Imperialist *non*intervention in Chechnya
The appeasement of Nazi Germany by Britain and France before the Second World War, was the result of their imperialist nature. Similarly now, the refusal of the West to put pressure on Putin's Russia to observe democratic rights in Chechnya is a fruit of their imperialist desire *in these circumstances" to compromise with the creation of the oligarchs who was inaugurated in the throne room of the Czar, Below is an example of the report that is being little prominence by the western media, because there is an assumption that nothing very much can be done, or should be done. Chris Burford London John Sweeney reports on the horror of a Russian prison camp in Chechnya Special report: Russia Special report: crisis in Chechnya John Sweeney Observer Sunday October 15, 2000 Inside the prison camp at Chernokozovo, they call it the 'elephant'. 'They put a gas mask on your head. Your hands are cuffed behind your back, so there is nothing you can do. And then they close off the breathing tube and you start to choke.' The torture victim, a small, wiry Chechen man, knelt down and made the sound of a man suffocating: 'The "elephant" was the worst.' A second victim spoke of a refinement of the 'elephant': 'Once the gas mask was on, they would choke you, so you were gasping to breathe. And they would let go and you would breathe in deeply. And then they would squirt CS gas down the breathing hole. It was so bad just the sight of the gas mask in the room would make people confess to anything.' The 'elephant' is just one instrument of torture used by the Russian occupation forces in Chechnya, revealed today in a joint investigation by The Observer and the BBC's Radio Five Report. Russian security forces have mounted a series of cover-ups to hide evidence of abuses from the Red Cross and the Council of Europe. In the small Chechen village of Katyr Yurt, a torture victim blinded in one eye spoke of the screams he heard each night while inside Chernokozovo. The screams were so bad local people were forced to move away because they found them unbearable. 'At night,' he said, 'the things you heard were just terrible. Every night they would take people out of the cells. They screamed. They had their teeth bashed in, their kidneys smashed in. You could hear them being beaten from the cell. So then they would turn the music up loud, so you couldn't hear the screams.' The youngest victim we met was 17. He was living in a refugee city in Ingushetia, next door to Chechnya. We shall call him Peter. He sat in front of us, head bowed, terrified of eye contact: 'They handcuffed your arms behind your back and hooked the cuffs to a chain so you were suspended from the ceiling, with all your weight bearing down on your hands and shoulders. And then they would use you like a punchbag. They called this "the swallow". They'd hold you for half a day like that.' But this wasn't the worst torture for the teenager: 'They put me in a cell. There was something chemical in there. They cuffed my hands behind my back and said, "Go on, swim". I practically lost my sight when they shoved my head in there. There was also something else, a barrel full of water with a cage on top. You couldn't get out of there.' Peter drew us a map. Painstakingly, Chernokozovo came to life. Barbed wire, steps down to his cell, the punishment tank where he was dunked in the chemical that left him blind for days. The second victim - Richard - corroborated much of Peter's story and added his own account of agony: the 'meat-rack'. 'They crank a pulley to stretch you with chains attached to your legs. While they stretch you, they hit you with rubber truncheons, bottles full of water, targeting the kidneys.' He also underwent 'the swallow' and electric shock torture. Richard said that one day in the summer a Red Cross representative - a French woman called Catherine - came to Chernokozovo. Could he tell the Red Cross about the beatings and torture? 'No, the guards had come round before and told us we would be tortured if we did.' The Red Cross has confirmed that one of their delegates visited Chernokozovo; her name was Catherine and she was Belgian. Our third witness is a man of 20 who has the voice of an 80-year-old. He screamed so much when he was being beaten that his vocal cords snapped. In a pitiful whisper, he too spoke of the usual welcome at Chernokozovo, the beatings, having to crawl into the interrogation room and ask for permission to enter. While he was there a man was beaten to death: 'I don't remember the date, but they took him out of the cell one evening. We heard them shouting "Crawl, crawl". They were beating him and we heard him screaming. Then, the next morning, they led four of us into his room. His body was lying there. They'd broken all his ribs. They forced us to carry him out and dressed the body in the Muslim manner. We dressed the body, covered up with sacks, and they took us
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2000 RELEASED TODAY: CPI -- The Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.5 percent in September, seasonally adjusted, following a 0.1 percent decline in August. The upturn reflects a sharp turnaround in the energy index, which increased 3.8 percent in September after declining 2.9 percent in August. In September, the indexes for petroleum-based energy and for energy services increased 5.9 and 1.7 percent, respectively. The food index rose 0.2 percent. ... Excluding food and energy, the CPI-U rose 0.3 percent in September, following five consecutive monthly increases of 0.2 percent. A sharp increase in apparel prices and an upturn in the tobacco index were principally responsible for the larger advance in September. ... REAL EARNINGS -- Real average weekly earnings fell by 0.1 percent between August and September, after seasonal adjustment, according to preliminary data. This was due to a 0.6 percent increase in the consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. This movement was mostly offset by a 0.2 percent increase in average hourly earnings and a 0.3 percent increase in average weekly hours. ... Real average weekly earning decreased by 0.2 percent from September 1999 to September 2 ... The labor productivity growth rate in manufacturing in the United States climbed 6.2 percent during 1999, the largest increase in more than 10 years, BLS reports. Productivity also improved among eight of the nine other countries for which comparable data were available, with the United Kingdom and France posting the next largest gains at 4.3 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively. Only Norway failed to post productivity gains, remaining steady with its 1998 productivity. ... Unit labor costs -- a key measure of inflation -- were down 1.1 percent in the United States from 1998, but varied in the nine other countries. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Increasing technology production helped fuel a stronger-than-expected rise in industrial production of 0.2 percent in September, the Federal Reserve reports. Seasonally adjusted data showed that stepped up production of consumer goods and automobiles also aided in lifting the central bank's industrial production index. Industrial production was 5.7 percent higher than in September 1999. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-9)_Industrial production slowed in September from a month earlier, to close out the weakest quarterly performance for manufacturers since early 1999. ... (Washington Post, page E2)_Output rose 0.2 percent last month, mainly reflecting increased production of cars and replacement tires for the Explorer sport utility vehicles made by the Ford Motor Company. ... (New York Times, page C4)_U.S. industrial production rose modestly in September, offering further evidence that the economy remains strong despite being slowed by rising energy costs and higher interest rates. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A10). __The tight labor market, employee shortages, and the resulting long hours are having a strong effect on whether many of the nation's employers are able to continue to operate safe workplaces, a panel of labor and safety specialists say at a session of the National Safety Council's annual safety congress in Orlando, Fla. ... Another problem arising out of the high-turnover environment is the workforce losing its history -- "there are no veterans anymore" -- a director of the United Food and Commercial Workers said. She added that supervisory turnover "causes problems all over the place." ... Also at the conference, safety specialists looked at the dangers associated with night work and allowing employees who work alone to use internal reward systems for safe workplace behavior. ... (Daily Labor Report, page C-1)_Employees working alone at night in certain businesses are especially vulnerable to workplace violence, particularly robberies, an official with OSHA said. (Daily Labor Report, page C-1)_Decreasing traditional management controls and increasing the ability of employees to reward themselves for being mindful of responsible behavior is a psychological key to implementing a successful job safety program that addresses the specific needs of truck drivers and other employees who work alone, a behavioral sciences researcher said. ... (Daily Labor Report, page C-2). The fiscal year 2001 spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (H.R. 4577) remained stalled Oct. 17, with the administration laying fault on what it sees as inadequate funding for education in the measure. Federal government agencies -- such as the Labor Department -- which are not covered by a signed appropriations bill, remained operating through Oct. 20 under a third continuing resolution (H.R. Res. 11). The continuing resolution extends funding for such agencies at fiscal year 2000 levels. ... (Daily
Re: Re: RE: Suppressed Voices: McReynolds and Nader(fwd)
G'day Gar, why we should spend a little time on speculating on the nature of a socialist society, on as old whiskers said "creating recipes for the cookshops of the future". ... Why -- because the myth of TINA (There Is No Alternative) is far more widespread than it ever was in Marxes day. In the USA, if you ask most workers if socialism is possible -- that is can it get the bread baked and the shoes made, most people will say no, or not in the long run. Or they will say it is possible but only under a horrible dictatorship that tortures people and suppresses there freedom. More strength to your arm, Gar! This is exactly and importantly right - both as characterisation of contemporary discourse, its implications, and as its treatment. And I've a big soft spot for Albert and Hahnel's stuff, too - at least they haven't forgotten the centrality of democracy to any system worthy of the tag, or even realistically inclined towards, socialism. All the best, Rob.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Milosevic and privatization
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Everthing I have heard is that he was personally honest (i.e. non- corrupt) though he did not extend his personal standards to those around him, including his immediate family. Well, Bill Clinton hasn't *personally* benefited from slashing capital gains taxes and boosting the military budget, either, but that doesn't mean we should cut him or any leader slack for the noxious things they've done. So how did Slovenia resist the neolib virus? Social democratic parties? Strong unions? A developed welfare state? -- Dennis
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Milosevic and privatization
Paul Phillips wrote: ... I would also use this opportunity to respond to some of Chris' comments about Serb policy in the late 1980s re the privatization of the 'socialist' property system. First, the pressure for the end of the 'social property' system came from western-trained economists, many of them Serbs. I had the dubious pleasure of debating with a couple of the most virulent critics of the Yugo socialist system at a couple of conferences where I was a speaker and they were mere mouthpieces for neoclassical dogma, Kornai and Petrojvic et. al. By the way, this is still true today. The neo- liberal impulse in Slovenia comes almost entirely from the central bank and the economics faculty of the University. It was also true in Serbia. Thus, under pressure from the IMF/WB the 'reforms' began with the 'nationalization' of socially owner (i.e. socialistically owned means of production) producing state ownership *in order to privatize*. As I understand it (I haven't been back in Beograd since 1992) Milosevic stopped the next stage, the privatization of 'state ownership' leaving the enterprises as public, but not socially owned, enterprises. ... thanks for this message. I have a question: wasn't one reason for the movement away from workers' control (socialized property?) is that there was excessive decentralization, which led to continuous contracting and re-contracting even within factories? My own impression is that Milosevic was a wily political animal, but not very bright, at least in respect to economic matters. Everthing I have heard is that he was personally honest (i.e. non- corrupt) though he did not extend his personal standards to those around him, including his immediate family. I believe he tried to remain true to his concept of socialism, including public ownership of the means of production, but that he was overwhelmed intellectually and politically by the international institutions, his domestic economic advisors, and his rent-seeking managers. this fits with my characterization of SM as a Serbian Mayor Daley (the elder). Hizzoner was personally honest (etc.), a wily political animal, but not very bright. He had a hard time dealing with the non-Chicago vision of the world (where "Chicago" is the city, not the University). speaking of the University of Chicago, today's LA TIMES says that the U of C has inflated the number of Nobel Prize winners in their ranks, including those who simply visited the place for a semester or a year (like Paul Samuelson). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Administrative Stuff
Michael: please sign me up on pen-l at [EMAIL PROTECTED] I am changing my ISP. This can also serve as notication to anyone who cares to have my new address. --Justin Schwartz
Re: Milosevic and privatization
I have another question for Paul. Wasn't the decline in workers' remittances a major factor? Also, when you think about it, penners, try to remove the re re re's from the subject line. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: More on ADM
I'm reading Eichenwald's book on ADM and it reads like FBI spin or even a print of handouts from the FBI. It is clear that he was fed enormous helpings of FBI genetically engineered pap, and then defecates it for the reader. The premise of his book is that the FBI was doing a great job but got undercut by the informant who brought the case to their attention, and recorded meetings for them. I've read about one third of it so far and it is really, really bad. It is not even good mystery writing. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: I took this from Al Krebs' AgBiz Examiner. It is useful because it throws light on 1) Corporate control of the news. 2) GM crops. as well as some intresting speculations about ADM. NEW YORK TIMES: ALL THE NEWS THATS FIT TO PRINT . . . . . EXCEPT WHEN IT CONCERNS ADM? An article appearing on October 14 in the New York Times --- New Concerns Rise on Keeping Track of Modified Corn --- by Kurt Eichenwald raises new questions not only about Eichenwalds association with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), but also the possibility of a new chapter in that companys continuing model of a corporate culture of corruption and manipulation, a story which James B. Lieber, has described so vividly in his authoritative book Rats in the Grain. Kurt Eichenwald has written a number of stories in recent years in The Times concerning the scandal at ADM where the Supermarkup to the World pled guilty to price fixing in the world lysine feed additive market and paid $100 million fine and had three of its executives convicted of price fixing, fined and sent to jail. Eichenwald critics point out that they believe he wrote stories on the ADM scandal for the Times rather than reported on the scandal because as his latest book, The Informant, published by Doubleday, illustrates his role as a reporter for the paper of record leaves a lot to be desired. Those who have closely covered the ADM scandal over recent years have been voicing serious questions about Eichenwalds reporting skills as opposed to his story telling. The fact that many details in his book are erroneous, that he makes no mention, either in his Times stories or the book, of many aspects of the coverup of the scandal by the Department of Justice. Nor does he discuss the influence peddling role of Williams Connelly, the high-powered law firm in Washington which not only represented ADM in the price fixing scandal and argued Bill Clintons defense against impeachment on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but also is now representing FOX television in its legal battle with Florida reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson after they were fired for refusing to lie, distort and slant an on-the-air report on the use and dangers of rBGH. (see below) Eichenwalds continued coziness with the Department of Justice and Williams Connelly is troubling to critics when one considers the fact that while he was writing about the ADM scandal he reportedly told David Hoech of the ADM Stockholders Watch Committee that he controlled what was printed in the Times concerning Archer Daniels Midland. Now comes his latest article in the Times on genetically engineered corn. ADM is currently the nations leading corn processor with elevators scattered all over the nation and the world. It boasts of numerous food products which we buy every day which contain its ingredients. Eichenwald in his story relates certain details concerning the growing scandal of the genetically engineered corn seed StarLink, which is not fit for nor has it been approved for human consumption. He writes: Millions of bushels of the unapproved corn, known as StarLink, have been found in flour delivered to more than 350 grain elevators around the country. He goes on to tell that StarLink corn was first found last month in store-bought taco shells distributed under the Taco Bell brand by Kraft Foods, which issued a nationwide recall. On Wednesday, a similar finding was made in house-brand taco shells sold by the Safeway supermarket chain. The two products were made of yellow corn from the same mill, run by Azteca Milling in Plainview, Tex. Yesterday, Mission Foods, which produced the Safeway shells, announced a recall of all its tortilla products made with yellow corn on the chance that some might contain StarLink corn. The company, a subsidiary of the Gruma Group of Mexico, which is based in Irving, Tex., sells products under the Mission name as well as numerous private-label brands. . . . . . . Azteca Milling, also a Gruma subsidiary based in Irving, announced its own voluntary recall of all yellow corn flour yesterday. Dan Lynn, the company's president, said it would mill only white corn because that was the "surest way to bolster confidence" that no corn unapproved for human consumption had entered the food chain. What Eichenwald does NOT report in his story is that the company Gruma
Re: Administrative Stuff
Just send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] from your new address. sub pen-l Justin Schwartz Michael: please sign me up on pen-l at [EMAIL PROTECTED] I am changing my ISP. This can also serve as notication to anyone who cares to have my new address. --Justin Schwartz -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Milosevic and privatization
Jim asks: thanks for this message. I have a question: wasn't one reason for the movement away from workers' control (socialized property?) is that there was excessive decentralization, which led to continuous contracting and re-contracting even within factories? Under the 1976 Law on Associated Labour, enterprises were broken into BOALs (Basic Organizations of Associated Labour) e.g. in a dairy there was three organizations -- the production workers, the marketing and delivery workers and the administrative and clerical staff. They would negotiate between them what budget each would have for wages and then wages within each BOAL would be negotiated within the workers council. This was done in an attempt to democratize the workplace and the process of self- management. In practice, however, the managers had much more influence than the model intended in part because they controlled the information that went to the wcs in the BOALs, in part because of the time taken to carry out all the negotiations which reduced productivity and, hence, potential wages. As a result, the workers themselves gradually came to oppose the decentralization. In the dairy I mentioned, about 1988 the workers voted to abolish the BOALS and Work Organization and revert to a single workers council. But this did not mean a move away from self-management or support for social ownership among the workers. Indeed, support for social ownership among the workers remained, according to a opinion poll taken around that time, very strong. Indeed, it was popular support for self-management in Slovenia, the emergence of a strong labour movement, and continuing strength of the political left (and the willingness of managers to resist the advice from western economists) that allowed Slovenia to make the transition relatively successfully while maintaining some measures of self-management and co-determination through worker-buyouts of socially owned enterprises. I have written about that in part (with my collaborator, Bogomil Ferfila) in a recently published book (2000) _Slovenia: On the Edge of the European Union_ (University Press of America) if anyone is interested in getting more details. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: More on ADM
This doesn't shed any light on GM crops. It shows that ADM is completely irresponsible in allowing (GM) corn that is approved only for animal feed into human foods. ADM then tries to make some of its opponents responsible for ADM's own misdeeds. Of course the fact that it is GM has implications for export but even if the corn were non-GM animal-feed corn it would be irresponsible. However, I am not sure how great any health risks might be as contrasted with taste deterioriation. How many seniors subsist on pet food? Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2000 12:56 AM Subject: [PEN-L:3239] More on ADM I took this from Al Krebs' AgBiz Examiner. It is useful because it throws light on 1) Corporate control of the news. 2) GM crops. as well as some intresting speculations about ADM. NEW YORK TIMES: "ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT" . . . . . EXCEPT WHEN IT CONCERNS ADM? An article appearing on October 14 in the New York Times --- "New Concerns Rise on Keeping Track of Modified Corn" --- by Kurt Eichenwald raises new questions not only about Eichenwald's association with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), but also the possibility of a new chapter in that company's continuing model of a corporate culture of corruption and manipulation, a story which James B. Lieber, has described so vividly in his authoritative book "Rats in the Grain." Kurt Eichenwald has written a number of stories in recent years in The Times concerning the scandal at ADM where the "Supermarkup to the World" pled guilty to price fixing in the world lysine feed additive market and paid $100 million fine and had three of its executives convicted of price fixing, fined and sent to jail. Eichenwald critics point out that they believe he wrote stories on the ADM scandal for the Times rather than reported on the scandal because as his latest book, "The Informant," published by Doubleday, illustrates his role as a reporter for the "paper of record" leaves a lot to be desired. Those who have closely covered the ADM scandal over recent years have been voicing serious questions about Eichenwald's reporting skills as opposed to his story telling. The fact that many details in his book are erroneous, that he makes no mention, either in his Times stories or the book, of many aspects of the coverup of the scandal by the Department of Justice. Nor does he discuss the influence peddling role of Williams Connelly, the high-powered law firm in Washington which not only represented ADM in the price fixing scandal and argued Bill Clinton's defense against impeachment on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but also is now representing FOX television in its legal battle with Florida reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson after they were fired for refusing to lie, distort and slant an on-the-air report on the use and dangers of rBGH. (see below) Eichenwald's continued coziness with the Department of Justice and Williams Connelly is troubling to critics when one considers the fact that while he was writing about the ADM scandal he reportedly told David Hoech of the ADM Stockholders Watch Committee that he controlled what was printed in the Times concerning Archer Daniels Midland. Now comes his latest article in the Times on genetically engineered corn. ADM is currently the nation's leading corn processor with elevators scattered all over the nation and the world. It boasts of numerous food products which we buy every day which contain its ingredients. Eichenwald in his story relates certain details concerning the growing scandal of the genetically engineered corn seed StarLink, which is not fit for nor has it been approved for human consumption. He writes: "Millions of bushels of the unapproved corn, known as StarLink, have been found in flour delivered to more than 350 grain elevators around the country." He goes on to tell that "StarLink corn was first found last month in store-bought taco shells distributed under the Taco Bell brand by Kraft Foods, which issued a nationwide recall. On Wednesday, a similar finding was made in house-brand taco shells sold by the Safeway supermarket chain. The two products were made of yellow corn from the same mill, run by Azteca Milling in Plainview, Tex. "Yesterday, Mission Foods, which produced the Safeway shells, announced a recall of all its tortilla products made with yellow corn on the chance that some might contain StarLink corn. The company, a subsidiary of the Gruma Group of Mexico, which is based in Irving, Tex., sells products under the Mission name as well as numerous private-label brands. . . . . . . "Azteca Milling, also a Gruma subsidiary based in Irving, announced its own voluntary recall of all yellow corn flour yesterday. Dan Lynn, the company's president, said it would mill only white corn because that was the "surest way to bolster confidence" that no corn unapproved for human consumption had
Alan G.'s latest...
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2000/200010192.htm http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2000/20001016.htm ...Unfettered competitive pressures will foster consolidation in the long run as liquidity tends to centralize in the system providing the narrowest bid-offer spread at volume. Two or more venues that are trading the same security or commodity will naturally converge toward a single market. One market offering marginally narrower bid-ask spreads at volume will attract the business of others, improving its liquidity further and reducing that of its competitors. This, in turn, will engender an even greater competitive imbalance, leading eventually to full consolidation. Of course, this process may not be fully realized if there are impediments to competition or if markets are able to establish and secure niches by competing on factors other than price... ...Change often engenders controversy because entities currently earning above-market rates of return owing to dominance over a segment of a market will seek, not unexpectedly, to protect those returns. Many entities will argue that the rules, regulations, or market practices that give rise to such niches are critical for the continued functioning of markets or are in the best interest of investors. These same entities, however, will see the need for additional competition in areas where others are earning above-market returns. Policymakers have an obligation to ensure that market participants and trading venues compete on terms as even as possible and that the property rights of participants are scrupulously enforced.
US stops Russian Imperialism!
#11 The Globe and Mail (Canada) October 17, 2000 U.S. buttinskyism Letter STEVE GOWANS Nepean, Ont. -- After allowing that Western oil companies have more than $50-billion (U.S.) invested in Azerbaijan and that the country's oil reserves are potentially a vital source of supply for the United States, Geoffrey York (The Dream Merchants -- Oct. 16) goes on to write that the U.S. interest in Azerbaijan has much to do with the desire to check the spread of Russian imperial ambitions. Let's see. Russia is reduced to taking handouts from the IMF, its military is crumbling and its empire has long ago collapsed. At the same time, the U.S. has 200,000 troops permanently stationed in 40 countries abroad, a U.S.-led NATO expands eastward, and the U.S. dominance of the world is the theme of a series of Globe articles. One wonders about whose imperial ambitions Mr. York should be writing. **
ECB Puts Pedal to Metal
Hmm, the Eurobourgies seem to be getting their act together at last. Here are official short-term interest rates, minus CPI inflation and minus per capita GDP growth (giving a growth-adjusted proxy of the tightness of monetary policy) for the US, EU and Japan in the 1990s. Note the unprecedented austerity in the EU from 1992-95, whose average of 3.6 admittedly pales next to the truly deranged hypermonetarism of the US from 1980-82 (average: 6.6). Data is from Eurostat, the Fed and OECD; pre-1998 ECB was calculated by Eurostat from a currency basket. YearECB US Japan --- 19925.3 -1.21.9 19934.6 -1.22.3 19942.1 -1.11.7 19952.4 1.8 0.6 19961.7 0.6 -2.7 19970.8 -0.1-2.6 19980.5 0.6 2.9 1999-0.20.1 0.6 2000-1.3-0.10.3 So Japan is actually tighter than the US, which may partly explain the firm yen. EU rates drove up the Euro-currencies during the early 1990s and choked growth, but turned hugely stimulative since 1997, which nicely coincides with the Eurozone recovery. 1995 may well have been the Waterloo of Maastricht monetarism. -- Dennis
Democracy Now
Doug just posted this to LBO. I'm reposting it here out of self-interest since Democracy Now is a staple in my political education. Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 21:44:53 -0700 From: Eileen Sutton [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: AMY GOODMAN UPDATE Free-Speech Comrades: I spoke to Amy Goodman tonight. She was in fact given a letter by Pacifica threatening her with termination if she does not abide by a strict set of work rules. Amy is concerned that all of us not get bogged down in the details of this letter. It's not a privacy issue, she says, but about focus. These work rules will effectively crush her ability to produce Democracy Now! as we know it. According to Amy, this is a direct, political attack on the content of her show, and her parting thought was, the situation is dire. I encourage all of you to do everything you can to get the word out to listeners and affiliate stations across the country. The ever-glorious Andrea Buffa of Media Alliance in San Franciso has reached out to us here in New York about possibly building a national action in support of saving Pacifica and Democracy Now! from the throws of this coup. Here at WBAI, Pacifica has already seized fiscal control of the station. Everyone is encouraged to find a listener group in your area. If you don't have one, create one. Time is of the essence. The next New York meeting will be in about 10 days. The exact day and time will be posted. Anyone receiving this is welcome to contact me for more information. onward, Eileen Sutton WBAI News Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Gus Hall obituary
PRESS RELEASE NEW YORK -- Gus Hall, long time Communist Party leader, died Friday Oct. 13 in New York City. He was 90. Hall was one of the most famous American communists. He led an extraordinary life of working class activism and was a participant in nearly all of the most important social struggles that transformed America in the twentieth century. He came from, and was typical of, an outstanding generation of activists on issues of workers' rights, peace, equality, international solidarity and socialism. Like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Paul Robeson, William Z. Foster, John L. Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois, and many other Communist and non-Communist figures he worked with, he leaves a deep imprint on America's political life. Originally from the Minnesota Iron Range, Hall was born into a politically active Finnish family. As a young man he worked in the lumber camps of the far north. At 17, he became an organizer for the Young Communist League (YCL). He later made his way to Youngstown Ohio where he ran for mayor on the Communist Party ticket, under his birth name, Arvo Gus Halberg. When Hall wanted to get a job in the steel mills, because of blacklisting he knew he wouldn't be hired, so he changed it to Gus Hall. The name stuck. Hall was an organizer for the Steelworkers Organizing Committee (SWOC), a founding member of the United Steelworkers of America and a strike leader during the "Little Steel Strike" of 1937. That strike was the final blow against the steel giants vicious, anti-union stance. Hall helped to organize over 10,000 steelworkers in the Mahoning Valley in Ohio. Later Hall became an organizer for the Communist Party. A staunch fighter against racism and fascism Hall volunteered for the U.S. Navy, when World War II broke out, serving as a machinist mate in a machine shop in Guam. He was honorably discharged March 6, 1946. On July 22,1948, Hall and eleven other Communist Party leaders were indicted under the Smith Act on false charges of "conspiracy to teach and advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government by force and violence." Many communists and progressives were jailed, blacklisted and hounded by the FBI during one of the most undemocratic periods in our country's history. Hall spent eight years in prison for the crime of "thinking." The Supreme Court finally struck down the Smith Act as unconstitutional. After his release Hall continued his activism in the working class, democratic, peace and civil rights struggles, making many public speeches and media appearances. Hall was famous around the world as a respected Communist leader and had warm relations with many heads of state. Hall addressed numerous international meetings of Communist and workers' parties. Hall ran for President four times on the Communist Party ticket, making People before Profits a rallying slogan. An internationally renowned Marxist theoretician, Hall authored many books, articles and speeches. Two of his best known books are Working Class USA and Racism, the Nation's Most Dangerous Pollutant. Sam Webb, the National Chair of the Communist Party, said, "Gus Hall will be greatly missed by the progressive movements and our Party. Through all the turmoil of McCarthyism, the Reagan/Bush years of attacks on labor, and the setbacks to socialism, Hall helped our party maintained a clear, stable focus in the working class, and the people's movements for peace, social justice and socialism." Hall is survived by his wife Elizabeth, a daughter, a son, two sisters and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
FW: heckman on diversity in economics
I don't recall if this was posted before, so here it is anyway. max Dear Colleagues, Last year, ICARE (International Confederation of Associations for the Reform of Economics) undertook an effort to query AEA officer candidates on their positions regarding pluralism in economics. Here is the letter they circulated, and the reply by recent Nobel Prize co-recipient, James J. Heckman. *START LETTER* Dear Professor X: Congratulations on your nomination for insert office here of the American Economics Association. I am writing to ask you a favor. I am Executive Secretary of the International Confederation of Associations for the Reform of Economics. Our organization is an umbrella group for about thirty diverse economic associations united by a desire to encourage a pluralistic approach to understanding the economy. It is the perception of our membership that the AEA has not acted to foster an environment friendly to such pluralism. Most recently in evidence are 1) that the AEA Executive Committee has done little to act on the finding of the Journal Committee that most AEA members would like to see greater diversity in the subject matter carried in their journals (particularly with respect to policy analysis, institutional analysis, and historical analysis) and 2) that the planned reduction in the number of ASSA sessions, though currently on hold, was planned to fall disproportionally on heterodox, pluralistic, and area studies groups. Our membership would be very interested in your position on these issues (and whatever else you deem important). Many, if not most, are members of the AEA and would find your thoughts helpful in considering their ballots. For ease of access I will (with your permission) post your response on our web page (http://www.econ.tcu.edu/icare/main.html). If it is more convenient, you may e-mail your statement to me. I look forward to your response, and hope that you will take a moment to browse our web site and visit our booths at the ASSA meetings in Boston. Good luck in the election. *END LETTER* *START RESPONSE* Dear Professor Harvey, Thank you for your letter of September 2 asking my views on matters of concern to ICARE. I have strong views on each of the issues you raise in your letter and am glad to share them with you and other members of your organization. I have strongly opposed the current AEA policy regarding journals. The JEP editorship, until very recently, was passed on informally from the previous editor to his designated successor. The AEA board went along with this. Recently rules were changed to require a more serious search and to enforce fixed terms of limited duration to allow a broader spectrum of the profession to participate in the selection of future editors. The current AER editor has served far too long. New rules now make these long term appointments less likely. If elected I would support short fixed terms for all editors and a search process that would encompass the entire profession--not just the Executive Committee. I would favor broadening the coverage of all journals partly by letting more people with different preferences make editorial judgements (through shorter editorial terms and more rotation) but also by insisting that the editorial boards be fully representative and subject to review by the Executive Committee. As an empirical economist, I am acutely aware of the limitations of mainstream economics in explaining a lot of important economic phenomena and would favor having a variety of points of view expressed in our journals to understand the economy. I do economic history myself and would value a deeper and wider coverage of institutional and historical topics. The act of description is essential to the progress of economics and facts can be and often are very messy. On the matter of the ASSA sessions I favor broad coverage of all fields in economics not just "in" fields as perceived by the top ten schools in the profession. In my view much of the real economics that gets done is by people solving real problems and looking at real world institutions. The gap between the top ten schools and the rest is staggering. Outside of the top ten there is a lot of creative diversity and practical wisdom. I also think that the body of work that constitutes the mainstream as perceived by the top ten schools makes little contact with practical economic problems and institutional constraints. Keynes once wrote that economics would only be successful if economists had the same ability of dentists to address and solve practical economic problems. I favor that position. As former resident of the Midwest Economics Association I organized a program for the 1998 annual meeting that was fully representative of a broad array of interests in economics from the problems of the Midwestern economy to the problems of teaching economics well to problems of feminist economics. I would strongly support a
Re: Re: Milosevic and privatization
So how did Slovenia resist the neolib virus? Social democratic parties? Strong unions? A developed welfare state? -- Dennis Actually, the latest Z Magazine has an article by Michael Parenti that describes the stubborn refusal of the Slovenes to go whole hog with "shock therapy". Apparently this has led to some resentment from western banks. Who knows, Slovenia might be the next to get on Nato and IMF's shit-list unless they straighten up and fly right. Although the Parenti article is not online, this might provide some background: Financial Times (London), July 11, 2000, Tuesday Surveys SLV1 SLOVENIA : PREPARING FOR THE EU: For an economy that is flourishing, the country still has a large number of controls that need dismantling By ROBERT WRIGHT When managers suggest job cuts at companies where Joze Mencinger is a supervisory board member, he asks them to reconsider. Why, asks the professor of economics at Ljubljana University, should they sack excess labour to improve profits? In Slovenia, after all, the owners probably never even had to pay for their shares. Mr Mencinger's attitude says a lot about Slovenia's economy. Much remains consensually managed, often for the benefit of producers, employees and the state, rather than consumers, shareholders or voters. Employees and management at many private companies hold large shareholdings in their employers, a legacy of the old Yugoslav workers' self-management system. Generous wages and maintained staffing levels tend to take precedence over performance. In stock exchange-listed companies, meanwhile, large shareholdings are often held by small private investors who bought their shares with free privatisation vouchers. Many believe corporate accountability to these shareholders is not good. Big blocks of shares are also often held by the state, either through its social security funds or the fund to repay citizens for their losses from communist confiscations. Many state-owned companies, such as utilities and some financial companies, still await privatisation. "We're in the second phase of transition," says Neven Borak, a leading economist. "The first (phase) was simply that of changing the (socialist) social system into something else. The second phase is to change this into a system which fits the requirements of the EU. Yet conservatism - and fear of dominance by outsiders - keep the brakes on opening up more to foreign investors and other liberalising moves. "I would not boast about having foreign investors (in the country)," says Mr Mencinger, reflecting a view expressed, in milder form, by many Slovenians. "To me, foreign investment is an emergency solution and nothing else. If you cannot manage your own resources as well as foreigners can, you need foreigners." Slovenia is doing well, however, despite its divergences from the liberalising path of other successful post-communist economies. Gross domestic product has grown steadily ever since the end of the economic disruption caused by independence, building on the strong manufacturing and export base Slovenia built up in 1980s Yugo-slavia. Growth was 4.9 per cent last year, taking GDP per head to more than Dollars 10,000 a year. In purchasing power, the country's GDP per person has been ahead of Greece's in many recent years. Expansion continued last year despite falling demand in the country's main export markets, and tourism receipts down because of the Kosovo war. Mainly because of a rush to buy and import products before the introduction last year of value added tax, the current account deficit shot up to 2.9 per cent of GDP, from a negligible amount before. It is expected, however, to fall back this year. Inflation, despite the introduction of VAT, was only 6.1 per cent. GDP this year is expected to rise around 4 per cent, with inflation remaining low. Productiivity is rising. Yet liberalised, fast-growing neighbours such as Hungary are gaining ground on Slovenia. Many business people hope to see Slovenia regain the initiative through liberalisation. Politicians, meanwhile, stay stubbornly cautious. "We're satisfied (with the economy), but we also think that it's a pity we've lost the advantage over other countries from the eastern region," says Igor Stemberger, chairman of Ilirika, a Ljubljana-based stockbrokers. "Economic growth could be faster and more productive than it is." Metod Dragonja, a former economics minister and now head of Lek, one of Slovenia's two big pharmaceutical companies, agrees. Some laws, such as that on labour, are still virtually unchanged from the socialist era, he complains. "People are sometimes not aware (of the need for change)," Mr Dragonja says. "Businesses are very much aware." Some are concerned that state companies are distorting the market and keeping up some prices. "The structure of the economy right now has some problems with monopolies, especially in the insurance sector and telecommunications," says Samo
The debates
THE DEBATES: TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN SCIENCE FICTION By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate Earthlings have continued a tradition of bizarre rituals during their planet's current season. A columnist from the Galactic Syndicate provides this analysis: From afar, we may be inclined to smirk at the activities of humanoid creatures who inhabit the only life-covered orb in what they call "the solar system." But all of us should do our best to understand events on Earth, no matter how strange they may be. The watery planet, located 93 million miles from its sun, is currently dominated by one nation, the United States of America. Because of its preeminent power on that globe, the governance of the USA is of considerable interest. While admirable in some respects, Earthlings -- who number several billion -- are not the most self-aware of beings. Their conceits and pretensions are apt to calcify into formulaic rites, often embraced with credulous fervor. And so it goes in the United States, where a new leader is selected once every 1,460 cycles of darkness and light. Prior to the election, in which some of the USA's citizens vote, events occur which are known as "debates." With enormous amounts of attention devoted to those spectacles, you might imagine that they profoundly explore subjects of great importance. Unfortunately for the millions -- indeed billions -- of affected and hapless Earthlings, this is not the case. Clerical participants in the "journalism" faith are eager to assess those debates in terms that are superficial, even idiotic. Not only is the focus on appearance, style and practiced composure. Even more astonishing, after the latest series of debates ended, most of those ecclesiastic professionals voiced satisfaction with the mode of discourse. Perhaps a form of shared delusion or even mass hypnosis is involved. How else can we explain the constant evaluation of leaders as performers -- as if their facile and glib verbal fencing could make up for the absence of discernment about the self-destructive essence of deeply ingrained institutional habits? In the planet's mass media, the most absurd Earthlings are commonly employed as "pundits." While claiming special expertise in fields such as journalism, history and social science, they function like fleets of haywire spaceships -- staying in fairly symmetrical proximity to each other, apparently embarked on rational explorations, yet sharing reliance on wacky compasses that send them tumbling and spinning through vast expanses of time-warped space without relation to fixed points. After the most recent series of debates, these pundits were prone to go into raptures about the transcendent value of lavish generalities, platitudes, homilies and miscellaneous poll-tested buzz phrases spouted incessantly by the candidates. Because the standards are so chronically debased, craven drivel is likely to be rewarded with profuse accolades. To explicate such dynamics, one might visit a few of the Earthling libraries. In the USA, those long-term repositories for books exist in sharp distinction to the modernized and elaborately maintained holy temples for the sacramental material known as "money." In contrast to banks, the public libraries tend to be in various stages of disrepair and neglect. In the library sections devoted to young beings, there are some books which can explain the fatuous musings of pundits. One tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes," illustrates a key dynamic of journalism in the USA region of Earth. Desires for safety and peer approval -- and deep fears of vulnerability to social disapprobation -- lead pundits and countless other Earthlings to remain in step with prevailing nonsense. As a result, the ritual abuse of reasoning faculties is treated by pundits with inordinate respect. In fact, most members of the punditocracy are determined to match the patronizing exercises in circumscribed debate. Amid all the glaring injustices, looming ecological disasters and economic priorities that place the accumulation of wealth over humanoid well-being, the media commentators seem as anxious as major candidates to confine themselves to discussing options for minimal tweaking. Inside the often-dilapidated and sparsely funded structures of public libraries, humans can find books by the Earthling writer Mark Twain. One, titled "Roughing It," includes an apropos passage at the end of a chapter about the vagaries of mining for a fortune. When Twain regretfully observes that "all that glitters is not gold," his more experienced companion, a fellow named Mr. Ballou, retorts: "Nothing that glitters is gold." "So I learned then, once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter," Twain wrote. "However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica." Unfortunately, the Earthling
Residue evidence that Weber was wrong.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/19/00 12:07PM What is so special about hobbies like hunting and sport that elevates people to a special status in this country, whereas work or protecting work conditions does not. In fact, protecting workers' interests will not even get you the public benefit status with all the tax breaks it entails - whereas shooting animals for pleasure will. And on the top of it, few people bitch about unfair treatment of workers, but everybody is up in arms about the "unfair" treatment of gun owners. That is one of the most insane aspects of this society. ( CB: Interesting observation , Wojtek. There's the right to play with guns, but not the right to work for a living, truly the cart before the horse. Perhaps this is a residue from early capitalism, demonstrating the error of Weber's claim that rationality and the work ethic, not force and violence , were the differentia specifica of Europe's bourgeoisie.
debt relief
NewsCenter | NewsWire Share This Article With A Friend Featured Article Published on Thursday, October 19, 2000 Still Hasn't Found What He's Looking For by Mark Weisbrot Star power had boosted the movement to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries, even if there is still little to show for its efforts. At the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Prague last month, the most interesting speaker was U2's Bono, who held a press conference with World Bank President James Wolfensohn at his side. Bono was articulate and charming as a spokesman: "You'll have to excuse my shyness," he began. "I'm not used to speaking to crowds of less than 70,000 people." Bono lauded Wolfensohn for starting the debt relief process four years ago but firmly insisted that now was the time to finish it. He noted that 19,000 children are dying each day, and their lives could be saved with the money that their governments now pay in debt service to wealthy foreign creditors. If these children were dying on the streets of London or New York or Paris, he said, it would be considered a holocaust. But they are in Africa and in poor countries elsewhere, so the Fund and the Bank do not feel any great urgency to act. Wolfensohn sat quietly through Bono's speech but later told reporters that he did not agree with the rock star's demand, put forth by Jubilee 2000 and religious groups worldwide, for cancellation of the poor countries' debt. And indeed the IMF and the World Bank offered no new initiatives for debt relief at the Prague meetings. Instead they simply repeated the promises made last year to increase the number of countries getting relief under their plan for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). But the HIPC initiative was launched in 1996, and of 41 countries promised debt relief, only one-- Uganda-- has actually seen its debt service payments reduced. And for those who might follow, the conditions attached to any debt relief could well cause more economic destruction and misery than the debt itself. One of these conditions has been to impose "user fees" on formerly free public services such as primary education and health care in impoverished countries. According to a World Bank review of the its Health, Nutrition, and Population lending program, 75 percent of these Bank projects in sub-Saharan Africa either established or expanded user fees. Such fees are a horrible policy, as evidenced by the enormous increases in school enrollment when they are removed: for example in Malawi, whose per capita income is less than $200 per year, primary school enrollment jumped by 50% when a small school fee was eliminated in 1994. Poor people have also suffered and even died when these fees have been imposed at health clinics. Advocates for the world's poor have taken their battle from the streets to the halls of Congress, in a full court press to abolish these requirements. Over 120 non-governmental organizations-- including the AFL-CIO, the Presbyterian Church, and Jubilee 2000 USA-- have joined in. But the Treasury Department has not yet agreed to legislation that would require the United States to oppose such mandated user fees within the World Bank. This requirement would not guarantee the end of user fees. But the chances are good that it would force the Bank and the Fund to stop inflicting this particular form of pain on the school children, as well as citizens in need of medical attention, in poor countries. On the larger question of debt relief, we are still a long way from meaningful reform. The $435 million appropriation now making its way through Congress, which goes mainly to the HIPC initiative, will do very little to ease the burden of debt on the
Re: Re: More on ADM
Ken is correct. The article tells nothing think about the qualities of GM foods in themselves. But it does tell a lot about the companies which have the responsibility for overseeing the quality of the food. Ken Hanly wrote: This doesn't shed any light on GM crops. It shows that ADM is completely irresponsible in allowing (GM) corn that is approved only for animal feed into human foods. ADM then tries to make some of its opponents responsible for ADM's own misdeeds. Of course the fact that it is GM has implications for export but even if the corn were non-GM animal-feed corn it would be irresponsible. However, I am not sure how great any health risks might be as contrasted with taste deterioriation. How many seniors subsist on pet food? Cheers, Ken Hanly -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Milosevic and privatization
Date sent: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 08:38:27 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:3248] Re: Milosevic and privatization To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have another question for Paul. Wasn't the decline in workers' remittances a major factor? Not sure what period you are talking about but here it is for the 70s and early 80s. Ratio of Worker Remittances to Interest Payments in Yugoslavia's Current Account 1970 4.0 1975 4.8 1980 1.4 19811.2 19820.7 19830.8 19840.7 Source: Federal Statistical Office, Statistical Review 1945-1985 (1986) Also, when you think about it, penners, try to remove the re re re's from the subject line. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Paul Phillips. Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: Re: Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News!
At 12:22 19-10-00, Martin wrote: The thing that I might find distressing would be if a lawyer was needed - and the same disparity in weighted value of hours exists. A lawyer could get hundreds of hours of labor for a few hours of labored citations. Those who get paid in Ithaca money are encouraged to think of one HOUR as being worth one hour's work, no matter what the work is. Some people do charge more, though not by a lot, as far as I know; no one charges less. Since you can exchange your HOURs at the local deli for what other people are paying ten dollars for, it's not a bad way for a minimum-wage worker to buy lunch. (What's standard minimum wage in the US these days, under five dollars, I think?) I'll agree with Michael and Doug about hours not solving unemployment. Unemployment is not a problem, just a tool of capital. It's only a problem when there's no alternative system in evolution (like hours.) As to the margins of the economy - they could/should become the borders. I don't suppose HOURS were ever meant to solve unemployment. cheers, Joanna
Re: Re: RE: Suppressed Voices: McReynolds and Nader
Lisa Ian Murray wrote: This seems to be a gaping hole in left prescriptions for organizational change at the micro and macro economic level. What would socializing IBM or UPS, or McDonalds for that matter, look like? As opposed to small, locally owned enterprises? What would socializing them look like, and all the communicational/organizational forms? How wretched those can be was shown in an article in a recent issue of Dissent by Liza Featherstone, an excerpt of which follows... Doug Ah yes, e-lists, where someone can respond to a request - in this case for info on McReynolds - and quicker than CNN polling guru Bill Schnieder can collect polling data after prez debate, criticism (itself necessarily incomplete) of political candidate's necessarily incomplete remarks from brief op-ed piece appears. I was on-paper member of SP for good number of years, read lots of literature, had bit of a row with DMcR at Mobilization for Survival conference almost 20 years ago, was lister on SP e-list for awhile. I don't know extent to which McReynolds and/or SP have considered what "socializing economy" might entail but I certainly don't expect to find out in news article (or e-list for that matter). And while I'd like to believe that candidate like DMcR is more substantive than Shrub/Bore types, my experience in electoral campaigns suggests that lefty efforts are pretty similar to mainstream ones. Michael Hoover
Re: Re: Re: Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News!
At 12:22 19-10-00, Martin wrote: The thing that I might find distressing would be if a lawyer was needed - and the same disparity in weighted value of hours exists. A lawyer could get hundreds of hours of labor for a few hours of labored citations. Joanna wrote: Those who get paid in Ithaca money are encouraged to think of one HOUR as being worth one hour's work, no matter what the work is. Some people do charge more, though not by a lot, as far as I know; no one charges less. Since you can exchange your HOURs at the local deli for what other people are paying ten dollars for, it's not a bad way for a minimum-wage worker to buy lunch. (What's standard minimum wage in the US these days, under five dollars, I think?) to throw in my two centi-HOURS, market forces (i.e., competition) would encourage prices in dollars to equal prices in HOURS. The exception would be is where community -- i.e., local traditions and democracy -- encourages other standards to apply (or when there is some government or corporate hierarchy that encourages yet others to apply). In the current situation in the US, it is quite unlikely that community could do this except on a local level. I'll agree with Michael and Doug about "hours" not solving unemployment. Unemployment is not a problem, just a tool of capital. It's only a problem when there's no alternative system in evolution (like hours.) As to the "margins of the economy" - they could/should become the borders. I don't suppose HOURS were ever meant to solve unemployment. I think that HOURS can help _lower_ (but not abolish) unemployment, if the problem of unemployment is due to an inadequate local supply of funds. Within a local community, it might allow the unemployed auto mechanic to get in touch with the unemployed psychotherapist and the unemployed hair-stylist, so that they can give each other jobs without resorting to complicated systems of barter. The problem is that if this happens too much, the Federal Reserve would interpret it as an increase in the "velocity of money" (the late 1970s early 1980s policy) or would see it as lowering interest rates below its targets (the current policy), where the targets are aimed at preserving profitability and the wealth of the rentiers. Either of these would encourage the Fed to tighten monetary policy. In other words, the Fed wants to keep the reserve army of labor large enough to protect profits and the wealth of the _rentiers_. It the HOURS supply expands enough to lower unemployment in a way is perceived as no longer doing these things, Alan G. steps on the brake. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
fun book
I am reading Bernstein, Peter L. 2000. The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (NY: John Wiley Sons). Maybe some of you with more historical knowledge will find this book too superficial, but it is filled with fun stuff. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Query on slavery
I've been exchanging email with Mark M. Smith, the author of "Debating Slavery". According to Smith, the debate is mainly between "Marxists" like Eugene Genovese on one side and non-Marxists like Fogel, Engerman, and Oakes on the other. The former tend to put forward the notion that the Slavocracy was precapitalist and "paternalistic". The other camp, drawing from econometrics, tries to show that the plantation system was both profitable and efficient on capitalist terms. However, they are not Marxists. Charles Brown states that this is a false debate, since it excludes Aptheker and DuBois. While not gainsaying the enormous contribution of these two, my question is whether anybody knows of a Marxist study of slavery that is in line with Eric Williams and the Monthly Review school? My interest in these questions is tied to research I did last year on the Brenner thesis and is particularly focused on the question whether free labor is a precondition for capitalism. Williams, who was strongly influenced by CLR James, argues that it was not and that capitalism and slavery were inter-related. However, most of Williams work is focused on the Caribbeans. I am looking for that kind of research but focused on the American South. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
"'To-Day' has become a mere 'symposium', i.e. a review in which everyone can write for and against socialism. Next No. a critique of 'Capital'! I was supposed to reply to this anonymous writer, but declined with thanks." -- Engels to Kautsky, Sept. 20, 1884. The critique in question was titled "Das Kapital. A Criticism by Philip H. Wicksteed". Does anyone happen to have an electronic copy of that article on hand that they could send me or know of the location of one on the web? I've already searched to no avail. Wicksteed's 1910 textbook, "The Common Sense of Political Economy", contains the most extraordinarily ornate and long-winded discussion of what he eventually admits to being reluctant to call the market for labour. This discussion concludes with a bizarre five-paragraph tirade against the "lump-of-labour" mentality of the working classes, the point of which would seem to be that, "When we understand that local distress is incidental to general progress, we shall not indeed try to stay general progress in order to escape the local distress, but we shall try to mitigate the local distress by diverting to its relief some portion of the general access of wealth to which it is incidental." I can't help but get the feeling, reading Chapter 8 of Wicksteed's textbook, that the poor sot "meant well". Wicksteed seems to be engaging a characteristically Fabian "rhetoric of courtship" -- conceding the "economic" ground to the most reactionary and rapacious representatives of capital in order that he may, at the last instance, append a plea for enlighted compassion as the best way of combatting such "misdirected sympathies" and "anti-social ways". Seen in this light, the third way politics of Blair, Giddens et.al., is classic Fabianism reduced to its absurd (and Orwellian!) conclusion -- a rhetoric that absolutely identifies reactionary means with "progressive" ends. In other words, I regret that Engels didn't reply. I suspect that Wicksteed missed the point about the labour theory of value and demolished a straw man of his own construction.
Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. "'To-Day' has become a mere 'symposium', i.e. a review in which everyone can write for and against socialism. Next No. a critique of 'Capital'! I was supposed to reply to this anonymous writer, but declined with thanks." -- Engels to Kautsky, Sept. 20, 1884. The critique in question was titled "Das Kapital. A Criticism by Philip H. Wicksteed". Does anyone happen to have an electronic copy of that article on hand that they could send me or know of the location of one on the web? I've already searched to no avail. Wicksteed's 1910 textbook, "The Common Sense of Political Economy", contains the most extraordinarily ornate and long-winded discussion of what he eventually admits to being reluctant to call the market for labour. This discussion concludes with a bizarre five-paragraph tirade against the "lump-of-labour" mentality of the working classes, the point of which would seem to be that, "When we understand that local distress is incidental to general progress, we shall not indeed try to stay general progress in order to escape the local distress, but we shall try to mitigate the local distress by diverting to its relief some portion of the general access of wealth to which it is incidental." I can't help but get the feeling, reading Chapter 8 of Wicksteed's textbook, that the poor sot "meant well". Wicksteed seems to be engaging a characteristically Fabian "rhetoric of courtship" -- conceding the "economic" ground to the most reactionary and rapacious representatives of capital in order that he may, at the last instance, append a plea for enlighted compassion as the best way of combatting such "misdirected sympathies" and "anti-social ways". Seen in this light, the third way politics of Blair, Giddens et.al., is classic Fabianism reduced to its absurd (and Orwellian!) conclusion -- a rhetoric that absolutely identifies reactionary means with "progressive" ends. In other words, I regret that Engels didn't reply. I suspect that Wicksteed missed the point about the labour theory of value and demolished a straw man of his own construction. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query on slavery
At 05:49 PM 10/19/00 -0400, you wrote: I've been exchanging email with Mark M. Smith, the author of "Debating Slavery". According to Smith, the debate is mainly between "Marxists" like Eugene Genovese on one side and non-Marxists like Fogel, Engerman, and Oakes on the other. The former tend to put forward the notion that the Slavocracy was precapitalist and "paternalistic". The other camp, drawing from econometrics, tries to show that the plantation system was both profitable and efficient on capitalist terms. I'm not familiar with Smith's book, so it's possible that he's right, but I don't think the distinction as you summarize it is very good, because there are a lot of other points of view. For example, Gavin Wright's book THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE COTTON SOUTH is both econometrics-oriented and non-apologetic (unlike Fogel Engerman). (Along with Mike Meeropol, I really like that book, since it's a case of a NC economist who ends up presenting what's a lot like a Marxian political-economic analysis, though his emphasis is quite different.) It seems a mistake to divide the world into two camps in this case, as Charles notes. Genovese was a Marxist for a long time and did describe slavery as paternalistic, but in his earlier work was very clear that slavery was quite exploitative. Later on, he got hooked on the idea that the pre-capitalist paternalistic "civilization" of the slaveocrats was in some ways superior to the anarchy of capitalist production and the corruption of modern life. I think it's right to describe the slave system (the slave plantation/cotton complex) as profitable and slave-owners as profit-seeking. A certain amount of paternalism is part of that system, since the owners don't want their property to be unemployed or to "depreciate" too quickly (by profitability standards). (Of course, if the price of cotton (and similar slave-produced crops) falls, it's very hard to make a profit off of slaves. In some places in Latin America and the Caribbean, the slave-owners responded by deciding they didn't want to support a lot of underemployed or unemployed slaves, so they freed them voluntarily, though the "freedmen" didn't do well after that, since they were often saddled with debt.) In my opinion, antebellum US slavery was not itself a capitalist mode of production but was part of the world capitalist system at the time. Wrote Marx: "... as soon as peoples whose production still moves within the lower forms of slave-labor ... are drawn into a world market dominated by the capitalist mode of production, whereby the sale of their products for exports develops into their principal interest, the civilized [i.e., capitalist] horrors of over-work are grafted onto the barbaric horrors of slavery Hence the Negro labor in the southern states of the American Union preserved a moderately paternalistic character as long as production was chiefly directed to the satisfaction of immediate local requirements. But in proportion as the export of cotton became of vital interest to those states, the over-working of the Negro, and sometimes the consumption of his life in seven years of labor, became a factor in a calculated and calculating system. It was no longer a question of obtaining from him a certain quantity of useful products, but rather of the production of surplus-value itself." [Capital, vol. I, Penguin/Vintage, p. 345, US spelling.] I read this as saying that these slaves produced surplus-value (i.e., that their surplus-labor produced a commodity), but I don't see it as a form of capitalism itself, since according to Marx, capitalism involves workers not only being (a) free from the privileges of ownership of the means of production, but also (b) free to move between employers, unlike under serfdom or slavery (though obviously the existence of the reserve army makes such mobility expensive to them). ... While not gainsaying the enormous contribution of these two, my question is whether anybody knows of a Marxist study of slavery that is in line with Eric Williams and the Monthly Review school? Perhaps Wallerstein has something to say. His bibliography is very complete, so he should have some good sources of the type you seek. My interest in these questions is tied to research I did last year on the Brenner thesis and is particularly focused on the question whether free labor is a precondition for capitalism. Williams, who was strongly influenced by CLR James, argues that it was not and that capitalism and slavery were inter-related These are two different points. Marx, Brenner, I, and many others see capitalism and slavery as inter-related, while Williams cites Marx as saying that slavery promoted the primitive accumulation of capital. The issue of whether or not "free labor" (with the dual freedom mentioned above) is a precondition for capitalist development is another issue, a very contentious one. It divides those
Re: Re: RE: Suppressed Voices: McReynolds and Nader(fwd)
Charlie Andrews' book FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY ends with two very interesting chapters on how a "Labor Republic" would be organized. His utopia is very interesting because he is quite conscious of pro-capitalist criticisms of his scheme. So far, it makes a lot of sense. BTW, following his terminology, his scheme is neither market-socialist nor state-socialist. At 08:03 PM 10/18/00 -0700, you wrote: At this point I was just going to let the argument drop -- but have decided to pursue the mega-argument instead -- why we should spend a little time on speculating on the nature of a socialist society, on as old whiskers said "creating recipes for the cookshops of the future". To start with, when Marx made his classic arguments against Utopias the historical context was greatly different than today. Utopians held up their models as an alternative to class struggle. Build a small perfect commune, or a perfect city and the shining example would convert everybody to socialism -- no need for noisy demonstrations, or the hard dirty work of politcal organizing. Today model builders mostly see vision as a minor but important adjunct to class strugge. Why -- because the myth of TINA (There Is No Alternative) is far more widespread than it ever was in Marxes day. In the USA, if you ask most workers if socialism is possible -- that is can it get the bread baked and the shoes made, most people will say no, or not in the long run. Or they will say it is possible but only under a horrible dictatorship that tortures people and suppresses there freedom. This belief is especially strong amongst the intellectual castes, academics, journalists and such. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Query on slavery
RE non-Marxists like Fogel, Engerman, and Oakes . . . . tries to show that the plantation system was both profitable and efficient on capitalist terms. I believe that current mainstream thought on slavery is that: 1) slave holders wanted to make money but they did not seek the highest profit possible. In this sense they might have differed from capitalists. In particular, slave holders could have made more money from investing in manufacturing, but they did not. The culture of the slaveholders looked down on manufacturing and, so, they were generally unwilling to invest in manufacturing. Empirical work my mainstream economists indicate this. 2) slavery was not "efficient" in any meaningful way. It was profitable because slaveholders forced slaves to work hard and long. That is, more human input (work effort) was produced within slavery. More input got more output. This is not efficient this is making people work hard. Further, slavery production itself was "inefficient" because slaves intentionally worked poorly when they could get away with it. And, because slaves often broke any expansive tools, slaveholders were not able to use the "best" techology available. Fogel and Engerman themselves eventually came around to this point of view after attacks they experience after Time on the Cross. The above ideas I think are generally well accepted within the mainstream of economic historians. Eric
The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 16 Oct 2000 -- 4:84 (#477)
--- Sponsor's Message -- Go to register.com now and register your dream domain name. Perhaps you have some great ideas, dont wait until its too late. Go to register.com today and register a domain name for it before someone else does. http://click.topica.com/Egbz8SnrbAjwjxa/Register __ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 16 October 2000 Vol. 4, Number 84 (#477) __ Rightwing Web Sites of Interest: The History-Making Irving Trial The American Guardian: An Educational Resource on Homosexual Behavior Obituary: Gus Hall, longtime head of Communist Party USA Ongoing Stories On School Prayer AANews, "Supreme Court Vacates School Prayer Ruling: Another Step In Ending Bogus "Student Led" Prayer?," 3 Oct 00 AANews, "Another Decision On 'Student Led' Prayer As Circuit Court Backs Restrictions: Is 'Nonsectarian' Invocation Truly Possible?," 6 Oct 00 Americans United For Separation of Church and State, "U.S. Supreme Court Takes Case About Religious Groups' Access to Public Schools: 'Schools have every right to protect children from outside groups,' says AU's Lynn," 10 Oct 00 Real Political Correctness: AANews, "Firefighters Ordered to Attend Church Services?," 7 Oct 00 What's Worth Checking: 5 stories -- RIGHTWING WEB SITES OF INTEREST: The History-Making Irving Trial http://www.nationaljournal.org/irvtrial/110700evestand.htm The American Guardian: An Educational Resource on Homosexual Behavior http://members.yoderanium.com/tag/ -- OBITUARY: U.S. Communist Gus Hall Dies at 90 Karen Matthews (AP) 16 Oct 00 NEW YORK -- Gus Hall, the Communist Party-USA boss who steadfastly stuck to his beliefs through years in prison and the collapse of communist regimes around the world, has died. He was 90. Hall died Friday in Manhattan of complications relating to diabetes, Scott Marshall, a Communist Party official, said. A communist activist since 1926, Hall never repudiated his ideas, even after the dissolution of Communist societies in eastern Europe and the dismantling of the Soviet Union, events he bitterly lamented. Hall saw the communist movement worldwide go through a variety ideological twists and turns, many of them dictated by the Comintern, the Moscow body that told foreign parties what to do and how to position themselves. The U.S. version of the party was especially hard hit in the 1950s. It was shaken at home by fierce anti-communist attacks from Sen. Joseph McCarthy, while abroad, the denunciation of dictator Josef Stalin by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, called into question the very fundamentals of the party in its home country. Hall was in jail during much of that time. When he assumed leadership of the party in the U.S. it was much diminished, although still used by Moscow as a propaganda tool. "Gus Hall will be greatly missed by the progressive movements and our Party. Through all the turmoil of McCarthyism, the Reagan-Bush years of attacks on labor, and the setbacks to socialism, Hall helped our party maintained a clear, stable focus in the working class, and the people's movements for peace, social justice and socialism," said Sam Webb, Communist Party National Chairman. His comments were contained in a Hall obituary on the Communist Party USA Web site. Hall called former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin "a wrecking crew." "I did what I believe in. I believe socialism is inevitable," he said in an interview in April 1992. "Life cannot go on forever without that step (socialism), and setbacks don't change it." Hall was convicted in 1949 for conspiring to teach the violent overthrow of the federal government. He jumped bail after his arrest and fled to Mexico, where he was arrested and sent back and was jailed for 81/2 years. Hall, whose name became synonymous with the American communist movement, said harassment at home ranged from FBI (news - web sites) surveillance of the party's Manhattan headquarters to his inability to get a credit card for many years. He said such persecution was responsible for the decline in party membership, from about 100,000 in the 1930s to about 15,000 in the 1990s. In the party, Hall was known for his joviality. He ran for president four times and never garnered even 1 percent of the vote. He blamed that on election law requirements, which kept him off the ballot in half the states when he last ran in 1984, polling 36,386 votes. He wrote several books on the evils of market economics, including "Fighting Racism," "The Crisis
Re: Query on slavery
I don't know what the contemporary take on it is, or even to what extent it can be considered Marxist, but when I was an undergrad eons ago, I read Industrial Slavery in the Old South, 1790-1861: A Study in Political Economy by Robin Starobin. It was quite an eye-opener to me at the time. Peter Louis Proyect wrote: I've been exchanging email with Mark M. Smith, the author of "Debating Slavery". According to Smith, the debate is mainly between "Marxists" like Eugene Genovese on one side and non-Marxists like Fogel, Engerman, and Oakes on the other. The former tend to put forward the notion that the Slavocracy was precapitalist and "paternalistic". The other camp, drawing from econometrics, tries to show that the plantation system was both profitable and efficient on capitalist terms. However, they are not Marxists. Charles Brown states that this is a false debate, since it excludes Aptheker and DuBois. While not gainsaying the enormous contribution of these two, my question is whether anybody knows of a Marxist study of slavery that is in line with Eric Williams and the Monthly Review school? My interest in these questions is tied to research I did last year on the Brenner thesis and is particularly focused on the question whether free labor is a precondition for capitalism. Williams, who was strongly influenced by CLR James, argues that it was not and that capitalism and slavery were inter-related. However, most of Williams work is focused on the Caribbeans. I am looking for that kind of research but focused on the American South. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Query on slavery
At 04:44 PM 10/19/00 -0700, you wrote: I don't know what the contemporary take on it is, or even to what extent it can be considered Marxist, but when I was an undergrad eons ago, I read Industrial Slavery in the Old South, 1790-1861: A Study in Political Economy by Robin Starobin. It was quite an eye-opener to me at the time. Yeah, I noticed this today in the Barnard Library. It had two things going for it, the Starobin name which I assumed indicated that the author was the son or daughter of Joseph Starobin, the CP'er who left the party and wrote for American Socialist for awhile. The other thing was the title which promised to be what I was looking for at first blush. The only drawback--and I'll have to take a second look--is that it seemed to be focused on actual manufacturing such as tobacco mills using slavery as opposed to picking cotton on plantations. I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that the book I am looking for has never been written. It might be categorized as a Marxist/dependency theory study of American slavery. I'll probably post the query on the World Systems mailing list although they give me the heebie-jeebies over there. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Time Magazine poll
Based on who you would vote for today, here are the current percentages: Nader 58.79% Bush29.79% Gore9.17% Buchanan1.89% other .33% http://www.time.com/time/campaign2000 Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Time Magazine poll
So this shows that Nader supporters are all tuned in to netvoting and have lots of time to repeat votes. Yeh. I voted for Nader. First US election I ever voted in. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2000 7:09 PM Subject: [PEN-L:3278] Time Magazine poll Based on who you would vote for today, here are the current percentages: Nader 58.79% Bush 29.79% Gore 9.17% Buchanan 1.89% other .33% http://www.time.com/time/campaign2000 Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
Michael Perelman wrote, As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. Volume III was published in 1894, Vol. II in 1885. Therefore, Wicksteed could only have seen Volume I. (Unless Engels showed him the unpublished manuscripts ;-)) So I take it from the discrepency between the superlative adjective and the narrow focus that you weren't impressed? In his introduction to the collected works, Steedman writes that "some writers have regarded Bohm Bawerks later attack on the labour theory of value, of 1896, as inferior to that of Wicksteed."
Re: Time Magazine poll
Ken Hanly wrote, So this shows that Nader supporters are all tuned in to netvoting and have lots of time to repeat votes. Yeh. I voted for Nader. First US election I ever voted in. I voted twice (just to check to see if they had any device to block repeat voting). I'm not going to tell you who I voted for because its a secret ballot, eh? What struck me was that the number of votes registered was over 1,000,000. Watch out for RSI, Nader fans! Having said that -- considering the state of corporate campaign financing and considering the weight of media bias, the Time poll results are probably a better reflection of popular sentiment than the actual vote results will be.
Re: Re: Time Magazine poll
Ken Hanly wrote, I voted twice (just to check to see if they had any device to block repeat voting). I'm not going to tell you who I voted for because its a secret ballot, eh? What struck me was that the number of votes registered was over 1,000,000. Watch out for RSI, Nader fans! Having said that -- considering the state of corporate campaign financing and considering the weight of media bias, the Time poll results are probably a better reflection of popular sentiment than the actual vote results will be. I had to vote 14 times to raise 'other' from .33% to .34%! Steven Matthews
More on Democracy Now
This is appalling. The Institute for Public Accuracy received this today: To: Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash and Board of Directors From: Amy Goodman Cc: Personnel File Date: 10/18/00 CRACKDOWN ON DEMOCRACY NOW! A few days ago, I was given a shocking memo from Pacifica Program Director Stephen Yasko and Pacifica attorney Larry Drapkin. In the 3-page memo, Yasko listed a series of Pacifica policies and work rules that I was ordered to immediately adhere to or face "disciplinary actions up to and including termination." Yasko handed me the memo during a meeting in the law offices of my union, AFTRA, at a gathering that my union representatives and I had been led to believe was meant to resolve a series of escalating conflicts which have erupted in recent months between Yasko, Executive Director Bessie Wash, myself and the Democracy Now! staff. In fact, union officials dissuaded me two weeks before the meeting from filing a formal grievance against Yasko and Pacifica for harassment because they had been led to believe Pacifica wanted to resolve these conflicts amicably. Instead, we were suddenly faced with this list of "ground rules" and the threat to fire me. My union lawyer accused Yasko and the Pacifica lawyer of acting in bad faith, immediately cancelled the meeting and approved the filing of a formal grievance. I have now filed grievances against Pacifica management charging harassment, gender harassment, and censorship, among other violations of the union contract. Several of the new "rules" target me with restrictions not applied to other Pacifica employees, and are outright attempts to curtail my constitutional rights of free speech. Some rules go against the very principles of community radio on which Pacifica was founded, while still others will have the effect of hampering Democracy Now!'s ability to reach the widest possible audience. Given their timing and seen in their totality, the ground rules are a transparent attempt to retaliate against me for seeking union representation in a management-labor dispute, a right protected by the National Labor Relations Act. But in my opinion, there is something far bigger than a mere "work rules" dispute involved here, something which should deeply concern the Pacifica Board, our listeners and the greater community radio listenership. It is the desire of management to reign in and exert political control over Democracy Now! It intensified this summer when Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash had our press credentials pulled after we brought Ralph Nader into the Republican Convention to be interviewed and do color commentary. Management's action made it much more difficult to cover the Democrats in the same hardhitting, confrontational way we had reported on the Republicans, especially when it came to our focus on corporate control of the Conventions. This punishment was such an unprecedented act that it prompted my co-host and award- winning veteran journalist Juan Gonzalez to write an official protest to Steve Yasko, the new program director, the content of which Yasko never responded to. Our election project, "Breaking With Convention: Power, Protest and the Presidency," was a milestone in Pacifica National Programming, encompassing the largest expansion of audience in Pacifica history. We engaged in an unprecedented collaboration with community public access cable tv stations as well as satellite television, beaming Democracy Now! into millions of homes across the country. Instead of building on that collaboration and continuing the televising of our radio program, and despite meeting and exceeding every stated objective for the show--i.e. audience growth, fundraising, new listeners, groundbreaking programming-- Democracy Now! is being subjected to a withering assault by Pacifica management. The motivation is blatantly political. Democracy Now! is a hardhitting grassroots program that is not afraid of tackling controversial issues day after day in the Pacifica tradition. We are not only being censored for our critical coverage of the Democrats as well as the Republicans, but for giving voice to a growing grassroots movement that fundamentally challenges the status quo--people fighting sweatshops, police brutality, prison growth, and corporate globalization. On September 14, Steve Yasko called me to a meeting with Pacifica General Managers. KPFK Manager Mark Schubb, expressed his repeated criticism that audiences don't want to hear graphic details of police brutality before breakfast, or as he said last year "before I have my coffee." He criticized our coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal, East Timor and questioned why I asked Spike Lee about his affiliation with Nike. Pacifica's Chief Financial Officer weighed in with her criticism of American prisoner Lori
Re: RE: Query on slavery
She claims that the large slave operations were efficient. Field, Elizabeth B. 1988. "The Relative Efficiency of Slavery Revisited: A Translog Production Function Approach." American Economic Review, 78: 3 (June): pp. 543-9. Hoffer, R.A. and S.T. Folland. 1991. "The Relative Efficiency of Slave Agriculture: A Comment." Applied Economics, 23: 5 (May): pp. 861-8. I think that the problem is that it is difficult to generalize. Some masters were -- to some extent -- paternalistic; others, sadistic. Either can conflict with efficiency. But then, I suppose that factory owners could do likewise. Also, the enjoyment of power over others -- sexual and otherwise -- is a factor. No doubt some slave owners were more oriented toward profit. Finally, I suspect that an interested scholar would find differences between locations and between crops. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Query on slavery
The whole point of the book, as I recall, was to rebut the claim (most famously voiced by the young Frederick Law Olmsted) that slavery was incompatible with the transition to mechanized production. Starobin pointed out that there were at least isolated instances of industrial production in the South employing slavery that were comparable to methods used in the North. He went into some detail to explain how the requisite labor flexibility was engineered. I can't remember if it was in this book that I first learned about the role of slave labor in building the rail links across the South. So you could say that the deeper question was whether slavery confined the South to a plantation-based economy, whether cotton or sugar or tobacco. Peter Louis Proyect wrote: At 04:44 PM 10/19/00 -0700, you wrote: I don't know what the contemporary take on it is, or even to what extent it can be considered Marxist, but when I was an undergrad eons ago, I read Industrial Slavery in the Old South, 1790-1861: A Study in Political Economy by Robin Starobin. It was quite an eye-opener to me at the time. Yeah, I noticed this today in the Barnard Library. It had two things going for it, the Starobin name which I assumed indicated that the author was the son or daughter of Joseph Starobin, the CP'er who left the party and wrote for American Socialist for awhile. The other thing was the title which promised to be what I was looking for at first blush. The only drawback--and I'll have to take a second look--is that it seemed to be focused on actual manufacturing such as tobacco mills using slavery as opposed to picking cotton on plantations. I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that the book I am looking for has never been written. It might be categorized as a Marxist/dependency theory study of American slavery. I'll probably post the query on the World Systems mailing list although they give me the heebie-jeebies over there. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Re: Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News!
If those few labored citations saved you from time in jail, or saved you a lot of money in liability, or won you a lot of money in a settlement, well, maybe it would be worth it. A lot of people seem to think that law isn't so hard--as a friend of mine from my days as a philosophy professor put it, all you do is look things up. Try it sometime! (But get a lawyer before you waste your time as a pro se party in court.) It is true that most lawyers are wretched, but what makes them special? Most of everybody is wretched at what they do. Course as a lawyer I am biased. But doing the job right isn't as easy as you think. --jks From: Joanna Sheldon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:3265] Re: Re: Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News! Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 08:02:26 +1000 At 12:22 19-10-00, Martin wrote: The thing that I might find distressing would be if a lawyer was needed - and the same disparity in weighted value of hours exists. A lawyer could get hundreds of hours of labor for a few hours of labored citations. Those who get paid in Ithaca money are encouraged to think of one HOUR as being worth one hour's work, no matter what the work is. Some people do charge more, though not by a lot, as far as I know; no one charges less. Since you can exchange your HOURs at the local deli for what other people are paying ten dollars for, it's not a bad way for a minimum-wage worker to buy lunch. (What's standard minimum wage in the US these days, under five dollars, I think?) I'll agree with Michael and Doug about "hours" not solving unemployment. Unemployment is not a problem, just a tool of capital. It's only a problem when there's no alternative system in evolution (like hours.) As to the "margins of the economy" - they could/should become the borders. I don't suppose HOURS were ever meant to solve unemployment. cheers, Joanna _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Re: Re: RE: Query on slavery
Michael wrote, ... claims that the large slave operations were efficient ... Field, Elizabeth B. 1988. "The Relative Efficiency of Slavery Revisited: A Translog Production Function Approach."... Hoffer, R.A. and S.T. Folland. 1991. "The Relative Efficiency of Slave Agriculture: . I look at this stuff many years ago. These claims are wrong. I recollect that the basic problem is measuring the amount of "labor input" in a slave system. It can't be properly measured and, so, very poor proxy measures have to be used. Any econometric study of efficiency in slavery is an example of garbage in, garbage out. The basic ideological issue behind this efficiency is the neoclassical assumption that what exists is efficient. Slavery existed and, so, it must have been efficient (so say the neoclassicals). The concern of neoclassicals is, if slavery existed and was not efficient, when then what does this say about production within capitalism--it is not necessarily efficient? Eric
WSJ on teaching economics
Today's Wall St. Journal has a front page feature on teaching economic with romance and mystery books. I found the following paragraph interesting. "The kids" are discerning. Gene Coyle Each year, about 1.4 million U.S. college students enroll in an introductory economics course. It's "easily one of the most difficult subjects to teach. It's advanced calculus in disguise," says Murray Wolfson of California State University, Fullerton. "The kids just don't believe a word of what I'm teaching. The relevance isn't obvious to them."
Re: Re: Re: Re: Query on slavery
Peter wrote, So you could say that the deeper question was whether slavery confined the South to a plantation-based economy, whether cotton or sugar or tobacco. Bateman, Fred and Thomas Weiss, A Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization Industrialization in the Slave South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981) argues for cultural forces restricting the growth of manufacturing in the south. In an article titled something like, "Empirical evidence that the social relations of production matter: the case of the US antebellum south" in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1989, I presented econometric evidence consistent with the claim that because the US south was part of a world system (e.g., linked to the US north and other manufacturing areas) the US South might have been locked into specializing in cotton and rice. And, the econometric evidence in this article also indirectly suggests that industrialization outside the US south might have been partially due to slavery in the south. Eric
Re: Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
At 07:00 PM 10/19/2000 -0700, you wrote: Michael Perelman wrote, As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. Volume III was published in 1894, Vol. II in 1885. Therefore, Wicksteed could only have seen Volume I. (Unless Engels showed him the unpublished manuscripts ;-)) So I take it from the discrepency between the superlative adjective and the narrow focus that you weren't impressed? In his introduction to the collected works, Steedman writes that "some writers have regarded Bohm Bawerk's later attack on the labour theory of value, of 1896, as inferior to that of Wicksteed." if I remember correctly, if you look at Steedman's cases of "negative values with positive prices and negative surplus value with positive profits," they are cases in which there is economic rent, but that Steedman had a different definition of value (and thus of surplus-value) than Marx. See the Mandel Freeman volume. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Re: RE: Query on slavery
At 08:30 PM 10/19/2000 +, you wrote: Michael wrote, ... claims that the large slave operations were efficient ... Field, Elizabeth B. 1988. "The Relative Efficiency of Slavery Revisited: A Translog Production Function Approach."... Hoffer, R.A. and S.T. Folland. 1991. "The Relative Efficiency of Slave Agriculture: . I look at this stuff many years ago. These claims are wrong. I recollect that the basic problem is measuring the amount of "labor input" in a slave system. It can't be properly measured and, so, very poor proxy measures have to be used. Any econometric study of efficiency in slavery is an example of garbage in, garbage out. there's also the problem (which Fogel and Engerman fell for) of comparing output/worker for different sectors. Unfortunately, you can't compare cotton/worker with corn/worker, just as you can't compare apples and oranges. You can aggregate such things, using prices, but if relative prices change (as they always do), it affects productivity measures. The basic ideological issue behind this efficiency is the neoclassical assumption that what exists is efficient. Slavery existed and, so, it must have been efficient (so say the neoclassicals). The concern of neoclassicals is, if slavery existed and was not efficient, when then what does this say about production within capitalism--it is not necessarily efficient? I think that this is unfair to the NCs, since there is a big part of their economics which concerns the way in which market failures -- which are inefficient -- persist over time and thus need government fixing. Of course, the problem is that they assume the government is neutral, or for James Buchanan, that it always f*cks things up. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: WSJ on teaching economics
At 08:34 PM 10/19/2000 -0700, you wrote: Each year, about 1.4 million U.S. college students enroll in an introductory economics course. It's "easily one of the most difficult subjects to teach. It's advanced calculus in disguise," says Murray Wolfson of California State University, Fullerton. "The kids just don't believe a word of what I'm teaching. The relevance isn't obvious to them." isn't he the author of a worthless screed against Marxian economics? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News!
Justin Schwartz said on 10/19/00 7:28 PM If those few labored citations saved you from time in jail, or saved you a lot of money in liability, or won you a lot of money in a settlement, well, maybe it would be worth it. A lot of people seem to think that law isn't so hard--as a friend of mine from my days as a philosophy professor put it, all you do is look things up. Try it sometime! (But get a lawyer before you waste your time as a pro se party in court.) It is true that most lawyers are wretched, but what makes them special? Most of everybody is wretched at what they do. Course as a lawyer I am biased. But doing the job right isn't as easy as you think. --jks From the point of view of the working class (the margins) the lady with the scale has taken a hike. When Alan G puts the brakes on, as someone suggested earlier in the thread, he'll use the law to effect his agenda. The exchange in hours between lawyer and defendant will be counter-productive, and will destroy the alternative system. The lawyers may be doing the job right but not doing the right job.
Re: Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
http://www.qut.edu.au/arts/human/ethics/conf/flat.htm A relatively large number of references to distributional issues can be found in Wicksteeds non-economic works in this later period. It is of some interest to record, for example, Wicksteeds views of the distribution of income at about the time of the publication of An essay on the co-ordination of the laws of distribution in 1894. In the following year, Wicksteed in his short paper The advent of the people provides support for a more equal distribution of wealth. In so doing he presents the classic (marginal) utilitarian defence of greater equality: "a more even distribution of wealth would obviously relieve misery so intense that it would be more than a compensation for the loss of enjoyment at the other end by which it would have to be purchased By a well-known law that lies at the basis of all sound consideration of social phenomena, each successive application of wealth to the supply of the wants of the same individual becomes less and less effective as a producer of satisfaction." (Wicksteed 1895) Wicksteeds paper also presents an interesting account of a standard for a just distribution of wealth. The point of interest is that the account of justice presented combines Wicksteeds interest in medieval studies and his adherence to the marginalist method. Wicksteed indicates that the medieval conception of justice consists in the presentation by man of that balance established by God and nature between capacities and opportunities. He goes on to add that if we look at society as it now is we see capacities starved of opportunity alike by excess and by defect of wealth, and our cry for justice is not a cry for a dead level, but a cry for the opening up of opportunities. Tom Walker wrote: Michael Perelman wrote, As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. Volume III was published in 1894, Vol. II in 1885. Therefore, Wicksteed could only have seen Volume I. (Unless Engels showed him the unpublished manuscripts ;-)) So I take it from the discrepency between the superlative adjective and the narrow focus that you weren't impressed? In his introduction to the collected works, Steedman writes that "some writers have regarded Bohm Bawerks later attack on the labour theory of value, of 1896, as inferior to that of Wicksteed." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: RE: Query on slavery
Eric, isn't your critique true of a good deal of econometric work? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael wrote, ... claims that the large slave operations were efficient ... Field, Elizabeth B. 1988. "The Relative Efficiency of Slavery Revisited: A Translog Production Function Approach."... Hoffer, R.A. and S.T. Folland. 1991. "The Relative Efficiency of Slave Agriculture: . I look at this stuff many years ago. These claims are wrong. I recollect that the basic problem is measuring the amount of "labor input" in a slave system. It can't be properly measured and, so, very poor proxy measures have to be used. Any econometric study of efficiency in slavery is an example of garbage in, garbage out. The basic ideological issue behind this efficiency is the neoclassical assumption that what exists is efficient. Slavery existed and, so, it must have been efficient (so say the neoclassicals). The concern of neoclassicals is, if slavery existed and was not efficient, when then what does this say about production within capitalism--it is not necessarily efficient? Eric -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Corporations Pay no Taxes: Robert McIntyre in the NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/20/business/20TAX.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: WSJ on teaching economics
Absolutely, yes. At 08:34 PM 10/19/2000 -0700, you wrote: Each year, about 1.4 million U.S. college students enroll in an introductory economics course. It's "easily one of the most difficult subjects to teach. It's advanced calculus in disguise," says Murray Wolfson of California State University, Fullerton. "The kids just don't believe a word of what I'm teaching. The relevance isn't obvious to them." isn't he the author of a worthless screed against Marxian economics? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Query on slavery
Does he tell how Irish workers were used when the work was too dangerous, since their lives were worth less than the slaves? Peter Dorman wrote: The whole point of the book, as I recall, was to rebut the claim (most famously voiced by the young Frederick Law Olmsted) that slavery was incompatible with the transition to mechanized production. Starobin pointed out that there were at least isolated instances of industrial production in the South employing slavery that were comparable to methods used in the North. He went into some detail to explain how the requisite labor flexibility was engineered. I can't remember if it was in this book that I first learned about the role of slave labor in building the rail links across the South. So you could say that the deeper question was whether slavery confined the South to a plantation-based economy, whether cotton or sugar or tobacco. Peter Louis Proyect wrote: At 04:44 PM 10/19/00 -0700, you wrote: I don't know what the contemporary take on it is, or even to what extent it can be considered Marxist, but when I was an undergrad eons ago, I read Industrial Slavery in the Old South, 1790-1861: A Study in Political Economy by Robin Starobin. It was quite an eye-opener to me at the time. Yeah, I noticed this today in the Barnard Library. It had two things going for it, the Starobin name which I assumed indicated that the author was the son or daughter of Joseph Starobin, the CP'er who left the party and wrote for American Socialist for awhile. The other thing was the title which promised to be what I was looking for at first blush. The only drawback--and I'll have to take a second look--is that it seemed to be focused on actual manufacturing such as tobacco mills using slavery as opposed to picking cotton on plantations. I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that the book I am looking for has never been written. It might be categorized as a Marxist/dependency theory study of American slavery. I'll probably post the query on the World Systems mailing list although they give me the heebie-jeebies over there. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: WSJ on teaching economics
Wolfson is the author of a pretty good book on Marxisn economics, btw. So one wonders what he is teaching them, and what they are not believing. --jks From: Eugene Coyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Pen-L Pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:3288] WSJ on teaching economics Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 20:34:01 -0700 Today's Wall St. Journal has a front page feature on teaching economic with romance and mystery books. I found the following paragraph interesting. "The kids" are discerning. Gene Coyle Each year, about 1.4 million U.S. college students enroll in an introductory economics course. It's "easily one of the most difficult subjects to teach. It's advanced calculus in disguise," says Murray Wolfson of California State University, Fullerton. "The kids just don't believe a word of what I'm teaching. The relevance isn't obvious to them." _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Re: Query on slavery
Michael, you are taxing my aging memory. I don't recall that particular detail, but it sounds plausible. BTW, I had heard that Starobin committed suicide shortly after writing this book. A depressing topic indeed Peter Michael Perelman wrote: Does he tell how Irish workers were used when the work was too dangerous, since their lives were worth less than the slaves? Peter Dorman wrote: The whole point of the book, as I recall, was to rebut the claim (most famously voiced by the young Frederick Law Olmsted) that slavery was incompatible with the transition to mechanized production. Starobin pointed out that there were at least isolated instances of industrial production in the South employing slavery that were comparable to methods used in the North. He went into some detail to explain how the requisite labor flexibility was engineered. I can't remember if it was in this book that I first learned about the role of slave labor in building the rail links across the South. So you could say that the deeper question was whether slavery confined the South to a plantation-based economy, whether cotton or sugar or tobacco. Peter
Re: Re: WSJ on teaching economics
Jim asks: Murray Wolfson of California State University, Fullerton. isn't he the author of a worthless screed against Marxian economics? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine I haven't read his 1964 Reappraisal of Marxisn Economics in many years, although I have my copy on my desk just now. I recall being impressed with it. He argues that Marx does not make good on an inevitable collapse thesis, but otherwise is pretty good as an analyst of capitalism, and can't be dismissed. "Only the most obtuse reader can fail to recognize that a century ago Marx raised the key economic questions of our time." (p. 186). Don't we all agree with that? Wolfson was obviously a New Deal Keynesian liberal, but his book is not a worthless screed against Maxian economics. --jks _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Re: Re: Fwd: BIG Ithaca HOUR News!
From the point of view of the working class (the margins) the lady with the scale has taken a hike. When Alan G puts the brakes on, as someone suggested earlier in the thread, he'll use the law to effect his agenda. The exchange in hours between lawyer and defendant will be counter-productive, and will destroy the alternative system. The lawyers may be doing the job right but not doing the right job. Tell it to Rolando Cruz here in Illinois, who is now free, off death row, and won a substantial settlement for having been framed. Point is, depends on which lawyers and what job they do. --jks _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
