from:"michael perelman via Marxism"

Re: [Marxism] 2008... Ten Years On

2018-09-15 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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On 1:09pm, Sat, Sep 15, 2018 Allen Ruff via Marxism <
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>
> Jerome Roos: "...In short, the global firestorm unleashed by the collapse
> of Lehman Brothers ten years ago has by no means subsided. Not only are the
> consequences of the financial crash still with us today, in the form of
> widening inequality, rising debt and crippling political instability, but
> the crisis of capitalism itself also persists and continues to wreak havoc
> across the globe, constantly changing shape as it makes its way from one
> disturbance to another….
>
> https://roarmag.org/essays/lehman-brothers-fallout-financial-crisis/
>
>
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[Marxism] Newton and alchemy again.

2016-04-09 Thread Michael Perelman via Marxism

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Newton's interest in alchemy is well known. I believe that Keynes
bought, at least some of his alchemical papers. As I mentioned in the
first post, Newton's interest in alchemy was hardly a secret.

Newton did have some strange ideas about science, such as popping out
his eyeball to learn more about vision.

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
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Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Isaac Newton and “junk science” | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2016-04-09 Thread Michael Perelman via Marxism

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Newton was obsessed with alchemy, which was not considered to be junk
science at the time. Instead, the government was doing everything
possible to support alchemists who seem to promise the answer to a
scarcity of money that was harming the economy. At the same time, the
alchemists shared some perspective with another junk science,
monetarism.  The monetarist alchemists kept their work secret because
they thought that if it became common knowledge that would be too much
gold which would cause inflation and harm the economy. However, they
wanted alchemy to create sufficient gold -- sort of like a Taylor rule
for the 17th century.

On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 7:20 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
>
> Today’s Washington Post has an article with the rather lurid title “Isaac
> Newton spent a lot of time on junk ‘science,’ and this manuscript proves
> it”. It turns out that he was “super into alchemy” as reporter Elahe Izadi
> puts it.
>
> full: https://louisproyect.org/2016/04/09/isaac-newton-and-junk-science/
>
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
www.michaelperelman.wordpress.com

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[Marxism] The inhuman priorities of capitalism.

2016-02-10 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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In this supposedly democratic country, governors in some states have the
right to replace local governments with an appointed "emergency manager."

The cruel behavior of authorities in Flint Michigan who switched the town's
water from Detroit's water supply to the toxic water of the Flint River
threatens the health of the town's population, especially the youngest
among them.  Most state officials (with the responsibility for protecting
the well-being of the public -- with some heroic exceptions) looked the
other way.

The purpose of shifting the water supply was to save money, but that will
prove to be unrealistic. The backlash from the damage to the public will
ultimately cost the town far more than any projected savings.

But, to be fair, the authorities did show some compassion.  When they
learned that the toxic water was harming automobile parts at a local
General Motors Plant, they provided the factory better water – a choice
that will cost the city $400,000 a year.  Of course, the costs will
ultimately fall on the city, which will be unable to cover that cost.  No
doubt the city will be expected to privatize or sell off its assets,
leaving the people of Flint stripped of the rudiments of a livable
environment.  Only the car parts will escape unscathed from this neoliberal
fiasco.

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

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Re: [Marxism] Richard Levins, R.I.P.?

2016-01-20 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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I hope that Wikipedia is wrong.

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:26 PM, Jim Farmelant via Marxism <
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>
> In my Facebook feed, I have been seeing reports that the Marxist
> scientist, Richard Levins, had passed away last night.
>
> Wikipedia seems to agree with that too, (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Levins).
>
> I haven't seen any other reports about this though.
>
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Private Intellectual - The New Yorker

2015-10-20 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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CBC Ideas podcast had an excellent documentary about him.

Scialabba

On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 11:36 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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> George Scialabba profile.
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-private-intellectual
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] U.S. Is Seen as Laggard...

2015-08-31 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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Both Louis & Ken are right.  Our future is desperate & Ken is right that we
have to be able to get people ready to work up.  The left has not been able
to figure out how to extend the dialogue.  I suspect culture, movies or
music, properly done, could open up some doors.

On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Louis Proyect said:
> The pure insanity of the capitalist system. Melting ice in the Arctic
> spurs drilling for more oil that will lead to more greenhouse gases. We
> are fucked.
>
> Ken Hiebert replies:
> There may be powerful reasons for despair, but I am sure Louis does not
> intend for us to give up.  Despair and resignation might cause some people
> to turn entirely to individual pursuits.  If I believed that there was no
> hope at all, I might be tempted to take the money and become a climate
> change denier.  What difference would it make, other than to make my life
> more comfortable while we wait for the end?
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: University of Illinois board to vote on $400, 000 for Chancellor Wise - Chicago Tribune

2015-08-11 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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Wise probably deserves the $. Under capitalism, high ranking people get
enormous compensation for failure. Here is a comment from The Confiscation
of American Prosperity (which someone told me is downloadable somewhere.

Within this corrupt culture of privilege, even the executives who run their
companies into the ground “deserve” lavish rewards. As Warren Buffett told
his
shareholders, “Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful payday
for a
CEO. Indeed, he can ‘earn’ more in that single day, while cleaning out his
desk,
than an American worker earns in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the
old
maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite,
the
all-too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure” (Buffett
2005).

On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 7:53 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

Thieves falling out. Chris Kennedy, the board member who pushed hardest
for firing Salaita (he is Bobby Kennedy's son), tells the Chicago Tribune
that Phyllis Wise, the chancellor who resigned in disgrace, should not get
a $400,000 retention bonus. (I got a $40,000 retention bonus from Columbia
University when I was terminated and deserved every penny.)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-university-of-illinois-phyllis-wise-bonus-20150810-story.html
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--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] Poll results: list members published by far-right

2015-08-10 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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Tom Keene gave me a hour-long interview on his show on Bloomberg radio.
Although he is quite conservative, he was able to converse with me without
any spoken disapproval. I got a lot of support form my appearance, but
then, he never invited me back.

On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 4:42 AM, Jeff via Marxism 
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 I'm not quite ready to announce the results of the poll yet, since I'm
 still waiting for all the replies to pour in, and don't want to conduct any
 sort of snap election.

 Again, please participate in the poll and report the approximate number (if
 greater than zero) of times you have appeared in a far-right publication or
 radio program. Then we will compare the number of such cases by Marxists on
 this list in comparison to certain other forces which superficially share
 some of our rhetoric. I will take responsibility for tallying the results
 and report them soon. Thanks in advance,

 - Jeff


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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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[Marxism] A Mini-Dictionary of Neoliberalism?

2015-07-28 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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Richard Parker coined the word neglectorate to describe the public's
alienation from the current dysfunctional political system.  Now that
economists have, for the most part relegated John Maynard Keynes to the
dustbin of history, the term Dickenysian seems to be appropriate for the
present conditions, which are becoming increasingly similar to Charles
Dickens' portrayal of the world he lived in.  The power of the bond market
in imposing its will on supposedly independent states, suggests that
bondage may be appropriate for expressing the power of capital.  Finally,
we could describe the current economic system as Crapitalism, which treats
ordinary people as crap.

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] Israel and Greece sign status of forces agreement

2015-07-23 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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And this a leftist government?  This is becoming absurd.  Does Iran
represent a serious threat to Greece.

On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 1:20 AM, Michael Karadjis via Marxism 
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 Israel and Greece sign status of forces agreement

 http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-Greece-sign-status-of-forces-agreement-409492
 Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos visited his Israeli counterpart
 Moshe Ya'alon at the Defense Ministry.
 Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos visits his Israeli counterpart Moshe
 Ya'alon at the Defense Ministry. (photo credit:ARIEL HERMONI / DEFENSE
 MINISTRY)
 Israel and Greece signed a status of forces accord in Tel Aviv on Sunday
 that offers legal defense to both militaries while training in the other’s
 country.

 Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos visited his Israeli counterpart
 Moshe Ya’alon at the Defense Ministry, where the accord was signed. Israel
 has only ever signed a similar accord with the US.

 During their meeting, Kammenos and Ya’alon discussed continued bilateral
 defense ties, and the latest regional situation.

 “We very much appreciate your visit here during a difficult period for
 Greece. This underlines the importance of relations between the countries,”
 Ya’alon said. “We wish the Greek people and Greece itself success in its
 effort to overcome the economic challenge. We pray for that since we
 believe Greece is a very important country, with a history and a
 contribution to the history of humanity.”

 Ya’alon paid tribute to joint training between the IDF and Greek military
 within Greece, adding that both countries have shared interests, and both
 are dealing with the impact of the agreement between world powers and Iran
 over its nuclear program.

 “We perceive Iran as a generator and central catalyst to regional
 insecurity through its support to terrorist elements in the Middle East,
 particularly Shi’ite terrorism, though not only Shi’ite. And of course, the
 Iranian ambition for regional hegemony leads the regime in Tehran to
 undermine the stability of [other] regimes, which creates a challenge for
 all of us,” Ya’alon said.

 Global terrorism is “also developing in our area, and is influencing the
 security situation in Europe as well. Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism.
 Today it is directed against someone else, and tomorrow it reaches you,” he
 added.

 Kammenos said the “Greek people are very close to the people in Israel,”
 adding that military bilateral relations are good, and that both countries
 will continue to build on them through joint training. Terror - ism and
 jihad, he added, are not just in the Middle East, but are also present in
 the Balkans and Europe.

 Greece is within range of Iranian missiles, he added. “If one Iranian
 missile makes its way to the Mediterranean, this could be the end of states
 in this region,” the Greek defense minister said.
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
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95929

530 898 5321
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[Marxism] Mary Fallon and me

2015-07-12 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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Mary is the governor of Oklahoma. She does not want to comply with the
Supreme Court of the state, which ruled that the display of the 10
Commandments must be removed from state property.  Her position is based on
her reading of the Constitution.  She explained,“You know, there are three
branches of our government. You have the Supreme Court, the legislative
branch and the people, the people and their ability to vote,” she
explained. “So I’m hoping that we can address this issue in the legislative
session and let the people of Oklahoma decide.”


Unfortunately, Mary got the three branches confused. Anybody who follows
political affairs knows that the three branches are Wall Street, the
corporate media, and the 1%.


Keep up good work, Mary.

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] Assad-friendly Al-Akhbar: Walid Jumblatt Mediates Agreement with Nusra Front allegedly involving forced conversions

2015-06-21 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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I think that I recall Jumblatt writing in Monthly Review back in the 1970s?


On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 6:16 AM, Michael Karadjis via Marxism 
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 Amith, Al Akhbar is a cesspit and I would tend, as a rule, to discount
 approximately 90 percent of any article you find there, and this one is no
 exception.

 That said, it is certainly true that Nusra in a part of Idlib has imposed
 a regime of religious conversion on local Druze communities, as I wrote in
 my article last week on the Druze, the situation in the south, the massacre
 of 20 Druze by a Nusra unit in Idlib etc. Not sure you saw my article which
 I sent here, because you say the events around the massacre and the
 reactions from other Syrian rebels are blurry. My article documented all
 the condemnations from the Syrian revolutionary forces, and much else on
 the issue:

 Revolutionary Forces Throughout Syria condemn Nusra’s massacre of Druze
 Villagers:
 https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/revolutionary-forces-throughout-syria-condemn-nusras-massacre-of-druze-villagers/

 By the way, the Tunisian Nusra commander referred to in the Al Akhbar
 article, Tunisi, as involved in the forced conversion stuff, was the same
 commander involved in the massacre. Nusra has now removed him and is
 allegedly interrogating him and promise justice; about that we will see.
 But it's too early to know whether his removal will affect the oppression
 of the Druze in that region. It is significant that Druze commander
 participated with the revolutionary forces in the liberation of Idlib city
 several months ago. It is significant that reports say the Druze are not
 oppressed by any of the other militia in other parts of Idlib, whether FSA
 (of course) or non-Nusra Islamist.

 On the role of Jumblatt, that's all a little difficult to make out. I see
 no reason why a national Druze leader in Lebanon would willingly seel his
 fellow Druze to oppression and the Akhbar article's claim that he called on
 Idlib's Druze to return to Islam, ie become Sunni, would seem
 self-evidently absurd. My impression is that following Nusra's defeats of
 the main larger FSA coalitions in Idlib over November 2014-January 2015,
 the relationship of forces is bad in certain parts of Idlib where Nusra
 dominates, and Jumblatt keeps negotiating with Nusra from the point of view
 that Nusra is strong and the Druze community in that region is tiny and
 therefore he tries to get the best rotten deal he can fro the time being.

 As you say, Jumblatt has been alternatively enemy and ally of the Assad
 regimes fro decades (his father was murdered by Assad senior back in 1977,
 when he was prominent in the Lebanese left which the Assad regime invaded
 Lebanon to fight against the previous year).

 In recent years he has been back to enemy, and from 2011 has solidly
 supported the uprising. He believes, not wrongly, that an alliance between
 a tiny minority (Druze 3% of Syrians) and either the Assad regime or Israel
 (now angling to be the minority defender) would be suicidal for the Druze
 and so calls on the militant anti-Assad forces among the Syrian Druze
 (again, see my article) to go the whole way, quit their current armed
 'neutrality' and declare solidly for the revolution. This is much more
 politically feasible in the south where the secular FSA Southern Front is
 dominant in Daraa (which adjoins the Druze province Suweida) and Nusra is
 weak; yet ironically it has been in the north where Druze have more openly
 fought with the revolution (perhaps their smaller numbers make the option
 of neutrality less possible), which makes Nusra'a actions there all the
 more criminal and counterrevolutionary.

 Meanwhile, this article gives yet another version of current Jumblatt
 activities, depicting him secretly collaborating with both Hezbollah and
 Israel to arm the Druze in Hermon in the south against Nusra; in the
 machiavellian world of daily shifts in alliances and interests in that
 region, anything is impossible. Eyes on Israel seeing the opportunity to
 create a new buffer in south Syria to defend the current Golan buffer
 it stole 50 years ago:
 http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israel-Druse-Syria-alliance-gets-murkier-406067



 -Original Message- From: A.R. G via Marxism

 http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/24027

Re: [Marxism] In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution

2015-06-20 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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The most interesting element of this article is the mention of Bruce P.
Jackson, who led the charge for the NATO expansion, which was intended to
include the Ukraine..

Here is what I wrote about him the The Confiscation of American Prosperity:


Bruce Jackson, whose career, deserves an entire book, seems to personify
this brand of insider military Keynesianism. Jackson was born into the
stratosphere of the military-industrial complex. His father, William
Harding Jackson, was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency
from 1951 to 1956.
Perhaps then nobody should be surprised that the Army assigned a young
intelligence officer of such noble pedigree to work in the Pentagon as a
military intelligence officer in the 1980s. During the Reagan and Bush
Senior
administrations, he labored under leading Pentagon hawks, such as Richard
Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney.  Jackson left the military to begin
a brief career in investment banking with Lehman Brothers between 1990 and
1993—no doubt with the expectation that his Pentagon contacts would prove
valuable. Jackson also joined in with the Project for a New American
Century (Project for a New American Century 2001). Indeed, Jackson’s wide
network must have paid off. In 1993, he catapulted himself into a high
position with a leading military contractor,Martin Marietta, as Director
for Corporate Development Projects and Director for Strategic Planning.  In
1995,Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed.  At the newly formed Lockheed
Martin, Jackson assumed the position of Director of Defense Planning and
Analysis. In 1997 the company promoted him first to Director of Global
Development and finally to Vice President for Strategy and Planning.
The newly formed Lockheed Martin was the ideal employer for Bruce Jackson.
Although the company may be most famous for selling the government $640
toilet seats, such trivial transactions are nothing for the most powerf l
weapons contractor in the world. Tim Weiner, the New York Times’s crack
reporter on the defense beat, sketched out the breadth of Lockheed’s ties
with the government: Lockheed Martin doesn’t run the United States. But it
does help run a breathtakingly big part of it. Over the last decade,
Lockheed, the nation’s largest military contractor, has built a formidable
information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the
post office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social
Security checks and counts the United States census.  It runs space flights
and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more
computer code than Microsoft. . . . It creates rockets for nuclear
missiles, sensors for spy satellites and scores of other military and
intelligence systems. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency
might have difficulty functioning without the contractor’s expertise. But
in the post-9/11 world, Lockheed has become more than just the biggest
corporate cog in what Dwight D. Eisenhower
called the military-industrial complex. It is increasingly putting its
stamp on the nation’s military policies, too. . . .“It’s impossible to tell
where the government ends and Lockheed begins,” said Danielle Brian of the
Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that
monitors government contracts. “The fox isn’t guarding the henhouse. He
lives there.” (Weiner 2004).

In 2005, Lockheed Martin earned $37.2 billion. A mere 2 percent of its
revenue came from sales to the private sector. Another 13 percent of its
sales came from foreign governments, mostly close military allies to the
United States, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Chile. Here
again, influence with the U.S. government pays healthy dividends. As Bob
Elrod, a senior executive in Lockheed’s fighter plane division, explained,
all of these foreign sales are guaranteed by the U.S. government (St. Clair
2005, 150).

On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 8:43 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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 NY Times, May 18 2015
 In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution
 By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

 KIEV, Ukraine — The country is on the cliff of bankruptcy. A spate of
 politically motivated killings and mysterious suicides of former government
 officials has sown fear in the capital. Infighting has begun to splinter
 the

Re: [Marxism] Orange is the new black/freakonomics/abortion/neomalthusianism

2015-06-13 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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check a website called The Shame Project on Levitt.

On Sat, Jun 13, 2015 at 9:01 PM, Shalva Eliava via Marxism 
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 Was just watching the first episode of OiB on Netflix and was struck by
 the scene where one inmate lectures the stereotypical evangelical white
 trash prisoner on the virtue of aborting children that are destined to be
 poor, drug-addicted, and violent criminals (literally citing the book
 Freakonomics as her source) since it reduced violent crime in The US over
 the long term. I was wondering whether anyone on the left has responded in
 kind to this neomalthusian argument?  (Not abortion or the right to
 abortion - which I support - but this libertarianesque argument about
 sparing us from the malevolent, brutish offspring of the poor


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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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[Marxism] The Dysfunctionality of Slavery and Neoliberalism

2015-05-18 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

We are all patriotic. Let's start with the Star Spangled Banner.

You all are familiar with some of it, but perhaps some of you may not know
this particular stanza: Don't worry, I won't sing it:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight, or
the gloom of the grave. Keep in mind that the militias referred to in the
Second Amendment seem to have been the groups that hunt down escaped slaves.

The elevation of slave owners' property rights easily morphed into the
expansive property rights of those who hired wage labor. This power
allowed capitalists to call upon the state rather than militias of slave
captors to keep workers' rights and wages in check.

This arrangement supposedly served the public interest because low wages
mean high profits, which, in turn meant increased investment, which
translates into shared prosperity, presumably even including otherwise
downtrodden labor -- a bourgeois version of the unity of opposites.

https://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/the-dysfunctionality-of-slavery-and-neoliberalism/

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

Re: [Marxism] Greece: leaving the euro?

2015-03-08 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

In my visit to Greece a while ago, I had the opportunity to meet with some
Greek economists, including one who has a high position in the Government.
They told me that the exit from the Euro came from Papandreau to frighten
voters about the prospect of a Syriza victory. That was not their
intention.

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Dayne Goodwin via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

Opinion: Time for Greece to plan its exodus from the euro

Athens has no leverage in debt negotiations without a 'Plan B'

by Darrell Delamaide, Political Capital column
MarketWatch [Dow Jones subsidiary]
March 6, 2015

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Greece must now plan on a way to exit the
euro if it is to have any chance of staying.

This is not a conundrum; it is the way negotiation works.

The new government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was forced to
backtrack last month on its election pledges to get its foreign debt
reduced and reverse austerity because it had no plausible alternative
to European Union intransigence on extending the bailout.

{The strategy of hoping to achieve radical change within the
institutional framework of the common currency has come to an end.
Costas Lapavitsas}

The only viable alternative would be to exit the euro, default on the
debt and suffer the consequences, and Athens was not ready to do that.

This Plan B cannot be a bluff and at this point it is better than
even odds it will be the plan Greece will have to follow.

Tsipras and his finance minister, Yannis Varoufakis, have so far
argued in their Plan A that Greece can stay in the euro, but pinned
that belief on Germany and other EU members being reasonable.

Germany -- as well as the European Commission, the European Central
Bank, and the International Monetary Fund -- made it amply clear in the
initial round of negotiations that they have no intention of being
reasonable in the way Tsipras and Varoufakis believe they should.

It was always a fairly delusional assumption that German leaders would
suddenly see the light and embrace an enlightened Keynesian solution
to the economic and social crisis in Greece. Berlin and Brussels
remain pitiless and more convinced than ever of the rightness of their
destructive neoliberal policies.

The only way Greece can regain its sovereignty -- which is essentially
what Tsipras's Syriza party pledged to voters in its rise to power --
is to reclaim its sovereign rights, and especially control of its
currency and banking system.

The consequences of defaulting on the country's debt would be
dramatic, but relatively short-lived compared to the guaranteed
long-term misery of the EU austerity program.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/time-for-greece-to-plan-its-exodus-from-the-euro-2015-03-06

Greece: the Rocky Road Ahead
by Cillian Doyle
Counterpunch
March 6, 2014
. . .
So when Syriza and its creditors sit down around the table they will
need to show that this time they are determined to end the condition
of debt slavery within the Eurozone or without. They will only be able
to win the kind of debt restructuring that Varoufakis has spoken of if
they have a viable Grexit strategy which the European establishment
believes they are prepared to use. Even mainstream figures like Paul
Krugman have posed the pertinent question 'What freedom of movement
does a Greek government have if it is not prepared to leave the
Eurozone?

There are huge risks involved in this, something that the Syriza
leadership will be well aware of. But if they cannot convince or
coerce their creditors into some kind of debt forgiveness then they
may figure that the risk of Grexit is worth the reward if the
alternative is decades of debt and deflation.

So whilst Syriza may never have had a mandate for Grexit, their
attention must now turn towards winning one.
. . .
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/06/greece-the-rocky-road-ahead

Ending austerity in Greece: time for plan B?
by Jerome Roos
ROAR magazine
February 26, 2015
. . .
The most important challenge, in this respect, will not necessarily be
economic in nature but rather social, political and psychological.
Before Greece can ever be liberated from its state of debt servitude
and its plight of permanent austerity, its government will first need
to be in a

[Marxism] State of Power 2015: An Annual Anthology on Global Power and Resistance

2015-01-25 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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This is a collection of articles, despite the inclusion of one of my own,  How
Economics Bolstered Power by Obscuring it.

You can download the book at

file:///D:/TNI_State-of-Power-2015%20(1).pdf


-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Against football | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2014-11-17 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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I sent Louis a copy of my incomplete manuscript of a new book in which a
large section reviews the history of football as part of the project of
muscular Christianity to toughen up upper class white boys to be more
suitable for the military, which is why for quite some time Harvard was the
dominant football team. Teddy Roosevelt was a big part of this.  After a
while, so many players got injured and killed, that Teddy Roosevelt called
a conference in the White House to change the rules a bit.  Earlier, she
had dismissed the injuries as a reasonable price to pay for the process of
toughening up young men.

On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
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 On 11/16/14 4:41 PM, Wythe Holt jr. wrote:

 Thanks for this good sense, Louis.  Football -- which unfortunately I
 like to watch -- breeds violence and disregard of human health through its
 practices, through the devotion of all connected with the sport to violence
 and to hitting (the euphemism always used by football people for what
 they teach players to do to other players, usually as violently as
 possible), through its macho pseudo-manliness mantras and obedience
 systems.  I hope that all of this about permanent injuries, concussions,
 and the (often sexual) violence wreaked upon family members and the young
 coming into the sport -- as you so rightly emphasize -- brings about the
 demise of this vicious and hurtful sport.  Wythe


 The latest on all this.

 NY Times, Nov. 14 2014
 Florida State Player Fled Crash but Got Only Traffic Tickets
 By MIKE McINTIRE and WALT BOGDANICH

 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- In the early morning hours of Oct. 5, as this college
 town was celebrating another big football victory by Florida State
 University, a starting cornerback on the team drove his car into the path
 of an oncoming vehicle driven by a teenager returning home from a job at
 the Olive Garden.

 Both cars were totaled. But rather than remain at the scene as the law
 requires, the football player, P. J. Williams, left his wrecked vehicle in
 the street and fled into the darkness along with his two passengers,
 including Ronald Darby, the team's other starting cornerback.

 The Tallahassee police responded to the off-campus accident, eventually
 reaching out to the Florida State University police and the university's
 athletic department.

 By the next day, it was as if the hit and run had never happened.

 The New York Times looked into how the police handled the case, reviewing
 law enforcement records and interviewing witnesses, lawyers, the police and
 a university representative. The examination found that Mr. Williams,
 driving with a suspended license, had been given a break by the Tallahassee
 police, who initially labeled the accident a hit and run, a criminal act,
 but later decided to issue Mr. Williams only two traffic tickets.
 Afterward, the case did not show up in the city's public online database of
 police calls -- a technical error, the police said.

 A starting cornerback for the Florida State University football team left
 the scene of a collision on Oct. 5 but was not charged with a hit-and-run,
 an examination by The New York Times found. That contrasts with another
 case in the same area in the same month.

 Mr. Williams eventually returned to the scene. But Tallahassee officers
 did not test him for alcohol. Nor did their report indicate whether they
 asked if he had been drinking or why he had fled -- logical questions, since
 the accident occurred at 2:37 a.m. The report also minimized the impact of
 the crash on the driver of the other car, Ian Keith, by failing to indicate
 that his airbag had deployed -- an important detail, because Mr. Keith said
 in an interview that the airbag had cut and bruised his hands.

 The university police, who lacked jurisdiction, nevertheless sent two
 ranking officers -- including the shift commander -- to the scene. Yet they
 wrote no report about their actions that night. Florida State dismissed the
 role of its officers in the episode as too minor to require a report or to
 be entered into their own online police log, comparing it to an instance
 when campus officers responded to a baby opossum falling from a tree.

 The car accident, previously unreported by the news media, comes amid
 heightened national scrutiny of

[Marxism] The Anarchy of Globalization

2014-09-28 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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*The Anarchy of Globalization: Local and Global, Intended and
Unintended Consequences*

Originally posted on unsettling economics
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/the-anarchy-of-globalization-local-and-global-intended-and-unintended-consequences
:

I am going to give a keynote lecture for a conference on the local effects
of globalization in Turkey

Here are a few early sentences to give a sense of my talk.

GLOBAL https://michaelperelman.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/global.doc

View original
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/the-anarchy-of-globalization-local-and-global-intended-and-unintended-consequences





Here is the url of what I have written:

https://michaelperelman.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/global.doc


-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
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Re: [Marxism] Professor Salaita, Chancellor Wise

2014-09-08 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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As a faculty member at Chico, I had only one conversation with Stan Cazier.
 It was quite weird.  A student, a nice guy, who came to my house a few
times, and who was in the Army reserves, approach me very nervously before
my class. He explained that I knew that he was in the engineering part of
the reserves and that he had some plastique explosives.  He wanted to know
what I think we should bomb. I told him I wasn't interested, but I related
my experience to Cazier.  His only reply was to ask me several times why I
was discussing bombs with my class. I got nowhere telling him that bombing
was not part of my classroom discussion, but I never got through to him.

He was a nice guy. Pretty ineffectual as a president. A devout Mormon, who
is not about to take any controversial positions on anything.

I also flew cross-country in a seat next to Del Gardner. He was very tied
in with California agribusiness interests. We spoke for a while, but we had
nothing in common other than our connections with the University of
California Berkeley.

On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 10:37 PM, Dayne Goodwin via Marxism 
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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 Makes me think of a university administrator who was president of
 California State at Chico from 1971-1979 and president of Utah State
 University from 1979-1992.  Stanford Cazier was Vice-Provost at USU in 1970
 and was known as the liberal' within the university administration when i
 met with him and asked him to sign a petition to the Nixon
 administration/attorney general to reconsider their refusal to let Ernest
 Mandel into the U.S.

 Cazier squirmed out of signing using the argument that because he wasn't an
 economist he didn't know anything about Mandel or his legitimacy.  If the
 chair of the Economics Deptartment, B. Delworth Gardner, would sign the
 petitiion, then he would, Cazier said.  I was back the same day with
 Gardner's signature on the petition but Cazier still refused to sign.

 In the fall of 1971 Cazier began his tenure as president of Cal State at
 Chico and i found myself working at the North California Peace Action
 Coalition office in San Francisco asking for funds and endorsement of the
 upcoming fall 1971 antiwar demonstration.  I took some pleasure in getting
 through all the secretaries and telling Cazier on the phone that i was
 Dayne Goodwin who had talked with him a year ago at USU about signing the
 petition for Ernest Mandel and i was calling to see if he would care to
 endorse and contribute to the upcoming antiwar demonstration.  He didn't
 hang up on me but of course he said no.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleindienst_v._Mandel
 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1969/nov/20/the-mandel-case
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Cazier

 On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 10:37 PM, michael yates via Marxism 
 marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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  Professor Salaita has been dealt a serious blow, and he deserves whatever
  support we can muster. I have been reading posts on some other lists
 about
  what a pig Chancellor Wise is. No doubt true. However, I posted this to
  another list,in the interest of telling the truth that all chancellors
 are
  pigs:
 
 
 
  Top college administrators are no different than their corporate
  counterparts. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get these jobs,
  and to do so, you either have to be a pig or willing to become one. I
 never
  met a boss I liked, and my college bosses were no different. Whatever
  academic values might be these days, you can be sure that administrators
  almost always will be willing to compromise them or abandon them
 altogether.
 
  As tenure disappears, thanks in no small part to the many pigs among the
  tenured faculty, especially those who lust after administrative posts,
  academic freedom will disappear too. Constant struggles will be necessary
  to achieve even the victories gained so far in the Salaita case. How
 often
  will it be that a similar situation arises?
 
  In 45 years of teaching, I knew but a handful of principled faculty,
  people who would make a personal sacrifice to uphold academic freedom,
 for
  example, and not a single administrator. Right from the Chancellor down
 to
  the department chairpersons. The default position for a principled
  professor is to write a letter. So how likely are the necessary

[Marxism] Exclusive: Israel's Video Justifying Destruction of a Gaza Hospital Was From 2009

2014-09-06 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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truth-out.org

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Coming Race War Won't Be About Race | TIME

2014-08-20 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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The most amazing thing about this article: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  The photo
suggests that he was actually in Ferguson.  While other former athletes
rarely show much social awareness, he is different.


On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 5:33 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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 ==


 The U.S. Census Report finds that 50 million Americans are poor. Fifty
 million voters is a powerful block if they ever organized in an effort to
 pursue their common economic goals. So, it's crucial that those in the
 wealthiest One Percent keep the poor fractured by distracting them with
 emotional issues like immigration, abortion and gun control so they never
 stop to wonder how they got so screwed over for so long.

 One way to keep these 50 million fractured is through disinformation.
 PunditFact's recent scorecard on network news concluded that at Fox and Fox
 News Channel, 60 percent of claims are false. At NBC and MSNBC, 46 percent
 of claims were deemed false. That's the news, folks! During the Ferguson
 riots, Fox News ran a black and white photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
 with the bold caption: Forgetting MLK's Message/Protestors in Missouri
 Turn to Violence. Did they run such a caption when either Presidents Bush
 invaded Iraq: Forgetting Jesus Christ's Message/U.S. Forgets to Turn Cheek
 and Kills Thousands?

 How can viewers make reasonable choices in a democracy if their sources of
 information are corrupted? They can't, which is exactly how the One Percent
 controls the fate of the Ninety-Nine Percent.

 full: http://time.com/3132635/ferguson-coming-race-war-class-warfare/
 
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 perelman3%40gmail.com




-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com

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[Marxism] Extended Interview Regarding my New Book

2014-07-21 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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Tom O'Brien is a very knowledgeable and insightful interviewer.  The URL
for earlier interviews on his program is

http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-27T15_00_18-07_00

The URL for the interview is

http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/enclosure/2014-06-27T15_00_18-07_00.mp3

By the way, the latest title of the book is Work, the Economy, and Economic
Ideology: And Exploratory Political Economy of the Dangerous and
Paradoxical Interactions of these Three Faulty Pillars of Society.  I would
very much appreciate any criticism and suggestions about the material
discussed in this interview. Thank you very much.

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
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[Marxism] The Ideological Fraud of Adam Smith, beginning with the pin factory

2014-06-19 Thread michael perelman via Marxism

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I just posted the paper I will give tomorrow at the History of Economics
meetings. The Ideological Fraud of Adam Smith, beginning with the pin
factory. I hope you enjoy reading what a fraud he was.

http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/the-ideological-fraud-of-adam-smith-beginning-with-the-pin-factory-2/

Here is the start:

8, 1763, while he was explaining to his Glasgow students the importance of
the law and government:

They maintain the rich in the possession of their wealth against the
violence and rapacity of the poor, and by that means preserve that useful
inequality in the fortunes of mankind which naturally and necessarily
arises from the various degrees of capacity, industry, and diligence in the
different individuals. [Smith 1762 1766, p. 338]

In order to justify this inequality, Smith told his students that an
ordinary day labourer ... has more of the conveniences and luxuries than an
Indian [presumably Native American] prince at the head of 1,000 naked
savages (Smith 1762 1766, p. 339). But then the next day, Smith suddenly
shifted gears, almost seeming to side with the violent and rapacious poor:

The labour and time of the poor is in civilized countries sacrificed to
the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The landlord is maintained
in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is
supported by his exactions from the industrious merchant and the needy who
are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money.
But every savage has the full enjoyment of the fruits of his own labours;
there are no landlords, no usurers, no tax gatherers [T]he poor labourer
... has all the inconveniences of the soil and season to struggle with, is
continually exposed to the inclemency of the weather and the most severe
labour at the same time. Thus he who as it were supports the whole frame of
society and furnishes the means of the convenience and ease of all the rest
is himself possessed of a very small share and is buried in obscurity. He
bears on his shoulders the whole of mankind, and unable to sustain the
weight of it is thrust down into the lowest parts of the earth from whence
he supports the rest. In what manner then shall we account for the great
share he and the lowest persons have of the conveniences of life? [Smith
1762 1766, pp. 340 41]

Smith's train of thought is confusing. First, the law is needed to
constrain the fury of the poor; then the market provides for the poor very
well; followed by the wretched state of the people who worked on the land
the least fortunate of the workers. For his grand finale, after decrying
the small share of the poor, Smith curiously veers off to ask what
accounts for the great share that these same people have. His answer
should come as no surprise to a modern reader of Adam Smith The division
of labour amongst different hands can alone account for this (Smith 1762
1766, p. 341).

By March 30, Smith was confident enough about his success in finessing the
challenge of class conflict that he became uncharacteristically unguarded
in openly taking notice of the importance of workers' knowledge:

But if we go into the work house of any manufacturer in the new works
at Sheffield, Manchester, or Birmingham, or even some towns in Scotland,
and enquire concerning the machines, they will tell you that such or such
an one was invented by some common workman. [Smith 1762 1766, p. 351]

Smith was too careful an ideologue to include such material in his
published work without any hand wringing about inequities and the
importance of workers' knowledge. Instead, he introduced readers of The
Wealth of Nations to his delightful picture of the division of labor in his
simple pin factory:

... a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour
has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the
machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of
labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost
industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But
in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole
work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of
which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the
wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth
grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two
or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to