Rising stock market redistributes wealth?
In the Dean Baker's Economic Reporting Review of July 22, 2002, he makes the following claim: A rising stock market is primarily a redistribution from people who own little or no stock, who are mostly middle income and poor, to people who own a great deal of stock, who are mostly rich. So if I own 10 shares of stock at 1 dollar, and my neighbor owns 10 million, if the price of a share goes up by 1 dollar, my increase is 10 dollars, and my neighbor's is 10 million. I feel a bit dense, but how, without information on who is spending the money on stocks (and perhaps other information), can we conclude that this is a redistribution? Each of us is 10 times richer than we were. I now have 20 dollars' worth of stock and he has 20 million dollars' worth. Our wealth ratios have remained constant at a million to one, and ratios, I thought, were the way distribution of wealth was gauged. Also, is it conversely true that a falling stock market redistributes wealth in the other direction? Bill
RE: Rising stock market redistributes wealth?
Title: RE: [PEN-L:29447] Rising stock market redistributes wealth? I wondered about that sentence in Dean's ERR. There are two major cases: if the stock market is rising because of rising earnings, that would represent the effects of redistribution -- either from workers or from interest-earners or raw-material producers or non-corporate tax-payers -- or of increased capacity utilization (greater aggregate demand). If there's redistribution, it's not in the stock market. on the other hand, if the stock market is rising because prices get out of line with earnings, that's can't be a redistribution. Rather, there's a bunch of paper claims that are being valued highly by people in the Market. Since they're not all cashing their winnings at once, these paper gains can persist. The price of other assets can remain high, too, since optimism in one financial market can spill over into another. Redistribution might happen if a company pushes up its stock prices by pushing its employees or their pension funds to buy the stock, while the CEO and other insiders are selling stock. does this make sense? Jim -Original Message- From: Bill Lear To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 8/15/2002 6:06 AM Subject: [PEN-L:29447] Rising stock market redistributes wealth? In the Dean Baker's Economic Reporting Review of July 22, 2002, he makes the following claim: A rising stock market is primarily a redistribution from people who own little or no stock, who are mostly middle income and poor, to people who own a great deal of stock, who are mostly rich. So if I own 10 shares of stock at 1 dollar, and my neighbor owns 10 million, if the price of a share goes up by 1 dollar, my increase is 10 dollars, and my neighbor's is 10 million. I feel a bit dense, but how, without information on who is spending the money on stocks (and perhaps other information), can we conclude that this is a redistribution? Each of us is 10 times richer than we were. I now have 20 dollars' worth of stock and he has 20 million dollars' worth. Our wealth ratios have remained constant at a million to one, and ratios, I thought, were the way distribution of wealth was gauged. Also, is it conversely true that a falling stock market redistributes wealth in the other direction? Bill
Re: RE: Rising stock market redistributes wealth?
I would suggest that redistribution is real. The fictitious capital associated with capital gains through the wealth effect bids up the cost of goods such as housing. That asset bubble also has real consequences for renters who get displaced. On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 07:34:37AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: I wondered about that sentence in Dean's ERR. There are two major cases: if the stock market is rising because of rising earnings, that would represent the effects of redistribution -- either from workers or from interest-earners or raw-material producers or non-corporate tax-payers -- or of increased capacity utilization (greater aggregate demand). If there's redistribution, it's not in the stock market. on the other hand, if the stock market is rising because prices get out of line with earnings, that's can't be a redistribution. Rather, there's a bunch of paper claims that are being valued highly by people in the Market. Since they're not all cashing their winnings at once, these paper gains can persist. The price of other assets can remain high, too, since optimism in one financial market can spill over into another. Redistribution might happen if a company pushes up its stock prices by pushing its employees or their pension funds to buy the stock, while the CEO and other insiders are selling stock. does this make sense? Jim -Original Message- From: Bill Lear To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 8/15/2002 6:06 AM Subject: [PEN-L:29447] Rising stock market redistributes wealth? In the Dean Baker's Economic Reporting Review of July 22, 2002, he makes the following claim: A rising stock market is primarily a redistribution from people who own little or no stock, who are mostly middle income and poor, to people who own a great deal of stock, who are mostly rich. So if I own 10 shares of stock at 1 dollar, and my neighbor owns 10 million, if the price of a share goes up by 1 dollar, my increase is 10 dollars, and my neighbor's is 10 million. I feel a bit dense, but how, without information on who is spending the money on stocks (and perhaps other information), can we conclude that this is a redistribution? Each of us is 10 times richer than we were. I now have 20 dollars' worth of stock and he has 20 million dollars' worth. Our wealth ratios have remained constant at a million to one, and ratios, I thought, were the way distribution of wealth was gauged. Also, is it conversely true that a falling stock market redistributes wealth in the other direction? Bill -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: underemployment
Jim Devine wrote, ... It's bad for the left for there to be a bunch of disaffected educated people who can't get decent jobs who join the obscurantist right. Maybe we can draw them into our camp, but in order to do so, we have to pay attention to them. ... we need to increase the demand for educated people. What is an educated person? What is a decent job? Why would an educated person join the obscurantist right? Where is our camp? How does one pay attention? What does it mean to increase the demand for educated people? How does one do that? Who is the we that needs to do it?
Noam Chomsky and his critics
In the aftermath of September 11th, certain sectors of the US left buckled under ruling class pressure and turned against Noam Chomsky. His uncompromising anti-imperialism might have been acceptable during the 1980s when the Sandinistas were under Washington's gun, but in today's repressive atmosphere no quarter is given to the dissident intellectual. Of course, no quarter is asked from Chomsky, who remains fearless and principled as ever. To the chagrin of ruling class pundits and weak-kneed leftists, a collection of interviews with Chomsky, which has been published under the title 9/11, has become a best seller. According to a May 5th Washington Post article, the book had already sold 160,000 copies and been translated into a dozen languages, from Korean to Japanese to two varieties of Portuguese. In an attempt to warn people away from the book, the Post cites Brian Morton, supposedly a novelist and essayist of the left, who regards Chomsky as an important intellectual whose arguments have suffered a sclerotic hardening. He says, Chomsky sees the world in a very stark way and gets at certain truths in that way, but ultimately his view is so simplistic that it's not useful. He's become a phase that people on the left should go through when they are young. It should come as no surprise that the Washington Post failed to identify the segment of the left Morton is associated with. As it turns out, he is an editor of Dissent Magazine, a publication that might be described as social democracy in a state of advanced rigor mortis. Irving Howe, the founder of the magazine, was a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War. The current editor, Michael Walzer, stumped for Bush's war against terrorism in the Fall 2001 issue, stating: We have to defend our lives; we are also defending our way of life. Everyone says this, but it is true. The terrorists oppose and hate our way of life--and would still oppose and hate it even if we lived our lives far better than we do. Eric Alterman and Christopher Hitchens, contributors to The Nation Magazine, a left liberal weekly that has published continuously since the Civil War, have jumped on the anti-Chomsky bandwagon with a vengeance. Although the magazine has had a reputation for principled anti-imperialism in the past, it has shifted noticeably to the right in recent years. Most would explain this as a function of tail-ending the Clinton administration. Alterman, admits on his MSNBC.com 'blog' that Chomsky did a lot of good work on East Timor. But when he accused the United States of perpetrating a holocaust in Afghanistan and compared the attack on the pharmaceutical factory in Somalia with that on the Twin Towers, he went out of bounds and became the mirror image of the ignorant jingoism of Bennett, Krauthammer, Kelly, Will, etc. Christopher Hitchens has been the author of the most visible and controversial attacks against Chomsky. In flag-waving attack on the peace movement in the September 24, 2001 Nation titled Of Sin, the Left Islamic Fascism. Hitchens describes Chomsky as soft on crime and soft on fascism. With such people, he adds, No political coalition is possible. (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=specials=hitchens20010924) For some on the postmodernist left, Chomsky has also become objectionable. Michael Berube, a commentator on the arts and society, feels that the Chomskian left has consigned itself to the dustbin of history. In accounting for the split between the Chomskian left and the Hitchens left, Berube surmises that the simple fact that bombs were dropping might have something to do with it. He writes: For U.S. leftists schooled in the lessons of Cambodia, Libya, and the School of the Americas, all U.S. bombing actions are suspect: they are announced by cadaverous white guys with bad hair, they are covered by seven cable channels competing with one another for the catchiest New War slogan and Emmy awards for creative flag display, and they invariably kill civilians, the poor, the wretched, the disabled. Surely, there is much to hate about any bombing campaign. (http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no10/berube.html) Dispensing with the relativism and playful irony that characterizes the postmodernist left, Berube reminds his readers that war is a serious business: Yet who would deny that a nation, once attacked, has the right to respond with military force, and who seriously believes that anyone could undertake any nation-building enterprise in Afghanistan without driving the Taliban from power first? Bad Subjects, another postmodernist outlet, has joined the anti-Chomsky crusade as well. In the latest online edition (http://eserver.org/bs/reviews/2002-3-11-4.49PM.html), Joe Lockard complains: The excursion begins with a simple postulate from which flows all manner of derivatives: the United States is the leading terrorist state. Mr. Smith isn't going to Washington; Mr. Smith
Re: RE: Rising stock market redistributes wealth?
In a message dated 8/15/2002 10:41:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Redistribution might happen if a company pushes up its stock prices by pushing its employees or their pension funds to buy the stock, while the CEO and other insiders are selling stock. Millions of employees were pressured to buy their company's stock as part of their 401K plans. Companies also dumped stock into employee retirement plans, often after buying it back at cheaper levels in a declining market, while execs cashed-out. That redistribution is exaggerated when insiders and executives have the ability to sell their stock when they want to, yet employees have 5 yr. lockout periods. So, on the point of whether a falling market redistributes the same way - it doesn't, it would favor those that cashed-out at higher prices and penalize the workers still locked into lower valuations of their pension and retirement plans. Either way, I think there's a missing denominator. It's not simply the ratio of what is invested to what is earned that measures redistribution, but what percentage that investment is of overall wealth. In a piece I did on Gary Winnick, his co-hort Lodwrick Cook said - 'hey, I still own 70% of my stock, we all took a hit'. The difference is in the magnitude of that hit. Gary owns a $95mln home purchased with his take-out, the 9000 workers he fired don't. Nomi
GM superweeds
Scientists shocked at GM gene transfer Paul Brown, environment correspondent Thursday August 15, 2002 The Guardian Weeds have become stronger and fitter by cross-breeding with genetically modified crops, leading to fears that superweeds which are difficult or impossible to control may invade farms growing standard crops. Two separate teams, one working on sunflowers in the US and the other on sugar beet in France, have shown weeds and GM food crops readily swapping genes. In the case of wild sunflowers, classed as weed varieties in America, specimens became hardier and produced 50% more seeds if they were crossed with GM sunflowers which had been programmed to be resistant to seed-nibbling moth lavae. Allison Snow, who headed the team at Ohio State University, confessed in New Scientist that she was shocked by the results. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,774795,00.html] Carl _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
RE: Noam Chomsky and his critics
Title: RE: [PEN-L:29451] Noam Chomsky and his critics It's about time that I faced an easy choice, choosing between Chomsky Hitchens. Among other things, the latter is often incoherent. As someone said, when Hitchens hears the word fascist, he drops all of his socialist leanings and rushes off to war (in alliance with the powers that be). Speaking of which, there's an op-ed in today's Los Angeles TIMES by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., an extremely establishmentarian Democratic Party stalwart of the New Deal tradition. (He was an advisor to JFK.) Schlesinger is against a pre-emptive attack against Iraq (but in favor of containment, which in practice has been very much like a war). This is notable because the Democrats have largely been silent, obedient, in Dubya's War on Evil. So maybe there will be more dissent. (This is relevant the way Stliglitz's stuff is relevant: cracks in the establishment tell us what could happen soon.) random comment: you know that you waste much too much time when you start winning Freecell all the time. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 8:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:29451] Noam Chomsky and his critics In the aftermath of September 11th, certain sectors of the US left buckled under ruling class pressure and turned against Noam Chomsky. His uncompromising anti-imperialism might have been acceptable during the 1980s when the Sandinistas were under Washington's gun, but in today's repressive atmosphere no quarter is given to the dissident intellectual. Of course, no quarter is asked from Chomsky, who remains fearless and principled as ever. To the chagrin of ruling class pundits and weak-kneed leftists, a collection of interviews with Chomsky, which has been published under the title 9/11, has become a best seller. According to a May 5th Washington Post article, the book had already sold 160,000 copies and been translated into a dozen languages, from Korean to Japanese to two varieties of Portuguese. In an attempt to warn people away from the book, the Post cites Brian Morton, supposedly a novelist and essayist of the left, who regards Chomsky as an important intellectual whose arguments have suffered a sclerotic hardening. He says, Chomsky sees the world in a very stark way and gets at certain truths in that way, but ultimately his view is so simplistic that it's not useful. He's become a phase that people on the left should go through when they are young. It should come as no surprise that the Washington Post failed to identify the segment of the left Morton is associated with. As it turns out, he is an editor of Dissent Magazine, a publication that might be described as social democracy in a state of advanced rigor mortis. Irving Howe, the founder of the magazine, was a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War. The current editor, Michael Walzer, stumped for Bush's war against terrorism in the Fall 2001 issue, stating: We have to defend our lives; we are also defending our way of life. Everyone says this, but it is true. The terrorists oppose and hate our way of life--and would still oppose and hate it even if we lived our lives far better than we do. Eric Alterman and Christopher Hitchens, contributors to The Nation Magazine, a left liberal weekly that has published continuously since the Civil War, have jumped on the anti-Chomsky bandwagon with a vengeance. Although the magazine has had a reputation for principled anti-imperialism in the past, it has shifted noticeably to the right in recent years. Most would explain this as a function of tail-ending the Clinton administration. Alterman, admits on his MSNBC.com 'blog' that Chomsky did a lot of good work on East Timor. But when he accused the United States of perpetrating a holocaust in Afghanistan and compared the attack on the pharmaceutical factory in Somalia with that on the Twin Towers, he went out of bounds and became the mirror image of the ignorant jingoism of Bennett, Krauthammer, Kelly, Will, etc. Christopher Hitchens has been the author of the most visible and controversial attacks against Chomsky. In flag-waving attack on the peace movement in the September 24, 2001 Nation titled Of Sin, the Left Islamic Fascism. Hitchens describes Chomsky as soft on crime and soft on fascism. With such people, he adds, No political coalition is possible. (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special=hitchens20010924) For some on the postmodernist left, Chomsky has also become objectionable. Michael Berube, a commentator on the arts and society, feels that the Chomskian left has consigned itself to the dustbin of history. In accounting
Re: Re: American anti-terrorist drive targets Filipino Communists
In a message dated 8/14/02 9:03:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have heard nothing about this particular case. I wonder how common it is. The main focus of the U.S. war on terrorism remains on radical Islam, but it has already shown several signs of being expanded to eventually include anyone and everyone that the U.S. government considers to be their enemies. Naturally they start with their most open and dangerous enemies, namely revolutionary communists (mostly Maoists). In Nepal Secretary of State Colin Powell conferred with the government a few months ago about how to aid them in putting down the revolt led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Millions of dollars of U.S. aid is already going to Nepal for this purpose. Of course the U.S. has also long targeted the revolutionaries in Peru. And it now seems to be turning its attention to the Communist Party of the Philippines. (More info in the AP article below.) Jose Maria Sison is not the only target of this new attack on the Philippine Maoists, although he seems to be the number one target. There is good reason for this. While Sison himself says that he is now only a political advisor to the mass movement associated with the CPP, the Philippine and U.S. governments believe that he is still the number one leader of the Party. It has even been suggested that Armando Liwanag, the official chairman of the Central Committee of the CPP does not really exist (or is simply another of Sison's nom de guerres). There are still Marxist revolutionaries in this world, and in fact growing numbers of them in some areas--especially south Asia and the Philippines. And the U.S. is determined to wipe them out--along with everybody else who objects (with anything more than words) to their domination and exploitation of the world. --Scott Harrison Dutch Freeze Filipino Rebel's Money .c The Associated Press AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Dutch authorities Tuesday froze the bank accounts of the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, days after the United States designated the party a terrorist group. The Foreign Ministry said all assets linked to Jose Maria Sison, 64, and a Dutch arm of his party would be blocked. The State Department recently designated the party and its armed wing, the New People's Army, as terrorist groups. Sison's name was added to the Treasury's list of individuals whose accounts should be frozen. The New People's Army, which has 12,000 fighters, leads an alliance of rebels in a 34-year-old leftist insurrection against the government. The U.S. designation makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to provide support to the party. It also requires financial institutions to block its assets, blocks admission to the United States by Communist Party representatives and subjects representatives already in the United States to expulsion. Sison founded the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968, but fled his homeland in the late 1980s after serving nine years in prison during President Ferdinand Marcos' regime. The Dutch internal service, which has been monitoring Sison since 1992, alleges he still leads rebel forces responsible for hundreds of deaths every year. But Sison, who has played a leading role in peace talks in recent years, denied links with terrorists and said he was not the rebel group's leader. ``I am a recognized political refugee, protected by the Geneva Convention,'' Sison said. ``I am only the chief political adviser.'' The Foreign Ministry said all accounts and assets in the Netherlands found to be linked to Sison or the Utrecht-based arm of the group, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, would be seized. Sison said with a laugh that he and the Democratic Front ``have no bank accounts to freeze.'' He claimed that by labeling his group as terrorist, the United States and the Netherlands would hurt the fragile peace talks. Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appealed to communist guerrillas Monday to stop ``terrorist'' attacks to save peace talks. This was the second time the Netherlands acted against suspected terrorists after a U.S. request. In March, the Finance Ministry froze accounts belonging to the AD Afghanistan Bank, an official said. 08/13/02 12:23 EDT
RE: Re: underemployment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:29450] Re: underemployment I wrote: ... It's bad for the left for there to be a bunch of disaffected educated people who can't get decent jobs who join the obscurantist right. Maybe we can draw them into our camp, but in order to do so, we have to pay attention to them. ... we need to increase the demand for educated people. Tom W. writes: What is an educated person? As with the article under discussion, I was using the usual, credentialist, definition, even though I know from experience that folks with high degrees are often ignorant and/or stupid. It's the usual definition that is relevant to the issue of people getting Ph.D.s and then being unable to find a job in their home country (e.g., England as in the article or Egypt as in my reference). What is a decent job? Again, this is something that can't be defined abstractly by a theorist in his or her office. It's socially defined: most people define it in terms of job security, decent health care benefits, adequate wages, etc. (in the primary labor market), which are themselves defined socially. In England or Egypt, people who have advanced degrees know when they don't have decent jobs, i.e., when they're under-employed. (Academics can't measure under-employment, while it seems very subjective and thus fuzzy and to be avoided by those social scientists with physics envy, but it's a real phenomenon for those who suffer from it, as with Ph.D.s driving cab because there are no jobs teaching philosophy.) Why would an educated person join the obscurantist right? Why would William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor and a co-winner of a Nobel Prize, embrace the genetic-determinist theory of IQ and all sorts of racist nonsense? Again, just because one's socially-defined as educated doesn't guarantee knowledge outside one's specialty and/or intelligence and/or sanity. Throw in social stressors such as under-employment, and the bigotry is more likely to come out. (When the Ayatollahs took over, one of the members of my department (a highly educated man) took his entire family back to Iran, because he wanted his wife and kids to obey him. Or least I am told, since this occurred before I worked here.) Where is our camp? the left's camp is obviously very small and divided. Please don't remind me. (BTW, I was using the word camp as a metaphor.) How does one pay attention? using reading and other ways of inputting information, by thinking about it. If possible, by doing something about it. (For a country like Egypt, I argue that education resources should be going for literacy more than for producing more high-level credentials.) What does it mean to increase the demand for educated people? How does one do that? If educated people are defined as having exalted credentials, it's obvious that raising the demand for them involves more government efforts to do research on science and the like, to provide public services such as medical care, to provide education itself, etc. If there are more folks with basic education, this indirectly helps create a demand for highly credentialed folks. Who is the we that needs to do it? The government, but of course it won't do so unless there are large numbers of people pressuring it to do so. In a country like Egypt, the focus on elite education is a result of the power of the richer classes. This needs to be counteracted. Jim
Of mice and men...
Pig, goat sperm produced by mice By ANNE MCILROY SCIENCE REPORTER From the Globe and Mail...cheers, Ken Hanly Thursday, August 15, 2002 - Page A7 Researchers have succeeded in getting mice to produce healthy pig and goat sperm, and they say they soon may get the rodents to churn out human sperm. The mice were turned into foreign-sperm factories when specks of testicular tissue from a newborn goat and pig were grafted onto their backs, just under the skin. The squishy mounds of tissue that sprouted after a few weeks produced vast amounts of sperm. The researchers made sure the sperm was viable by using it in the laboratory to fertilize mouse eggs, creating cross-species embryos that they kept for only a couple of days. The scientists are working on using the mouse-generated pig and goat sperm to fertilize pig and goat eggs to produce normal offspring. Ina Dobrinksi, a veterinarian and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, acknowledged that some people may be appalled by her work and fear it will lead to vast numbers of genetically similar humans being bred from the technique. But she said that in a few years the method could be used on men. Doctors could save testicular tissue from boys about to undergo cancer treatments that would make them infertile. Later in life the tissue specimens would be used to produce sperm by implanting them in mice or in their own bodies. The sperm would be retrieved after the tissue is removed. Using a mouse would certainly be easier, but it might not be acceptable to some people, said Prof. Dobrinksi, whose paper on the first cross-species production of sperm is to be published in today's issue of the scientific journal Nature. The technique also could be used to help preserve species that are in danger of extinction, such as the grizzly bear, or to reproduce prized livestock.
Stiglitz questions
I'm interviewing Joseph Stiglitz on my radio show in about 2 hours (assuming he shows up). Anyone have any questions for him? I'll be in email range only until about 4:15 NYC time, when I leave for the studio. Anyone wanting to listen (assuming he shows up): WBAI, 99.5 FM New York and http://www.wbai.org, 5-6 PM eastern US time, and tomorrow, up on my radio archive site http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html. Doug
Re: RE: Re: underemployment
Devine, James wrote: What does it mean to increase the demand for educated people? How does one do that? If educated people are defined as having exalted credentials, it's obvious that raising the demand for them involves more government efforts to do research on science and the like, to provide public services such as medical care, to provide education itself, etc. If there are more folks with basic education, this indirectly helps create a demand for highly credentialed folks. A project such as the WPA is as utopian under present circumstances as would be the demand for Communism (advanced) by 3:00 a.m. tomorrow. Nevertheless, the principle of the WPA -- create the job that fits what the applicant has to offer -- would be the core answer to this need. All those people who can't read or can't read well and all those brillian Ad agency types who ought to be unemployed: mix them together. And I bet some math Ph.D.s driving taxis (some were in the late '60s) would be delighted, were condtions right, to run a _real_ head start program. Hah! :-/ Carrol
DC Sept 25-29th WB/IMF Actions! QUARANTINE corporate greed!
please circulate widely Call to Action! September 25th - 29th in Washington, DC STOP Infectious Corporate Greed! CONFRONT Corporate Evil-doers at their CEO Summit! QUARANTINE the World Bank and IMF on Saturday, September 28th Get Plugged-in at www.globalizethis.com or call 202-452-5912 The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and related elites are gathering in Washington, DC from September 25th to the 29th to discuss how to continue the destructive path of corporate globalization. They think that bankers should write the rules of the global economy and put profits ahead of local communities, workers, the environment, human rights, justice and future generations. Right now, their actions in South America threaten to drag the world down in a global depression and cost untold millions their jobs. Obviously, these policies are sick and we plan to protect the rest of the world from them by symbolically quarantining these diseased institutions until they learn basic respect for democracy, justice and the earth. Join us for 5 days of marches, rallies, creative actions, workshops, trainings and teach-ins with voices of hope and dignity from around the world. Following the lead of the grassroots uprising in Argentina we will share our organizing and strategies for building stronger movements for justice. Come share your vision and help turn this autumn into the corporate fall and eradicate the disease of corporate greed from the globe! --- For more details, read on . . . --- Now is the Moment to Voice our Dissent to Profits-over-People! Over the last three years, hundreds of thousands of North Americans have joined the Global Justice Movement by rallying, marching and engaging in mass non-violent direct action. We've shown our opposition to the globalization of corporate greed, destruction and control. We've shown that a world based on true democracy, dignity, justice and ecological sanity is possible. WE ARE WINNING! Over the last year, our movement around the world has grown, just as dramatically as the veneer of corporate America has been tarnished. In Barcelona, 300,000 rallied against the economic policies of the European Union. In Argentina, millions have protested the IMF's policies over the last year. In Peru, tens of thousands protested electricity privatization. In Lesotho, thousands protested three World Bank dam projects. Already in Ecuador tens of thousands of people are preparing for mass actions against the next Free Trade Agreement of the Americas meeting set to happen in Quito in October. Meanwhile in the United States, corporate America has exposed its own avarice and corruption by cheating workers and pensioners out of millions. It's time to show the world that the Global Justice Movement is stronger, smarter and more relevant than ever. With our actions we will reveal that scandals like Enron (one of the World Bank's favorite partners) are just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, it's not just a few bad corporate apples -- it's a rotten tree and we plan to uproot it by building a people's globalization movement to fight for a real democracy, ecological sanity and global justice! Globalize Justice : Another World Is Possible! . If you think the unchecked power of corporate greed is a threat to democracy, freedom and the future of the planet . If you are saddened by polluted land, water, and air... . If you have grown weary of representatives that do not represent and institutions that do not serve people... . If your heart has grown heavy in the face of distinctions based on power over others, sexism, racism, homophobia... . If you are dismayed with participation in a system that brings untold wealth to the doorsteps of a few by stealing bread from the tables of many... . If you are appalled by excuses that place profits before the lives of millions of people living with HIV... . If you know in your heart and mind that a just, sane and nonviolent world is possible, and you want to help create it... COME TO DC! We demand that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund: . Open all World Bank and IMF meetings to the media and the public. . Cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank and IMF, using the institutions' own resources. . End all World Bank and IMF policies that hinder people's access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education, and right to organize. (Such structural adjustment policies include user fees, privatization, and economic austerity programs.) . Stop all World Bank support for socially and environmentally destructive projects such as oil, gas, and mining activities, and all support for projects such as dams that include forced relocation of people. We furthermore demand that the United States government, the largest shareholder and most influential government in the World Bank and IMF, adopt the above demands, and work vigorously to compel the World Bank
FW: Please check this out... under god
Title: FW: Please check this out... under god USA Today is taking a vote on whether the words Under God should be removed from the pledge of allegiance. You can vote by going to the following web site: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/06/27/pledge-hold.htm Thanks and please... keep passing this one along You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty. Jessica Mitford (1917-1996)
The Greedy Bunch
http://www.fortune.com/insiders/companies.html
Re: Stiglitz questions
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Doug Henwood wrote: I'm interviewing Joseph Stiglitz on my radio show in about 2 hours (assuming he shows up). Anyone have any questions for him? I'll be in email range only until about 4:15 NYC time, when I leave for the studio. Damn, I had a good question, but I was offline. Maybe you can ask him next time you see him at a party: Q: Recently you and George Soros wrote articles about Brazil that differed on one major point: he though the IMF package would probably fail and you thought it would probably succeed. The main difference seemed to be that you assumed that interest rates would return to 10%, in which case the 3.75% primary surplus demanded by the IMF would be attainable, and Soros he assumed that interest rates would get stuck above 20% when, even assuming 4% growth, the necessary primary surplus would 4.8%, which would be impossible to attain. Given the so far underwhelming response of the markets to the IMF's package, do you think there's a chance Soros is right? And if so, what happens next? And what do you think of his idea of getting central banks to be the lenders of last resort and open up their discount windows? Michael
re:Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons
A very useful review of some more recent stuff on Chomsky than in the biographies. There is in my view, no doubt that Chomsky is a remarkable and brave and decent person. Moreover - undoubtedly he has done a huge amount to galvanise the progressives around - let us use the term given - the 'activists'. But nonetheless, perhaps two or three caveats re the article, some of which might suggest him to be more a man than an unmitigated paragon: 1) JD thinks the choice is between Hitchens Chomsky. I doubt that. What to say of Hitchens - though his Kissinger is pretty good isn't it? The closing punch-lines are more indicative of the real comparison that is being offered by Proyect - regarding the hyperbole of: Indeed, for all of Chomsky's frequent disparaging of Marxian socialism, his uniquely prophetic voice reminds us of none other than Karl Marx's own. I find this emblematic of a strange ambivalence towards the organised left movement that is discerned in the refusal to entertain party building. In any case, speculation aside - as Proyect points out in his piece, Chomsky does draw a discreet veil over certain key questions. In my own view, this certainly does not allow such a comparison to Marx as is claimed. His response in private correspondence to me on certain historical matters (pertaining to Lysenko) smacks of a refusal to grapple with some of the key aspects of history in the past. 2) Although Chomsky talks to 'activists' - it is interesting that virtually all his venues are in that very base that he claims as the refugee of any (??) thought/thinking- the University. How has Chomsky connected to those that will make the revolution beyond the 'activists' - but the working class? Has he? I freely admit I do not know enough to say. Who does? 3) Another comparison is sort-of offered to us. Chomsky as an Orwell. But, Chomsky is surely far, far superior to Orwell - Incomparable to that turd really. For whatever 'errors' Chomsky makes/has made - his is surely not the turncoat viciousness of a spying ideological thug as the paid agent Orwell was? Gosh, I hope the archives of some future Encounter magazine - or British Whitehall Files, do not prove me wrong! Hari Kumar
RE: re:Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons
Title: RE: [PEN-L:29465] re:Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons Hari Kumar writes: 1) JD thinks the choice is between Hitchens Chomsky. I doubt that. What to say of Hitchens - though his Kissinger is pretty good isn't it? Just because I would choose Chomsky over Hitchens in a nanosecond (if forced to do so) doesn't mean that I reject everything H says root and branch. As I've said with regard to Milton Friedman, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. H is better than that. ... Indeed, for all of Chomsky's frequent disparaging of Marxian socialism, his uniquely prophetic voice reminds us of none other than Karl Marx's own. I find that in many ways Chomsky _is_ a Marxian socialist (rather than an anarchist). For whatever reason, he wants to distance himself from Marxism. ... 3) Another comparison is sort-of offered to us. Chomsky as an Orwell. But, Chomsky is surely far, far superior to Orwell - Incomparable to that turd really. For whatever 'errors' Chomsky makes/has made - his is surely not the turncoat viciousness of a spying ideological thug as the paid agent Orwell was? Gosh, I hope the archives of some future Encounter magazine - or British Whitehall Files, do not prove me wrong! My impression is that when Orwell finked, he was sick, depressed, and ideologically confused (by the lack of the predicted revolution at the end of WW2, by the widening moral plague of McCarthyism and Stalinism). His best stuff was done earlier. (Moral plague is a phrase from Wilhelm Reich, another who flipped about around that time.) JD
Re: re:Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons
Hari Kumar wrote: I find this emblematic of a strange ambivalence towards the organised left movement that is discerned in the refusal to entertain party building. Please--I have written tens of thousands of words on party-building. I am not sure how old you are, Hari, but you seem to be rather unaware of the tremendous crisis and implosion of Marxist-Leninist groups in the 1970s and 80s. It is too bad that you unsubbed from Marxmail today. That would be an appropriate place to discuss such issues, not here. 2) Although Chomsky talks to 'activists' - it is interesting that virtually all his venues are in that very base that he claims as the refugee of any (??) thought/thinking- the University. How has Chomsky connected to those that will make the revolution beyond the 'activists' - but the working class? Has he? I freely admit I do not know enough to say. Who does? Chomsky's social base is students and professionals. Unfortunately, they are the people who take the most militant stands against imperialism, not the proletariat. That was not the case in 1938 but we have to deal with reality, not fantasy. -- Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
yet another market slumps
International Arms Sales Drop By Barry Schweid AP Diplomatic Writer Thursday, August 15, 2002; 3:38 PM WASHINGTON -- International arms sales declined substantially last year to almost $26.4 billion compared with about $40 billion in 2000. It was the first decrease since 1997. The United States retained its position as the world's biggest arms dealer, but its arms transfer agreements declined to nearly $12.1 billion from $18.9 billion in 2000, the Congressional Research Service reported. American arms sales last year accounted for nearly 46 percent of all weapons sales. Russia was second with $5.8 billion and France third with $2.9 billion. India and China are Russia's main customers. Notice given by Russia in late 2000 that it would pursue sales with Iran, a principal customer of Russian fighter aircraft, tanks and attack submarines in the early 1990s, could result in sales worth billions of dollars, the report said. The United States has tried to dissuade Russia from selling sophisticated weapons and technology to Iran, but a series of ongoing discussions suggests lucrative deals are in the works, according to the report. Russia also would pursue new weapons sales to Iraq, once one of its largest customers, if current U.N. sanctions that ban Iraqi arms purchases were lifted, the report said. Explaining the overall drop in weapons contracts, Richard F. Grimmett, an analyst who wrote the report for the arm of the Library of Congress, said the general economy worldwide has suppressed demand. Many would-be buyers have fulfilled some of their weapons requirements and are in the process of absorbing prior year purchases, he said in an interview. Put those two things together and you have a reason why you have such a dramatic dropoff in orders, he said. In the developing world, the United Arab Emirates was the leading purchaser and India was second. Purchases by Saudi Arabia dropped from $12.4 billion over the years 1994-1997 to $1.7 billion in the years 1998-2001. Debts accumulated during the Persian Gulf war, when the Saudis sought a tougher defense against possible aggression from Iraq, and a significant decline in the price of oil accounted partly for the decrease in Saudi weapons contracts. A contract with France to upgrade the Saudis' Shahine SAM missile system helped ease a decline in French weapons sales to developing nations, which dropped, nonetheless, to $400 million from $2.2 billion in 2000. Germany's sales to developing nations declined from more than $1 billion in 2000 to nearly zero. Britain and Italy did almost no business with those countries in 2001 or 2000. An uncertain economic outlook is likely to limit purchases of new and costly weapons by developing countries over the next few years, and the United States appears to be in the best position to deal, the report said. Still, U.S. weapons agreements with developing nations fell significantly in 2001 to $7 billion from $13 billion in 2000. Israel bought 52 combat fighter aircraft for more than $1.8 billion, Egypt reached an agreement worth more than $500 million to coproduce Abrams tanks and Singapore agreed to purchase 12 Apache helicopters for $379 million. Russia sold 310 tanks to India for about $700 million; about 40 fighter aircraft to China for more than $1.5 billion; and about $600 million in helicopters and other military equipment to South Korea. With Western nations and Russia able to provide sophisticated weapons, China's is not a major supplier - except of missiles, the report said. Published reports of surface-to-surface missile sales to Pakistan and of missile technology sales to Iran and North Korea raise important questions about China's commitment to the restrictions on missile transfers in international accords and about China's pledge not to assist other countries in building missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons, the report said.
Re: Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons
2) Although Chomsky talks to 'activists' - it is interesting that virtually all his venues are in that very base that he claims as the refugee of any (??) thought/thinking- the University. How has Chomsky connected to those that will make the revolution beyond the 'activists' - but the working class? Has he? I freely admit I do not know enough to say. Who does? Chomsky's social base is students and professionals. Unfortunately, they are the people who take the most militant stands against imperialism, not the proletariat. That was not the case in 1938 but we have to deal with reality, not fantasy. Louis Proyect It is not that American workers have lost interest in anti-imperialist work but that (1) the formal educational attainment of American workers has radically risen since the 1930s: * The average education level of Americans has been increasing since the early years of the republic. At the end of the 19th century, there were far fewer high school graduates, relative to the population, than there are college graduates today, and high school graduates were regarded in somewhat the same light as college graduates were later onToday, we wouldn't consider even college graduates a proportion small in number, since they constitute more than one quarter of all 25-29-year-olds (27 percent). At the turn of the century, however, the median education level of white males was 8th grade, and high school graduation was still rare (Kroch and Sjoblom 1994). By 1920, just 22 percent of those between the ages of 25 and 29 were high school graduates. By 1940, some 38 percent of this age group had graduated from high school, but only 6 percent had bachelor's degrees. It was not until after World War II that the majority of young people graduated from high school. By mid-century, 53 percent of people age 25-29 were high school graduates, but just 8 percent were college graduates (Snyder et al. 1998). At that time, a high school diploma was generally regarded as the achievable standard required to get a good job and support a family. Today, some college in either a 2-year or 4-year school has become the norm, [2]... [2] Almost two-thirds of 1980 high school sophomores in the High School and Beyond Survey (64.5 percent) had enrolled in a postsecondary institution by 1992. However, a considerably smaller proportion (42.7 percent) had attained any postsecondary degree by that time. http://www.ed.gov/pubs/CollegeForAll/intro.html * and (2) leftists lost their foothold in trade unions during the Red Purge, never to recover from it. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
Malaysian courts order illegal immigrants to be whipped
The Times of India SUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 2002 Malaysian courts order illegal immigrants to be whipped AP KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian courts for the first time ordered seven foreigners to be whipped and imprisoned for entering the country without valid papers under tough new laws against illegal immigrants, court officials said on Saturday. Four Indonesians were sentenced to be lashed twice with a rattan cane. Another Indonesian and two Bangladesh nationals were ordered to be whipped once. The seven, aged between 22 to 38, who pleaded guilty to entering the country illegally, were also sentenced to jail terms between six months and two years. The sentences were handed out by lower courts in the central state of Selangor and the northern island state of Penang on Friday, court officials in the two states said on condition of anonymity. The seven are the first to be charged under new laws that were enforced this month which provide for fines of up to 10,000 ringgit ($2,600), mandatory prison terms of six months to five years and up to six strokes of the cane. Previously offenders were fined and in some cases given jail sentences of less then three months before they were deported. The new laws came into force after a four-month grace period that allowed illegal immigrants to leave the country lapsed. Government officials say about 290,000 illegal immigrants, mainly from Indonesia and Bangladesh, left the country during that time. Officials estimated that before the crackdown up to 600,000 illegal workers formed a labor black market in Malaysia, one of Southeast Asia's wealthiest countries and a magnet for migrants fleeing poverty and violence in the region. The government says about 450,000 of them are Indonesians who mostly work in menial plantation, construction or housekeeping jobs. The plight of thousands of illegal Indonesian workers still in Malaysia - who face caning and imprisonment if caught by authorities - topped the agenda during talks between Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri in Bali, Indonesia earlier this week. Indonesia is asking Malaysia to allow the remaining illegal workers to stay while their travel documents and work visas are processed in the Malaysian cities of Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. The Malaysian government says it will give extra time to people who can prove they plan to leave the country. Officials from the two countries insist ties between their governments remain strong despite the eviction of thousands of Indonesian workers from Malaysia. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
Re: Re: Re: American anti-terrorist drive targets Filipino Communists
Scott Harrison wrote: There are still Marxist revolutionaries in this world, and in fact growing numbers of them in some areas--especially south Asia Growing number in South Asia as a whole? You mean Nepal, I presume. Ulhas
From Hyperbolic Comparisons to Haughty Patronisation
Louis wrote: Please--I have written tens of thousands of words on party-building. I am not sure how old you are, Hari, but you seem to be rather unaware of the tremendous crisis and implosion of Marxist-Leninist groups in the 1970s and 80s. It is too bad that you unsubbed from Marxmail today. That would be an appropriate place to discuss such issues, not here. Reply: Dear Louis, don't patronise. I am sure I have more grey hairs than you - I have been around the circuit a few times - Just like little old you. That it was in the UK India - might explain why you did not tread on my toes. Secondly, you should inform this group - if you do want to drag out my unsubbing from Marxmail - that I unsubbed because you cannot differentiate muzzling from an anti-sectarian stance. Michael: I will not abuse the courtesy of your site - which I have found a very interesting source for materials comments. So I say no more. Hari Kumar
iraq
US adviser warns of Armageddon Julian Borger in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor Friday August 16, 2002 The Guardian One of the Republican party's most respected foreign policy gurus yesterday appealed for President Bush to halt his plans to invade Iraq, warning of an Armageddon in the Middle East. The outspoken remarks from Brent Scowcroft, who advised a string of Republican presidents, including Mr Bush's father, represented an embarrassment for the administration on a day it was attempting to rally British public support for an eventual war. The US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, yesterday spelled out what she called the very powerful moral case for toppling Saddam Hussein. We certainly do not have the luxury of doing nothing, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. She said the Iraqi leader was an evil man who, left to his own devices, will wreak havoc again on his own population, his neighbours and, if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them, all of us. But while Ms Rice was making the case for a pre-emptive strike, the rumble of anxiety in the US was growing louder. A string of leading Republicans have expressed unease at the administration's determination to take on President Saddam, but the most damning critique of Mr Bush's plans to date came yesterday from Mr Scowcroft. The retired general, who also advised Presidents Nixon and Ford, predicted that an attack on Iraq could lead to catastrophe. Israel would have to expect to be the first casualty, as in 1991 when Saddam sought to bring Israel into the Gulf conflict. This time, using weapons of mass destruction, he might succeed, provoking Israel to respond, perhaps with nuclear weapons, unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East, Mr Scowcroft wrote in the Wall Street Journal. The Israeli government has vowed it would not stand by in the face of attacks as it did in 1991, when Iraqi Scud missiles landed on Israeli cities. It claims it has Washington's backing for retaliation. Mr Scowcroft is the elder statesman of the Republican foreign policy establishment, and his views are widely regarded as reflecting those of the first President Bush. The fierceness of his attack on current administration policy illustrates the gulf between the elder Bush and his son, who has surrounded himself with far more radical ideologues on domestic and foreign policy. In yesterday's article, Mr Scowcroft argued that by alienating much of the Arab world, an assault on Baghdad, would halt much of the cooperation Washington is receiving in its current battle against the al-Qaida organisation. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardise, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken, Mr Scowcroft wrote. Both the American and British governments are expected to time a public relations effort to rebuff the critics and build public support in the immediate run-up to an invasion. Senior Whitehall figures say that crucial in that effort will be evidence that President Saddam is building up Iraq's chemical biological warfare capability and planning to develop nuclear weapons. The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, confirmed yesterday that the Pentagon was considering a change in the status of a navy pilot shot down over Iraq 11 years ago. He is currently classified as missing in action. There have been reports that Lieutenant-Commander Michael Speicher was still being held by Iraq. If he was reclassified as a prisoner of war, it would represent an additional source of conflict between Washington and Baghdad.
Re: Re: re:Noam Chomsky and Hyperbolic comparisons
try not to make it personal. On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 07:11:36PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Hari Kumar wrote: I find this emblematic of a strange ambivalence towards the organised left movement that is discerned in the refusal to entertain party building. Please--I have written tens of thousands of words on party-building. I am not sure how old you are, Hari, but you seem to be rather unaware of the tremendous crisis and implosion of Marxist-Leninist groups in the 1970s and 80s. It is too bad that you unsubbed from Marxmail today. That would be an appropriate place to discuss such issues, not here. 2) Although Chomsky talks to 'activists' - it is interesting that virtually all his venues are in that very base that he claims as the refugee of any (??) thought/thinking- the University. How has Chomsky connected to those that will make the revolution beyond the 'activists' - but the working class? Has he? I freely admit I do not know enough to say. Who does? Chomsky's social base is students and professionals. Unfortunately, they are the people who take the most militant stands against imperialism, not the proletariat. That was not the case in 1938 but we have to deal with reality, not fantasy. -- Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Following Proyect Yoshie: Who Make the revolution?
Now that the anti-patronising is dealt with: The substantive issue is highlighted by Yoshie's reply. Thanks for that Y. This view of Louis' - I interpret to be a variant of defeatism. It gets to asking of course, who is the 'leading class' of a revolution? Some will not like even that phraseology, but it is still a stark underlying reality - that leaders and leading classes - are in fact, needed. To look at the surface 'calm' of the working class over the last 30 years - is to look at a static picture. I think this was pointed out before by Scott. It is definitely somewhat depressing if anything else. But then - we must all grow up be realistic. Now which teachers in the pantheon of bourgeois thought have offered that? Louis: Surely you cannot seriously believe that the student activists are the spine backbone of any future tumults? Not that they cannot be part of and indeed, perhaps key cogs - as described in What is to be Done? (Please drop your spoons now, do not choke on your rice krispies Louis or JD - Perhaps no one may be there to do a Heimlich Manoeuvre) But .. only in so far as they identify (even subsume) into the class. Yoshi: Your stats are interesting. But certainly my reading is that while there are more workers/children of workers in higher education - they are still the tip of the iceberg. Interestingly enough Michael Zwieg agrees with your overview: There seems to be relationship at all between the occupation of colleeg graduates the occupation of their fathers, suggesting that a college education does provide a ticket out of the Working class; The Working class majority - America's best kept secret; Ithaca 2000; p. 44. But he then goes right on to say: In 1996 however fewer than a quarter fo all people over 25 in the US had actually competed a colelge education.. college students are drawn disproportionately form middle upper-class families. I have a difficult time seeing the majority of workers getting a higher education. I came from a petit-bourgeois bankrupted family. Unless I had got a full-grant - I would not have been the first of my extended family to get a university degree. Shortly after my time, Maggie T slashed student grants. So it is even worse now. Those of the working class that do go to higher education tend to go to post-secondary technical schools vocational schools - just as Zweig says happens in the usa (last citation p. 45). The students in biology medicine that I teach now - sure as hell don't come from any manual working class family that I have recognised. With ONE exception - the Punjabi immigrants whose parents are farmers. So - who makes the revolution? Hari Kumar
Re: From Hyperbolic Comparisons to Haughty Patronisation
Hari Kumar wrote: Dear Louis, don't patronise. Indian CPs have 1 million party members, but on Left-wing mailing lists I have been subjected to lectures on party building, stagism, Marx's letter to Zasulikh, Marx on India, Vasco de gama etc etc. ! :-) Ulhas
Re: Following Proyect Yoshie: Who Make the revolution?
Hari Kumar wrote: . The students in biology medicine that I teach now - sure as hell don't come from any manual working class family that I have recognised. With ONE exception - the Punjabi immigrants whose parents are farmers. So - who makes the revolution? Manual working class families is only a part of working class families. Somewhere between 80% and 90% of the U.S. population are working class. What sectors of that class might enter into a mass movement -- and revolutionary movements are sub-divisions of mass movements -- is determined in practice, not by abstract theory. Class is a social relation, not a box one sorts marbles in. Your citation from Lenin is extremely important for other reasons, but not as a comment on class in early 21st century U.S. The vast majority of students, even graduate students, are themselves working class. And attempting to guess in advance the exact composition of a uniting class is pure crystal-ball gazing. We do know, incidentally, that revolutionary movements have never constituted much more than 15%-30% of the total population. Only _after_ the seizure of power does it become possible (not necessarily probable: that is why revolutions fail so often in the future as in the past) to gain the active adherence of larger and larger sectors of the revolutionary class. Under present conditions in the U.S. the primary function of radicals, marxist or otherwise, must be to fight against the two primary forces which (until smashed) permanently unfit the class for struggle: white supremacy and male supremacy. The active sectors of the class will emerge in the course of such struggles. Carrol Hari Kumar
Re: Following Proyect Yoshie: Who Make the revolution?
In a message dated 8/15/02 7:24:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Now that the anti-patronizing is dealt with: The substantive issue is highlighted by Yoshie's reply. Thanks for that Y. This view of Louis' - I interpret to be a variant of defeatism. It gets to asking of course, who is the 'leading class' of a revolution? Some will not like even that phraseology, but it is still a stark underlying reality - that "leaders" and "leading classes" - are in fact, needed. To look at the surface 'calm' of the working class over the last 30 years - is to look at a static picture. I think this was pointed out before by Scott. It is definitely somewhat depressing if anything else. But then - we must all grow up be "realistic". Now which teachers in the pantheon of bourgeois thought have offered that? Louis: Surely you cannot seriously believe that the student activists are the spine backbone of any future tumults? Not that they cannot be part of and indeed, perhaps key cogs - as described in "What is to be Done?" (Please drop your spoons now, do not choke on your rice krispies Louis or JD - Perhaps no one may be there to do a Heimlich Manoeuvre) But .. only in so far as they identify (even subsume) into the class. Yoshi: Your stats are interesting. But certainly my reading is that while there are more workers/children of workers in higher education - they are still the tip of the iceberg. Interestingly enough Michael Zwieg agrees with your overview: "There seems to be relationship at all between the occupation of college graduates the occupation of their fathers, suggesting that a college education does provide a ticket out of the Working class"; "The Working class majority - America's best kept secret"; Ithaca 2000; p. 44. But he then goes right on to say: "In 1996 however fewer than a quarter of all people over 25 in the US had actually competed a college education.. college students are drawn disproportionately form middle upper-class families". I have a difficult time seeing the majority of workers getting a higher education. I came from a petit-bourgeois bankrupted family. Unless I had got a full-grant - I would not have been the first of my extended family to get a university degree. Shortly after my time, Maggie T slashed student grants. So it is even worse now. Those of the working class that do go to higher education tend to go to "post-secondary technical schools vocational schools" - just as Zweig says happens in the usa (last citation p. 45). The students in biology medicine that I teach now - sure as hell don't come from any manual working class family that I have recognized. With ONE exception - the Punjabi immigrants whose parents are farmers. So - who makes the revolution? Hari Kumar "So - who makes the revolution?" Comment The revolution is the spontaneous development that takes place in the productive forces. Individuals and individual's names are associated with the technological development of the productive forces and that is "who makes the revolution." The transition in social relations of production, which expresses the revolution in the material powers of production, is another important subject. This transition to a new system of production as a dominating feature in society or the material features of that, which constitutes the ingredient of completion for transition, is generally called the insurrectionary movement. As a category of Marxism these two interrelation and indispensable factors are called the objective and subjective side of development and revolution. The insurrectionary movement is most certainly a subjective movement involving men and women with a purpose manifested as will. This is to say that all revolutions are "crowned" by the rule of a new class engendered on the basis of quite changes in the mode of production. This crowning of the revolution is called the insurrectionary movement and represents a distinct phase development. "Crowning the revolution" allows for the institution of a new political authority that shatters the barriers preventing the universal spread of a new economic system or rather mode of production. "So - who makes the revolution?" poses the question incorrectly. The working class is the product of the revolution in the means of production. The question must be recast as, "why do social revolutions occur" and "what is the specific configuration of the human agency that allows for the transition to a new universal law system of production." This is not an ideological question of fighting white chauvinism or male supremacy but a matter demanding the articulation of a program with a specific economic doctrine because the revolution in the material powers of production is the reconfiguration of the economy. One can fight white chauvinism or male supremacy until they are blue in the face without getting one molecule closer to disclosing the real transitions in the material power of the productive
Re: Malaysian courts order illegal immigrants to be whipped
In a message dated 8/15/02 5:46:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian courts for the first time ordered seven foreigners to be whipped and imprisoned for entering the country without valid papers under tough new laws against illegal immigrants, court officials said on Saturday. Four Indonesians were sentenced to be lashed twice with a rattan cane. Another Indonesian and two Bangladesh nationals were ordered to be whipped once. The seven, aged between 22 to 38, who pleaded guilty to entering the country illegally, were also sentenced to jail terms between six months and two years. The world proletariat is being stripped of its shirt, tied to the post and whipped for seeking work. In America "we" lived this experience a couple of hundred years ago. Academic Marxism must at least achieve a level where it understand the law of value and repudiate it scholastic and bourgeois conception of labor and capital. Deflation is not a product of monetary policy as a historical current defining a specific mode of production called capital, but the revolution in the mode of production. There is no such thing as "true deflation," except in the Marxist meaning of what Marx wrote. Melvin P.
