Re: [PEN-L] Virno: Post-Fordism is the empirical realization of the 'Fragment on Mac...
As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the greatwell-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and mustcease to be its measure, and hence exchange value mustcease to be the measure of use value.' Comment "Post Fordism" has been articulated by some as "post industrial" and "labor in the direct form" posited alongside of dead labor or indirect labor represented in machinery. Other's in quiet conversation speak of the polarization between exchange value and use-value or the rupture in the commodity form of social products or even the increased polarization between value and price. Not simply the barrierto conversion created by the cheapening of labor power, overcapacity and over production but a rupture, the emergence of a new qualitative configuration that emerges from within the industrial process andradically changes forever the interactivity of dead and living labor and with this the mass circulation of commodities based on labor time slowly grinds to a halt, based on the increasing valuelessness of direct living labor. Or is it the industrial form of production itself? Then there is species money, which seems to me to be based on military force by definition. At any rate things should be clearer in say 2025, a mere twenty years. Tim Robbins has out a new movie (Code 46) that gives visual representation to this brave new world, with its accompanied eco-catastrophe, huge cities, applied genetic manipulationand an urban population living outside the "imperial center cities." Interestingly, automobiles as the primary form of individual transportation does not exist in this vision. The automobile seems to have gone the way of all flesh or Fordism. Waistline
[PEN-L] query
Someone quoted Marx: As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value must cease to be the measure of use value.' In the context of the Grundrisse, is Marx referring to a tendency that actually is realized -- or may someday be realized -- under capitalism? It seems to me that there exist counter-tendencies under capitalism that would prevent this from happening in practice. Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/
[PEN-L] Gilbert Achcar on the Iraqi elections
Thanks to Michael Yates for calling my attention to Gilbert Achcar's musings on the coming Iraqi elections at: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15ItemID=6948 It is simply dreadful. Basically, Achcar tries to make the case that there is a de facto conspiracy between Washington and the resistance (the scare quotes are his) to undermine the elections: This means, incidentally, that any unqualified support for the Iraqi resistance as a whole in Western countries, where the antiwar movement is badly needed, is utterly counter-productive as much as it is deeply wrong (when paved with good political intentions). There should be a clear-cut distinction between anti-occupation acts that are legitimate and acts by so-called resistance groups that are to be denounced. One very obvious case in point are the sectarian attacks by Al-Zarqawi group against Shias. This being said, it has been clear until now that the most fruitful strategy in opposing the occupation is the one led by Sistani, and that attempts at derailing the elections and de-legitimizing them in advance can only play into the hands of the US occupation. To begin with, the antiwar movement should *never* get involved in cherry-picking of this sort. Its focus must be on demanding immediate withdrawal from Iraq, not setting itself up as a Roger Ebert of resistance tactics. One thumb up for legitimate attacks on Humvees. One thumb down for suicide bombs that cause collateral damage of civilians. There is a sterile propagandistic logic to all this as it would transform the antiwar movement into a kind of Greek chorus on the unfolding events in Iraq. Our focus should be on the USA, not Iraq. We have to figure out a way to maximize participation in the streets, not how to make ourselves acceptable to polite, middle-class opinion. -- www.marxmail.org
Re: [PEN-L] Query
In a message dated 1/4/2005 10:06:52 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Someone quoted Marx: As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the greatwell-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and mustcease to be its measure, and hence exchange value mustcease to be the measure of use value.' In the context of the Grundrisse, is Marx referring to a tendency that actually is realized -- or may someday be realized -- under capitalism? Source of quote: That is from the title of Paolo Virno's thesis #2 ofhis "Ten Theses on the Multitude and Post-FordistCapitalism," from _A Grammar of the Multitude_.Without passing judgement on the other nine theses orVirno's book, which I haven't read, this thesis seemsto me to say something (with regard to those passagesfrom the Grundrisse) that I have been thinking andsaying for at least the last four years. I justthought I would post it to Pen-l to see if anyone hasany thoughts on this thesis, Virno's ten theses orVirno's book.The Sandwichman"Marx writes: 'The theft of alien labour time, onwhich the present wealth is based, appears a miserablefoundation in face of the automated system of machinescreated by large-scale industry itself. As soon aslabour in the direct form has ceased to be the greatwell-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and mustcease to be its measure, and hence exchange value mustcease to be the measure of use value.'"In the 'Fragment on Machines' from the Grundrisse,from which I drew that citation, Marx upholds a thesisthat is hardly Marxist: abstract knowledge-scientificknowledge, first and foremost, but not only that-movestowards becoming nothing less than the principalproductive force, relegating parceled and repetitivelabor to a residual position. We know that Marx turnsto a fairly suggestive image to indicate the complexof knowledge which makes up the epicenter of socialproduction and at the same time prearranges its vitalconfines: general intellect. The tendentialpre-eminence of knowledge makes of labor time a'miserable foundation.' The so-called 'law of value'(according to which the value of a product isdetermined by the amount of labor time that went intoit), which Marx considers the keystone of modernsocial relations, is, however, shattered and refutedby capitalist development itself."It is at this point that Marx proposes a hypothesison surpassing the rate of dominant production which isvery different from the more famous hypothesespresented in his other works. In the 'Fragment,' thecrisis of capitalism is no longer attributed to thedisproportions inherent in a means of production trulybased on labor time supplied by individuals (it is nolonger attributed, therefore, to the imbalancesconnected to the full force of the law, for example,to the fall of the rate of profit). Instead, therecomes to the foreground the splitting contradictionbetween a productive process which directly andexclusively calls upon science, and a unit ofmeasurement of wealth which still coincides with thequantity of labor incorporated in the products. Theprogressive widening of this differential means,according to Marx, that 'production based on exchangevalue breaks down' and leads thus to communism."What is most obvious in the post-Ford era is the fullfactual realization of the tendency described by Marxwithout, however, any emancipating consequences. Thedisproportion between the role accomplished byknowledge and the decreasing importance of labor timehas given rise to new and stable forms of power,rather than to a hotbed of crisis. The radicalmetamorphosis of the very concept of productionbelongs, as always, in the sphere of working under aboss. More than alluding to the overcoming of whatalready exists, the 'Fragment' is a toolbox for thesociologist. It describes an empirical reality whichlies in front of all our eyes: the empirical realityof the post-Fordist structure."
Re: [PEN-L] query
By the way, the quote from Marx isnt really a critique of the labor theory of value. If we escape a commodity-producing society such as capitalism, the LTV doesnt apply. And the second bit (about exchange value) is sloppy, which is no surprise since the Grundrisse is a very rough draft. Even _in_ the LTV, exchange value isnt the measure of use-value. Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/ Eugene Coyle writes: Jim, A good and serious question, something I have been wondering about for years. I await Pen-L's wisdom. Incidentally, I hope to post later today about a Sasha Lilley interview on Against the Grain with Jonathan Nitzen who makes a strong frontal attack on the labor theory of value. Stand by. Gene Coyle Devine, James wrote: Someone quoted Marx: As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value must cease to be the measure of use value.' In the context of the Grundrisse, is Marx referring to a tendency that actually is realized -- or may someday be realized -- under capitalism? It seems to me that there exist counter-tendencies under capitalism that would prevent this from happening in practice.
[PEN-L] query
The quote: ... In the 'Fragment on Machines' from the Grundrisse, from which I drew that citation, Marx upholds a thesis that is hardly Marxist: abstract knowledge-scientific knowledge, first and foremost, but not only that-moves towards becoming nothing less than the principal productive force, relegating parceled and repetitive labor to a residual position. We know that Marx turns to a fairly suggestive image to indicate the complex of knowledge which makes up the epicenter of social production and at the same time prearranges its vital confines: general intellect. The tendential pre-eminence of knowledge makes of labor time a 'miserable foundation.' The so-called 'law of value' (according to which the value of a product is determined by the amount of labor time that went into it), which Marx considers the keystone of modern social relations, is, however, shattered and refuted by capitalist development itself. comment: I think it's a misinterpretation of Marx (and a very common one at that) that the value of the product is determined by the amount of labor time that went into it is somehow a _result_ of the law of value. The idea that the value of a product is the labor time that went into producing it is definitional, as long as labor-time is socially-necessary abstract labor time. As such, it can only be one small part of the law of value. It is at this point that Marx proposes a hypothesis on surpassing the rate of dominant production which is very different from the more famous hypotheses presented in his other works. In the 'Fragment,' the crisis of capitalism is no longer attributed to the disproportions inherent in a means of production truly based on labor time supplied by individuals (it is no longer attributed, therefore, to the imbalances connected to the full force of the law, for example, to the fall of the rate of profit). Instead, there comes to the foreground the splitting contradiction between a productive process which directly and exclusively calls upon science, and a unit of measurement of wealth which still coincides with the quantity of labor incorporated in the products. The progressive widening of this differential means, according to Marx, that 'production based on exchange value breaks down' and leads thus to communism. Comment: I really don't get this, since science can't produce anything directly, while the creation of robots that produce robots (etc.) that renders labor totally redundant _also_ leads to a depression of wages which would discourage the introduction of robots. On the other hand, if Marx's posited contradiction does make sense in terms of science replacing labor, it would make sense that a non-commodity-producing society would arise (cf. William Morris' NEWS FROM NOWHERE) so that the law of value would no longer apply. What is most obvious in the post-Ford era is the full factual realization of the tendency described by Marx without, however, any emancipating consequences. The disproportion between the role accomplished by knowledge and the decreasing importance of labor time has given rise to new and stable forms of power, rather than to a hotbed of crisis. The radical metamorphosis of the very concept of production belongs, as always, in the sphere of working under a boss. More than alluding to the overcoming of what already exists, the 'Fragment' is a toolbox for the sociologist. It describes an empirical reality which lies in front of all our eyes: the empirical reality of the post-Fordist structure. I don't know the context of this, but it seems to miss a lot of the current situation. (I won't argue against or for post-Fordism as a description.) Labor seems pretty important to Wal-Mart, General Motors, Microsoft, etc., etc. Maybe there's less factory labor in the US and other core countries than there used to be, but a lot has shifted to China and other non-core places. Labor is still central to the picture. Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/
Re: [PEN-L] query
The way I read this entire section, which is my favorite of the whole book, Marx is saying that the positive function of capitalism is to develop technologies that managed to reduce labor time, which is a positive contribution using traditional technology. But capitalism creates radically new forms of technology that reduce labor time to insignificance. At that point, capitalism becomes a barrier to the development of new technology, which depends upon radically improving the skills of workers. The form of crude capitalist control is antithetical to allowing it to work to take advantage of their great abilities. Presumably, tensions will build up between the capitalist form and the productive potential, creating pressure for socialism. what I just wrote is consistent with what Jim said, but as a little detail. On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 08:04:50AM -0800, Devine, James wrote: Someone quoted Marx: As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value must cease to be the measure of use value.' In the context of the Grundrisse, is Marx referring to a tendency that actually is realized -- or may someday be realized -- under capitalism? It seems to me that there exist counter-tendencies under capitalism that would prevent this from happening in practice. Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: [PEN-L] query
Devine, James wrote:
I don't know the context of this, but it seems to miss a lot of the
current situation. (I won't argue against or for post-Fordism as a
description.) Labor seems pretty important to Wal-Mart, General Motors,
Microsoft, etc., etc. Maybe there's less factory labor in the US and
other core countries than there used to be, but a lot has shifted to
China and other non-core places. Labor is still central to the
picture.
{It's been quite a while since I reread the passages in Capital (I think
Vol. 2) on which the following is based, so I don't know how accurate
those references are.)
Labor that is involved _solely_ in realizing surplus value does not add
value -- e.g., much (not all) retail labor. But the production of a
commodity _includes_ delivering it to the purchaser. (A shirt in
warehouse at some seaport is not, for me here in Bloomington, of any use
or value. So the labor of transporting it to Bloomington, and the labor
of putting it where I can obtain it within B/N, adds value to the
product. So some part of the labor of Wal-Mart employees is adding value
to a shirt sold there, not merely realizing surplus value. Hence part of
the sales effort at Wal-Mart is a deduction from the value of the shirt
as manufacured, but some part of that sales effort is actually adding
value as well. My point is that even with imported products _part_ of
the surplus value is produced in the u.s., not in the nation where the
factory production takes place.
More. At one time large numbers of people raised their own grain, milled
it, baked their bread or boiled their porrage. Then the flour industry
sprang up. Now people bought flour, but many still baked their own
bread. The flour clearly contained surplus value. Then a further
intermediate step was created: the baker baked the bread and the
consumer paid for that added value. No one ever labeled Pillsbury a
service industry. Nor did anyone ever label the maker of Wonderbread a
service industry. Then another intervention occurred. Denny's bought the
bread and turned it into sandwiches which people bought there. Why isn't
Dennys the same as Pillsbury and Wonderbread? If Dennys is labelled
purely a service rather than a productive enterprise, then .
There is still an _immense_ amount of surplus labor being exploited in
the U.S. It may look different (and it probably is in non-union
enterprises) but its every bit as much productive labor in the marxian
sense as were GM Ford workers in the 1930s. How much of what _seems_
to be (in 19th century terms) merely part of the sales effort is part of
the surplus-value creating activity?
I have no idea whether the concept of productive/non-productive labor
(surplus-value creating/non-surplus value creating) is of any use in
calculating prices and the allocation of scarce resources: but I suspect
it has a great deal to do with the social relations (and hence with the
culture) of capitalism still. _Economics_ is too narrow a discipline to
tell us very much about the social organization of an advanced
capitalist economy.
Carrol
[PEN-L] Jonathan Nitzan on Against The Grain
Sasha Lilley interviewed Jonathan Nitzan on Against the Grain on KPFA a week or so ago. I downloaded and listened to the program yesterday. Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler have a paper New Imperialism or New Capitalism? which can also be found linked to the Against the Grain web site. The program's opening issue addresses Nitzan Bichler's contention that imperialism did not drive the invasion of Iraq. And, more generally, that what we are seeing in the world is not imperialism but a new capitalism. (New in the last 100 years.) But the hour was wide ranging, while thoroughly coherent. Nitzan makes a full frontal assault on the labor theory of value. He contends that capitalists mostly benefit from inflation. (Though workers could under certain circumstances.) As I listened to this passage I recalled that I often hear CEOs and analysts and the WSJ bemoaning the lack of pricing power while they also warn against inflation. Nitzan and Bichler have an analysis of cycles of investment, mergers and stagflation. Very interesting stuff. Maybe will influence your own 401 k strategy. I found myself mostly agreeing with him -- influenced as I am by finance theory as distinct from economics. A little piece about the value of Microsoft versus General Motors was telling in support of the Nitzan and Bichler Power theory of value. I'm not so sure about their imperialism contention, which might be reexamined in light of their own Power theory of value. I recommend spending an hour with this program. Gene Coyle The Jonathan Nitzan interview on Against the Grain can be downloaded fromwww.againstthegrain.org.
Re: [PEN-L] query
Michael Perelman wrote: The form of crude capitalist control is antithetical to allowing it to work to take advantage of their great abilities. Presumably, tensions will build up between the capitalist form and the productive potential, creating pressure for socialism. The passages in Marx in which he speaks of social relations fettering the productive capacity are somewhat scattered, not well developed, and many marxists see them as a form of technological determinism, incompatible with the overall thrust of Marx's thought. Carrol
Re: [PEN-L] Jonathan Nitzan on Against The Grain
But the hour was wide ranging, while thoroughly coherent. Nitzan makes a full frontal assault on the labor theory of value. Nothing here that has not been stated in the past. Mostly revolves around alleged inadequacies in hardwiring the price of a commodity to the amount of labor that goes into it. This all goes back to Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. What you get from Nitzan and Bichler is new packaging, including ideological nods to Cornelius Castoriadas. In the concluding paragraph of their 68 page paper, they state that the USA is not a capitalist empire. Gosh, that's a relief. Now I can go back to writing a coming of age novel set in the 1950s Borscht Belt. -- www.marxmail.org
Re: [PEN-L] query
Carrol Cox: The passages in Marx in which he speaks of social relations fettering the productive capacity are somewhat scattered, not well developed, and many marxists see them as a form of technological determinism, incompatible with the overall thrust of Marx's thought. I don't see why the references to fettering should be rejected. In simple terms, Marx's theory involves three parts: 1. a mode of production generates a specific quality and quantity of the growth of the forces of production, differing from that of other modes of production. Application: capitalism generates relatively rapid growth of the forces of production, centered on lowering labor costs. 2. There is no reason why the forces of production _generated by_ the mode of production will be exactly the same as those needed to reproduce that mode of production over time. Application: capitalism isn't a planned system and thus generates growth that can break the reproduction conditions and disrupt social harmony. 3. This conflict -- or fettering -- leads to crises, conflict, along with quantitative and qualitative change in the mode of production. Point 1 represents the sociological determinist part, while point 3 represents the allegedly technological determinist part. JD
Re: [PEN-L] fragment on machines (was Re: [PEN-L] query)
So for the autonomists, the fetters and crisis are manifestations of the working class struggle and it is capital's effort to overcome this resistence by workers that leads to new forms of the labor process. Right. But the fetters also reflect capitalists' attempts to maintain power. JD
Re: [PEN-L] fragment on machines (was Re: [PEN-L] query)
Devine, James wrote: So for the autonomists, the fetters and crisis are manifestations of the working class struggle and it is capital's effort to overcome this resistence by workers that leads to new forms of the labor process. Right. But the fetters also reflect capitalists' attempts to maintain power. JD O.K. It as a general law of history that fettering becomes (or can become) a technological determinism. But if it is seen as specific to the capitalist mode of production, then the objection doesn't apply. I presume that there can still be debate, but this perspective does answer my initial phrasing of the objection. If it is made a general law of history it can't explain why still in the 18th century textile productivity in non-capitalist India was so much greater than in capitalist England. Carrol
Re: [PEN-L] fragment on machines (was Re: [PEN-L] query)
Tom wrote: So for the autonomists, the fetters and crisis are manifestations of the working class struggle and it is capital's effort to overcome this resistence by workers that leads to new forms of the labor process. I wrote: Right. But the fetters also reflect capitalists' attempts to maintain power CC: O.K. It as a general law of history that fettering becomes (or can become) a technological determinism. But if it is seen as specific to the capitalist mode of production, then the objection doesn't apply. I presume that there can still be debate, but this perspective does answer my initial phrasing of the objection. I don't understand. Fettering simply refers to socio-economic restrictions on technological change (or more generally, change in the forces of production). It refers to workers resisting speed-up and the like and also capitalists and others defending their privileges. There's technological determinism if the clash between the development of the forces and the social structure leads to a specific result that depends on only the technology. But it also depends on between-class and intra-class struggles. Further, the development of the forces of production itself depends on the nature of the society that generates that development. If the determiner is itself determined, there's hardly any determinism. If it is made a general law of history it can't explain why still in the 18th century textile productivity in non-capitalist India was so much greater than in capitalist England. Even the crudest practitioner of histomat knows the answer: India had a head-start in that sector. However, England had the military might. JD I don't understand. Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/
Re: [PEN-L] fragment on machines (was Re: [PEN-L] query)
Devine, James wrote: Right. But the fetters also reflect capitalists' attempts to maintain power. Therein lies the answer to the riddle of capital's resilience. If, in response to working class resistence, capital _merely_ attempted to maintain power and didn't foster technological innovation, it would become irreparably despised. If it _merely_ promoted technological innovation and didn't bother about maintaining power, it would be summarily replaced. So it has to do both. By the way, the summer 2004 issue of Capital and Class had an article by Finn Bowring on the Italian autonomist context of Hardt and Negri's Empire, From the mass worker to the multitude. Bowring grounds the inconsistencies in Empire in the ambiguities of Marx's fragment on machines and HN's indiscriminate use of two contradictory interpretations of that text. The problem with the fragment on machines as Thoburn has pointed out, is that its ambiguous content lends itself to two, potentially conflicting interpretations. On the one hand, Marx appears to be describing the declining significance of labour in comparison to the power of fixed capital, the latter being the objectification in machines of society's accumulated knowledge and scientific expertise A second interpretation of the 'Fragment', on the other hand, draws deliberately on Marx's cryptic references to the 'general intellect', the 'social brain' and the 'social individual'. It finds in his observation that 'direct' labour no longer provides the 'governing unity' of production, the implicit and subversive thesis that *indirect* labour -- 'the general productive force arising from social combination' is instead the wellspring of wealth. Of course my own leanings are heavily toward this second, cryptic interpretation and I would bolster my case by relying here on the influence of that fine statement from the anonymous pamphlet of 1821 that wealth is disposable time. Which is not to say simply free time but also the facility that such free time gives to seek recreation, enjoy life and improve the mind and thus contribute indirectly to productivity. Sandwichman __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Re: [PEN-L] fragment on machines (was Re: [PEN-L] query)
I wouldn't say it's necessarily inconsistant with Marx. It's inconsistant with some traditional interpretations of the statement about the forces and relations of production and I think there is enough ambiguity in it to support, at least selectively, both interpretations. michael perelman wrote: Tom, how is your last part inconsistant with Marx? Surely, capitalists have long used techno. means to change production methods to decrase reliance on unruly workers. tom walker wrote: Without going into much detail at the moment, I believe that the Italian autonomist theorists sort of turned this fettering stuff on it head, in a manner of speaking. And their positions were based on their readings most particularly of the Grundrisse (especially the fragment on machines) and of the previously unpublished Chapter Six of Capital and the distinction between formal and real subsumption of labor. So for the autonomists, the fetters and crisis are manifestations of the working class struggle and it is capital's effort to overcome this resistence by workers that leads to new forms of the labor process. __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
[PEN-L] Gutting Social Security
The Bush administration is planning to link Social Security to the price index rather than wage growth, according to today's Washington Post. The administration leak may or may not be a trial balloon. Under the new formula, Social Security benefits currently (equaling) 42 percent of the earnings of an average worker retiring at 65...would fall to 20 percent of pre-retirement earnings, according to one estimate. It's like saying elderly people today should live at a 1940 standard of living. Social Security Formula Weighed Bush Plan Likely to Cut Initial Benefits By Jonathan Weisman and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A01 The Bush administration has signaled that it will propose changing the formula that sets initial Social Security benefit levels, cutting promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades, according to several Republicans close to the White House. Under the proposal, the first-year benefits for retirees would be calculated using inflation rates rather than the rise in wages over a worker's lifetime. Because wages tend to rise considerably faster than inflation, the new formula would stunt the growth of benefits, slowly at first but more quickly by the middle of the century. The White House hopes that some, if not all, of those benefit cuts would be made up by gains in newly created personal investment accounts that would harness returns on stocks and bonds. But by embracing price indexing, the president would for the first time detail the painful costs involved in closing the gap between the Social Security benefits promised to future retirees and the taxes available to fund them. In late February or March, the administration plans to produce its proposed overhaul of the system, including creation of personal investment accounts and the new benefit calculation. This is going to be very much like sticking your hand in a wasp nest, said David C. John, a Social Security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation and an ally of the president. And the reaction will be similar. In informal briefings on Capitol Hill, White House aides have told lawmakers and aides that Bush will propose the change in the benefits formula, an approach recommended by his 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security , according to congressional aides and lobbyists. Currently, initial benefits are set by a complex formula that calculates workers' average annual earnings in their 35 highest-paid years and adjusts those earnings up from those years to reflect standards of living near that worker's retirement age. That adjustment is based on wage growth over that time span. Under the commission plan, the adjustment would be based instead on the rise of consumer prices. The change would save trillions of dollars in scheduled expenditures and solve Social Security's long-term deficit, but at a cost. According to the Social Security Administration's chief actuary, a middle-class worker retiring in 2022 would see guaranteed benefits cut by 9.9 percent. By 2042, average monthly benefits for middle- and high-income workers would fall by more than a quarter. A retiree in 2075 would receive 54 percent of the benefit now promised. While no decision has been made, allies and opponents expressed little doubt about where the president is heading. No decision has been made, but the administration is clearly leaning in that direction, said Michael Tanner, director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice. I don't think anything else is seriously on the table. A former senior administration official who recently discussed Social Security strategy with Bush aides said the change in the indexing formula is assumed to be a part of any final solution. You've got the bitter medicine of changing the indexing, but to go along with that you've got the sweetener of the accounts, the former official said. There will be price indexing, said John Rother, policy director of AARP, the powerful seniors lobby. The White House has been slowly building the case for the change. Last year's Economic Report of the President, written by the Council of Economic Advisers and signed by Bush, uses the Social Security commission's primary proposal to advocate overhauling the retirement system. Last month, the council's chairman, N. Gregory Mankiw, fingered the current system of wage indexing as a primary culprit for Social Security's problems. A person with average wages retiring at age 65 this year gets an annual benefit of about $14,000, but a similar person retiring in 2050 is scheduled to get over $20,000 in today's dollars, Mankiw said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. In other words, even after adjusting for inflation, a typical person's benefits are scheduled to rise by over 40 percent. Opponents of the proposal have also been mobilizing. Under an inflation-linked formula, benefits would keep up with prices, but
Re: [PEN-L] Jared Diamond's limitations
-Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect I am really no expert on Japan in the 1600s, but I was really addressing this statement by Jared Diamond: Today, despite having the highest human population density of any large developed country, Japan is more than 70 percent forested. This implies that Japan is self-sufficient. Obviously this is false. If Japan was prevented from buying timber in Indonesia, the percentage would be far lower. --- http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=4DC20ECF-2E1B-4079-B2 25-A582FD46C581ttype=2tid=5372 Shadows in the Forest Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia Peter Dauvergne 1998 Winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award . . . sets out a wealth of documented detail that shows how we should be super-sceptical of 'official' business statistics. This is one of the most illuminating tropical forestry books of the last decade. -- Norman Myers Peter Dauvergne developed the concept of a shadow ecology to assess the total environmental impact of one country on resource management in another country or area. Aspects of a shadow ecology include government aid and loans; corporate practices, investment, and technology transfers; and trade factors such as consumption, export and consumer prices, and import tariffs. In Shadows in the Forest, Dauvergne examines Japan's effect on commercial timber management in Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the Philippines. Japan's shadow ecology has stimulated unsustainable logging, which in turn has triggered widespread deforestation. Although Japanese practices have improved somewhat since the early 1990s, corporate trade structures and purchasing patterns, timber prices, wasteful consumption, import tariffs, and the cumulative environmental effects of past practices continue to undermine sustainable forest management in Southeast Asia. This book is the first to analyze the environmental impact of Japanese trade, corporations, and aid on timber management in the context of Southeast Asian political economies. It is also one of the first comprehensive studies of why Southeast Asian states are unable to enforce forest policies and regulations. In particular, it highlights links between state officials and business leaders that reduce state funds, distort policies, and protect illegal and unsustainable loggers. More broadly, the book is one of the first to examine the environmental impact of Northeast Asian development on Southeast Asian resource management and to analyze the indirect environmental impact of bilateral state relations on the management of one Southern resource. Peter Dauvergne is Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Politics, Director of the Environment Program of the Liu Institute for Global Issues, and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia.
[PEN-L] 31% of Junior Enlisted Personnel Say Bring Troops Home
Asked whether they think 'the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until a stable government is established there' or 'the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible,' 31% of junior enlisted personnel said, 'Bring Troops Home,' and a whopping 47% of them believe that it is not the proper thing for the Pentagon to order 'some people in the military to stay on active duty beyond the time their enlistment expired' (Clymer/Annenberg Public Policy Center, October 16, 2004, Table B, p. 7): http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/losing-hearts-and-minds.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Proud of Britain: http://www.proudofbritain.net/ and http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/
[PEN-L] emissions trading
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1383259,00.html CO 2 trading targets too generous, say environmentalists David Gow in Brussels Wednesday January 5, 2005 Guardian The European Union is at the centre of a new row between governments, industry and environmental campaigners over its ambitious new CO 2 emissions trading scheme, which came into effect on January 1. It is designed to help the 25 members meet their commitment to an 8% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 under the Kyoto protocol. Just before Christmas the European commission announced that, even without the new carbon emissions market, the EU 15 - the original members before 10 new countries joined in May - will surpass their Kyoto targets. They are said to be on track to achieve an 8.6% reduction by 2010, compared with a cut of 2.9% (from 1990 levels) by 2002. This is partly because EU states such as France and the Netherlands plan to use the protocol's mechanisms for investing in emissions-savings projects overseas, including in developing countries, which are not bound by Kyoto. But this optimistic forecast, prepared by the European environment agency, has been ridiculed by campaigners such as the WWF, the conservation body, which claims that all EU countries have been over-generous in distributing emission allowances in national allocation plans under the new scheme - mainly because of intensive industry lobbying. About 12,000 large industrial plants, including power stations and energy-intensive sectors such as steel, aluminium, cement and oil and gas refineries, are covered by the new market, which is said to have seen 1m tonnes of carbon a week traded in the run-up to its formal entry on January 1 in 21 states. The first phase of the plan runs from 2005 to 2007. There are fears that, because of governments' over-generosity, the market price will be too low - perhaps as little as 8 (5.65) a tonne - to effect a genuine cut in emissions and, moreover, other polluting sectors will wreck the achievement of the Kyoto targets. Conversely, industry fears that electricity prices will rise by at least 5%, squeezing them further in a weak macro-economic environment. According to the WWF, Germany, Britain, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Italy and France have given industry a free ride by handing out excessive emission allowances and are inflating the carbon market. The 10 new EU members, mainly east European, have already cut CO 2 emissions by 9%, largely because of the collapse of heavily polluting industries in new market conditions, and are on track to go further, even though they, too, are said by the WWF to have been over-generous. The commission, which will fine companies 40 for each tonne of carbon by which they miss targets, says it will monitor each country's performance. It has set up a new electronic register system to track the ownership of allowances as they are traded. It admits that if too many allowances were issued, there would be no scarcity so no market would develop and has demanded revisions to several national allocation plans, including Britain's, to prevent that happening. Oliver Rapf, of WWF Europe, insists that there are few incentives for industries to cut emissions. The EU needs to address the shortfalls of the current system to ensure higher CO 2 cuts in the second phase, from 2008 to 2012, he says. Another worry is that the EU has underestimated how much emissions are rising now. The consultants KPMG recently calculated that those in the electricity sector rose by 23% in 2003. Even Brussels has conceded that emissions in transport, mainly from cars and trucks, were 22% higher in 2002 than in 1990 - a conservative estimate. Campaigners say that the EU may only meet its Kyoto targets because countries will simply buy allowances abroad rather than through a trading market. But Brussels claims that the new market will not only work but will cut the cost of meeting targets from 6.8bn to 2.9bn.
[PEN-L] WSJ finds caring role?
According to BBC News 24 the WSJ has a front page article, as does the Financial Times, speculating whether the tsunami disaster will give the Bush administration the opprortunitz to develop a new image towards the most populous muslim country in the world, and towards islam in general. The meeting of the World Bank in Jakarta this week, will be the perfect opportunity for caring capitalism to move forward in its global coordination, with the Germans singing from the same hymn sheet as the US administration. Capitalism has never been against charity. The question is whether the demands for international technical and managerial planning will start to alter the nature of global capitalism, and address the massive contradiction between the price of labour power in different parts of the world, which is the mirror image of the uneven accumulation of capital on a world scale. Chris Burford temprorarily in Budapest This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
