[PEN-L:1855] Soros Questions Tobin Tax

1998-12-22 Thread Michael Eisenscher
NDP MP Lorne Nystrom has introduced a motion in Parliament, M-239, that urges the Government of Canada to implement a Tobin Tax. That motion will be voted on in February, 1999 George Soros indicates below that a Tobin Tax may not be effective. == Date:

[PEN-L:1843] imf report

1998-12-22 Thread Patrick Bond
Comrades, Anyone have anything quirky and insightful to say on the IMF report on world economic prospects? I have to go on South African tv tomorrow morning at 5:30 GMT to chat about it with a bourgeois economist. Any hints? P. *** Patrick Bond

[PEN-L:1851] Yugoslav inequality

1998-12-22 Thread Rosser Jr, John Barkley
I feel a need to express some further observations on this topic that came up in conjunction with the social democracy thread. Why did regional inequalities get so bad in Yugoslavia? One aspect of this that is especially puzzling is that there was quite a bit of regional redistribut

[PEN-L:1850] Albert Camus

1998-12-22 Thread Louis Proyect
(excerpted from a review article by John Hess in the latest Monthly Review) The New York Times Book Review summarized Todd's Albert Camus: A Life as a "biography of the near-proletarian from Algeria who reached the top of the literary pole in Paris, then fell silent when he could not defend the f

[PEN-L:1848] Re: Re: Re: Re: Social Democracy and Utopia

1998-12-22 Thread PJM0930
In a message dated 12/18/1998 9:26:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << On the plus side we have a somewhat smaller set of countries spending a generation or two under the rule of Communist regimes of varying quality--from Pol Pot or Mao or Kim Il Sung at the bottom end to

[PEN-L:1847] Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdumboundary="part0_914356735_boundary"

1998-12-22 Thread Nativejmc
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_914356735_boundary No, unlike Bill's, my apology is sincere and as for close to Bill's, well you know the rest..."close but no cigar". But you know, reductio ad absurdum/nauseum as a instrument of rhetoric and reasoning does not so much sugge

[PEN-L:1845] Re: neo-classical muzak

1998-12-22 Thread sokol
At 10:58 AM 12/22/98 -0800, Tom Walker wrote: >What you get then is not some inexorable totalitarian argument leading from >the market to the gas chamber, but a soppy mush of sycophantic string music >that acts as recorded background for the arbitrary and seemingly >uncontestable exercise of power

[PEN-L:1844] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdumboundary="part0_914354916_boundary"

1998-12-22 Thread Nativejmc
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_914354916_boundary To Jim Devine's reposne I have to agree. There is a real danger in trivializing the most horrible with analogy overreach or fallcy of "proof" by analogy. On the other hand, Auschwitz was an inexorable result--not a beginning

[PEN-L:1846] Re: imf report

1998-12-22 Thread valis
Patrick Bond queries: > Anyone have anything quirky and insightful to say on the IMF > report on world economic prospects? I have to go on South African tv > tomorrow morning at 5:30 GMT to chat about it with a bourgeois > economist. Any hints? Why not just challenge the clown to take a person

[PEN-L:1841] Russian Stalinists Commemorate Dictator's Birthday

1998-12-22 Thread Gregory Schwartz
Stalinists Commemorate Dictator's Birthday MOSCOW, Dec. 22, 1998 -- (Reuters) Several hundred Russian Communists marched to Red Square on Monday to lay carnations at the Kremlin wall tomb of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on the 119th anniversary of his birth. The solemn scene, amid a light drizz

[PEN-L:1840] Re: Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment Insight, part two

1998-12-22 Thread PJM0930
I hate to be dredging up old threads but I am behind in my e-mail duties. The discussion of the relative technological advantages of Europe vs. China seems a bit overly politicized, as Blaut tends to be, in asserting any "difference" that gave Europe a leg in its socio-technological competition w

[PEN-L:1849] Re: Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum

1998-12-22 Thread Jim Devine
At 02:58 PM 12/22/98 EST, you wrote: >No, unlike Bill's, my apology is sincere and as for close to Bill's, well you >know the rest..."close but no cigar". > >But you know, reductio ad absurdum/nauseum as a instrument of rhetoric and >reasoning does not so much suggest analogy as to expore the inne

[PEN-L:1838] Re: holiday greetings

1998-12-22 Thread sokol
Jim Devine: >I think the problem is probably due to the fact that you're using a >networked computer. Networks are much stricter than stand-alone computer >when it comes to these things -- because the risk of virus infection is >much more serious with a network. (Stand-alones don't have system >ad

[PEN-L:1835] Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdumboundary="part0_914344462_boundary"

1998-12-22 Thread Nativejmc
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_914344462_boundary IMHO this is wonderfully argued and quite historically accurate--and an excellent and concentrated metaphor. The libertarian "voluntarism" is the a priori, hypothetico-deductivist or de jure coupled with no notion or concern

[PEN-L:1842] neo-classical muzak

1998-12-22 Thread Tom Walker
I'd like to point out a few weaknesses in the Auschwitz example: 1. 'the nazis' are definitively others -- "they're not like us" -- which gives the student an escape hatch. 2. the nazis were presumably 'undone' both by the barbaric irrationality of their ideology and by the forces of good ('us')

[PEN-L:1834] Greenfield on Asian economic crisis and new attacks on labor

1998-12-22 Thread Louis Proyect
Flexible Dimensions of a Permanent Crisis: TNCs, Flexibility, and Workers in Asia Gerard Greenfield Abstract What is the relationship between this crisis and labour flexibility? The argument runs something like this: the destruction of jobs and the deterioration in the livelihood and well-being

[PEN-L:1831] Re: Re: Environmental Quality in Developing Countries

1998-12-22 Thread Doug Henwood
Brad De Long wrote: >I'm not going to defend Lant Pritchett's inept and overwritten memo, or >Lawrence Summers' signing it (although I would note that >Summers-as-academic is known for giving credit to RAs and elevating them to >co-author and lead-author status much more than most of his ilk). >

[PEN-L:1830] Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum

1998-12-22 Thread sokol
At 04:36 PM 12/21/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote: >This is quite a different situation than people voluntarily trading to an >equilibrium in a market. No libertarian would approve of Auschwitz. It is a clear >violation of rights. Jews didn't voluntarily work in the labor camps or go to the >gashouse

[PEN-L:1829] Greenfield on WTO

1998-12-22 Thread Louis Proyect
The WTO, the World Food System, and the Politics of Harmonised Destruction Gerard Greenfield Education Programme Organiser (Indonesia) IUF-A/P IUF-A/P Globalisation Seminar II: Globalisation and the Future of Agri-Food Workers November 16-18, 1998, Ahmedabad, India

[PEN-L:1827] RE: Jim Craven vs. Clark College

1998-12-22 Thread Fellows, Jeffrey
Valis, did you even read the article? -- From: valis -- > Vancouver (Washington State) Columbian, Sunday Dec. 20, 1998 > > Clark College restricts professor's computer use > > E-mail feud with Canadian student trigg

[PEN-L:1839] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum

1998-12-22 Thread Jim Devine
Jim Craven writes: >The reason I see Auschwitz as an inexorable metaphor/expression of >libertarianism is on the plane of the sterile, cold, calculating, selfish >calculus of maximization, "optimality", "efficiency" dog-eat-dog and rat-race >individualism embodied in the libertarian perspective co

[PEN-L:1828] Re: Craven vs. Clark II

1998-12-22 Thread valis
Queried Jeff "Deep Mole" Fellows of CDC: > Valis, did you even read the article? "Even"? I guess I should cop to your expectation that I read it with a divided attention or not at all. What did I miss or misinterpret? valis

[PEN-L:1833] Fw: [IAC] FROM Baghdad -- news release

1998-12-22 Thread Frank Durgin
-- > From: Rania Masri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [IAC] FROM Baghdad -- news release > Date: Monday, December 21, 1998 9:33 AM > > =Iraq Action Coalition http://leb.net/IAC/ === > To subscribe, send an e-mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with

[PEN-L:1799] A harmonised australia

1998-12-22 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, A lovely follow-up to the MUA story (remember the Ozzie wharfies' strike?) ... The government, interest groups and Patrick Stevedores may yet be laid low! But not by the union. Nope. The spectre that haunts them is that of the scabs! These blokes are suing for millions in compensa

[PEN-L:1796] Re: Redutio ad Absurdum

1998-12-22 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Brad, Thanks for this: >I think famines work better--they make the point that if your labor-time >endowment has no value, then your utility has no weight in the social >welfare function that the market maximizes, and so you starve to death: the >market's equilibrium weighs each person's pr

[PEN-L:1780] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: ReductioAd/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumanum

1998-12-22 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Jim, You'd written: "I do a little number in my Micro classes called "Pareto Optimality at Auschwitz" ... " Way back, I changed degrees half a semester into an education/economics degree. Those who purported to teach how to teach couldn't teach, and those who purported to explain human b

[PEN-L:1825] Re: Environmental Quality in Developing Countriesboundary="part0_914306050_boundary"

1998-12-22 Thread Nativejmc
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_914306050_boundary On the comments blow, my own comments are: a) I can think of a long list of "non-democratic"/anti-democratic regimes set up and social systems engineered as non-democratic/anti-democratic regimes in the service of US and ot