[PEN-L:783] Re: A simple slogan
On Wed, 11 Oct 1995, Tom Walker wrote: JUBILEE 2000 1. sustainable yield resource management. 2. limitation of working time (shorter work week). 3. periodic, universal cancellation of debt. I'd concentrate on the 30-hour work week... +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | OCTOBER 16 - 22 : TV TURNOFF WEEK| +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | Jim Jaszewski [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Public Key available. | | http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ab975/Profile.html | +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
[PEN-L:784] Visiting Fellowship at Oxford 1996-97
Apologies for cross-posting - I am sending details of a Visiting Fellowship which is being advertised by the Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics and Society at Mansfield College, Oxford. The details are below - MANSFIELD COLLEGE, OXFORD OXFORD CENTRE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, ETHICS SOCIETY SUN LIFE VISITING RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP 1996-7 The Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics and Society (OCEES) proposes to elect a Visiting Research Fellow for the academic year 1996-7. The Fellowship is intended for a scholar who is usually based at another university in the UK or overseas, who is already provided with financial support, and who wishes to pursue academic study and research within a multi-disciplinary research centre. The Fellow will be eligible for a housing allowance of up to stlg4000, and up to stlg1000 for research expenses. The Fellow will also be a member of the Senior Common Room with dining rights. Application forms are available from the Project Administrator at OCEES, Mansfield College, Oxford, OX1 3TF, UK before 15 December 1995. Final applications must be received no later than 1 February 1996 including the names and addresses of three referees. Email enquiries: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bhaskar Vira Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics and Society Mansfield College Oxford OX1 3TF Phone: 44 - 1865 - 284660 Fax: 44 - 1865 - 270886 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:786] General Strike
Here in Ontario, talk is growing of a general strike against the new neoliberal provincial government. It'll be a while yet, and I don't have too many unrealistic expectations of _overwhelming_ compliance (I think), but the recent well-covered success of the French general strike has _me_ encouraged! : My own wish is that people in as many US states and canadian provinces as possible co-ordinate their activities and hold general strikes everywhere at the same time. The effect would be far larger than just one or a few regions going it alone. Anybody here from France who could fill us in on the details of the French `Day of Protest'? Maybe give us a few pointers? I suppose the upcoming `Million Man March' on Washington D.C. will give us some idea of the possibilities in the near future... +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | OCTOBER 16 - 22 : TV TURNOFF WEEK| +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | Jim Jaszewski [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Public Key available. | | http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ab975/Profile.html | +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
[PEN-L:787] Re: Bill Mitchell and localism
On Wed, 11 Oct 1995, bill mitchell wrote: the things that have to become local are food production for a start. the old style soviet planning system encouraged broad acre farming of the worst kind. it goes by another name - capitalist farming - rape and pillage the soil and the air. more and more, non-local food is creeping into our lives. it is done via destructive processing and packaging. packaging is an industry which would be largely doomed in a new marxist system if i was the boss. Louis Proyect: As part of their ongoing critique of "Soviet socialism", market socialists blame the economic woes of the former Soviet Union on "planning." Stalin and his clique of rulers did not "plan" the Soviet economy. They had no use for engineers, statisticians or economists. When Peter Palchinsky, the subject of Loren Graham's essential "Ghost of the Executed Engineer", objected to Stalin's capriciousness, the tyrant had him executed. Stalin's industrialization policies were identical to his approach to Soviet military defense: irrational, stupid and self- destructive. Let us put Stalin's policies into context. In the mid 1920's Bukharin and Stalin were allied against the Left Opposition, which included Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Bukharin and Stalin were for tolerating the growth of capitalist agriculture. The Left Opposition favored rapid industrialization, a planned economy and steep taxation on Kulaks, the wealthy peasants, in order to finance the state sector. Stalin and Bukharin triumphed and plowed ahead with their rightist policies. However, in the late 1920's, the rich peasants began to resist the Soviet government by withholding grain. Stalin grew alarmed, and lurched wildly to the left. He declared war on the Kulaks and appropriated many of the superficial features of the program of the Left Opposition. In a few short years, everybody figured out that Stalin was making a mockery of the platform of the Left Opposition on all fronts. The area, of course, that concerns us in this article is the planned economy. Did Stalin favor a planned economy? History tells us otherwise. The Soviet government announced the first five year plan in 1928. Stalin loyalists, like Krzhizanovksy and Strumlin, who headed Gosplan, the ministery of planning, worried about the excess rigidity of this plan. They noted that the success of the plan was based on 4 factors: 1) five good consecutive crops, 2) more external trade and help than in 1928, 3) a "sharp improvement" in overall economic indicators, and 4) a smaller ration than before of military expenditures in the state's total expenditures. How could anybody predict five consecutive good crops in the USSR? The plan assumed the most optimistic conditions and nobody had a contingency plan to allow for failure of any of the necessary conditions. Bazarov, another Stalin loyalist in Gosplan, pointed to another area of risk: the lack of political cadres. He warned the Gosplan presidium in 1929, "If you plan simultaneously a series of undertakings on such a gigantic scale without knowing in advance the organizational forms, without having cadres and without knowing what they should be taught, then you get a chaos guaranteed in advance; difficulties will arise which will not only slow down the execution of the five-year plan, which will take seven if not ten years to achieve, but results even worse may occur; here such a blatantly squandering of means could happen which would discredit the whole idea of industrialization." Strumlin admitted that the planners preferred to "stand for higher tempos rather than sit in prison for lower ones." Strumlin and Krzhizanovksy had been expressing doubts about the plan for some time and Stalin removed these acolytes from Gosplan in 1930. In order for the planners, who were operating under terrible political pressure, to make sense of the plan, they had to play all kinds of games. They had to falsify productivity and yield goals in order to allow the input and output portions of the plan to balance. V.V. Kuibyshev, another high-level planner and one of Stalin's proteges, confessed in a letter to his wife how he had finessed the industrial plan he had developing. "Here is what worried me yesterday and today; I am unable to tie up the balance, and as I cannot go for contracting the capital outlays--contracting the tempo--there will be no other way but to take upon myself an almost unmanageable task in the realm of lowering costs." Eventually Kuibyshev swallowed any doubts he may have had and began cooking the books in such a way as to make the five-year plan, risky as it was, totally unrealizable. Real life proved how senseless the plan was. Kuibyshev had recklessly predicted that costs would go down, meanwhile they went up: although the plan allocated 22 billion rubles for industry, transportation and building, the Soviets spent 41.6 billion. The money in
[PEN-L:789] from Ed Finn
All of the facts and figures you are looking for may be found in the back issues of The CCPA Monitor. Too voluminous to send via e-mail. If you can provide me with a fax number, I'll fax the most relevant data to you. Ed Finn.
[PEN-L:791] Offensive Language
Louis: Somebody sent me some private e-mail prevailing upon me to tone down my language. I will.
[PEN-L:792] Re: Lucas????
At 10:58 AM 10/11/95, Gilbert Skillman wrote: This says it all: "The U.S. economy is in excellent shape," (Economics Nobel prize winner Robert) Lucas said at a news conference in Chicago yesterday. At the World Bank/IMF meetings, Treasury Secretary Bob "$17-million Man" Rubin said the US economy is in its best shape in 30 years. Another choice quote: new WB pres James "$250,000 a year just to talk to me" Wolfensohn said that GDP isn't the best measure of development - it's "the smile on a child's face" that is. Doug -- Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax
[PEN-L:790] radio Nobel
I know this is short notice - but does anyone want to come on my radio show at about 5 PM New York time Thursday to talk about the "Nobel" prize going to Lucas? Doug -- Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax
[PEN-L:794] Proyect, planning, and market socialism
Louis Proyect is one of those people who keep saying the same thing over and over even after they have been corrected. I'll try one more time: Louis, listen carefully--MARKET SOCIALISTS ARE *NOT* AGAINST PLANNING. THEY GENERALLY FAVOR DEMOCRATICALLY ACCOUNTABLE FORMS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING. WHAT THEY ARE AGAINST IS A COMPLETE REPLACEMENT OF MARKETS WITH PLANNING. BUT THEY FAVOR PLANNING *IN COMBINATION* WITH MARKETS. As for what went on the Soviet Union, attempts at planning without the input of market pricing floundered in gross inefficiency for several decades *after* the death of Stalin and his peculiarly ludicrous and murderous attempts at planning by diktat. Compare the benefits to workers in other countries where planning and markets were more judiciously combined in the postwar era, even without generalized social ownership and workplace democracy which would be added by most market socalists, with the lot of the average Soviet citizen by the 1980s. Peter Burns SJ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:795] Report on Australian Women Labour Conference (fwd)
/* Written 11:07 PM Oct 10, 1995 by labornews in igc:women.labr */ /* -- "Women Labr Conf/Aust" -- */ From: Institute for Global Communications [EMAIL PROTECTED] /* Written 2:27 PM Oct 8, 1995 by peg:greenleft in igc:greenleft.news */ Title: Women and Labour Conference By Karen Fletcher and Kath Gelber SYDNEY - Around 500 women and a sprinkling of men attended the 5th Women and Labour Conference held at Macquarie University, September 29 to October 1. The conference attracted feminists who had been active in the second wave and newer feminists, to discuss the way forward for the women's movement. The conference's emphasis on research topics and well-known keynote speakers reflected the state of the women's movement today, both in terms of the large number of women who are working within the bureaucracy and the decline of the activist grassroots base. More than 130 women presented talks on a broad range of topics from enterprise bargaining to reproductive technologies. The conference's keynote address was delivered by Ann Curthoys, Professor of history at the Australian National University and an organiser of the first Women and Labour Conference in 1978. Curthoys sketched a history of the four previous women and labour conferences, recalling their evolution from an initial academic focus on women's labour history into movement conferences. She commented on the conference's influence on public policy and recalled the heated debates generated in past years by the issue of racism. She commented also on the continuing debate over men's participation in the conferences, calling it perhaps the ``least constructive'' of the debates on the conference floor. Major plenaries featured well known feminists guaranteed to pull a crowd. The second day's plenary, entitled ``Women's voices/women's rights in the Australian Constitution'', included Pat O'Shane, Dale Spender, Jocelyne Scutt, Mary Kalantsis and founding member of the Australian Women's Party, Jenny Hughey. The shortage of question time in all major plenaries, however, left little room for discussion on the presentations. For example, although speakers in the major plenaries focussed on the representation of women in government, there was little elaboration about the politics of women representatives. The final plenary, ``Women and Labour - Towards 2000'', featured ACTU president-elect Jenny George who spoke of the threat posed to women's wages and working conditions by the possibility of a federal Coalition government after the next election. She pledged that the ACTU would fight Coalition moves to dismantle the award system, but failed to raise the issue of the Labor government's own record in dismantling that system. Issues facing Aboriginal women were not sidelined, with speakers on major plenaries and in a number of seminars. Doreen Kartinyeri, an Aboriginal family historian at the South Australian Museum, received a standing ovation following her account of her involvement in the Hindmarsh Island affair. It was Aboriginal women's stories committed to paper by Kartinyeri which were contained in the envelope mistakenly sent to and opened by federal MP Ian McLachlan. Kartinyeri has now been ordered by the Royal Commission into the affair to deliver the papers for examination. Kartinyeri said she would rather go to jail than give up the papers which contain Aboriginal women's business, for which she received widespread support from the conference floor. The final session debated the issue of men's participation in future women and labour conferences and considered a variety of options ranging from allowing men full and equal participation rights to banning them from the conferences altogether. Most participants in the discussion favoured men's right to participate, but under certain conditions. Women from Deakin University in Victoria offered to organise the 6th Women and Labour Conference in 1997. First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by Green Left Weekly. Correspondence and hard copy subsciption inquiries: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:796] Re: from Ed Finn
Thanks, Ed. I forwarded this message to Jim J., who was the person seeking the info. Cheers, Sid Shniad All of the facts and figures you are looking for may be found in the back issues of The CCPA Monitor. Too voluminous to send via e-mail. If you can provide me with a fax number, I'll fax the most relevant data to you. Ed Finn.
[PEN-L:797] urgent action (fwd)
October 11, 1995 --URGENT ACTION- EL SALVADOR -URGENT ACTION-- MAQUILA WORKER DIES FROM NEGLIGENCE 90 WOMEN FIRED AS BENEFITS DUE TO START Dear Friends, We have received news from the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador who were informed by the Central de Trabajadores Democraticos (CTD) in El Salvador that on October 5th, Maria Paula Rodriguez Abarca, 23 years old, died of cardiac arrest while working in the HAN CHANG TEXTILES S.A. de C.V. factory located in the free trade zone of San Marcos, owned by Mr. Sung H. Kim. Ms. Rodriguez had asked for permission to leave the maquila to go to the hospital. Instead of being given permission, she was given medicine that caused her immediate death. Ms. Rodriguez leaves behind a 3-year-old daughter, now an orphan. Also on October 5th, in the maquila factory, "Encasa y Esmodica", in Santa Ana, owned by Legislative Deputy Milena De Escalon, sister of President Calderon Sol, 90 women workers were fired. The reason given for the firing was lack of supplies but when two experienced maquila workers went to apply for a job at the same maquila the following day, they were immediately offered work. The fired workers all had worked at the maquila for a year or more and are due benefits according to the Salvadoran labour code. They were offered only two weeks' salary of 500 colones ($60 U.S.) indemnization, which they are not accepting. This is only half of the mandatory severance pay. When the workers did not accept the cheques and asked for full severance pay, they were accused of being communists, guerrillas, union members, and terrorists. A North American representative of the maquila, Lauren Garfield, threatened the workers, saying she was noting their names as communists in the event of a workers' "uprising". BACKGROUND INFORMATION The practice of firing maquila workers in the fall is common to avoid paying workers benefits that come due. It is also common practice for maquila owners to avoid paying vacation time which is due after a year of employment and a Christmas bonus, due for those who have worked a minumum of six.months.By hiring and firing people in the fall, owners can avoid paying both benefits due under the Salvadoran labour code. The two cases above represent thousands of other cases of injustices against the workers in the maquilas. Strong reforms to the free trade zone laws have been proposed by a coalition of women's organizations and the Ministry of Economy. The next step is for President Calderon Sol to send the reforms to the legislative assembly. Gloria Salgero Gross, the President of the Legislative Assembly will facilitate the discussion and vote on the reforms. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send messages to the Government of El Salvador, condemning the death of Paula Rodriguez and the firing of the 90 women, urging that an immediate investigation take place and that President Calderon Sol send the Legislative Assembly reforms to the Law of the Free Trade Zones (Ley del Regimen de Zonas Francas y Recintos Fiscales), so that they can be implemented immediately. If unable to get a FAX to San Salvador, you can try the Salvadoran embassy. Please also send messages to the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, urging the Canadian government to give the Salvadoran government the same message. Please send copies of this message to the Foreign Affairs critics for the NDP and the Reform Party. (Eastern Canada covers the Bloc Qubecois.) ADDRESSES Lic. Armando Caldern Sol FAX:011-503-2-214 532 Presidente de la Republica, 011-503-2-710 950 Casa Presidencial, San Salvador, EL SALVADOR His Excellency Alfredo Francisco Ungo, FAX: 1-613-238-6940 Ambassador of El Salvador, Telephone: 1-613-238-2939 Hon. Andr Ouellet, FAX: (613) 996-3443 Minister of Foreign Affairs,Phone: (613) 995-8872 House of Commons, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A6 Svend Robinson, M.P. (NDP) FAX: (613) 992-5501 Bob Mills, M.P. (Reform Party) FAX: (613) 995-6831
[PEN-L:798] C.Whalen: Mexico Report #18, Sep 25 (fwd)
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 10:30:27 -0500 From: chris whalen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple Recipients of List Mexico2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: The Mexico Report #18, Vol. IV The following material is excepted from The Mexico Report and is posted for the free use of Internet users. This material is copyrighted and may not be copied, excerpted or quoted without full attribution. Net users who forward this material via electronic or other means do so at their own risk and without the permission of the publisher. For free sample or to receive subscription information, please send E-mail to subscriptions, c/o [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call us at (202) 363-8168. Copyright 1995 Legal Research International, Inc. Washington, D.C. = The Mexico Report Vol. IV, No. 18 September 25, 1995 Observador The Drug Wars The U.S. government is apparently cajoling Mexico to accept dozens of new military helicopters to help combat drug trafficking. The New York Times quotes one official as suggesting that "they'll be flying cocaine around in those helicopters." That sounds about right to us. Listening to officials of the Clinton Administration talk about working with the Mexican government to prevent drugs from entering the country has always seemed a non-sequitur. It is, after all, the Mexican government which protects and fosters the narco underworld, at the least through inaction and duplicity. As one American businessman bluntly told TMR last week: "We should be declaring war against some of these people in the Mexican government." Who are the servants of the drug lords within Mexico's governmental structure? The list is long and distinguished, but just remember the old adage: we are ruled not by criminals, but by their friends in high places. For example, a column in the Mexico City daily Novedades reports that Coahuila governor Rogelio Montemayor Seguy is under suspicion by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for connection with drug trafficking. The "A Fondo" column (9/22/95) in Novedades, written by Juan Ruiz Healy, says that PAN Senator and former Saltillo mayor Rosendo Villareal has denounced Montemayor for protecting drug traffickers. "Concretely, Rosendo stated that Montemayor has covered-up for the narcotraficante Juan Chapa Garza," writes Ruiz, who goes on to say that Montemayor has used his official position to disguise a money-laundering and narcotics operation that was inside Grupo Aztlan, a Coahuila business firm that has been intervenido by the Mexican attorney general's office (PGR). Montemayor, who is closely associated with former President Carlos Salinas, is one of the tough guys in the ruling PRI and has long been suspected of having ties to narcotics. The desolate border state of Coahuila is, after all, the largest overland crossing point for cocaine and other drugs into the United States. Montemayor is associated with the PRI hard- line, los dinosaurios, and apparently has a problem with bad publicity. He is the target of concerted attacks by the PAN, which has long labored under one of the most corrupt PRI state governments in Mexico. As the PAN's gubernatorial candidate in 1993, Villareal was himself defrauded by Montemayor and the PRI electoral machine. The situation in Coahuila is found all across Mexico, but in particular is visible in the situation involving Raul Salinas, the older brother of the former president. Already incarcerated for playing a role in the murder of Jose Ruiz Massieu a year ago, he now is the subject of numerous allegations of connections with drug trafficking. A former agent of the U.S. CIA told El Financiero (9/12/95) that a connection between Raulitio and cocaine lord Juan Garcia Abrego has existed for over a decade. The former spook, Celerino Castillo, alleges that during the Reagan and Bush Administrations, Washington. made a conscious decision to ignore such high-level connections because "for the U.S., maintaining stability in Mexico is more important that fighting drugs." Business Finance Oil Output Rises? The state oil monopoly, Pemex, claims that it will managed to push total oil output just over 2.8 million barrels per day by year- end. The increase comes from rising output from new offshore wells, according to Pemex. Yet the UK oil newsletter Latoil differs with Pemex, reporting that "oil production in the period January-June was 2.678 b/d, the same as in the same period in 1994. Of this 1.458 million b/d was light or medium grade and 1.221 million b/d was heavy grade." Meanwhile, prices earned by the monopoly for its weighted average barrel are expected to fall by $1.50 over the next year. Each $1 change in the price of Mexican crude results in a $500
[PEN-L:801] Re: Lucas????
Saying the U.S. economy is in good shape gives new meaning to the post modernist idea that all knowledge is partial and situated. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:802] yet more on Greedspan
Eugene Coyle writes: I think the beginning of the exchange on Greedspan has been lost. What started this thread was Michael P's remark that Greenspan had killed more people than OJ, or something to that effect. I seconded that. What I meant, and mean, is that -- to put it narrowly -- Fed policies cause pain, death, drug use in the US. ... Don't compartmentalize little tools like 1/4 point changes in interest rates and tremble lest Greenspan, poor Greenspan is helpless in the face of cosmic forces. As far as I can tell, _no-one_ was saying that Greenspan is powerless. In terms of the dramatic metaphor I used before, even a bit player has some power, e.g., can quit or join the union. The point is, to use a different metaphor, is that we should address the limits on Greenspan's power because he may be like Lieutenant Calley (of My Lai fame) during the US war against Vietnam. Calley engaged in mass murder and people like that should be denounced punished; however, he was scapegoated, in an effort to clear the US military machine of the blame. But it's the machine that should get the main blame. It may be fun to lambaste Greenspan, but it's not a _serious_ _analysis_ to pick on him personally. It lets the machine off the hook. (BTW, O.J. Simpson, if he is guilty, is in no way a cog in some murder machine, unlike Calley or Greenspan.) Consider the counterfactual: suppose some famous lefty economist were appointed the head of the Fed. (any volunteeers? If so, that person would have to convince the Fed to go along, since the Board of Governors and (more importantly) the Open Market Committee would have to ratify that lefty's decisions. Gerry Epstein has a useful article about how G. William Miller, who was relatively averse to recessions as a way to fight inflation, was appointed by Jimmy Carter as head of the Fed -- and his fate. Do you know how long that guy lasted? Not very long, since the various branches of the Fed revolted, as did the banks. (Volcker was his replacement.) So suppose that the entire Board of Guvs and the FOMC were packed with lefties. This might cause severe panic on the part of the banks -- and it's part of the Fed's _job_ to keep the banks happy. In many ways, the Fed represents a cartel of banks (a government-sponsored bank cartel). How can we expect the leaders of a cartel to go against the cartel's interest for long? Now, I'm all in favor of democratic control of the Fed (even if control by Congress and the President, who are generally pro-business and pro-banker could be considered to be "democratic control"). It's a useful experiment; let's try it. But I don't think this would abolish the laws of motion of capitalism, unless a lot of other changes were implemented. Instead of focussing on Greenspan, why not focus on the current "policy regime" of competitive austerity? (Peter Temin, in his recent book on lessons from the Great Depression, uses the Lucasian term "policy regime" to describe the deflationary policy consensus of the late 1920s and early 1930s.) But from where does this policy regime come? I think it's part and parcel of the world-wide one-sided class war, of the capitalists against the people. Now trashing Greenspan personally may help whip up support to end this one-sided class war, or to win it for the good guys. But does it give us a serious understanding of what's going on? coda/diversion/joke: Q: knock knock. A: who's there? Q: Pedantsaysto A: Pedantsaysto who? Q: Pedant says "to whom"! in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
[PEN-L:803] Re: A simple slogan
I would put this higher up the list: 3. periodic, universal cancellation of debt.
[PEN-L:804] the kulak question
In message Thu, 12 Oct 1995 05:12:40 -0700, Louis N Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Left Opposition favored rapid industrialization, a planned economy and steep taxation on Kulaks, the wealthy peasants, in order to finance the state sector. Stalin and Bukharin triumphed and plowed ahead with their rightist policies. However, in the late 1920's, the rich peasants began to resist the Soviet government by withholding grain. (Details on Stalin and planning come from chapter 5 entitled "The Disappearance of Planning in the Plan" in Moshe Lewin's new book "Russia USSR Russia" [The New Press, New York, 1995]. This book is as important in understanding the former Soviet Union as anything written by Isaac Deutscher or E.H. Carr) I don't have any problem with your description of "planning" or, more accurately, commandism under Stalin. However, I do recall that in Lewin's etrlier book, "Soviet Power and Russian Peasants", he argued that the middle peasants (serednyak), who were far from rich, produced 80% of the grain crop. Also, it has been argued (Nove?) that one of the problems was that peasants were responding rationally to the movement of relative prices-- ie., increased prices of flax, eggs, bacon, etc relative to grain prices w ich were being lowered. I know the argument that the kulaks brought on the assault with their grain strike, but do you have any evidence to support this and, if it happened, how significant (quantitatively) it was? When you talk about rich peasants, what do you mean by that? Lewin's description makes it appear that many of those called kulaks were hardly what could reasonably be considered rich. (Indeed, in one of Bukharin's "get rich" speeches, he argued that peasants were afraid to put a tin roof on their homes for fear of being called kulaks.) Preobrazhensky, in advancing the Left Opposition economic strategy, was of the view that the peasants could pay, but do you know of any evidence to support that critical judgement? Thanks, mike --- Michael A. Lebowitz Economics Department, Simon Fraser University Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 Office: (604) 291-4669; Office fax: (604) 291-5944 Home: (604) 255-0382 Lasqueti Island (current location): (604) 333-8810 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:805] Words
Sid Shniad suggested I pass this to a wider audience: In the UK the expressions 'pissed as a newt' or just plain 'newted' mean 'very drunk' . Does this expression exist in Canada or the USA? Alan
[PEN-L:806] Re: the kulak question
On Thu, 12 Oct 1995, Michael A. Lebowitz wrote: I don't have any problem with your description of "planning" or, more accurately, commandism under Stalin. However, I do recall that in Lewin's etrlier book, "Soviet Power and Russian Peasants", he argued that the middle peasants (serednyak), who were far from rich, produced 80% of the grain crop. Also, it has been argued (Nove?) that one of the problems was that peasants were responding rationally to the movement of relative prices-- ie., increased prices of flax, eggs, bacon, etc relative to grain prices Louis: I had an extended debate with Jim Lawler, a professor at the University of Buffalo, on the NEP over on the Marxism list. He thought that the NEP should have been a permanent feature of Russian socialism. He echoed much of what Bukharin argued at the time, and what Stephen Cohen argues today. I identified with the positions of the Left Opposition at the time. I have discovered that enthusiasm for the NEP goes hand in hand with pro-Mondragon and market socialism notions among academic socialists. It flows from a deep disillusionment with the "Soviet experiment". Rather than trying to answer any of Mike's specific questions, I will simply present my NEP article (I apologize for the length). --- On the New Economic Policy PREFACE I want to offer the customary apology for the length of this reply to Jim Lawler. If you bear with me, however, you'll see that I have done painstaking research to show that the NEP was a ticking time-bomb rather than a model for socialist development. It is, of course, up to you, dear reader, to decide whether or not this evidence is convincing. THE STATE OF THE WORKING CLASS IN 1921 After the civil war, the Soviet working-class had nearly disappeared. It was even under the best of times a small minority of the population, never constituting more than 3 million in large-scale industry. In 1921, less than half that number were employed. The nominally employed were often without work because the plants were idle. Most of these workers were paupers who eked out a living doing odd jobs or trading on the black market. All this added up to relative economic and political weakness for parties based on the working-class such as the Bolsheviks. HOW COULD THE WORKERS RULE? Even if civil war had not decimated the working-class, there were still special problems that confronted socialist revolution in backward countries like Russia. Nikolai Bukharin was very clear about the differences between the bourgeois revolution and proletarian revolutions. Marxists traditionally had believed that just as capitalism emerged out of the old feudal order, so would socialism emerge out of bourgeois society. However, as Bukharin pointed out, the bourgeoisie was not an exploited class and therefore was able to rule society long before its political revolution was effected. The workers are in a completely different position, however. They lack an independent economic base and suffer economic and cultural exploitation. Prior to its revolution, the working- class remains backward and therefore, unlike the bourgeoisie, is unable to prepare itself in advance for ruling all of society. It was only through the seizure of power and rule through a vanguard party that the workers could build socialism. BUKHARIN AND THE PEASANTRY Confronted by the decline of the working-class and the collapse of the Soviet economy during the wane of War Communism, Bukharin as well as the overwhelming majority of the Bolsheviks embraced the NEP. The NEP was unavoidable. The only way goods could begin to be circulated once again was through the marketplace. Bukharin, who had a realistic understanding of the relative weakness of the proletariat, surveyed Soviet society in this period and started to speculate about other social and economic forces that could propel socialism forward. He came to the conclusion that the peasants would be such a force. Bukharin theorized that growth in private agriculture would eventually fuel industrial growth in the state sector. The peasant would first have a need for consumer goods and simple agricultural implements. As accumulation in the peasant economy progressed, he would begin to demand more capital-intensive goods such as tractors, fertilizer and machinery. Demand for such products would cause the state-owned heavy industries to grow as well. The NEP, which was originally a tactic to lift the USSR out of the doldrums of War Communism, was now seen by Bukharin as a central component to the development of socialism. Therefore, according to Bukharin, it was a mistake to attack the peasants, especially the wealthier peasants who could supply produce to the workers in the cities. The poorer farmers relied on subsistence farming and lacked the capacity to fill the breadbaskets in the urban marketplace. So Bukharin
[PEN-L:807] Louis Proyect on market socialism and the environment
Well, let me start by saying that I by and large agree with what Bill Mitchell, Michael Perelman, Peter Burns, and Mike Lebowitz have all said on this topic. I guess Louis wants to back off and go study a bit, or whatever, but I'll make a few more points in response to his remarks: 1) In my original comments I already acknowledged your earlier discussion about Stalin, planning and all that. I see no relevance to bringing all that up again. I didn't. Clearly, useful planning must be democratically controlled which I think was probably the case in Nicaragua, if not Cuba, even though Castro could probably win a free election if he held one. Certainly this could not be said about the post- Stalin Soviet planning which was the period when the worst Soviet environmental disasters were "planned," e.g. Chernobyl and the Aral Sea catastrophe. 2) As I stated in my original remarks, control and hence any intelligent planning, must coincide with the relevant level of the ecosystemic hierarchy. Thus, as Michael P. noted, for global issues like ozone depletion we must deal at a global level. But for local issues we must deal locally, as Bill M. noted. Failures and goofs can work both ways. Thus a too highly centrally controlled situation can ignore local conditions "for the greater (not so) good" leading to things like the Aral Sea situation. But control that is TOO local can lead to the open access problem. Thus the Soviet planner/managers (there continues to be a great debate regarding the degree to which the FSU economy was planned or commanded or what!) managed the (rather large) Caspian Sea ecosystem rather well as a sturgeon/caviar fishery, limiting access despite inevitable poaching by some locals near Astrakhan. But the breakup of the USSR has led to the various republics bordering the Caspian to demand "theirs" with a subsequent breakdown of access control and a massive collapse of the (formerly Soviet) sturgeon/caviar fisheries (only Iranian sturgeon caviar is available that is not poison). 3) There is quite a bit of evidence that worker-managed firms at the appropriate level do a better job on all this. One incidental piece of evidence is that the former Yugoslavia had a better record than other European nations, either market capitalist or command socialist, on several environmental indicators, notably CO2 emissions per capita and NOX per capita (see p. 39 of _Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy_, 1996, Chicago: Irwin, by me and Marina V. Rosser). On SO2 Yugo beat most of the CMEA crowd, the US and the UK, but not the FSU (all those nukes!) or much of Western Europe. Workers managing their own firms watch out for their own health! Aside to Bill Mitchell: Well of course when I am not "dead right!!" clearly I must be "alive right!", right, mate? :-) Barkley Rosser
[PEN-L:808] Re: the kulak question
To Louis Proyect: The scissors crisis peaked in 1924 and after that the prices tended to move back toward each other. Remember that the starting point was the famine year of 1921 when food prices were through the roof. The most successful collectivized agricultural economy has been that of Hungary before misguided decollectivization and half-baked privatizations recently. That economy, long the breadbasket of the CMEA (Old Soviet joke: "Leonid, let's have more oranges in our five-year plan!" "No, Hungary does not produce oranges.") was definitely market socialist. The NEP could have worked if managed properly. Barkley Rosser
[PEN-L:809] Mexico's burgeoning debt
MEXICO BLEEDING TO DEATH PAYING FOR FOREIGN DEBT In 1995, Mexico will pay a staggering $57.756 billion to foreigners to meet its external and internal obligations. This is more than twice the total debt payments made by Mexico to foreigners between 1821 and 1976. -- La Jornada
[PEN-L:811] Detroit strike: What can we do about injunctions? (fwd)
To: Multiple recipients of list LABOR-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT INJUNCTIONS? Paper the Walls WITH THEM! [Randy Furst is a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune where he has worked for the past 23 years. He is a steward and a member of the Twin Cities Newspaper Guild's Representative Assembly. Below we reprint excerpts from an article he wrote on the Detroit newspaper strike.] By Randy Furst The strike by Detroit newspaper workers has huge implications for the entire labor movement, not just the embattled strikers at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. Detroit has long been considered a bastion of trade unionism, so both labor and employers are watching the confrontation there closely. A victory for the newspaper unions will send a powerful message to employers everywhere that union busters can be stopped. Conversely, a defeat for our side will signal employers that it is open season on the American trade union movement. The Detroit rank and file can be proud of the mass picketing they have conducted on several weekends that slowed, and in some cases, virtually halted delivery of newspapers. Such tactics have given us hope that the strike can be won. A Macomb County circuit judge has now issued an injunction limiting pickets in front of the newspaper's key printing plant gate. The employers, who generally have a hammer lock on the courts in such situations, are hoping that the strikers will reduce their numbers to token picket lines. There is little question that if that happens, the strike will be crushed. Small contingents of pickets cannot stop the onrushing trucks. MASS PICKETING Such injunctions are morally bankrupt and fundamentally violate basic human rights -- among them the right to a job. Court injunctions were regularly defied in the 1930s and that is why we have a trade union movement today. The famous 1934 Teamsters truck strike in Minneapolis was won with mass picketing, despite a series of injunctions by anti-union judges. "In 1934, we papered the wall with injunctions by anti-union judges," said the late Harry DeBoer, one of the leaders of that strike. Civil rights marchers across the south, led by leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., openly defied injunctions in the 1950s and 1960s in a successful effort to bring down the vicious Jim Crow laws. There is a higher law and if strikes are to be won in Detroit and elsewhere and unions are to survive, the labor movement will have to start papering the walls. BOYCOTT? Some have suggested that rather than defy the injunction in Detroit, the newspaper unions should concentrate on organizing a subscription boycott and developing a boycott against the big chain stores that have been advertising in the scab newspaper. To make such boycotts the centerpiece of a strike strategy is suicide. Boycotts don't win strikes. The fundamental job of the unions is to halt production and delivery. That is not to say that a boycott cannot be helpful, but only as an adjunct to a basic strategy of shutting down the plant. Some unions worry that ignoring injunctions can result in huge fines that could break them. The only answer one can give is that if unions do not continue to mass picket and stop production, they will be broken anyway. Two recent strikes point out what can be won when unions observe the higher law. In 1988 and 1989, strikers at the Pittston Coal Co. in southwestern Virginia continued to conduct civil disobedience, despite court injunctions, to halt production in the mines. In an historic action, members of the United Mine Workers occupied a processing plant and won the strike. The occupation was planned secretly. Workers in do-or-die situations ought to consider such actions. In 1994, Ron Carey, the reform president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, called a national strike against United Parcel Service. The company had violated the bargaining agreement by announcing that workers would be required to carry, by themselves, packages weighing as much as 150 pounds. A federal injunction was issued to stop the UPS strike, but Carey, recognizing that justice was on his side, defied it. Enough Teamster leaders across the country agreed with Carey's strategy and struck UPS that deliveries ground to a standstill in many key cities and the strike was won. NO OTHER CHOICE And so we come to Detroit, where unions were born and blossomed under leaders and rank and filers who, en masse, thumbed their noses at union busters in black robes and fancy suits. They will have to thumb their noses again. If the workers at the Detroit newspapers are to survive and prevail, Michigan and Detroit trade union leaders must take decisive action. The labor movement has a moral right and obligation to call out their members by the tens and hundreds of thousands to surround the newspapers'
[PEN-L:812] Re: the kulak question
On Thu, 12 Oct 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Louis Proyect: The scissors crisis peaked in 1924 and after that the prices tended to move back toward each other. Remember Louis: What is your explanation for the refusal of Kulaks to release grain toward the end of the 1920's? Was there or was there not a scarcity of manufactured items available from the state? I derived my information from E.H. Carr and Isaac Deutscher. Did I misread their numbers? Or, were they making things up? If they were making things up, who would you recommend as a more reliable historian of the 1920's in the USSR? Bukharin's admirer, Stephen Cohen? Someone else? If I can't rely on Deutscher or Carr any more, I'd like to know right away.
[PEN-L:813] Extinction, Market Socialism and priorities
Louis: 1. Today's NY Times announced that the Nobel Prize for Science was being awarded for the first time to environmental scientists who had established proof that "global warming" was indeed occurring as a result of carbon emissions. A world-wide organization has come up with a plan to reduce these emissions. Republican US Senators have vowed to fight any compliance with these measures. 2. "In their best-selling books ORIGINS and ORIGINS RECONSIDERED, world-renowned paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey and science writer offered a profound examination of life's past, of humankind's beginnings. Here, in THE SIXTH EXTINCTION, they turn their penetrating intelligences to life's future, a future not so distant, which presages an ending. There have been five great extinctions in the long history of earth, the most recent 65 million years ago, when all dinosaur species perished in an astonishingly brief period of time. Each of these great extinctions was unimaginably catastrophic--at least 65 percent of all species living vanished in a geological instant; in the Permian extinction, nearly 95 percent of all species were obliterated. The agency for these extinctions, the why, is hotly debated--sudden climate change, asteroids, evolutionary inadequacy--but the patterns are remarkably consistent. Now, as Leaky and Lewin show with inarguable logic based on irrefutable scientific evidence, the sixth great extinction is underway. And this time the cause is beyond dispute: By the lowest estimate, thirty thousand species are wiped out every year--a rate that matches the five great extinctions with frightening exactitude. As the authors show, such dramatic and overwhelming extinction threatens the entire complex fabric of life on earth, including the species at fault, HOMO SAPIENS. Unless we come to realize the devastating consequence of our rapacious behavior, we will follow the mastodon, the great auk, the carrier pigeon, and other victims into the oblivion of extinction." (From the cover-leaf) 3. There are larger issues facing us as progressive economists or socialists than whether the East Berliners will get an ample supply of bananas and X-rated videos at the right price. Market socialism has no answer to the threat described above. Not only will centralized planning be necessary, but it will have to be coordinated on a global level. I urge everybody to reexamine what the economic priorities are.
[PEN-L:815] Re: The Fraser Institute on labour-management relations
On Thu, 12 Oct 1995, D Shniad wrote: The Vancouver-based, right wing, corporate-sponsored Fraser Institute is presenting a series of free student seminars, with lunch provided, dealing with public policy issues. Notable among the list of topics to be covered in the program is a presentation by Fraser Institute Policy Analyst Fazil Mihlar, which will elaborate on the theme "Breaking Up Unions for Economic Prosperity." Hey. It's Class War. Where do I sign up?? +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | OCTOBER 16 - 22 : TV TURNOFF WEEK| +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | Jim Jaszewski [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Public Key available. | | http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ab975/Profile.html | +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
[PEN-L:816] Re: Louis Proyect on market socialism and the environment
On Thu, 12 Oct 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) In my original comments I already acknowledged your earlier discussion about Stalin, planning and all that. I see no relevance to bringing all that up again. I didn't. Clearly, useful planning must be democratically controlled which I think was probably the case in Nicaragua, if not Cuba, even though Castro could probably win a free election if he held one. Hey -- let's get this canard settled once-and-for-all: are elections in Cuba free or not?? Hell -- are elections in the U.S. even as fair and democratic as they are in Cuba??? +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | OCTOBER 16 - 22 : TV TURNOFF WEEK| +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ | Jim Jaszewski [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Public Key available. | | http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ab975/Profile.html | +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
[PEN-L:817] Re: Louis Proyect on market socialism and the environment
On Thu, 12 Oct 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, let me start by saying that I by and large agree with what Bill Mitchell, Michael Perelman, Peter Burns, and Mike Lebowitz have all said on this topic. I guess Louis wants to back off and go study a bit, or whatever, but I'll make a few more points in response to his remarks: Louis: I changed my mind. Let's get into it straightaway. held one. Certainly this could not be said about the post- Stalin Soviet planning which was the period when the worst Soviet environmental disasters were "planned," e.g. Chernobyl and the Aral Sea catastrophe. Louis: Please explain why you put "planned" in quotes? I designed real-time systems for manufacturing plants just as complicated as Cherynobyl 15 years ago. These plants have worked just fine. The reason they work is that *planning* went into every aspect of them, from machinery to software. The reason there was a Chernobyl disaster was that there was *insufficient* planning. 2) As I stated in my original remarks, control and hence any intelligent planning, must coincide with the relevant level of the ecosystemic hierarchy. Thus, as Michael P. noted, for global issues like ozone depletion we must deal at a global level. But for local issues we must deal locally, as Bill M. noted. Louis: How will you be able to reconcile Market Socialism with intelligent planning on a global level? Doesn't China have something like market socialism? Isn't China a disaster in the making? Or do only accept positive examples of "market socialism"? Market Socialism doesn't address the question of how everything fits together globally. It is focused on the individual plant and its productivity, and profit margins. If we remain focused on these type of criteria, we are in deep peril. There are millions of people unemployed globally. What would Market Socialism do for them? How would they be employed? In firms that are profitable? What would they make? More cars? There's got to be a better way.
[PEN-L:818] re: Minneapolis bus drivers strike
In answer to the query posted a couple of days ago about part-time bus drivers in other cities: a friend working in the New York City Transit Authority says there are no parttime drivers; they are excluded by the contract, which guarantees all drivers 40 hours per week. The MTA, however, is demanding to re-open the contract to eliminate thousands of jobs. Whether they have the bus driver provision in their sights at the moment I don't know. What is clear is that TWU Local 100 leaders have collaborated with management's "rationalization" schemes. Walter Daum
[PEN-L:819] Re: urgent request!
Doug Henwood knows about this. If he does not take a crack at it, I will. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:821] Mike Albert's response to Louis Proyect
My friend on PEN-L has forwarded me a small snowstorm of email, all in one day, in response to a rather innocuous reply to some comments about Z I offered yesterday. I am not exactly sure what to do in reply. I have more than enough online work to do on the bulletin board system that I sysop, called Left on Line. There is much discussion on it, and other work to do as well. So I will reply to what I received this time, but I have to say, I am not on PEN-L, I don't have time to be on it, and I cannot in good faith promise that I will keep up my end of exchanges initiated on it. I'm sorry for that, but we all have our responsibilities... That said, here are a few quick takes on the various messages shunted to me. BO Suppose it was really true that to eschew hierarchy and oppression in BO the workplace introduced a degree less efficiency or frugality or BO whatever else then to operate like, say, Ford. Would you then say that BO in this choice between some more material efficiency and operating BO without oppressive, alienating structures, left organizations should BO opt for the former? Of course I would opt for more justice, equity, solidarity, participation, trying as well to get the necessary work done. I believe I said this in my prior message though I can't for the life of me see why I bothered, since who wouldn't say this. There are realted questions that arise that I can see sensible radical people having real disagreements about: should there be equilibration of job circumstances and empowerment at work? Should remuneration be according to effort and sacrifice, not output? BOThe reason I ventilated so much spleen at the LBBS mishap (btw, I got the BOpackage last night finally) is that beneath the surface I am really BOdeveloping a deep antagonism toward the type of politics that Z represents. BOIt was wrong of me not to get straight to the point, as I am doing now. I suppose that would have been better. But what politics are we talking about here? BOThe other night I got a South End press brochure in the mail and BOdiscovered an announcement for a new book on ecology. It tries to make BOthe case that experiments like Mondragon are the key to solving the BOworld's environmental crisis. Actually, SEP sent me the book. If you look in it you will find that it dimisses the work Robin Hahnel and I have done on economic vision, and on critiquing markets, in a brief sideswipe as if the crudity or stupidity of our arguments was self-evident. So I don't much like this book either, or parts of it that I have skimmed, anyhow. But what does that tell us? Only that SEP doesn't vet books for agreement with each other--but then, that is to the good, isn't it? The type of politics that this represents BOis as much as an obstacle to genuine social and political progress as the BO"Economists" of Lenin's day were to a Russian revolution. Z's whole project BOis to attack and discredit Marxism from the standpoint of some sort of BOamorphous localized, emancipatory social and economic transformation. BOWhat nonsense. Well, I don't know what Z's whole project would encompass or refer to--surely there is a range of opinions and stances represented in its pages. But you are correct that I personally am critical of much about Marxism, and central planning. My critiques focus on two fronts regarding marxism: economism, and what I believe is a flawed economic approach. I (and Robin Hahnel) have written about all this at length elsewhere. If you had some substantive comment on our views, you certainly haven't offered it. As to what we are for, other than the word amorphous, who on the left would oppose an emanicipatory social and economic transformation? In fact, Hahnel and I are not vague at all. Far from it we have openly presented a quite developed model for an economy that can foster equity, diversity, solidarity, particpatory self management, and yet be efficient and productive. We could of course have it all wrong. But amorphous? What does that mean? BOLater in the year I will review the politics of the Z current and post a BOnumber of articles to this list. Peter Bohmer can either forward them on to BOyou, or you can join the list, or I will post them to your bulletin board. I BOany case, I am determined to wage a merciless struggle against the BOanti-Marxist propaganda you have been putting forth. Good for you. And I wish you well.
[PEN-L:822] Mike Albert's response to Louis Proyect
Here is more reply to the materials I was sent re the discussion on PEN-L: BOZ magazine has been getting a BOfree ride for years and that's about to end. You have a strange way of expressing yourself, or at least I have difficulty understanding your comments. What could this possibly mean? I have no idea, so I can't really reply... I don't know what the hell BO"radical" means; I'm a Marxist, not a "radical". I belong to the same BOideological current as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, etc. Not BOthat of Kirkpatrick Sale, Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, Michael Albert, BOHilary Wainwright et al. I rather like a lot of Hilary Wainwright's work, though I don't think it is very well known in the U.S.. Marcuse made many intersting points. Sale? I think I am probably as far from him on many subjects as from you. BOI believe an ideological fight has been brewing for some time now. You BOshould have heard Harry Magdoff duking it out with Frank Roosevelt and BODavid Belkins at the Brecht Forum the other night. Harry called "market BOsocialism" an industry in the same way post-modernism is. I don't think BOideas like postmodernism, Mondragonism, market socialism, etc. can be BOharmonized with the ideas of the Communist Manifesto, State and Revolution, BOetc. It's about time that we sorted these matters out. Indeed. But you know you ought to get the alignments of the people you seem to dislike so--me and Z as you perceive it, anyhow--at least a little straight. I am in fact a market abolitionist. For that matter, I am also on paper as hyper critical of post-moderism. As to harmonizing anything with the ideas in the CM or SR, this is a remarkable phrase, and certainly not the manner in which I conduct my criticisms of these viewpoints. Imagine someone saying about a new set of ideas or hypotheses that they ought to be rejected because one can't harmonize them with something a century old. This is not serious, is it? We should reject or accept viewpoints based on argument, consistency, evidence, understanding their dynamics, etc. I reject market socialism, a horrible misnomer, in my opinion, because markets have intrinsic ill effects of various kinds (including fostering anti-social behavior and class division even in the absense of private ownership of the means of production). And I dismiss post modernism, rather unceremoniously, because try as I might to find anything valuable there, all I can come up with is a miasma of simple truths dressed up in obscure language, on the one hand, and silly nonsense on the other hand.
[PEN-L:824] Re: Extinction, Market Socialism and priorities
To Louis: Regarding your global extinction post, I have said right along that democratically controlled institutions capable of planning and management should operate at the appropriate levels of the ecosystemic hierarchy. For global issues like ozone depletion that means global entities. Does that mean global central planning for everything? Hardly. Much, if not most, of the process of extinction is a bunch of localized events/systems/processes which must be controlled at their respective levels. Trying to control overfishing in the Caspian or some other specific area through global central planning will not work. I also repeat that worker-managed, market socialist former Yugoslavia, prior to its breakup (let's stay away from that one), had an enviable record on emissions of globally damaging gases. Barkley Rosser
