Shane Mage writes:>Under rigorous "neoclassical" analysis it is easily demonstrated<
of course, rigorous neoclassical analysis is not the same as the Chicago-school
neoclassical analysis embraced by Sowell. For the latter, "rigorous" refers to "free
market."
jd
David B. Shemano wrote:
> Melvin P. writes:
>
>>>On affirmative action he would be run out of the podium and forced to
> understand the real meaning >>of traditional American justice. The poor
> would most certainly string him up and I would not object.
>
> As Godwin's Law approaches, I am done wit
Melvin said:
> So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above >market
levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the >living conditions of
sugar workers were less important than the needs >of "the economy."
"In my estimate raising wages will eventually cause unemployment i
For what it is worth I attended graduate school at Columbia
University at the same time as Sowell and we became friends of a
kind. Sowell was no Marxist back then, or Leftist for that matter.
He was a keen admirer and defender of Marx's economics -- a
Marxoligist it would be later called. I
Correction: I said 30 years ago referring to Buckley's no-contest contest
with the SEC. Actually it was 23 years ago and here are some details:
In 1979, the SEC charged Buckley, the Rex Reed of American conservatism,
with violating federal securities laws while attempting to forestall
personal b
I'll eat Mr. Sowell alive and my brother would bury him for
sure.
Peace
Melvin
__
Cue the brother:
Brother Melvin puts some fire to the feet of
the ideological tap dancers of capital, and the dancers head
towards the emergency exits, protesting the
In a message dated 7/2/2004 6:42:37 PM Central Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
As Godwin's Law approaches, I am done with the thread.
David Shemano
Comment
I understand . . . but there are times I speak as an
insurgent partisan. I would debate Mr. Sowe
Melvin P. writes:
>>On affirmative action he would be run out of the podium and forced to understand the real meaning >>of traditional American justice. The poor would most certainly string him up and I would not object.
As Godwin's Law approaches, I am done with the thread.
Davi
THIS WE MUST PARSE...
-Original Message-
From: "David B. Shemano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Jul 2, 2004 6:19 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell
"Traditional justice, at least in the American tradition, involves treating people the
same, hol
shoes are making such fabulous amounts of money? And
that's certainly true.
Comment
This entire discussion concerning Mr. Sowell has an unreal
quality that originates in his biases and dishonest assessment with the actual
life of American society. Traditional justice in America have
David, I mentioned before that Card and Krueger found just the opposite: that
journals would not consider articles that suggested that min. wage laws do not cause
unemployment.
On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 11:23:44AM -0700, David B. Shemano wrote:
> Charles Brown writes:
>
> >> Sowell p
I really thank you for this piece, David.
It was more articulate than that which had come in quotes before.
But Mr Sowell does still seem quite... you know... stupid.
You actually quote this:
>Liberals tend to describe what they want in terms of
>goals rather than processes, and not
Regarding Sowell's transformation, the problem here is one of email communication
confusion and I have contributed. In the Salon interview, the question to Sowell was
"So you were a Lefty once." Sowell responded "Through the decade of my 20s, I was a
Marxist." T
Who is "Old Whiskers"? I thought it was "Uncle Whiskers." I've always
suspected that Doug was a revisionist.
At 04:50 PM 7/2/2004 -0400, you wrote:
What Marxist would deny that "incentives" affect behavior? Didn't Old
Whiskers say somewhere that an 800% return would draw forth capital
from the moon
Sowell..I came to reject Marxism when I was studying affirmative action
programmes for black entrepreneurs.
Commentator: HOw is that??
Sowell..Well this black business owner benefitted from special loan rates
and other govt. incentives. However, he still had to pay a minimum wage. He
complained
What Marxist would deny that "incentives" affect behavior? Didn't Old
Whiskers say somewhere that an 800% return would draw forth capital
from the moon?
Doug
But what one earth has deciding that incentives rather than goals are more
important in determining the way the world works got anything to do with
rejecting Marxism or showing that there is something lacking in Marxism.?
Also, why is what Sowell notices inconsistent with considering goals to be
t;
Sent: Jul 2, 2004 3:31 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell
Mr. Sartesian writes:
>> As long as we understand each other.
>>
>> Anybody who obscures the real source of poverty and immiseration and then argues
>> that better
>> is worse is a
Mr. Sartesian writes:
>> As long as we understand each other.
>>
>> Anybody who obscures the real source of poverty and immiseration and then argues
>> that better
>> is worse is a hack.
>>
>> Don't know if that describes you personally.
It probably does. Do you mind if I use it for my epita
;
Sent: Jul 2, 2004 1:19 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell
Mr. Sartesian writes:
>> I am very careful before calling someone a hack. Somebody who makes purely
>> ethereal distinctions in order to obscure the ugly reality in order to
>> justify the
Charles Brown writes:
>> Sowell paints a picture of himself as having a rather shallow grasp of
>> Marxism, if the narrow experience he describes really changed his mind. I'm
>> pretty sure that there is no principle in Marxism that says that capitalists
>> won&#x
ot;objectivity." Would it
>> shock you if I said J. S. Mill was a hack, and a big one? Friedman is a
>> hack, and never hackier than when he criticized the IMF for its role in the
>> Asian and post-Asian financial collapse of 97-98.
Now I understand. Anybody who disagrees
>CB: Well, sufferin' suckatash, is he saying the
>government bureaucrats were Marxists ?
Many of them are. (present tense) If you get to know them, of course.
But, Charles... don't tell him that. Next thing you know, David Shemano
might be against unions. (It is rumored that organized labor migh
From: "David B. Shemano"
Some times you guys are just insufferable -- must you always resort to
caricature? Read the entire exchange!! The relevant factor wasn't that
minimum wage laws (not raising wages) reduce employment. It was the reaction
of the government bureaucrats to his suggestion of an
Sowell paints a picture of himself as having a rather shallow grasp of
Marxism, if the narrow experience he describes really changed his mind. I'm
pretty sure that there is no principle in Marxism that says that capitalists
won't lay people off in response to minimum wage hikes, if onl
l order entrusted with an infallible, ineffable doctrine. Is it
an accident that their conclusions invariably exalt the rationality of
privilege? Or does that just happen to be true? It may have been "painfully
clear" to Sowell that "as they pushed up minimum wage levels... employ
And one more time: The argument that is made and couched in pseudo-economic
terms, is not an argument, but an ideology where any mandatory increase in
benefits to the dispossessed is blamed for the eventual increase in social
misery. It is nothing but the argument for laissez-faire increases in
e
above, and
flat out against, every bourgeois political economist.
That's what I mean when I say hack.
- Original Message -
From: "David B. Shemano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell
> M
Kenneth Campbell wrote:
>
>
> The Marxist perspective might be that this is a false consciousness and
> wishing for the days of old ideologies (Santa Claus etc)... and people
> pay money for it because it eases their feelings of being less than they
> had thought they were (socially speaking). ? Ya
Mr. Shemano asks:
> how about a discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a Marxist
> perspective?<
individual prices can't be explained or predicted using Marx's labor theory of value
(more accurately, the law of value). Regular micro will do (though not the Chicago
variant).
I appreciate the distinction between rising wages and minimum wages,
David. Thanks.
>Now that I got that off my chest, I am off to see Simon and
>Garfunkel at the Hollywood Bowl. When I get back, how about a
>discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a
>Marxist perspective?
Peop
Mr. Sartesian writes:
>> It, the rise in wages, is not incompatible with increasing unemployment, but
>> neither is it incompatible with rising employment. Sowell, or whoever wants
>> to argue this point from the right, makes a superficial cause and effect
>> between w
It, the rise in wages, is not incompatible with increasing unemployment, but
neither is it incompatible with rising employment. Sowell, or whoever wants
to argue this point from the right, makes a superficial cause and effect
between wage rates and employment levels, where there is none.
And by
k hanly wrote:
"... the conclusion that minimum wages necessarily lead to greater
unemployment is surely not that evident..."
Indeed. Under rigorous "neoclassical" analysis it is easily demonstrated
that under monopsonistic or monopsonistically competitive labor
market conditions (ie., where the h
from his column on why journalists should study economics, one thing that strikes me
as defining Sowell as a "hack" is that his approach is so _a priori_. He doesn't have
to study _why_ black youth unemployment was so low during World War II. Instead, he
_knows_ that it
Apropos of the discussion on SOwell, I add the following from Greg Mahoney
at GWU
David Barkin
MEXICO
-- Forwarded Message ---
From: gmahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 14:00:56 -0400
Subject: RE: more on s.
Have you ever seen Sowell
From: "David B. Shemano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BTW, the Reason review of Doug Henwood's book is now online:
http://www.reason.com/0406/cr.co.that.shtml
Well that was two minutes wasted. I'd suggest that Reason critic Charles
Oliver hold onto his day job, in which he "covers local government for The
David wrote:
"The relevant factor wasn't that minimum wage laws (not raising wages)
reduce employment. It was the reaction of the government bureaucrats to
his suggestion of an empirical test to determine why employment was
falling, which led him to philosophically shift from the importance of
go
Doug Henwood writes (and others agree)
>> >What made you turn around?
>> >
>> >What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern
>> >in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was
>> >painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels
down world labor cost. Wal-Mart is a good buy for now.
Mr. Sowell tends to take partial expressions of the economy
and generalize, while it would be more useful to . . . say . . .
trace the development of labor in the auto industry from the time of Henry Fords
"Five Dollar A Day&q
ways to counteract these effects rather than
just accepting them. For example by nationalising industries and subsidising
them to ensure at lest a living wage etc. by putting controls on capital
flight etc.etc. Passages such as this just confirm that Sowell hasnt a clue
about Marxism .
Prima facie
Doug asked:
> So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market
> levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living
> conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of
> "the economy."
Like some present-day "socialists", he seems to thinks that using
Grant Lee wrote:
> The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away
from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html
David Shemano
From that interview:
"So you were a lefty once.
Through the decade of my 20s, I was a Marxist.
What made
In a message dated 7/1/2004 8:28:43 AM Central Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Mr.
Sowell is of course no one fool or "boy" . . . and most certainly not an
Uncle Tom . . . a characterization that can mean virtually anything
depending on usage.
Comment -
.
Gene Coyle
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Thomas
Sowell
June 29, 2004 /10 Tamuz, 5764
Excerpt
Â
"Just
as an artificially high price for wheat set by the government leads to
a chronic surplus of wheat, so an artificially high price for labor set
by the government leads
The
wonders of the Internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from
Marxism:
http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.htmlDavid
Shemano
Comment
Mr. Sowell is of course no one fool or "boy" . . . and
most certainly not an Uncle To
David Shemano said:
> The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away
from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html
>
> David Shemano
>
>From that interview:
"So you were a lefty once.
Through the decade of my 20s, I
The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism:
http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html
David Shemano
Thomas Sowell
June 29, 2004 /10 Tamuz, 5764
Excerpt
"Just as an artificially high price for wheat set by the government leads
to a chronic surplus of wheat, so an artificially high price for labor set by
the government leads to a surplus of labor â better known as unemployment.
&
---
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-
> From: Michael Perelman
> Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 8:11 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Sowell
>
>
> David makes a good point, but with so much money and
Charles Brown writes:
>> The answer , in general, is right where it seems to be. With very rare
>> exceptions (if Moore is really one), the right , not the left will get gigs
>> like Sowell's because of the right has money and the left doesn't, natch,
>>
I wrote: >> I'll let David define [conservative]. <<
David Shemano answers:
> A true conservative is somebody who agrees with me. That was easy.<
the Wikipedia has an interesting article on conservatism at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative. Here's the introduction:
>Conservatism or po
y, June 30, 2004 2:49 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Sowell
>
>
> Daniel Davies writes:
>
> >> David, I cannot help noticing that you have written close
> to 1000 words
> >> about what a fantastic chap Thomas Sowell is, and not a
Jim Devine writes:
>> Also, I don't know if Sowell is a careerist or not. I also wasn't saying that
>> conservatives
>> are wrong, though that's true. (Thanks for bringing that issue up!) They often
>> don't
>> believe in their own rhetoric.
Daniel Davies writes:
>> David, I cannot help noticing that you have written close to 1000 words
>> about what a fantastic chap Thomas Sowell is, and not a single word about
>> the actual (IMO lousy) boilerplate free trade hackwork that was forwarded to
>> the list.
As a Lefty myself, I have never really thought very much about whether
Sowell and Thomas really believe what they say or not. My criticism of them
is not based on their insincerety , but on the atrocious content of their
political positions in general and on racism in particular.
As a Black
el Perelman and Jim Devine are not given the public
prominence that Sowell is.
Michael Moore did creep up on them, as a sort of clown. I don't know all the
specifics of his financing. He comes out of the "alternative" newspapers (
small business) in Michigan. He is not in the monopol
mindset, but
the suspicion does seem legitimate for the movement conservatives, such as Sowell.
On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 06:26:09PM -0700, David B. Shemano wrote:
> To the extent this has any relevancy, I do not think this applies to Sowell and
> certainly does not apply to Thomas. Again
e's a big admixture of
feudalism and workers' control (control by the professors themselves, not the staff).
The mix depends on the college. It's interesting that those that are the most
capitalist (i.e., profit-seeking) in their principles are also the worst.
Also, I don't
David, I cannot help noticing that you have written close to 1000 words
about what a fantastic chap Thomas Sowell is, and not a single word about
the actual (IMO lousy) boilerplate free trade hackwork that was forwarded to
the list. This also, is a form of "argumentum ad hominem&
One more thing on Sowell and whether he is a hack. Ironically, he has an essay on his
website on writing and editing. Apparently, he is not fond of academic prose.
http://www.tsowell.com/About_Writing.html
David Shemano
Laurence Shute writes:
"I agree with both: Jim's analysis of Sowell's article was great. And some of Sowell's early stuff was quite good. For example, "Marx's 'Increasing Misery' Doctrine," American Economic Review, March 1960, pp. 111-12
Laurence Shute wrote:
>
>It
> looks like he made his right turn around then.
>
An interesting ambiguity. "Right turn" means "turn to the right" or the
"right turn to make." :-)
Carrol
I think that Sowell, like Powell, has Caribbean roots. Sometimes, they look down on
those whose ancestors were slaves here. I am sure someone here knows more about this
than I do.
Glen Lowry could not maintain his right wing discipline.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State
The conservatives _love_ affirmative action if it fits their needs.
Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell have benefited mightily by being right-wing _and_
Black. The conservatives can say "look -- we're good-hearted too. We've got a Black
man (or woman) on our side! There's no wa
ith both: Jim's analysis of Sowell's article was great.
And some of Sowell's early stuff was quite good. For example,
"Marx's 'Increasing Misery' Doctrine," American
Economic Review, March 1960, pp. 111-120. I think
I recall that Sowell had trouble finding a jo
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