To Doug:
This is a brief response to your November 9th mail.
First, I would like to correct an error in first column (error
was due to Excel's calculations). Correct table appears below with real
minimum wage added.
Variable: 1950-59 1960-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-94
X1 2.06 2.36 7.08 5.55 3.64
X2 4.51 4.78 6.21 7.27 6.50
X3 233.70 284.7 301.7 270.4 256.00
X5 4.88 6.24 6.12 5.00 4.67*
X1 = Inflation rate, average annual
X2 = Unemployment rate, average annual
X3 = Weekly earnings in 1982 dollars, average annual
X5 = Minimum wage in 1995 dollars, average annual
(*) 1990-95 average
I couldn't make much sense out of part of your comments.
Especially the part, "If you want to use a martial analogy, it's like the
seemingly gratuitous massacre the US conducted during the Gulf War,
incinerating everyone on the road out of Kuwait. Completely unnecessary
in military terms perhaps, but from the warriors' point of view, an
emphatic way of saying 'you lose!'"
As for the substance of your comment, I disagree strongly with
it. You say, "I said 'total' victory, i.e. the complete humiliation of
your opponents. There are still unions; there are still minimum wage
laws; there are still AFDC and Medicaid." Yes there are still minimum
wage laws, but do they protect those workers (there are millions of them)
who earn the lowest wage? Above table, variable X5, average minimum wage
with 1995 purchasing power is lower than the 1950s amount. Actually this
aggregate table is misleading a little bit. Minimum wage reached the
highest level in 1968, $7.15, and the lowest in 1989, $4.20.
As for your other points, the welfare reform in the Congress
shows us that there will be AFDC only in name, and that goes for
"Medicaid" too. Who are going to defend the interests of these groups in
Congress against the Republican onslaught supported by some Democrats?
My main contention was that the victory of capital over labor is
fait accompli. I tried to give a theoretical reason and empirical
evidence. A conciliatory politics by the US labor through accommodation
(a policy is best described the philosophy of one-half of a loaf of bread
is better than none, a quarter... is better than none, a tenth is better
than none,..., and finally the crumbs are better than none. Such logic
takes us nowhere.) prepared the present situations. You seem to endorse
that by saying that we still have unions, minimum wage laws, AFDC,
Medicaid, etc. even though those programs have been cut, and labor unions
are no longer as powerful as they once used to be. Capital is now after
labor's fringe benefits (i.e., retirement, health care, etc.). How the
unions are going to defend themselves? With what weapon? Do they expect
support from the congress? From the people? Weakened by numbers (10-12
million union members) and economic and political power the unions are no
match for the capital who is well-organized politically and economically.
Capital understands the importance of politics in their struggle over the
labor. But does the labor understand and organize accordingly?
I wish we have a debate on these questions rather than "Shalom"
debate, a debate that has not advanced a theory of our understanding of
the problem in the region and therefore provided a solution to it. It was
a sterile and emotional debate, which regurgitated the known facts. Can
any participant of that debate offer a reasonble solution to
Palestenian/Israeli conflict, a solution that is just and durable peace
between them?
The two quotes from Marx below are important, because, I believe,
radicals in general and Marxists in particular, follow a tradition which
is based on class analysis of events. We use this methodology (wherever
possible we try to improve it) to analyze economic-political-social
events. I offer these quotes for elaboration of my view.
"The task of philosophy is to apprehend and comprehend what is,
rather than what ought to be."
"Since it is not for us to create a plan for the future that will
hold for all time, all the more surely what we contemporaries have to do
is the uncompromising critical evaluation of all that exists,
uncompromising in the sense that our criticism fears neither its own
results nor the conflict with the powers that be."
By the way, class-struggle does not seem to be popular among liberals
and among some radicals too. I notice, our PEN writers (most of them) are not
signing with an ending clich of "In struggle." I do not know whether or not
this shows that they don't believe in class struggle any more.
In struggle,
Fikret Ceyhun
Dept. of Economics e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Univ. of North Dakota voice: (701)777-3348 office
University Station, Box 8369 (701)772-5135 home
Grand Forks, ND 58202 fax: (701)777-5099
