value form
Marx's valid insights into the operation of capitalist firms are obscured by, rather than dependent on, his value-theoretic categories. Gil, have you read Hans-Dieter Bahr's "The Class Structure of Machinery: Notes on the Value Form" in Outlines of A Critique of Technology, ed. Phil Slater. Humanities Press, 1980. An argument like this you will not find in the journals of managerial science. If you can't find Slater's book, do tell me what you think of Moishe Postone's last chapter, also based on the value form. I really am interested in what someone of your analytical prowess makes of such arguments. Thank you, Rakesh
Ghandi
From the book "India and the Raj, 1919-1947, Glory, Shame and Bondage", Volume 2 by Suniti Kumar Ghosh [published by Research Unit for Political Economy, Bombay, India (1995).] -- APPENDIX: Gandhi and His Charisma: A Brief Note -- Some reviewers of the first volume of this book have criticized it on the ground that it draws a portrait of Gandhi (based, of course, on his words and deeds) which can hardly be reconciled with his charismatic influence on the people. In their view a leader who followed policies opposed to the interests of the people could hardly enjoy the charisma that Gandhi did. It may be noted that the critics have neither refuted my arguments and the facts cited by me nor pointed out any inaccuracy in my quotes from Gandhi and their interpretations. Gandhi was indeed a charismatic leader, for he could attract, influence, and inspire devotion among people. But charisma, the ability to influence and inspire people, does not presuppose that the policies of a leader possessed of it necessarily serve the interests of the people. Hitler enjoyed charisma among the Germans for some time; so did Jinnah among the Muslims. Few would agree that their policies were right. There may be a complex of factors contributing to a leader's charisma. Before we discuss what went into the making of Gandhi's charisma, we would note the limits within which it worked. First, Gandhi's charisma, as we have seen, failed to work on the Muslims. Second, a large section of the scheduled castes and tribes remained untouched by his charismatic influence. Third, his ability to influence and inspire the politically-inclined youth of India was very much limited. Fourth, towards the end of his life, his charisma ceased to work on his close associates who had cherished implicit faith in him before. A few words about the period which saw Gandhi's .advent in Indian politics. World War I intensified the crisis of British imperialism. During the war itself the British imperialists realized that it would be necessary to make devolution of power by stages to Indian collaborators, which, instead of weakening their rule, would strengthen it, and the Secrelary of Stale Montagu made the appropriate declaration in August 1917. The appointment of the Indian Industrial Commission 1916-1X, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report of 1918, and the Government of India Act 1919 were so many carrots dangled before the comprador bourgeoisie and other upper classes and their leaders in order to associate them with the administration. It is worth remembering that World War I had contributed greatly to the development, expansion and strengthening of the Indian big bourgeoisie who had emerged as agents of British capital. On the other hand, unrest swept through this sub-continent towards the end of the war. By 1916, as Viceroy Chelmsford said, India had been "bled absolutely white".[1] In Punjab press-gang methods were widely used to recruit soldiers, and people were forced to make contributions to the War Fund. The raj's measures to bleed the people white were compounded by the reckless profiteering and swindling by the Indian big bourgeoisie. Both in India and the world outside, the popular forces were growing and presenting an immediate as well as potential threat to imperialism and its agents. The great Russian Revolution was awakening the masses, and the right of self-determination of the colonial peoples was placed by history on the agenda. Early in 1918 the British government observed: "The Revolution in Russia in its beginning was regarded in India as a triumph over despotism; and... it has given impetus to Indian political aspirations." [2] In the immediate post-war days the struggles of workers were breaking out in Bombay and other places. Discontent was simmering among the peasantry whom the landlords, the usurers, British and comprador merchant capital had reduced to a state of pauperization. During the war itself a section of the youth took to the path of violence to overthrow British rule. It was at such a crossroads of history that Gandhi appeared on India's political stage. Early in April 1915 Gandhi , who had offered in London his active help to British war-efforts, returned to India at the request of the British Under-Secretary of State for India. While in Africa for twenty-two years, he was full of eulogy for the British colonialists and ''vied with Englishmen in loyalty to the throne": it was his ''love of truth [that] was at the root of this loyalty". [3] It was in South Africa that Gandhi devised the form of struggle satyagraha - an ideal weapon with which to emasculate the anti-imperialist spirit of the people. Gandhi himself declared that his satyagraha technique was intended to combat revolutionary violence. It may be borne in mind that this prophet of non-violence, though violently
Re: income race
Doug responds: Obviously an unemployment rate below 5% should help black workers a lot, but why are the bottom quintile of white households losing income (-4.3% between 1989 and 1996) while the bottom quintile of blacks (who are much poorer than whites in the bottom quintile) is up 5.2%. That's a difference of nearly 10 percentage points in just 7 years, which strikes me as pretty significant. Yes, it is significant, and very puzzling , but not of itself a contradiction of the "first hurt, last helped" phenomenon mentioned before. That, is something else could be going on as well. First take: I wonder how black and white bottom quintile workers match up in terms of a)percentages in the labor force and b) distribution across occupational categories? Gil
Re: income race
Doug, in response to your post-- I've just been looking at the 1996 U.S. income figures. Median incomes of black households have risen from 58.2% of white ones in 1992 to 63.2% in 1996, the highest on record. The black poverty rate is also the lowest on record. Obviously the gap is still very wide, but has anyone else noticed this trend? What's happening? , my best guess (and since I'm thus admitting that I don't know for sure, I suppose I open myself as well to a sneering suggestion to go back to grad school or to teach English Lit--urg), is that these trends are reflections of that fact that as a group blacks in the US economy are first hurt by recession, last helped by booms. 1992 was a recession year, 1996 part of a boom. I recall that blacks were hit harder than whites by the recession in terms of percentage unemployed and poverty rate. As for the trends being respectively being the "highest" and "lowest" on record, well, this has been a strong boom, aside fromt the fact that it has affected people *very* unequally (see for example the article by Holly Sklar in the latest Z magazine). What do you think? Literarily, Gil Skillman
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Gerald Levy wrote: If it is really true that you "don't know the answer to this", then you should consider either going back to school (since you live in NYC, you could apply at the New School) or changing your occupation (perhaps you might make a decent English Lit instructor). If having made up your mind about everything is a mark of sophistication, then I think both knowledge and politics could do with a little more naivete. As Wallace Stevens said, "you must become an ignorant man again" Oh, there I go with English, I mean American, lit. Doug
Re: income race
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: So that the reason why the US provides less protection against inequality is a racist and sexist disregard for the lower half of the working class as the potential tax burden alienates not only capital but also that part of the working class which has won protection directly from employers. Hence, the disaffection of especially white male workers from the Democratic Party, which has thus been unable to develop into a truly social democratic one, presumably along the lines of Jospin's Socialists. What do you think of this argument? Sorry to be so fragmented... I think there's a lot to this argument, not that Jospin's Socialists are such a wonderful thing. Doug
Re: income race
Oh, I forgot to concludewhen I said my first reaction was to say so much the worse for Marxian theory. I don't think that kind of value fundamentalism deserves to monopolize the term Marxian theory. Doug
Marx's HERALD TRIBUNE articles
Louis, thanks for the interesting post on Marx's attitudes on India. One point though: I understand that some of the journalistic articles that are credited to Marx were really written by Engels (old Chuck was a bit of a leech on Fred, obsessed with his more "serious" work). In many cases, this might not matter (and I'm not one to put a big emphasis on Marx/Engels splits), but it's always good to keep in mind. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
On Sat, 1 Nov 1997, Gerald Levy wrote: Yes, but Jerry you have to explain why you recommend that Doug a) choose a liberal school that charges outrageous tution rates that most working class students cannot afford instead of the Marxist School, which is much cheaper and run by a group of admisitrators who have a much greater commitment to Marxism. b) retain a liberal faith in education through taking classes in lieu of praxis in political activity (i.e. organizing workers..), which would reflect a Marxist commitment. c) engage in such activities in order to 'learn' something about value. I agree with Gil, who writes," Doug's book is certainly "about political economy", and writes, As you know I have my doubts about the relevance of value theory, but my assessment of capitalism wouldn't change one way or another if somehow these doubts were vanquished. So, it's ok for Gil, but God forbid should Doug do this. Can't but help wonder how much your bitterness directed at Doug is personal, not political...Then again, considering how much energy you have used to defend the likes of a Malecki, well... Steve
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Gil Skillman wrote: And forget the New or Marxist Schools, my vote is that Doug should go to SUNY--Stonybrook. For game theory. [Hah, that'll shake him up.] Last time I checked, there were quite a few (mathematics) courses on game theory at NYU (a short walk away from the New School). The tuition is quite expensive there, however (relative, e.g. to SUNY tuition). Perhaps you're right -- a trip to Eastern Long Island might be good for him ... and if he has any questions about game theory, he can take the a ferry across the Sound and ask you them in person. Jerry
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Gil wrote: Jerry writes: Look: you can't have it both ways: either value categories are important or they are not... Jerry, this seems uncharacteristically dogmatic of you. There is nothing dogmatic in one's pointing out that someone has: a) avoided repeatedly answering a question; b) made statements which are ambiguous and hedge the issues under discussion; c) failed (through refusal) to take and defend a position on a theoretical question. Thus, the issue is confronting anti-theory biases, imho. As you know I have my doubts about the relevance of value theory, but my assessment of capitalism wouldn't change one way or another if somehow these doubts were vanquished. You, however, don't avoid taking a position on theoretical questions. How about you? If you somehow discovered tomorrow that capitalist reality was fundamentally incongruent with underlying value trends, and had been for some time, would your assessment of capitalism change as a result? I'm always willing to reconsider theoretical questions in the presence of new and relevant information. Jerry
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Gil Skillman wrote: And forget the New or Marxist Schools, my vote is that Doug should go to SUNY--Stonybrook. For game theory. I'd prefer dentistry without anesthesia. Doug
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Jerry writes, anent Doug: Amazing ... you haven't "made up your mind" yet about value theory, but have just written a "Marxist" work claiming to be about political economy. Whether or not it's "Marxist", Doug's book is certainly "about political economy", and the validity and relevance of his arguments, however you assess them, will depend not at all on whether it earns the term "Marxist" or reflects an internally consistent take on value theory. Thus... Perhaps you might not realize it yet, but taking a position on value theory is a somewhat more important question related to political economy than forecasting the amount of pink carnations in the US in the next calendar year. Maybe, but not much. And forget the New or Marxist Schools, my vote is that Doug should go to SUNY--Stonybrook. For game theory. [Hah, that'll shake him up.] Gil
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Stephen E Philion wrote: state and take a position. If it is really true that you "don't know the answer to this", then you should consider either going back to school Jerry is staking out a very elitist intellectual position here that only in school do we learn anything. You had to cut my sentence off abruptly to jump to that unwarranted conclusion. Notice also the recommendation to go to New School as opposed to The Marxist School, an indication of liberalism as opposed to true Marxism. Well, well, well ... the [economics department at the] New School is "liberal", whereas "The Marxist School" is "true Marxism" [???!!!]. Would you be so kind as to explain that assertion? Or perhaps you are suggesting that I am being a "liberal" rather than a "true Marxist" for recommending an economics department rather than a school that besides classes on _Capital_ has only infrequent lectures on political economy. Jerry
Re: income race
Gil Skillman wrote: What do you think? Obviously an unemployment rate below 5% should help black workers a lot, but why are the bottom quintile of white households losing income (-4.3% between 1989 and 1996) while the bottom quintile of blacks (who are much poorer than whites in the bottom quintile) is up 5.2%. That's a difference of nearly 10 percentage points in just 7 years, which strikes me as pretty significant. I have to run fill out my school application forms now. Doug
Welcome to Sarajevo
Director Michael Winterbottom's "Welcome to Sarajevo" is a rancid and self-righteous film that reflects the pro-interventionist outlook of "laptop bombardiers." During the civil war in former Yugoslavia, this group, which included such notables as NY Times editorialist Anthony Lewis and cultural critic Susan Sontag, advocated NATO bombing of the Bosnian Serbs. In their moral calculus, the Muslims stood for European Jewry in the late 1930s, while the Serbs were the moral and political equivalent of Hitler's executioners. Frank Boyce bases his screenplay on British journalist Michael Nicolson's "Natasha's Story," an account of his attempt to adopt a Bosnian child. He seeks to spirit her out of Sarajevo to England where he can provide a pleasant life for her in his comfortable home. This story is supposed to lift our spirits and make us believe that there is one good human being left on earth. Stephen Dillane plays the saintly British journalist, whom we encounter in opening scenes as a prototypical cynical Western television reporter trying to come up with lurid footage of urban battle casualties. The reporters in Sarajevo send back footage like this to their studios each day. Their job is to provide the sort of visceral shock on the evening world report that stories about tenement fires and auto crashes provide for local news coverage. Woody Harrelson plays Flynn, a star American journalist who has a daredevil attitude toward street fighting. As long as there is gripping footage to be shot, the hard-drinking Flynn will dodge bullets and be there first. Now that the film has established cynical, risk-taking, hard-drinking reporters as the central male characters, one wonders where it can drift next in an ocean of cliché. The answer to this question is Nina (Marisa Tomei), the head of an orphanage, and Emira (Emira Nusevic), the fetching young orphan girl he decides to rescue from the hell of Sarajevo. Nina is everything that the reporters are not: idealistic, selfless and pure. Which is to say that she is as lacking in complexity as they are. Emira reminds one of the sort of children who used to pop up in Hollywood war movies in the 1950s. These adorable Italian or Korean war orphans are adopted by some grizzled, war-weary American infantry company after begging for a chocolate bar. Victor Mature usually plays the Sergeant while Gregory Peck is the Lieutenant. The children, according to formula, are never German or Japanese. That would not be marketable. The Bosnian Serbs, according to the formula of 1950's war movies, are Terminators put on earth to kill innocent people. God only knows why. They are ruthless killing machines whom any reasonable, humane person would like to see destroyed by a NATO bomb. The film version of the British journalist at one point confesses to a Bosnian Muslim that he feels shame over the failure of his government to bomb the Serbs into oblivion. To prove how inhuman the Serbs are, the film includes a horrifying scene. A bus carrying the orphaned children out of Sarajevo into the safety of Italy is stopped at gun-point by ranting Serb soldiers. They board the bus and take Muslim babies with them, presumably to be barbecued and eaten later. It is astonishing that "Welcome to Sarajevo" puts forward the notion that the Serb army would exterminate innocent children in this manner. The real crime of "ethnic cleansing" was beastly enough, but it was designed to carve out pieces of Bosnian territory in order to exclude one ethnic group or another, not exterminate them. While the Serbs were certainly more aggressive than the Muslims, both sides took part in the blood-letting. A much more powerful scene would have dramatized how Muslim and Serbian villagers, who lived peacefully for generations, came to the boiling point and eventually decided to destroy each other. This was not the agenda of the film-makers who were more interested in a good-versus-evil scenario rather than the complexities of the Yugoslavia tragedy. The production notes indicate how little the film's creators understood about Yugoslavian history. It blames the war on "rivalries between the Serbian, Croatian and Muslim communities in the region" that "go back centuries." Catherine Samary observes in "Yugoslavia Dismembered" (Monthly Review, 1995) that peace between various ethnic groups was possible when there was economic well-being: "The periods of Yugoslavia's or Bosnia-Herzegovina's greatest cohesion corresponded to the times when the populations concerned experienced real gains in living standards and rights. It was by contrast threats to those gains during the 1980s--not interethnic hatred--that gave rise to Yugoslavia's fragmentation. The socioeconomic and political crisis of the 1980s was in this respect a turning point." The author of "Natasha's Story" and the director and screenwriter of "Welcome to Sarajevo" are not interested in this history of real human beings. All of Bosnia is simply a backdrop
Re: URPE Web page
http://economics.csusb.edu/orgs/URPE/urpehome.html
Re: Aijaz Ahmad's Marx and India: A Clarification
On Fri, 31 Oct 1997, Louis Proyect wrote, among much else: I informed Siddhartha that I was going to use Ahmad's article in a debate with some post-Marxists on the Internet. He said give it to them good.^ Louis has suddenly decanted the term "post-Marxist/ism" into our midst; I would rather hear a definition of it than do my own deducing. Would he or someone else give that a try? [...After much deleted comment...:] Part of the problem was that Marx simply lacked sufficient information about India to develop a real theory. His remarks have the character of conjecture, not the sort of deeply elaborated dialectical thought that mark Capital. And so what happens is that enemies of Marxism seize upon these underdeveloped remarks to indict Marxism itself. Hasn't this sort of vicarious approach been endemic in Europe till quite recently? James Mill, I'm pretty sure, wrote a history recounting some 240 years of India's encounter with the British without ever having left Europe, but the work was standard for quite a while nevertheless. Not to be outdone, in our century Sir Solly Zuckerman's book on primate behavior was considered scriptural although based only on the observation of captive animals. Let's hope that the appetite for hands-on reality is better established today, though that often seems scarcely the case. [...] Gandhi: "The more we indulge in our emotions the more unbridled they become...Millions will always remain poor. Observing all this, our ancestors dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures. We have managed with the same kind of ploughs as existed thousands of years ago. We have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times, and our indigenous education remains the same...It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fibre. They, therefore, after due deliberation, decided that we should do what we could with our hands and feet...They further reasoned that large cities were a snare and a useless incumbrance and people would not be happy in them, that there would be gangs of thieves and robbers, prostitution and vice flourishing in them, and that poor men would be robbed by rich men. They were therefore satisfied with small villages." Louis: Now I realize that Gandhi is a complex thinker and that passive resistance was a powerful force against English colonialism, but doesn't this idealization of village life seem terribly mistaken. It is a Tolstoyan view of this life that seems at odds with the terrible suffering of people who are forced to do back-breaking work for the minimal forms of sustenance. This life not only is not free, it will inevitably be crushed by the forces of global capitalism. It, of course, is the utopian premise of Vindana Shiva that such an existence can be realized in the age of jet planes, computer networks and transnational corporations. Gandhi generally saw cities as incubators of finance capitalist values, and his "home-spun" campaign was intended to inspire industries of low capital content that would spare India's masses the cruel curse of categorical redundancy. This was more important than simply frustrating the looms of Manchester. Gandhi was sure that the villages could be made dynamic and healthy places. Confident of an exhausted Britain's withdrawal sometime in the post-war period, Gandhi likely foresaw a Soviet preoccupation with America, Europe, China and Japan that would leave India free to follow a domestically determined path of growth. Nehru's foreign policy after independence certainly suggested this. Unfortunately, Gandhi's ideals seem to have little currency in India today; the spinning wheel, once such a potent political symbol, has been replaced by another round object: the satellite dish. Those who believe that the socialist omelet is worth any number of broken eggs will surely get their wish in India! valis
Re: [PEN-L] Re: empiricism in p.e.
Doug Henwood wrote: To define productive and unproductive labour, don't you first have to define surplus value? Hey, I just got a copy of Tom Peters' latest tome - personally autographed and by FedEx! - The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way To Greatness. Tom has a chapter called "All Value Comes From the Professional Services." I think that settles it. As per usual [from DH]: an evasion. Jerry
Re: [PEN-L] Re: empiricism in p.e.
Gerald Levy wrote: To define productive and unproductive labour, don't you first have to define surplus value? Hey, I just got a copy of Tom Peters' latest tome - personally autographed and by FedEx! - The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way To Greatness. Tom has a chapter called "All Value Comes From the Professional Services." I think that settles it. Doug
The Organizer Mailing: Valuable Resource for Activists
{Apologies for multiple copies generated as a result of cross-posting.}
++
At the risk of being charged with crass commercial promotion, I am posting
information about a little known but highly valuable resource for organizers
and activists - both labor and community - The Organizer Mailing (TOM).
++
The Organizer Mailing (TOM) is a publication of The Organize Training Center
in San Franisco (a non-profit institution providing services to labor,
community religious organizations for more than 25 years).
In its 10th year of publication, TOM is an important resource for
organizers, leaders of community and labor organizations, and other social
activists.
Each quarter, TOM compiles the best material in a number of areas from a
variety of sources: reports about both labor and community organizing;
thought provoking articles on economics, politics, culture, society and
religion; discussions of trends and problems in organizing; and lots more.
It combines many of the best features of think tank analysis, a clipping
service for activists, and a social issues briefing digest.
The publication is mailed in loose-leaf format, making it easy for
subscribers to select particular stories or articles for reprint themselves.
TOM subscribers pay either $45.00 (individual rate) or $55.00 (institutional
rate) a year for the publication. The renewal rate is about 80%, attesting
to the value of the publication. The typical issue includes 75 or more
articles, running 150 pages.
Comments from TOM readers include the following ---
"We are putting some piece from TOM to work most days of our working lives."
Bill Arfmann, Director, Nebraska
Association of Public Employees/AFSCME.
"We who organize others for united action have created virtually no
successful means for communicating among ourselves. TOM is it--and it is
very good. It brings news of work across lines of organizing schools and
networks. It offers insights and stimulation from the arts, history and
religion. It is eclectic and refreshing and has helped introduce us...to
new ideas for issue campaigns and leadership development."
Kenneth A. Galdston, Staff Director
Merrimack Valley Project, Inc.
"We almost fight over who's to get the first crack at the latest TOM! For
us, it's an invaluable tool. You've done the hard work of gleaning the
best, most interesting stories of citizens in action"
Frances Moore Lappe Paul Martin
Co-Directors, Center for Living Democracy
"We use TOM in the training of new organizers, for its book reviews, and to
keep abreast of current organizing theory and organizing efforts around the
country. There's really no publication like TOM for organizers; it's been
invaluable to us."
Lydia Ferrante, Executive Director
Tenderloin Senior Organizing Project
"This is to let you know that our School for Leaders program uses TOM
regularly in our training and consulting on community organization with
groups here in Milwaukee...I personally find TOM rewarding because it has a
larger premise about the scope and implications of organizing than I have
found anywhere else, and encourages me to think in those broader terms as
well as about the strategy and tactics of it. The layout makes TOM easy to
scan, and I routinely find several pieces that I copy for inclusion in
mailings and for use in workshops."
Paul Bloyd, Coordinator
Milwaukee Associates in Urban Development
"I've found TOM to be a useful source for innovative tactics and organizing
strategies. As someone who has been involved with organizing for nearly
twenty years, I read with interest the organizing stories of my brothers and
sisters in community groups and churches...What TOM provides isn't available
anywhere else."
Michael Votichenko, Organizer/Senior
Representative, Laborers' International Union
To subscribe to TOM:
Send a check payable to --
The Organize Training Center
in the amount of $45.00 (individual)
or $55.00 (institutional) to
OTC
442-A Vicksburg St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO A FRIEND AND SHARE WITH YOUR NETWORK OF SOCIAL
ACTIVISTS.
Re: income race
Doug, I didn't say there wasn't discrimination. I said that I found it dubious that "race" explains the accentuation of income inequality itself. If there are a lot more poorly paying jobs, discrimination both directly and indirectly via conscious underdevelopment of so called productivity enhancing attributes does explain more than partially why racialised minorities are overrepresented in those jobs, without explaining why there are so many more bad jobs in the first place. If race serves as an allocation mechanism, that is to say that it does not determine the job and pay structure, the study of the changing parameters of which is therefore not aided by data on racial inequality. In short, "race" does not necessarily explain why income inequality itself is greater in the US than elsewhere, though in Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward's latest book, the reason offered for a limited American social wage is the political role of Southern white racists. They argue through the filibuster and other political means, Southern racists blocked the development of a universal social protection from the 1930s on; that well positioned industrial workers were then forced to and successfully extracted benefits directly from employers, though this has left in its wake a split between mostly priviliged male and white workers and mostly unprotected minority and women workers. So that the reason why the US provides less protection against inequality is a racist and sexist disregard for the lower half of the working class as the potential tax burden alienates not only capital but also that part of the working class which has won protection directly from employers. Hence, the disaffection of especially white male workers from the Democratic Party, which has thus been unable to develop into a truly social democratic one, presumably along the lines of Jospin's Socialists. What do you think of this argument? course, but race has a life of its own. Navarro's evidence aside, mortality rates for blacks are worse than those for whites even after controlling for education and income. It would seem that the more important control here is occupation, though Navarro himself notes that even when this is controlled for, blacks die at a higher rate, suggesting that the most dangerous jobs are assumed by minorities. income inequality is an objective and subjective fact of social life. Why is it "more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share" than to explore income polarlization? What does it reveal? I gave you my answer on marxism international. You didn't respond. "Greater misery with the production process"? In general, "productive" workers are better paid than "unproductive" ones - who feels and looks more exploited. I meant to say greater misery *within* the production process. Greater income may not compensate workers for it. To the extent that the whole edifice is built on the exploitation of productive labor, it is not surprising to hear even progressives remind us that the productive labor is priviliged vis a vis unproductive labor in the US or even rich peasants, as the liberal left points out in India. The bourgeoisie has a very practical sense of where its power derives from, and the most critical ideas of the ruling class become the ruling ideas shared by it and progressives and the left alike. Value categories may be important for examining the inner dynamics of capitalist economies, but, as they say in school, appearance counts. A lot. Yes, for Marx appearance counts a lot, so to speak: The appearance of an equal exchange between labor and capital; the appearance that capital is compensated for by profit, land by rent, and labor by wages; or the appearance that value must take in the use value of another commodity. But these are appearances that are generated out of bourgeois social relations themselves; data on income inequality is more of an arbitrary system created by officials and social scientists. It is not an appearance in the strict Marxian sense (for the relationship between essence and appearance in Marx, see Derek Sayer, Marx's Method, Jairus Banaji in Diane Elson.ed. Value; Patrick Murray in Fred Moseley, ed. Marx's Method in Capital). As for the arbitrary nature of income inequality stats (and for Marx the kinds of appearances he was talking about are not arbitrary--this is key), Marc Linder notes in Italy that the newspapers will headline articles about labor's share in national income, while in the US we are more likely to have such econ data refracted through income quintile groups or ethnracial groups. Rakesh
RE: URPE Web page
** Reply to note from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 31 Oct 1997 15:16:00 -0500 Jeff, URPE is also linked from the Research's homepage below. Paul ** Paul Zarembka, using OS/2 and supporting RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka * 11/01/97
Re: income race
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: At the same time, this data shows that inequality in terms of the top and bottom quintile groups is greater than between blacks (20% of the population) and whites. The gravest inequalities are not always racial, WEB DuBois notwithstanding. As Vicente Navarro has pointed out, there is a greater differential in the rate of death by heart disease between blue collar and white collar workers than between blacks and whites. Navarro then points out that the govt only get these stats by occupation in the mid-1980s, while it continues to racialise the data. After all, the govt can do something about racial inequality, while it cannot enter into the hard-core of bourgeois relations. [and] At any rate, Doug, I think that data on income inequality are pretty irrelevant to the empirical confirmation of Marxian theory. It would be more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share as its proxy or to determine whether real wage gains are only coming at the expense of greater misery with the production process, that abode into which bourgeois economists remain reluctant to enter. My first reaction to this would be, so much the worse for Marxian theory. First, race is one of the central facts of American life; class is too, of course, but race has a life of its own. Navarro's evidence aside, mortality rates for blacks are worse than those for whites even after controlling for education and income. Black incomes are lower than those for whites even after all the appropriate demographic controls are applied. And second, income inequality is an objective and subjective fact of social life. Why is it "more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share" than to explore income polarlization? What does it reveal? Income is an important (certainly not the only) measure of one's position in the social hierarchy, and a determinant of it (certainly not the only one) as well. "Greater misery with the production process"? In general, "productive" workers are better paid than "unproductive" ones - who feels and looks more exploited. Value categories may be important for examining the inner dynamics of capitalist economies, but, as they say in school, appearance counts. A lot. Doug
Re: income race
There was a similar report on the equalisation of income for those arbitrary categories of ethno-racial groups in the New York Times, Sept 30 1997. I seem not to have saved it. It wouldn't be the claim that black gains explain white losses, that better paid whites are being downsized for cheaper blacks? At any rate, there are the usual worries: there are biases in the sampling of the black population; income equalisation is at the very least not accompanied by wealth equalisation (especially given the low value of any owned housing stock in still massively segregated neighborhoods); absolute and relative black income 'gains' result from more hours worked by black households. At the same time, this data shows that inequality in terms of the top and bottom quintile groups is greater than between blacks (20% of the population) and whites. The gravest inequalities are not always racial, WEB DuBois notwithstanding. As Vicente Navarro has pointed out, there is a greater differential in the rate of death by heart disease between blue collar and white collar workers than between blacks and whites. Navarro then points out that the govt only get these stats by occupation in the mid-1980s, while it continues to racialise the data. After all, the govt can do something about racial inequality, while it cannot enter into the hard-core of bourgeois relations. At any rate, I never much agreed with the idea that "race" explains the magnitude of the observed variance of income or the size of the labor share. It's one thing to say that race disadvantages one in market relations; another thing altogether to say that race explains how much bad the market has to mete out, i.e. the magnitude of income inequality does not increase because of race--whatever that could mean. So if we are trying to determine the changing magnitude of income inequality, it seems to me superfluous to racialize the data from the pt of view of its scientific explanation. At any rate, Doug, I think that data on income inequality are pretty irrelevant to the empirical confirmation of Marxian theory. It would be more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share as its proxy or to determine whether real wage gains are only coming at the expense of greater misery with the production process, that abode into which bourgeois economists remain reluctant to enter. Rakesh Grad Student UC Berkeley
The Teamsters Union and Revolutionary Socialism
The recent International Brotherhood of Teamsters' (IBT) victory over United Parcel Service is part of a historic struggle to transform the American trade unions into instruments of class struggle. Back in 1934, socialists organized a powerful teamsters strike in the mid-west city of Minneapolis, a transpiration hub. Its overwhelming success was the first step in turning the Teamsters into a fighting, class-conscious union. When Jimmy Hoffa took over the Teamsters in the 1940s, he purged the union of the Minneapolis radicals while making alliances with organized crime. The retreat of the Teamsters was part of a general reactionary drift in the American labor movement that persisted until the 1960s. Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), born in the mid 1970's, attempted to rid the union of Hoffa's bureaucrats and criminals. Without the TDU, Ron Carey could have never captured the Teamsters presidency in 1991. The socialists and progressives who started TDU played a significant role in returning the Teamsters to its militant roots and deserve enormous credit for the victory against UPS. Arrayed against the reform movement today is a powerful combination of the trucking industry, bureaucrats led by Jimmy Hoffa Jr., organized crime, and the American government. Washington has ordered new Teamsters elections that will pit Jimmy Hoffa Jr. against Ron Carey. When Hoffa Jr. says that he is trying to return the Teamsters to the traditions of his father, nobody should misunderstand his goal. He wants to turn the clock back to a period of bureaucracy, goon squads and theft. In 1933, Farrell Dobbs had a job shoveling coal in Minneapolis where he met Grant Dunne, a truck driver, who was unloading a shipment of coal. Dunne invited him to an organizing meeting of Teamster Local 574. The union sought to organize coal-yard workers. Grant Dunne was the brother of Vincent Ray and Miles Dunne. The Communist Party had expelled the three Dunnes for backing Trotsky. Unlike many of the other early adherents to the Trotskyist movement, the brothers were not members of the intelligentsia. They were workers who had taken part in the International Workers Movement's struggles in the early part of the century. They hoped to build powerful industrial unions in the 1930s during the depths of the Great Depression. Such unions could play a role not only in defending the standard of living of working people, but serve as a battering ram against the capitalist system as well. Dobbs was happy join an organizing drive for personal reasons at least. His pay was $18 for a sixty hour week and had recently learned that his boss would cut his wages to $16 for a forty hour week. While Dobbs was no socialist, he knew firsthand what injustice meant. So in the dead of winter, Local 274 struck just as a severe cold wave hit the city. The coal-yard bosses conceded as quickly as they did in the recent UPS strike and the union movement gained a feeling of power and self-confidence. The political and organizing skills of the Dunne brothers impressed Dobbs to such an extent that he decided to join the Trotskyist movement. The next step in the Teamsters organizing drive in Minneapolis was to bring truck drivers into the union. On May 13, 1934, Local 274 voted to strike the trucking industry in Minneapolis. The union rented a large building where it set up offices, a garage, a field hospital and a commissary. Union carpenters and plumbers helped to set up the building and the Cook and Waiters Union organized 100 volunteers who served 4,000 to 5,000 strikers and family members each day. The union organized the strike like a military operation. Sentries stood guard on fifty roads leading into the city with orders to block all scab traffic. Teenagers on motorcycles acted as couriers, bringing news from the field to strike headquarters. Ray Dunne and Farrell Dobbs were the main coordinators of strike. In less than a year, Dobbs had evolved from an ordinary worker to a strike leader. This happened countless times in the 1930s when a powerful mass movement helped ordinary people discover latent talents. On July 20, 1934 the cops opened fire on ten unarmed pickets. When other strikers came to their aid, the police shot at them as well. They wounded sixty-seven people, including many whom the cops shot in the back while trying to escape. Two eventually died. Instead of intimidating the workers, the opposite happened. The strike deepened and mass support grew. Four hundred thousand workers attended a mass rally, one of the largest in Minneapolis history. The bosses finally relented in August and recognized union representation for the truck-drivers. The victory in Minneapolis encouraged the Teamsters to organize over-the-road truckers next. In "Teamster's Power," Dobbs described their working conditions: "The workers aimed at in this drive toiled under inhuman conditions. Hours of labor varied widely. Trips of from 80 to 120 continuous hours--with catnaps
Re: income race
Greetings, On Sat, 1 Nov 1997, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: [Snip...} At any rate, Doug, I think that data on income inequality are pretty irrelevant to the empirical confirmation of Marxian theory. It would be more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share as its proxy or to determine whether real wage gains are only coming at the expense of greater misery with the production process, that abode into which bourgeois economists remain reluctant to enter. Rakesh Grad Student UC Berkeley I would not argue that "data on income inequality are pretty irrelevant to the empirical confirmation of Marxian theory." Data on income inequality as well as data on other forms of inequality actually substantiate Marxism. But it is true that more important than data on income inequality is the determination of the rate of surplus value. This is the key way to determine the level and direction of development of society. Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PEN-L] empiricism in p.e.
Doug Henwood wrote: Actually I've mostly phrased this as a question, not an assertion, a question that runs more or less as follows: "What do the Marxian value categories tell you about recent economic history that the intelligent use of bourgeois statistics can't?" By intelligent, in this context, I meant through Marx-informed eyes. I asked because I really want to hear answers, and not a lot of empty purist bluster. Doug An answer can be found in the Joseph M. Gillmans attempt to check the marxist version of the « falling profit rate law », by the means of the available statistics (London, 1957 ; New-York, 1958 ; Paris, 1980). Gillman didnt success in demonstrating the « law », for his time-series show an increasing as well as decreasing variable, without any significant trend. But in the scientific research, experimental failures arent at all nul results. That one could be explained in three ways : 1. The « law » is wrong 2. Statistics are wrong 3. The « law » and statistics are wrong or insufficient Whatever it be, the answer is most important. In a prime analysis, it appears that Gillman attempted to check a law that is closely associated to the « period of production » variable, by the means of datas that are closely associated to an invariable unit of time. So that it seems possible to choose the answer number 2. But in a deeper analysis, it appears that the marxist expression of the « law » is itself jeopardized by a contradiction, notably concerning the « surplus-value ». So that the answer rather seems to be the third one : the marxist law of value is contradictory to itself, and statistics dont integrate an essential variable : the necessary gestation time of labour products. But both of marxist theory and available statistics can and must be asked, until a very « economic science » end the debate. Regards Romain Kroes
Re: income race
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: I said that I found it dubious that "race" explains the accentuation of income inequality itself. Who said it did? I brought this up in the first place because I noticed a significant narrowing of racial income gaps over the last 5 years in the U.S., and wondered if anyone else had noticed this and if there were any explanations for it. The gender gap is also narrowing; the 1996 gap for year-round fulltime workers was the lowest in history. Put another way, white male privilege is eroding slowly. There are many reasons why U.S. incomes are the most polarized in the First World - the weakness of unions, the weakness of the welfare state, a primitive political culture, etc. But race is no small part of why our unions and welfare state are weak and the political culture so idiotic. We can go on about race being a constructed category, which it is, but it is now pervasive and almost feels like a fact of nature - and its construction was present at the creation of the other factors I listed. Doug
[PEN-L] Re: empiricism in p.e.
Doug Henwood wrote: Why is it "more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share" than to explore income polarlization? What does it reveal? You seem to be asking: "what does exploitation reveal?" [!] In general, "productive" workers are better paid than "unproductive" ones - who feels and looks more exploited. To define productive and unproductive labour, don't you first have to define surplus value? Value categories may be important for examining the inner dynamics of capitalist economies, Well ... that's certainly a wishy-washy statement. Are they important or are they not? If they are important, how are they important? Please be specific. Jerry
Re: [PEN-L] Re: empiricism in p.e.
Gerald Levy wrote: Doug Henwood wrote: Why is it "more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share" than to explore income polarlization? What does it reveal? You seem to be asking: "what does exploitation reveal?" [!] In general, "productive" workers are better paid than "unproductive" ones - who feels and looks more exploited. To define productive and unproductive labour, don't you first have to define surplus value? Value categories may be important for examining the inner dynamics of capitalist economies, Well ... that's certainly a wishy-washy statement. Are they important or are they not? If they are important, how are they important? Please be specific. Jerry May be is it relevant to distinguish tribute and profit ? Why hasn't Marx success in trying (during fourteen years) to transform his "surplus value rate" into a "profit rate" ?
value, again
Gerald Levy wrote: Well ... that's certainly a wishy-washy statement. Are they important or are they not? If they are important, how are they important? Please be specific. I really don't know the answer to this, which is why I'm asking the question. So far what I've heard from the value partisans hasn't been very convincing, but I'm open to argument. I'm talking about understanding the evolution of capitalist economies over time, not the existence of exploitation, which I take as a certainty. I'm all ears, Jerry, or anyone else who has something to say. Doug
[PEN-L] Re: value, again
Doug Henwood wrote previously: Value categories may be important for examining the inner dynamics of capitalist economies, which led me to note: Well ... that's certainly a wishy-washy statement. and then ask: Are they important or are they not? If they are important, how are they important? Please be specific. Doug then responded: I really don't know the answer to this, which is why I'm asking the question. To begin with, you didn't ask a question above. Instead, you made a highly ambiguous assertion. Look: you can't have it both ways: either value categories are important or they are not. There are certainly a number of sophisticated Marxists who reject value theory, BUT they are at least able to state and defend a theoretical position. Unless you are anti-theory, you should be able to state and take a position. If it is really true that you "don't know the answer to this", then you should consider either going back to school (since you live in NYC, you could apply at the New School) or changing your occupation (perhaps you might make a decent English Lit instructor). Jerry
Re: income race
After raising a number of useful points in an exchange with Doug, Rakesh closes-- It would be more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a rejection of wage share as its proxy or to determine whether real wage gains are only coming at the expense of greater misery with the production process, that abode into which bourgeois economists remain reluctant to enter. For what it's worth, this claim is about a quarter century or so out of date. Bourgeois economists talk about the capitalist production process all the time. There is a vast and growing mainstream literature on the nature and operation of capitalist firms. Journals like the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization devote a large part of their pages to the topic. Of course, as in most other aspects of mainstream theory, these treatments emphasize issues of "allocation" and "efficiency" and largely ignore questions of power or distribution. (There are some very important exceptions, as with a recent article by Legros and Newman on the negative efficiency and distributional consequences of capitalist firm ownership.) My personal favorite _non sequitur_ in this regard is Oliver Williamson's unwavering presumption that the essential purpose of economic organization (i.e., firms) is to "economize on transaction costs." But a world with transaction costs irreducibly gives rise to *both* allocative and distributive (and process and power) issues. But in any case, the issue is not so much that bourgeois economists "remain reluctant to enter" the hidden abode of capitalist production, but that they While I'm at it, I might add that many of the issues considered in this literature were first addressed by Marx, that this debt is apparently unrecognized much less acknowledged by the mainstream, and that Marx's valid insights into the operation of capitalist firms are obscured by, rather than dependent on, his value-theoretic categories. Gil Skillman
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Doug Henwood wrote: If having made up your mind about everything is a mark of sophistication, then I think both knowledge and politics could do with a little more naivete. Amazing ... you haven't "made up your mind" yet about value theory, but have just written a "Marxist" work claiming to be about political economy. Perhaps you might not realize it yet, but taking a position on value theory is a somewhat more important question related to political economy than forecasting the amount of pink carnations in the US in the next calendar year. For someone who has an interest in political economy, not having a position on value is equivalent to a diesel mechanic saying she has no knowledge of engines. Jerry
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Jerry writes: Look: you can't have it both ways: either value categories are important or they are not... Jerry, this seems uncharacteristically dogmatic of you. Aside from matters of faith, the only way to gauge the "importance" of value categories is according to their relevance in accounting for capitalist reality, which is necessarily an ongoing process. As you know I have my doubts about the relevance of value theory, but my assessment of capitalism wouldn't change one way or another if somehow these doubts were vanquished. How about you? If you somehow discovered tomorrow that capitalist reality was fundamentally incongruent with underlying value trends, and had been for some time, would your assessment of capitalism change as a result? Gil
Re: [PEN-L] Re: value, again
Gerald Levy wrote: Thus, the issue is confronting anti-theory biases, imho. Jerry, you've caught me out. If I weren't scheduled to visit Chico (on Michael Perelman's invitation) this week, I'd jump out the window right next to me. I promise, though, as soon as I get back, I'll end my miserable excuse for a life. Thanks for clarifying things. Doug
