency and that foreign industry is now deserting Mexico for China. And China's rise which is being celebrated is coming at the expense of export production in Malaysia and Singapore and leading to industrial capital moving from South Korea. So, embracing this strategy is not very helpful. Hi Marty, The question is: helpful to whom? The case of Mexico is often raised when this question comes up, but the overall trend in terms of the flight of capital is from more developed countries to less developed (which, by definition, does not include S.Korea, Malaysia or Singapore). It's bad news for wage earners in developed and semi-developed countries. This includes me, but I find it hard and --- I would say futile --- to begrudge those in China, Kenya, Vanuatau, wherever. Regards, Grant.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I wanted to also focus on another part of the Chinese experience, that is the Chinese success in export growth. Interesting, and not really surprisingly given IMF pressures and debt pressures, every East Asian country affected by the economic crisis in 97-98 is more dependent on exports for growth than before the crisis. China over the 90's has become increasingly export oriented as well, with an increasing percentage of exports being produced by foreign capital. This development, as export production in China moves up the technological ladder, is putting new pressures on East Asia and even Mexico. Those who embrace China from the right, like the IMF and World Bank, argue that it is China's market reforms that have attracted so much FDI and allow it to export so well. Those who embrace China from the progressive side say that China retains state direction capacities and national controls and its export growth is a sign of the success of that model. I hear few people raising critiques of export-led growth itself as a strategy. The WTO and FTAA all are designed to intensify integration and thus more trade and thus more export-orientation as well. Should we be building more of our critique on contemporary international developments by focusing on the dangers of export-led growth as a strategy of development. I was surprised when in Cuba to find so many economists there in awe of China's export led growth and eager to try and figure out what to do to replicate it. In other words, it seems that export success has become a critical measure of success even for those on the left. Marty Quoting Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I don't want to get into defending Charlie Andrews' concepts (since I don't agree with them completely). But the idea involves not profit-max but minimization of costs, subject to constraints imposed by the democratically-run government and the system of enterprise governance that Charlie describes. If I were to point to an analogy, it wouldn't be China but to the non-profit foundation sector in the US. Obviously, that sector serves those who donate money, but in Charlie's scheme, that sector is different. Jim -Original Message- From: Martin Hart-Landsberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 1:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Jim, the notion of competing enterprises was precisely at the heart of the Chinese position in the early days of reform. But how do you promote competition, well you need some sort of profit inducement. So, early on the Chinese encouraged firms to operate independently and pursue profits. But, competition also means change and response to market needs. Thus, critical to the entire process is labor market flexibility, or the freedom for management to hire and fire workers. In fact, the Chinese state encouraged foreign investment at each stage of the reform process, including joint ventures pretty early in the process, because it saw foreign capital as setting the basis for capitalist labor relations and encouraging profit maximizing in the state sector. In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... Marty Quoting Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: I would say the problem is on the other side, that many leftists no longer appreciate the dangers and underlying contradictory dynamics of export-led growth and see it as a strategy that is complementary and consistent with stable growth and improved living and working conditions (and here I mean internationally and not only nationally. Hey, I fully appreciate the dangers - I just don't know what you're posing as an alternative. And to build a first class health industry requires that that industry be directly response to the needs and demands of the Cuban population. That is the only way to ensure real innovation and development. Cuba couldn't have built this health sector without Soviet subsidies, which are no longer an option. That's why I said a small country with little access to external finance is rather lacking in options. Doug
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Quoting Anders Schneiderman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Maybe I'm not reading carefully enough, but did you answered Doug's question about what your alternative would be? You say what you would not advise them to do, but that's really not an answer. I'm sure they could come up all by themselves lots of reasons why what their approach has serious problems, but if you can't tell them what they might do instead, they aren't any better off. Thanks, Anders Well ...I did not interpret Dougs question as asking me for a complete alternative economic program. Perhaps I was wrong in this interpretation. I thought he was posing a more modest question. I had said that export led growth was a strategy that we on the left should not be endorsing, and to connect to my earlier posts, I was troubled by the way that many on the left had joined in the celebration of China which seems to be on the basis of its success as an export led economy. I thought Doug was saying that since there were no simple or clear alternatives why bother mounting such a major critique on export led growth. Related to that he asked what advice would you give workers or policy makers. In my answer I tried to suggest that the shift to export led growth was ongoing. There are real policies designed to promote this strategy that are being proposed and implemented. I gave the example of Korea. But the same could be said of China and other countries. I think these policies are not good, even for the workers of the countries involved, much less for the overall stability of the global system and the cause of working class solidarity. Thus, I would argue against those policies designed to move economies ever more along the lines of export- led growth. In short, my advice would be not to move in that direction and I would try and support that advice by showing the destructive nature and short-lived gains from export-led growth. So, my answer is that there are things to say because we are not in a static situation. As to a more positive position I already tried to offer a basic outline of my thinking using the example of Cuba. I think that the ideal system of production is one that starts with popular needs and has mechanisms for translating those needs into effective demand. And at the same time also has mechanisms for ensuring that the demand is structured mobilize domestic resources, including workers, to produce the goods and services that the population desires. Right now popular needs are not being translated into effective demand in most cases. It is the middle and elite classes whose needs are being promoted and demand satisfied. And with each move to export led growth that problem tends to become worse. Moreover, in the case of most export-led countries, the domestic production is not mobilized to meet domestic demand, even of the elite, but rather global demand. Thus there is not a self-generated process of growth that takes place. Of course export led countries can grow for a time. As their resources are mobilized to meet foreign needs the country earns money which allows the import of the goods and services the middle class and elites want. But one critical problem for this strategy is that the benefits to this strategy are being greatly reduced as more and more countries seek to enter the process and often compete for a position in the transnational production network on the basis of labor and environmental repression and exploitation. Even UNCTAD has shown that there is very little manufacturing value added being created in this process. So, how does one actualize the dynamic I promote. As I mentioned before, one must start with the resources and history of the country in question. In the case of Cuba I mentioned health care. More generally, one has to identify, as much as possible, poles of growth based on the state of unfilled domestic needs and the resource histories of the country in question (which includes the skills of the population from past production and natural resources as well). For example, there are many ways to ensure health care or housing or clothing. A country would choose an approach that fits with its history. You then try to figure out what are effective ways in translating those needs into demand. And how to build as complete a domestically rooted production chain as possible based on resource possibilities. That way as you are meeting basic needs with national resources you are upgrading and innovating. Obviously no country has the resources or skills to fully deliver all the goods and services that people would demand. So, a country has to choose those that it can reasonably support. And then using techniques that involve credit controls and trade and investment controls it needs to start channeling resources into those growth poles to built them up. In each case, say health care, it is unlikely that a country
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks Maybe you are having a nice weather there but it is quite hot here in Istanbul. As I see it, we are on our road to fascism. I find it amazing that the Western media is so silent about the recent developments in Turkey. I don't find the topic of (the) market(s) unimportant but you Anglo-Americans can do better if you pay more attention to what is hapenning elsewhere. This may also help this list in that maybe others from other parts of the world would find sharing their experiences with this otherwise Anglo-American list worth the effort. Best and see you when I am back, Sabri PS: Here is an interesting article I just came across: http://www.alternativesjournal.net/tausch.htm What do my economist, and especially econometrician, friends say about it? Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
Re: The Road to Serfdom
By this criterion we would need ruthless destruction of many threads. I'd also like to have an example of a thread that went somewhere, as opposed to nowhere. from erewhon, mbs Right. If someone had something to say that has not already been said here, fine, but the discussion the last few times went nowhere.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:42 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks
Re: The Road to Serfdom
this is a good post, because it's specific in its critique. This is something that might be answered, though I doubt anyone's interested in doing so. Jim -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 10:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom --- andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Right here, right now, Mike Ballard. *** Hi Jim and Andie, Just to be clear and without religious overtone: I don't think that markets are evil. I think that we need to realize that we (who are not capitalists) are the market and the producers. I think that exchange-value needs to be stripped away from use-value and disgarded. I think that it has now been historically demonstrated that commodity production/consumption undermines any attempt to achieve socialism. I think that wage-labour has outlived its usefulness for humankind. I think that commodity production is inherently alienating, always leading away from social ownership of the means of production, self-management and towards the continuation of hierarchical-political power over the producers. Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
The term export-led needs to be defined a bit more. I share some of Marty's concerns and Doug is right that small countries in an era of integration can't do much. But when speaking of China how much growth and development is export-led? I am thinking of the Chinese internal market. To take the IT example, it's domestic market is huge compared to what it exports. It is almost a mirror image of India in the software business, far more exports by Indian fims than domestic sales. So in the Indian case I have been arguing not to reduce exports but to increase domestic sales. Explicitly it calls for addresing the demand constraint problem. And within the export sphere diversify the markets away from the US to East Asia for both reducing vulnerabilities and inducing various learning opportunities. I suspect that China does not face this sort of problem because of its huge internal market. There are of course wrenching changes in the country-side, the state-sector, and the like. But I do think China has it far better than most developing countries. As for beggar thy neighbor policy, which Marty thinks is the problem with export-led strategy, I can't disagree, even Japan is shaking with China's growth. But then if Japan has to sink so be it! This is the nature of the game, shifting strategies per se is not going to alter the capitalist game. Cheers, anthony xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor Comparative International Development University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5718 xxx On Mon, 11 Aug 2003, Grant Lee wrote: Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: The difficulty in export-led development certainly should be clear in the case of Mexico. It succeeded over the 1990s in attracting lots of fdi and export growth. But at the cost of hollowing out its domestic industry. Now a bit of wage growth and rising currency and that foreign industry is now deserting Mexico for China. And China's rise which is being celebrated is coming at the expense of export production in Malaysia and Singapore and leading to industrial capital moving from South Korea. So, embracing this strategy is not very helpful. Hi Marty, The question is: helpful to whom? The case of Mexico is often raised when this question comes up, but the overall trend in terms of the flight of capital is from more developed countries to less developed (which, by definition, does not include S.Korea, Malaysia or Singapore). It's bad news for wage earners in developed and semi-developed countries. This includes me, but I find it hard and --- I would say futile --- to begrudge those in China, Kenya, Vanuatau, wherever. Regards, Grant.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Quoting Anthony D'Costa [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I share some of Marty's concerns and Doug is right that small countries in an era of integration can't do much. But when speaking of China how much growth and development is export-led? My reply: As for Chinas export dependence, according to the World Bank, before 1978, Chinas foreign trade was negligible, but, since then, the ratio of trade to GDP has quadrupledfrom a mere 8.5 percent in 1978 to 36.5 percent in 1999. That is a pretty significant gain for export activity. Moreover, that activity is becoming more central to Chinas growth. According to Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, exports now account for 74 percent of the growth in the Chinese economy in 2002. Thus domestic demand accounts for only 26 percent of the growth. And much of this demand has been driven by state infrastructure investment and foreign direct investment. And the share of foreign companies in exports has grown rapidly, from less then 2 percent of total Chinese exports in 1986 to 48 percent in 2000; their imports rose from less than 6 percent to almost 52 percent. As for some of the consequences of this rise in Chinese export orientation, according to the Bank of International Settlements: China is already a major producer of labour-intensive manufactures. Moreover, as a result of its accession to the WTO, it is expected to capture a large share of the liberalised global market in textiles and apparel when the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing expires in 2005. China thus poses major challenges for current producers of textiles and other labour intensive manufactures in Southeast Asia. In addition, the country has moved steadily up the value added chain, and its exports of machinery and high-tech products have increased rapidly. Chinas share in Asias total electronics exports has more than doubled during the past five years to 30% in 2002. In contrast, the shares of Malaysia and Singapore have fallen off sharply. Anecdotal accounts also suggest that production facilities in high-tech sectors are being relocated to China from emerging East Asia as well as Japan. Looking at more high end electronics exports, a report by the Japan Electronic and Information Technology Industries Association notes that China will be the largest electronics exporter in the world in 2003 with the highest market share in 8 out of 12 major export items. These include mobile phones, color TV sets, laptop computers, desktop PCs, PDAs, DVD players, DVD drives, and car stereos. This represents a steady climb for china reflecting its growing importance as a platform for advanced transnational corporations. Thus it was number one in only two categories in 2000, three in 2001, five in 2002, and expected 8 in 2003. This rise comes at the expense of other countries, representing a shift in production. Korea did not have a single number one. And in four items, Korea suffered a decline in market share: color TVs, DVD players, VTRs, and car stereos. Among four items not dominated by China, Japan is expected to lead in digital cameras, and car navigators, Indonesia in VTRs, and Singapore in HDDs, respectively. However, according to the report, China is likely to catch up with Indonesia and Singapore within two years as production of VTRs and HDDs is showing rapid growth. Japan had the highest rank in four items until as late as 2000. This year China is expected to overtake Japan in DVDs and DVD drives. Looking just at Japan, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review: In the last decade, Japanese investment in China has doubled, to the point where more than half of China-Japan trade is conducted among Japanese companies. At the same time, Japans trade with China, including Hong Kong, more than tripled, to $115 billion last year... China is luring away billions of dollars worth of Japanese investment, the argument goes, contributing to a 20 percent drop in Japanese factory employment during the 1990s. The Japanese, justifiably or not, feel helpless against Chinese wage rates that are 5 percent of Japanese levels. Adding to Japans despair, China is quickly moving past bicycles and basic TV sets into the same high-technology, high-value products where Japan has long staked its claims. This year, for the first time, machinery displaced textiles as the leading sector of Chinese products imported by Japan. As for some of the ASEAN countries, Chinas rise is far more threatening. For one thing these countries tend to produce products similar to ones produced by China. And they are more dependent on FDI to sustain that production. So, as China develops its industries thanks to FDI, it becomes harder to imagine continuing economic progress in these countries. In terms of export similarity, according to the World Bank, The correlation of exports, even at the five-digit (SITC) level between China
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Hi all, Here's what James Petras has said about an alternative for China: The renewal of socialist development requires courage, new ideas and recognition of the specificities of the Chinese society and economy. The key is the courage to systematically reject the premises, language and concepts of globalization and neo-liberal ideology. The key to renewal is based on starting from the basic idea that the new strategy must be based on development from below and directed to the domestic economy. This involves a period of transition which must take drastic socialist shock policies to undermine the current elite structure and reverse the regressive allocation of income, investment and ownership. Shocks must include fixed prices on basic commodities, freezing bank accounts and investment of the wealthy classes, appropriation of profits, seizure of the commanding heights of the economy. These policies will likely provoke crises and panic among the elite, investment boycotts and protests form abroad. But they are essential to avoid de-capitalization and to provide the key instruments for socialist development. Socialist shock policies should be followed by a worker designed structural adjustment policy (SAP) where property is re-socialized, rural cooperatives are reintroduced, income and credit is redistributed, illicit wealth is confiscated and the State withdraws public guarantees from private sector borrowers. Adjustments in income form above to below, from private to public, from overseas creditors to low income debtors should create the fundamental foundations for the socialization of the economy based on decentralized democratic planning. Planned economy form below requires open debates and the formation of independent social organizations based on the popular classes, including women, ecologists, minorities, as well as peasants, workers, young people and academics. Once the fundamental structures are in place and the regime is consolidated, selective openings of the economy in spheres of competitive advantages should be encouraged. National defense based on internal preparedness and international solidarity linking anti-imperialist, socialist and democratic movements becomes part of the new foreign policy. Future integration via international solidarity with popular movements replaces today's integration via subordination to the imperial dominated world market. from: China in the Context of Globalization http://www.chinastudygroup.org/articleshow.php?id=9 Cheers, Jonathan At 14:41 2003-8-11, you wrote: Maybe I'm not reading carefully enough, but did you answered Doug's question about what your alternative would be? You say what you would not advise them to do, but that's really not an answer. I'm sure they could come up all by themselves lots of reasons why what their approach has serious problems, but if you can't tell them what they might do instead, they aren't any better off. Thanks, Anders
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Anders wrote (in reply to many thoughts): Maybe I'm not reading carefully enough, but did you answered Doug's question about what your alternative would be? You say what you would not advise them to do, but that's really not an answer. I'm sure they could come up all by themselves lots of reasons why what their approach has serious problems, but if you can't tell them what they might do instead, they aren't any better off. Better off is at the heart of it. While one can claim pedigree by citing Marxist reason for not offering alternative... if there is no alternative, there is no hope for improvement. Aldo M. touched upon this early in my involvement in this list. It remains true. What is the replacement? Ken.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
--- andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JKS refers to the well worn territory of how markets are BAD actually, my understanding is that (except for Mike B), the main trend of the anti-market socialism side was not that markets are BAD. (Could you name someone who says that markets are evil?) Right here, right now, Mike Ballard. *** Hi Jim and Andie, Just to be clear and without religious overtone: I don't think that markets are evil. I think that we need to realize that we (who are not capitalists) are the market and the producers. I think that exchange-value needs to be stripped away from use-value and disgarded. I think that it has now been historically demonstrated that commodity production/consumption undermines any attempt to achieve socialism. I think that wage-labour has outlived its usefulness for humankind. I think that commodity production is inherently alienating, always leading away from social ownership of the means of production, self-management and towards the continuation of hierarchical-political power over the producers. Best, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Right. If someone had something to say that has not already been said here, fine, but the discussion the last few times went nowhere. On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 07:45:45AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: My understanding is that the reason why Michael Perelman opposes pen-l discussions of market socialism is (1) we've had them before, mostly killing the subject, and (2) they degenerated into a tone similar to the one below. That said, I see nothing wrong with a pen-l discussion of market socialism. Maybe some new points will come up, though I doubt it. Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 8/9/2003 6:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
In a message dated 8/9/03 2:01:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... ta-da-doomthe coninuation of wage-slavery, classes, the State and all the undemocratic baggage that goes with that sort of political-economy. Not that the more Mao inspired system of State controlled commodity production didn't result in much the same system with, of course, variations on all the abovementioned themes. One cannot create a labor market by a political act because it is a historical formation that exist outside the will of the individual or political institutions. The labor market evolves on the basis of technology, the individual producer, the degree of separation of the individuals from land and self sufficient means of production and this process is accelerated or retarded by political institutions or just mean spirited individuals. The state cannot control commodity production as such because it is driven by some human dynamics riveted to sustenance and the degree of separations of a mass of people from instruments of self sufficiency. Force - the state, can retard or accerlate but never control the mode of production. Marketization is not a category of politics but rather a category of economics or rather the degree of evolution of exchange and the commodity form. Chairman Mao great leap forward became a real leap forward in understanding why industrial prodcution and organization is a historically evolved stage in the development of the productive forces. Tryining to build a steel industrial on the basis of scattered small scale producers was a bitter lesson, that he admitted was extremely bitter. The Chairman ran into some laws governing industrial development - like the law of cooperation, the law of intensive and extensive development of technology and machinery, the law of exchange dealing with agricultural producers who cannot farm and make steel at the same time. Revolutionary firmness can suppress privilege seeking but then you need science, technological transfer, industrial development and so on. Sending the revolutionary workers to the countryside will boast production in one sector and lower it in another. You have to have people trained in management and administration which is not a bad word in America. An industrial form of organization is not the property relations but at its base line a stage in the development of the productive forces. Now that we are clearly leaving the industrial era this is slowly becoming pretty obvious.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
I would say the problem is on the other side, that many leftists no longer appreciate the dangers and underlying contradictory dynamics of export-led growth and see it as a strategy that is complementary and consistent with stable growth and improved living and working conditions (and here I mean internationally and not only nationally. And here let me be clear. I am not against exports and indeed many countries need to export, such as Cuba. But ensuring exports is not the same as export led growth. One could for example argue that Cuba could/should/does build its health care system in response to its commitments to meeting the needs of its population. And in doing so that means it needs construction materials and skills for clinics, record keeping skills and thus computer software, and medicines and thus a drug industry, and teacher training etc. In other words the health industry takes into account a lot. And to build a first class health industry requires that that industry be directly response to the needs and demands of the Cuban population. That is the only way to ensure real innovation and development. Building such a health care system will, in addition to ensuring that it is socially responsible, no doubt require imports and perhaps even fdi. But it should also produce exports. Some might be medicines, some might be skills in building clinics and maintaining records, some might come from doctor training. A small country would have to pick some key focal points that respond to its history and human and natural resources and find ways of merging and combining efficiencies and abilities as the core of its growth and development strategy. It would mean imports and exports. And ideally different countries could share and trade in complementary ways as their own processes develop. This kind of notion is different from export led development which sets planning and activity based on external demands and innovation based on foreign technology. It is export-led growth as a strategy that is the danger. The difficulty in export-led development certainly should be clear in the case of Mexico. It succeeded over the 1990s in attracting lots of fdi and export growth. But at the cost of hollowing out its domestic industry. Now a bit of wage growth and rising currency and that foreign industry is now deserting Mexico for China. And China's rise which is being celebrated is coming at the expense of export production in Malaysia and Singapore and leading to industrial capital moving from South Korea. So, embracing this strategy is not very helpful. Marty Quoting Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: Should we be building more of our critique on contemporary international developments by focusing on the dangers of export-led growth as a strategy of development. I was surprised when in Cuba to find so many economists there in awe of China's export led growth and eager to try and figure out what to do to replicate it. In other words, it seems that export success has become a critical measure of success even for those on the left. But what's a small country with a tiny internal market and little external finance to do? I don't know the answer, but it seems a lot of leftists don't appreciate the difficulty of the question. Doug
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Jim, the notion of competing enterprises was precisely at the heart of the Chinese position in the early days of reform. But how do you promote competition, well you need some sort of profit inducement. So, early on the Chinese encouraged firms to operate independently and pursue profits. But, competition also means change and response to market needs. Thus, critical to the entire process is labor market flexibility, or the freedom for management to hire and fire workers. In fact, the Chinese state encouraged foreign investment at each stage of the reform process, including joint ventures pretty early in the process, because it saw foreign capital as setting the basis for capitalist labor relations and encouraging profit maximizing in the state sector. In short, based on my study of the Chinese experience, while there were some in the state that just supported growing marketization for their own gain, there were many in the party that saw the need to overcome problems of imbalance and inefficiency from the Mao era and sought to do so by encouraging competition between firms and this lead step by step to promotion of profits, and the creation of a labor market and ... Marty Quoting Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Rather than discussing market socialism, I think it would be worth pen-l's while to discuss Charlie Andrews' proposal for competing not-for-profit enterprises (in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Maybe Charlie could be dragooned into participating. Jim
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Michael, if you want to open another thread, go ahead... my own philosophy is that the whole problem or art is how one can thread a thread into another thread that ties a solid knot into the thread one was operating on. I mean, you might like a thread for a while, but then you feel you need to get into another thread, but you still have the previous thread, and you have to thread that previous thread into another different thread, so that you can start another new thread yourself. In my own life, I have a bit of a threading problem at the moment, which I have to resolve somehow (difficult, since I don't have a lot of friends here who can help out with the warp and woof), but anyway I will try to stay out of the thread you appear not to like, even although you said previously You are welcome to do what you want. Regards Jurriaan - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again
Re: The road to serfdom
A lot of it sounds like a fairly accurate description of politics today. On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:05:23PM -0400, Lance Murdoch wrote: In cartoon form: http://www.mises.org/TRTS.htm Now I've finally read Hayek. If they didn't have cartoon versions of Keynes and Marx, where would I be? Maybe someone will draw a cartoon version of some of Paul Sweezy's work soon. -- Lance -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Dear PEN-Listers, I hate commodity production and I hate the marketplace of commodities. They have both outlived their usefulness. Controlled or planned commodity production only maintains the agony of wage-slavery. For the end of pre-history, Mike B) = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
- Original Message - From: Eubulides [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 3:37 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom - Original Message - From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] == http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg07575.html = Hodgson goes on further with this thread in his Economics and Evolution turning the tables on the Hayekians in discussing the collapse of the Soviet Bloc: But what if the tables are turned? What if we are faced with the dilemmas of reform in a country which is not dominated by market relations and private property? Such problems are illustrated no more graphically than by speculation on the Hayekian attitude to the post 1989 reforms of the former Eastern Bloc economies. Gerard Roland points out that in the context of the introduction of private property rights in the East, Hayek is caught between two irreconcilable arguments: his support for markets, on the one hand, and his opposition to deliberate structural change or 'constructivism' on the other. If he takes one horn of this dilemma he should oppose reform in the Soviet Union, as this is essentially interventionist and 'constructivist' in nature. But it would seem that the construction of the Great Society here takes priority. The 'burden of proof' is thus no longer placed on those advocating reform. In the context of Soviet type societies that onus is seemingly now placed on the conservative elements who resist the growth of markets and private property. Clearly, and especially with Hayek's disposition of the 'burden of proof', there is the danger that a double standard may be operating here.
Re: The Road to Serfdom
You're not going to get anywhere with this, Micahel P will not allow this to proceed. That markets are BAD is axiomatic, it's not up for discussion. I am not permited to dispute the proposition, and neither are you. This is a market-free zone, a litle space where leftist economists can gather safe in the quieta ssurance that everyoneelse agrees that the only things to be said about markets are that they are exploitative and ineffective and wasteful, and we can all laugh at the market worshippers in the rest of the economics community. We all repeat variations on this mantra and never have to face any criticism of it here. It's so obvious that it's not even allowed to be disputed. I hope we are all clear on this now. So shut up, and talk about something that reasonable people can disagree about. Speaking for Michael, if I may, I'm cuttting this discussion off NOW. No more. End of story. Full stop. Period. Nice weather we're having this summer, eh? jks --- Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But that is crazy. Not all markets are bad ! Marx did not argue this, nor did any Marxist revolutionary who actually was involved in a successful revolution. If you did argue this, then that would imply capitalism has meant no economic progress at all in any way, which is a ridiculous and undialectical view. I would say that this general dogma or prejudice about markets are bad was responsible for not a few economic disasters in the USSR and China, and it hides what the real issue is precisely about, namely exactly which property relations promote a just and efficient allocation of economic resources in the given context. It is evident that markets or the market is not a homogeneous category, but that a wide range of types of markets is possible, and that what is decisive is the property forms, ownership relations, social class relations and legal framework within which market transactions occur. In this context, Marx's own argument as I understand it is essentially (1) about the generalisation (universalisation) and overextension of markets based on bourgeois private property relations, which acquires an objective, independent, reified dynamic, causing a great deal of harm to human society, as well as developing the productive forces; (2) that a dictatorship of the proletariat would be able to experiment with a variety of property forms, in order to discover methods of resource allocation which fit best with social priorities - an experimentation which cannot occur in bourgeois society except in a very marginal sense; (3) that the historic objective is to supplant market allocation increasingly by direct methods of allocation which are more just, effective and efficient - methods which already anticipated in society as it exists today in many cases. The loss of this discourse in the socialist movement divides radicalism into two camps: sectarian socialists jabbering and blabbering about reform versus revolution without knowing what they are talking about, and applying wrongheaded critiques of social democracy, on the one hand; and Greenies who want to introduce all sorts of alternatives with a deformed view of what markets are, and how they really function in capitalist society, abstracting from the relations of social classes in so doing. If this situation continues, we might as well kiss socialism goodbye. Jurriaan - Original Message - From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 4:42 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom You don't understand. There are two thins Michael has forbidden on pen-l. One is rudeness. The other is discussion of market socialism. Markets are BAD, that is settled, leftist economists don't have to think about that any more -- and on pen-l, they can't talk about it. I am too tired and busy to talk about it anymore anyway. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Markets, Hierarchies, and Information: On a Paradox in the Economics of Organization, [Louis Putterman, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 26: 373-90, 1995]. In this paper I will argue that firms often do have a comparative advantage both in recognizing and eliciting differentiation of input characteristics. However, I will suggest that this advantage results not so much from their hierarchical form of organization as from their ability to support long term association by providing for mutually beneficial sharing of the rents of joint production by suppliers of interspecialized resources. Larger hierarchies can be expected to lose this advantage both because of the information overload problems referred to by students of planned economies, and because of the increasing cost of negotiating and sustaining cooperation between larger sets of input suppliers. Hierarchy as such thus has no clear informational advantage over market exchange, and multi-tier hierarchy has a distinct*dis*advantage...the informational advantages of firms are a product of their ability to encourage association and information sharing, rather than of the flat powers inherent in hierarchical relations. - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 2:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Road to Serfdom Oh, my God! I opened up that thread again On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 02:36:51PM -0700, andie nachgeborenen wrote: --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. Who thought that the plan should mimic market outcomes . . . On the basis of actual planning experience in postwar Poland, he later became much more of a market socialist. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Road to Serfdom
Mises main target was Marx and the Marxists. Maybe, but the Austrians also opposed the plannist schools that were popular between the two world wars in Europe. There were leftist non-Marxists such as the followers of Edward Bellamy and rightist plannists such as Stackelberg. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: The Road to Serfdom
--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my new book, I have a short section on Mises v. Neurath, where the dispute began, just as Jim said. Neurath was a plannist-marxist. Who thought that the plan should mimic market outcomes . . . On the basis of actual planning experience in postwar Poland, he later became much more of a market socialist. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
