Countdown to Doomsday
Capitalism to Destroy Human Habitat? October 2002 By Carlos Petroni With Abel Mouton, Caty Powell, Gene Pepi and Jesse Powell Illustrations by Gaby Felten The final struggle over the survival of planet Earth, as the habitat for life, is fast approaching. The main obstacle to saving the planet is the existence of the worldwide capitalist/imperialist system, a juggernaut oblivious to the fate of billions of people. It is obvious that stress caused by the geometrical growth of the world population in the last two centuries has caused a number of the present-day problems of our environment. However the existence of capitalism as a system based on profits has compounded all of the problems. The control and withholding of technology in response to the laws of the market and the need to preserve imperialism has prolonged the use of outdated, polluting industrial facilities and methods that continue impacting the environment as they did in the 18th century, only worse. The use of coal and petroleum products to keep steam and internal combustion engines from being replaced, which would cut into profits, releases polluting gases into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and depletion of the ozone layer. Currently deregulation fever is allowing capitalists to exploit raw materials without limit and extract minerals and fossils without measure, causing scarcity and over exploitation of the land. The absence of worldwide planning to balance production against both the needs of the population and need for environmental preservation is creating over-production in some regions, depletion of resources in others, and ruining productive capacity in still others. Instead of facing up to the problems, our capitalist leaders remain fully committed to the anarchistic nature of the system, to free markets, periodic trade and armed wars and fierce competition. Thus every reasonable solution to the worlds environmental problems is impossible. Capitalism has multiplied the effects of natural destructive forces, accelerated the impending catastrophe and added peculiar forms of environmental destruction that would not exist save for the existence of the present system. The factors: global warming, floods, droughts, spread of diseases, waste, war and... Global warming (heat waves, rising seas, melting of mountain glaciers), depletion of the ozone layer, brown clouds, planet-wide drought, the pressure of population and the catalytic effect of these causes (called fingerprints by scientists) contribute to the transforming of natural disasters into unnatural catastrophes. The result is exceptional flooding, drought, famine, spread of disease-bearing insects and other carriers, and the destruction of coral reefs (what scientists call harbingers). Poverty, and industrial and technological backwardness maintained in order to perpetuate profits that otherwise would be spent on conversion of industries only worsen the vicious cycle of earth decay. To all that you can add wars waged for domination and control (or simply out of frustration or ideology) and the existence of massive polluters, including the arms industry with its nuclear arsenal and nuclear plants, with all the problems of disposal of toxics and nuclear waste. Events such as the deadly stretch of hot days that killed 669 people in the Midwest during the summer of 1995 and 250 in the Eastern United States in July 1999 (considered until recently ìfreakî occurrences) now regularly cost thousands of lives worldwide. The recent round of floods in Europe, Asia and Latin America, now in full swing and expected to last a few weeks to several months, have already cost an estimated 10,000 lives and the displacement of more than 6 million people. An additional 30 million are threatened with the loss of their homes and other property damage. Typhoons and hurricanes are much more frequent lately and have more devastating effects, like those in South Korea and other countries that recently killed and wounded thousands. Increase in infectious disease is another threat posed by global warming. As temperatures rise, disease-carrying mosquitoes and rodents migrate into new areas, infecting people in their wake. Scientists at the Harvard Medical School have linked recent US outbreaks of dengue (breakbone) fever, malaria, hantavirus and other diseases to climate change. A much graver situation is now developing in the economically underdeveloped continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In Mexico alone, almost 10,000 people were infected with dengue in the last two months. It is estimated that the infectious rate of malaria will increase 250% - causing hundreds of millions of new cases in the next few years (it presently affects around 300 million people). Even the United States is starting to be afflicted with this and other diseases at increasingly dangerous levels. Scientists estimate that 60% of the total population of the globe will be exposed
Global crash imminent?
So it may just be market nervousness that led to speculation about the viability of Commerzbank. Nevertheless to have further speculation that it may sue Merrill Lynch for an email is itself a sign of some desperation. This will not help its status. Despite the tone of ridicule I pick up in Louis Proyect's comments on my post, I still think he was essentially right to raise the question in this thread title of whether this could be the point at which a general financial crisis spreads to Europe. Some of the points Louis Proyect raises are familiar differences between him and me. Others are illuminating points which from my point of view are instructive to try to reply to. But I come to this from the standpoint that we need not only broad theory based on the marxian law of value, but also the ability to study concrete detail and to see when a qualitative change may be just about to happen. With the major central banks on almost zero interest rates and consumer spending unable to lift the economies, the question is what other lines of defence do the imperialist heartlands have against a financial crisis? What manoeuvres and innovations may they try to make. At what cost? And will this at best just buy time fpr them? That is by no means the same question as whether some of the contributors to this list are qualitatively more revolutionary than others. For the sake of argument let me concede that point. Unless someone can point out a rapid line of advance now, that question will only be answered in practice when the revolution is imminent. More specific comments below: At 07/10/02 11:47 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Chris Burford: Let us try to look at what is going on from a marxist point of view (why not?). The only way out of a recession is to deepen exploitation or to destroy a portion of old capital. That means killing off a portion of dead labour in order that living labour can continue to produce commodities, and surplus value for the capitalists, who must accumulate. What's particularly Marxist about this observation. I do not think I am trying to write from a point of view that was particularly or uniquely marxist, but that was centrally marxist. Joseph Schumpter said something similar with respect to creative destruction. Marxism is not characterized by an understanding of the inner mechanisms of the business cycle, but by a belief that socialism can and must arise out of these periodic crises. There are many forms of socialism also that are not specifically marxist. But nor would I say that marxism is characterised by a belief that socialism can and must arise out of these periodic crises. A careful reading of Marx shows that he did not think that socialism automatically arose from crises. A belief that socialism must arise from these crises is a worthy belief but arguably more a declaration of faith than a marxian materialist analysis. The Schumpeter reference presents an interesting angle. A google search takes us to an extract from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy:- The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutationif I may use that biological termthat incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in. . . . I do not see any explicit awareness of this in all the current mainstream reporting of the impending economic crisis. Then I note that Schumpeter wrote his work originally in 1942 when the prestige of the Soviet Union would have been at its height. I think this is a *marxist-influenced* idea. It is interesting that it is largely absent at present. It is implicitly linked with the marxist concept of the law of value which essentially says that in terms of exchange value, the purchasing power of the masses and the accumulation of profit is a zero sum game. The mainstream capitalist commentators do not face up to this question. Of course. What is the logic of this crisis and O'Neill's plea? It is that the next step is to issue IMF special drawing rights on a large scale to increase the purchasing power of the masses in the non-imperialist heartlands, including in countries like Argentina and Brazil. And why not put his friend Bono in charge of a massive development fund for Africa? And why not put Oprah Winfrey in charge of the Federal Reserve while we're at it. This misses the point by ridiculing it. Capitalism has had to learn over the decades during crises that it can be very resilient so long as it ensures that the accumulation of surplus value from living labour can continue. That may require looking at an economy
Re: Tragedy on the docks: White House Warns of Economic Harm
--- Eugene Coyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Charles, you don't seem to be familiar with the record/behavior of the ILWU. Please enlighten me. Their historical record and rhetoric sounds positively heroic. When they consort with Daschle, I have to think otherwise. C. Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
Re: employment
Also, I don't see why the sins of modernism (a.k.a., capitalist rationality) should encourage rejection of logic, scientific thinking, the use of evidence, etc. I doubt this is what you advocate. Jim Well what sort of 'rationality' is it that says, Here, this is our 'unemployment figure' (but by the way, it doesn't really measure the numbers of people who are unemployed)? C. Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
Re: Tragedy on the docks: White House Warns of Economic Harm
--- Charles Jannuzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Eugene Coyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Charles, you don't seem to be familiar with the record/behavior of the ILWU. Please enlighten me. Their historical record and rhetoric sounds positively heroic. When they consort with Daschle, I have to think otherwise. C. Jannuzi And I might add, speak of the devil himself, Jerry Brown. Anyway, real searches beyond the surface rhetoric (which is real warrior stuff I admit, like Boromir taking the uber-orc arrows and still knocking them down), always lead me to exchanges like this: let's be honest by John Reimann Wednesday August 28, 2002 at 08:14 PM [EMAIL PROTECTED] I was at both meetings Steve refers to - the rally in Oakland as well as the meeting that Richard walked out of. As chair of the latter meeting, Steve pulled every bureaucratic trick in the book to help stifle an open, democratic discussion on how independents, activists and socialists should relate to this struggle and on what the nature of the approach of the ILWU leadership was. (And bear in mind that union democracy is practically a mantra for Steve.) This merely bears out what we have long held: That when one's polices cannot lead a way forward, and when refuses to reconsider these policies, then one must resort to seeking to prevent free discussion. It is undoubtable that the ILWU leadership's approach is not basically different from the approach of the rest of the AFL-CIO leadership. This includes relying on the Democrats and refusal to even consider an open defiance of the union busting laws and courts. It means there is not the slightest consideration for how this struggle can be used to start to reverse the decades-long retreat and series of defeats of the unions. Unfortunately, at the meeting there was a notable lack of interest in considering this and how the Solidarity Committee should deal with this. And this from a group made up of a majority who consider themselves to be socialists of some type or another! As for Steve's note just look at his choice of terms: you want to recruit to your sect, you came slinking back into the meeting... This is the type of terminology used by the union bureaucracy when they want to discredit a left critic but can't defend themselves on the issues. John Reimann www.laborsmilitantvoice.com I'm unconvinced. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
Re: Global crash imminent?
Chris Burford: There are many forms of socialism also that are not specifically marxist. If this includes your intervention here, I'd say we are making progress. But nor would I say that marxism is characterised by a belief that socialism can and must arise out of these periodic crises. A careful reading of Marx shows that he did not think that socialism automatically arose from crises. A belief that socialism must arise from these crises is a worthy belief but arguably more a declaration of faith than a marxian materialist analysis. No, Marx did not say that it rises automatically. Instead this is the caricature we learn in Political Science 101. It requires revolutionary parties armed with a correct strategy. And, most importantly, it requires clear class differentiation between the workers and their employers. I do not see any explicit awareness of this in all the current mainstream reporting of the impending economic crisis. Then I note that Schumpeter wrote his work originally in 1942 when the prestige of the Soviet Union would have been at its height. I think this is a *marxist-influenced* idea. Marx influenced a lot of people, including Max Weber. Now if every faker who graced the pages of polite liberal publications in Great Britain and the USA would simply have the honesty to say that I am no Marxist, but have been influenced by him (and Freud and Nietzsche and my high school gym teacher), then we would make some progress in clearly delineating where people stand. I am for clarity, the more the merrier. So I do not think I can be easily accused of denying the need for class struggle. Quite right. You pay lip-service to the notion every chance you get. I have heard no answer to the question I pose from time to time, that if revolution is virtually impossible in one single country now, how can there be a world revolution without an intermediate state of a struggle for reforms in all countries. Because the question is based on a false assumption, that revolution is impossible in a single country. The FARC is proof of this. If it were not for US support of the Colombian ruling class, the country would have transformed long ago. That is why it is so important to draw clear class lines between revolutionary socialism and all those liberals using Marxist verbiage who demonize the FARC and every other revolutionary formation that would not be invited on a Nation Magazine cruise or to a tea-party at Tony Blair's home. As for the assertion that the bourgeoisie and the working class have nothing in common, I do not think that is true. There is a contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie. There is both unity and struggle between the two classes. Their interests may temporarily coincide, as they do to a significant extent in the imperialist heartlands in that they both benefit from their privileged position relative to the rest of the world. As Marxists, we have to explain to privileged workers that their interests coincide more with the peasants and workers of countries that are being plundered by imperialism. While it is true that cheap oil makes for short lines at gas stations, it is not worth being attained by the blood of their sons and daughters. This is a problem that rightly keeps on surfacing in discussions in different forms. I do not myself think it can be resolved by just asserting that the bourgeois and the working class should have nothing in common, and therefore that they *do* have nothing in common. They both benefit from relative surplus value. If they do not take the opportunity to spread more capital to the rest of the world, thereby diluting their own share of total world capital, they risk financial crisis in the capitalist heartlands as the price for maintaining such a big differential in the means of production across the world. But capitalism does not function this way. If it spread more capital, it would only be in the interest of higher profits. Capitalism can and must impoverish the 3rd world. We are living in the epoch of imperialism after all. Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
RE: Re: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31033] Re: Re: employment OK fellas, I am going to imagine what Sabri could have meant. JD's are not the the only perspectives on how we can treat statistics, government or otherwise. Yes, even statistics are subject to perspective, numbers may be objective but their presentation has its purposes. Here are some alternative attitudes about statistics which arise from my own experiences: * we can recognize that statistics can be manipulated in order to shape public opinion... * we can realize that the government has its own agenda and that the statistics the government releases and the way those statistics are handled will reflect that agenda. * we can realize that statistics don't mean much when the point is to build a better world beginning with your own here and now. ... --- you're saying that I didn't recognize all of this? Please don't tell me what I think. JD
Re: Re: employment
Sabri Oncu wrote: Jim said: Like Doug, I don't get this, Sabri. I don't know how to describe it, although I am sure I would sound racist if I say this but I think you don't get this because you are Americans. You don't know the difference because you have never experienced it. As I said I don't know how to describe it. It is just a matter of tasting it, at least, for once. Life is not as rational as you think it is. This borders on the insulting. The statistical apparatus of the U.S. gives us a pretty good idea of inequality, forced idleness, under-employment, poverty, ill-health, and deprivation. And that's the big picture. I live in New York City, and see poverty and suffering every day. I don't have to cross a street to see people picking for lunch in a wastebasket. So dismount your high moral horse, unless it makes you feel good to sit way up there. Doug
Re: Re: Re: employment
The US unemployment rate appeared steady earlier this year, despite the slowing economy and mounting job cuts, but it eventually climbed well above last October's 30-year low of 3.9 per cent. Many economists expect the rate to rise to more than 6 per cent next year. The Labor Department conceded it might have understated September's losses since it counts payrolls that were active and includes workers who were employed only part of the month. (FT, Oct. 6, 2002) --- A new stimulus package in the neighborhood of $100 billion, or 1 percent of G.D.P., is needed now. The Federal Reserve will probably cut rates at its next meeting, but interest rates are already so low that further cuts may not help much. Much of the federal money should go to workers, who need it and will spend it. The rising jobless rate has understated the jobs weakness. Discouraged workers are leaving the work force in droves and are not counted as unemployed. (NYT, Oct. 3, 2002) --- In the case of unemployment, analysts fear the new jobless numbers will convince ordinary Americans that what most have treated as little more than a pause in economic growth may be something more durable and dangerous. The psychology is beginning to change, said Mark A. Zandi, chief economist of the West Chester, Pa., research firm Economy.com. People have been acting like the slowdown was a blip. Now, they're starting to think this could last for a while and they had better prepare by reducing their spending. To the extent that people treat the unemployment rate as a barometer of economic uncertainty, there is some reason to think they should have begun to trim their spending earlier. That is because up until now it's likely the rate has understated the true dimensions of job loss, analysts said. In contrast to some other periods of economic slowdown, a substantial fraction of workers has been reacting to the economy's weakness by dropping out of the labor force when they are laid off and can't find a new job. Their departure reduced the number of people working, but it also removed them from the unemployment calculations. Analysts said the trend helps explain how the jobless rate managed to stay so stable and low in the face of layoffs. But it may also have helped lull people into a false sense of security, a conviction that whatever cutbacks companies were announcing were not translating into an overall economic decline. It's meant the unemployment rate is not as good an indicator of economic pain as it used to be, said Manpower's Hueneke. He said that, had workers not dropped out of the work force at a faster-than-usual pace, the official jobless rate would be about 6%, rather than about 5%. Others have estimated the number of people counted as unemployed would be more than 8 million, rather than 6.96 million, the official number. (LA Times, Sept. 9, 2001) --- et cetera, et cetera, et cetera Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
re: employment
Title: re: employment No one said that the US BLS main official measure of unemployment was perfect. Instead, Doug and I pointed to the various other data that the BLS collects -- and not as a perfect measure. In fact, all of the articles below rely on BLS data to indicate the shortcomings of the main offical measure. JD -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 10/8/2002 7:52 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31046] Re: Re: Re: employment The US unemployment rate appeared steady earlier this year, despite the slowing economy and mounting job cuts, but it eventually climbed well above last October's 30-year low of 3.9 per cent. Many economists expect the rate to rise to more than 6 per cent next year. The Labor Department conceded it might have understated September's losses since it counts payrolls that were active and includes workers who were employed only part of the month. (FT, Oct. 6, 2002) --- A new stimulus package in the neighborhood of $100 billion, or 1 percent of G.D.P., is needed now. The Federal Reserve will probably cut rates at its next meeting, but interest rates are already so low that further cuts may not help much. Much of the federal money should go to workers, who need it and will spend it. The rising jobless rate has understated the jobs weakness. Discouraged workers are leaving the work force in droves and are not counted as unemployed. (NYT, Oct. 3, 2002) --- In the case of unemployment, analysts fear the new jobless numbers will convince ordinary Americans that what most have treated as little more than a pause in economic growth may be something more durable and dangerous. The psychology is beginning to change, said Mark A. Zandi, chief economist of the West Chester, Pa., research firm Economy.com. People have been acting like the slowdown was a blip. Now, they're starting to think this could last for a while and they had better prepare by reducing their spending. To the extent that people treat the unemployment rate as a barometer of economic uncertainty, there is some reason to think they should have begun to trim their spending earlier. That is because up until now it's likely the rate has understated the true dimensions of job loss, analysts said. In contrast to some other periods of economic slowdown, a substantial fraction of workers has been reacting to the economy's weakness by dropping out of the labor force when they are laid off and can't find a new job. Their departure reduced the number of people working, but it also removed them from the unemployment calculations. Analysts said the trend helps explain how the jobless rate managed to stay so stable and low in the face of layoffs. But it may also have helped lull people into a false sense of security, a conviction that whatever cutbacks companies were announcing were not translating into an overall economic decline. It's meant the unemployment rate is not as good an indicator of economic pain as it used to be, said Manpower's Hueneke. He said that, had workers not dropped out of the work force at a faster-than-usual pace, the official jobless rate would be about 6%, rather than about 5%. Others have estimated the number of people counted as unemployed would be more than 8 million, rather than 6.96 million, the official number. (LA Times, Sept. 9, 2001) --- et cetera, et cetera, et cetera Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Devine, James wrote: Please don't tell me what I think. did you hear the one about the two behaviourists who were having sex? at the end of the steamy session, one of them said to the other it was good for you. was it good for me?. most of the time i couldn't even tell what you write, thanks to that tiny font ;-). but thanks to a new feature in mozilla, which strips away htmlization from email, i can read your messages again! as for employment, i am glad the money from aol/tw is able to sustain the good programmers at netscape/mozilla! (there, i made the post on-topic). --ravi
RE: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31041] Re: employment I wrote: Also, I don't see why the sins of modernism (a.k.a., capitalist rationality) should encourage rejection of logic, scientific thinking, the use of evidence, etc. I doubt this is what you advocate. Jim C. Jannuzi: Well what sort of 'rationality' is it that says, Here, this is our 'unemployment figure' (but by the way, it doesn't really measure the numbers of people who are unemployed)? But the BLS doesn't say this is our 'unemployment figure,' unless you read them superficially. They present several unemployment statistics, including ones that include the discouraged workers. In what way do the various measures of unemployment that the BLS presents mis-measure the number of people who are unemployed? what are the systematic biases in their measures? JD
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31048] Re: RE: Re: Re: employment ravi: did you hear the one about the two behaviourists who were having sex? at the end of the steamy session, one of them said to the other it was good for you. was it good for me?. -- no, one would say: my behavior clearly reinforced your behavior, because you did it again and again. Did your behavior reinforce mine? most of the time i couldn't even tell what you write, thanks to that tiny font ;-). but thanks to a new feature in mozilla, which strips away htmlization from email, i can read your messages again! as for employment, i am glad the money from aol/tw is able to sustain the good programmers at netscape/mozilla! (there, i made the post on-topic). I wish I could fix the damn font. The IS people are useless. JD
Western Rationality
Title: Western Rationality [was: [PEN-L:31032] Re: RE: Re: employment] I wrote: There's Western rationality and there's Western rationality. The main -- hegemonic -- form is the capitalist rationality that wants to reduce everything -- and all people -- to things that can be manipulated to attain the predetermined goal (primarily, profit). Ian: You mean there's only 2 types of Western Rationality? no, but the two I mentioned are the ones that have been most clearly presented, as far as I can see. You'll note that I didn't use the word only. Why should I? Why should you insert that word in what I said? In any event, I wasn't talking about Western Rationality _per se_. I was talking about what's called Western Rationality. I thought that the use of quotation marks made that clear. (Perhaps quotation marks have been over-used, so that they've lost meaning?) Isn't the binary you're proposing part of the pitfalls of at least one of the forms of Western Rationality? as noted above, I am NOT proposing a binary. And if it's not a binary, then don't we have an incipient, proliferative pluralism that some groups obfuscate because they seek political advantage through an insistence in using the very reductionism they claim another group is using as a manner of interpreting/organizing the social system[s] they're immersed in? I am not, and have never been, a reductionist -- and I don't see why you should think I am. (However, unlike reductionism's polar opposite, I _am_ in favor of trying to prioritize the various forces in society, to try to decide which are most important in which situation. I am unwilling to put up with the blooming, buzzing, confusion. I think it's better to understand what's going on instead of going with the flow of chaos.) One of the reasons I'm for socialism (or, rather, to use a repetitive phrase, democratic socialism) is because it allows people to achieve pluralism. the counterhegemonic form includes that of Marx, which involves the struggle to liberate people from this nonsense (and from exploitation, domination, and alienation), or rather to help people liberate themselves. Ian:Exploitation, domination and especially alienation are irreducibly contestable concepts in a pluralistic world and we have no evidence that getting rid of capitalism would get rid of them, no? you'll notice that I didn't mention capitalism in my paragraph. Bureaucratic socialism has proven itself to be exploitative, dominating, and alienating. (It can be argued that in some cases, e.g., Cuba, it is less so than capitalism, while it's not as if Cuba has any choice. But that's beyond the scope of this note.) BTW, I don't care if these are contestable concepts. What's most important is the real-world phenomena (provisionally described by these concepts) that I think we should strive to get rid of. If it turns out that they're illusions, mere products of the mind and language, as you seem to be suggesting, so much the better. That makes a socialist's job easier: all we have to do is stop using these contestable concepts and they'll go away, right? It's boring to always be told that concepts are contestable. Of course they are. That's why it's best to define what _you_ mean by them. Given that, definitions are always _provisional_. The purpose is not to say that there's some sort of perfect Platonic form out there that the word describes in an imperfect way. Rather, words are used to allow us to figure out what the real, imperfect, heterogeneous, world is about. Thinking is a process of investigation, not a description of something we already know (since absolute knowledge is impossible). Without provisional concepts, people can't think. The words pluralistic, irreducible, and contestable are also contestable. So should I tell you to stop using them? or is the point that they are contestable simply an effort to raise the noise-to-signal ratio? I don't see why the use of statistics in any way leads to me agreeing with capitalist rationality (or encourages anyone to think that I agree with that so-called rationality). After all, Marx used them. Ian: Marx used lots of stuff that's turned out to be incorrect too. Returning to specifics, tell me how the unemployment rate statistics are incorrect. Obviously, as I've said before, they are a result of a sample survey and involve a lot of error as a way to estimate the misery of the working class or the size of the reserve army or whatever. But in terms of their _changes_, they do say something: all, or almost all, of the BLS measures of the unemployment rate rise in recessions. Baran and Sweezy, back in 1965, were very clear that the unemployment statistics have their limits. But they knew they had have _some_ measure of unemployment and that the official stats had their uses, as long as they weren't used uncriticially. They were right. Obviously Marx made a lot of errors. I have a long list, if you want to see it. But his
Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Devine, James wrote: OK fellas, I am going to imagine what Sabri could have meant. JD's are not the the only perspectives on how we can treat statistics, government or otherwise. Yes, even statistics are subject to perspective, numbers may be objective but their presentation has its purposes. Here are some alternative attitudes about statistics which arise from my own experiences: * we can recognize that statistics can be manipulated in order to shape public opinion... * we can realize that the government has its own agenda and that the statistics the government releases and the way those statistics are handled will reflect that agenda. * we can realize that statistics don't mean much when the point is to build a better world beginning with your own here and now. ... --- you're saying that I didn't recognize all of this? Please don't tell me what I think. Yeah, me either. There's this extremely annoying habit in left discourse (cue to Carrol Cox to say that the left doesn't exist) that requires you to invoke a whole set of positions and pieties, and failure to include them in every statement is a sign that you're ignorant, insensitive, or straying from the fold. The hell with that. Doug
left discourse
Title: left discourse [was: employment] Doug: There's this extremely annoying habit in left discourse (cue to Carrol Cox to say that the left doesn't exist) that requires you to invoke a whole set of positions and pieties, and failure to include them in every statement is a sign that you're ignorant, insensitive, or straying from the fold. The hell with that. you'll be glad/sad/mad/afraid to know that people on the right and in the middle follow the same kind of habit in their discourse. (Of course, right and middle are contested metaphors, as is left. I am NOT reifying these concepts. Of course, reification is a contested concept, too.) JD
Re: Re: employment
I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people. What I think he is saying, certainly what I am saying, is ONE is too many. When we remember that in the 1960s we were outraged when unemployment went above the four per cent mark and now we are blythely talking about standard rates in the US of (counting discouraged workers and involuntary part-time plus the 1% Richard Freeman estimates should be added to count for the million or so in gaols etc.) of 8-10 %, I am deeply saddened. Particularly so because this increase in the researve army has contributed to the growth of contingency work, low wages, job insecurity, decline in unions, income inequality, illness, crime, etc. affecting a majority of the population. In other words, a fixation on a single measure of unemployment, the unemployed statistic, serves to distract attention from the human tragedy of which the unemployment statistic is just the tip of the iceberg. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 20:46:30 -0700 From: Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:31029] Re: employment To: PEN-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim said: I hope you're not saying that it's a Turkish thing; you wouldn't understand it. Not at all. It is about that Western Rationality thing that I personally object. But I took the risk of being misunderstood nevertheless. At least, I took the risk with you and Doug, which made me barve enough to take it. Otherwise, I am not as brave as I may have sounded. Best, Sabri
RE: statistics - two results
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31036] statistics - two results these articles show the nature of scientific empirical work, including statistical studies. There is no _final_ result, since arguments, especially political ones, can't be settled by statistics alone. Instead, there is a debate. Instead, we see the old conventional wisdom sometimes being replaced by a new one, which in turn is replaced by a third, or even by the original conventional wisdom. It's not like deductive logic, where conclusions flow naturally from the premises. In the end, the policy pursued springs from political struggles, not from the statistical work. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Eugene Coyle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 10:55 PM To: Pen-L Pen-l Subject: [PEN-L:31036] statistics - two results Reasonable people can differ? Gene Coyle Power lines cancer risk 'may be non-existent' Oct 07 - Irish Times - The risk of childhood leukaemia being caused by overhead electricity power lines is either extremely small or non-existent, a conference on science and the quality of life was told in Limerick on Saturday. Prof Philip Walton, who specialises in applied physics at NUI Galway, told the gathering that a person who stood under a power line was exposed to a much lower magnetic field than that of an electric oven or a hair-dryer. He said results from a major study in Britain of cancers in children living near power lines had shown that leukaemia caused two extra deaths a year - over and above 500 expected deaths - in children aged zero to 16. Prorated for Ireland, which has about one-fifteenth of the population, this means that one death from childhood leukaemia every 71/2 years in addition to 33 expected deaths might be due to this effect, if it exists at all, he said. It could be due to chance. Childhood leukaemia was the only cancer which had shown a rise. He said the total figures for cancers in children living near power lines had stayed the same because other non-leukaemia cancers showed a slight decrease. He said the independent body in Britain dealt with protection from radiation had said it was pointless to further investigate the possible effects of overhead lines. This was because the population was too small to show up any conclusive variations. [Image] == Fresh evidence links power lines to cancer Oct 06 - The Sunday Telegraph - London - OVERHEAD POWER lines and household electrical appliances increase the risk of developing cancer, according to the findings of an eight- year study into the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). The pounds 4.5 million study, the largest held into the effects of EMFs on health, suggests that hundreds of thousands of Britons, particularly children, are at risk from life-threatening illnesses linked to the emissions. Pregnant women are also at greater risk of miscarrying. Its findings will be seized on by campaigners who argue that EMFs from overhead power lines and mobile phone masts are responsible for cancer and leukaemia clusters across Britain. The National Radiological Protection Board, the Government watchdog on radiation, reported last year that its studies into the effect of EMFs had been inconclusive. The latest study was commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission, which is expected to publish the full report in the next few months. Scientists reviewed scores of previous studies from all over the world, including Britain, and carried out new research in the San Francisco area. The researchers told The Sunday Telegraph that they believed that EMFs increased the risks of life-threatening illnesses, including childhood leukaemia, adult brain cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Dr Raymond Neutra, of the California Department of Health Services, who led the research, said: In Britain, hundreds of thousands of homes are exposed to levels [of EMFs] that mean they could be at risk. Dr Vincent DelPizzo, a senior member of the research team, said: People have a right to be warned, but whether a major effort to reduce EMFs is appropriate must still be decided. The first suspected link between overhead power lines and cancer was made in America in 1979. Some reports, however, have dismissed a connection, while others have said that evidence is inconclusive. Until now, those considering long and costly legal action have been advised that it would probably fail because of lack of proof. John Scott, the Conservative MSP for Ayr who led an unsuccessful campaign to stop the erection of more than 200 pylons in South Ayrshire, said yesterday: The implications of this [study] could be enormous for the
Tiny Font: How to read it
Devine, James wrote: I wish I could fix the damn font. The IS people are useless. I don't know how to fix the font, but many readers could fix it for their own use. I use Netscape Communicator 4.7, but I suppose if you look around you can find similar commands on other mailers. When I open one of Jim's posts (or those of many others: I've got cataracts on both eyes, and a hemorrhage on the right eye has sort of queered it permanently) I simply type Alt V F once or twice -- each time the type gets larger. Carrol
RE: Re: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31054] Re: Re: employment Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 5:08 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:31054] Re: Re: employment I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people. What I think he is saying, certainly what I am saying, is ONE is too many. When we remember that in the 1960s we were outraged when unemployment went above the four per cent mark and now we are blythely talking about standard rates in the US of (counting discouraged workers and involuntary part-time plus the 1% Richard Freeman estimates should be added to count for the million or so in gaols etc.) of 8-10 %, I am deeply saddened. Particularly so because this increase in the researve army has contributed to the growth of contingency work, low wages, job insecurity, decline in unions, income inequality, illness, crime, etc. affecting a majority of the population. In other words, a fixation on a single measure of unemployment, the unemployed statistic, serves to distract attention from the human tragedy of which the unemployment statistic is just the tip of the iceberg. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 20:46:30 -0700 From: Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:31029] Re: employment To: PEN-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim said: I hope you're not saying that it's a Turkish thing; you wouldn't understand it. Not at all. It is about that Western Rationality thing that I personally object. But I took the risk of being misunderstood nevertheless. At least, I took the risk with you and Doug, which made me barve enough to take it. Otherwise, I am not as brave as I may have sounded. Best, Sabri
RE: Tony Mazzocchi died Sunday
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31034] Tony Mazzocchi died Sunday Tony Mazzocci died Sunday. I haven't seen any mention of it in the media. Gene Coyle OBITUARIES/L.A. TIMES Tony Mazzocchi, 76; Workplace Safety Advocate, Political Activist By ELAINE WOO TIMES STAFF WRITER October 8 2002 Tony Mazzocchi, a longtime advocate for workplace safety whose disenchantment with traditional politics led him to organize the nation's first labor party in 70 years, died at his home in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. He was 76 and had pancreatic cancer. Mazzocchi brought 1,400 union leaders to a Cleveland convention hall in 1996 to form the Labor Party. Labeled a foolhardy idea by union leaders and political analysts, it was conceived in an era of waning union strength and has fewer than 14,000 members. Although disappointed by the fledgling party's slow growth, Mazzocchi remained committed to its pro-worker agenda, focused on single-payer national health insurance, free higher education and workers' rights. His slogan: The bosses have two parties. We need one of our own! An intellectual who never finished high school, he was considered the Ralph Nader of industrial safety. Along with Nader and other activists, he was a key figure behind the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970, often called the most far-reaching pro-labor law of the last half-century. Over the last 30 years, nobody comes close to him, said Nader, who praised Mazzocchi's leadership on the drives to pass OSHA, the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act and other major legislation. He is an icon, said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Assn. More than anyone, he is the unsung hero of organized labor. I literally lay in bed at night wondering what we are going to do without Tony Mazzocchi. A former secretary-treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, he advised its most famous member, Oklahoma plutonium plant worker Karen Silkwood, whose death after struggles to ensure plant safety inspired the 1983 Oscar-nominated movie Silkwood. Mazzocchi grew up in Brooklyn, the son of a unionized garment worker who lost the family home because of medical bills for his cancer-stricken wife. She died when Mazzocchi was 6. A ninth-grade dropout, he served as a combat soldier in the European theater during World War II, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and other key campaigns. He was among the first soldiers to reach the Nazi death camps. After the war, he worked as an auto worker, steelworker and in construction. He became president of Oil and Chemical's Local 8-149 in 1953. In 1954, he negotiated for employees of a Helena Rubenstein cosmetics factory what many believe was the first dental insurance plan in the U.S. He served as union president until 1965. Through the 1960s and '70s, he was a behind-the-scenes leader in key legislative battles involving labor. He was known for forging alliances of unions, scientists and environmentalists on issues involving nuclear safety, asbestos and other toxic materials that threaten workers. Dealing with the dangers that employees face in the workplace--that was a passion [that] continued throughout his career, said Bob Wages, a former president of OCAW, now the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union. Mazzocchi was based in Washington as director of the union's legislative office in the early 1970s when Silkwood came to see him. Silkwood, a technician at the Kerr-McGee nuclear processing facility in Crescent, Okla., told him she believed Kerr-McGee officials were falsifying records about the integrity of the plant's plutonium rods. She was contaminated in a series of unexplained plutonium exposures in the weeks before her death. She died in a suspicious car accident in 1974 while on her way to talk to a reporter about safety violations at the Kerr-McGee plant. A private investigator hired by the union after her death found evidence that Silkwood's car might have been forced off the road while she was allegedly carrying documents confirming her allegations about Kerr-McGee's safety violations. No documents were ever found. Mazzocchi pressed for a formal government inquiry into the circumstances surrounding her death, which was ruled an accident despite unanswered questions that fed speculation for years. In 1986, 12 years after her fatal car crash, a civil suit lodged against Kerr-McGee by Silkwood's estate was settled out of court for $1.3 million. The Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel plants closed in 1975. Mazzocchi later established an innovative internship program that exposed medical and public health students to workplace conditions. He also was instrumental in the union's commissioning of a play by Denver playwright Larry Bograd called The Half-Life of Karen Silkwood, which made its premiere in 1993 at the Attic Theatre in Detroit. A firm believer in the power of art to enrich the labor movement, he pressed
Peter Camejo campaign
Title: Peter Camejo campaign http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-camejo8oct08001439.story Fireworks Take Place, but Away From Debate Stage Election: Protests grow rowdy outside as Green Party candidate is turned away as a guest. By MATEA GOLD, L.A. TIMES STAFF WRITER October 8 2002 Monday's gubernatorial debate may have been civil, but outside the Los Angeles Times building more than 100 protesters participated in a raucous contest of their own as Green Party candidate Peter Camejo unsuccessfully tried to attend the event. Camejo, who was not invited to participate in the debate sponsored by The Times, attempted to enter the downtown Los Angeles building as a guest of GOP candidate Bill Simon Jr., only to be turned away. It is bad enough that I'm excluded, but to say that I can't even be present to listen to the debate is really wrong, Camejo said before the debate, as demonstrators of various persuasions tried to drown each other out with competing chants. A few dozen Green Party supporters, some carrying photos of Camejo with black tape across his mouth, argued with a crowd of union members, who waved Gov. Gray Davis signs and shouted, Four more years! Advocates for the poor yelled, What about the rest of us? Meanwhile, a cast of political characters paraded up and down 1st Street: a Superman waving a Simon sign, a woman wearing a question mark costume, a man in a Davis mask dressed as a prostitute and two protesters in Simon masks and jail stripes. The chaotic scene did not distract Camejo from his goal. About 45 minutes before the debate, he made his way to the door of The Times building, surrounded by a crush of television cameras and reporters. After holding up his invitation from the Simon campaign, Camejo was allowed inside by a security guard. At the check-in table in the lobby, however, the newspaper's public affairs staff said he could not attend the event. But the L.A. Times said to Bill Simon that he could invite people, right? Camejo said. And I'm on his list. But you're not on the L.A. Times' invitation list, said Debbie Ream, a public affairs representative. So you're saying I can't come in? the candidate asked. OK, thank you. He turned around and exited the building. Martha Goldstein, a spokeswoman for The Times, said later that Camejo was not invited to participate because he did not have at least 15% of support in the polls, a criteria used in presidential elections. Whether or not you're put on the list as a guest, he was still a candidate, and we didn't feel he met the threshold of our requirement to be here, Goldstein said. After being turned away, Camejo jumped up onto a planter outside the building and told supporters that he was being excluded because Davis is frightened that the Green Party candidate will siphon votes away from him. Davis had threatened to boycott the debate if Camejo was present. I believe the reason for this extreme overreaction on Davis' part is because of the rebellion that is going on in the Latino community, said Camejo, arguing that Latino voters are angry that Davis vetoed a bill that would allow some illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. As he spoke, Davis supporters clambered up on the planter to block Camejo signs with their own. Goldstein said that the decision to exclude Camejo had nothing to do with Davis. Davis spokesman Roger Salazar said that having Camejo at the debate, the only one scheduled before election day, would have been a distraction. We are not interested in creating sideshows, Salazar said. We are interested in a serious debate on the issues. But outside, Simon supporters picked up on Camejo's theme. A man in a chicken costume waddled around the crowd squawking, Davis chicken to debate Camejo! A woman carrying a Green Party sign stared at him quizzically, then nodded. That's right! she declared. As Camejo conducted media interviews, decrying his exclusion, the debate continued on the sidewalk. What do we want? chanted union members. Davis! When do we want him? Now! Green Party protester Patrick Meighan stood in the middle of them, yelling back. We want a politician who's going to defend Californians, not corporations, shouted Meighan, a 30-year-old writer from Los Angeles. He waved a $20 bill in the air, adding his own words to the union chant. What do we want? he shouted. Money! What do we want? Donations! What do we want? Cash! You don't know what you're talking about, pal! construction worker Ralph Velador yelled back. What has Simon said he's going to do for us as working people? I don't care about Simon! the Green Party supporter said. That's the problem, you don't care, the union member shot back. After the debate, Camejo said that the public had been deprived of hearing about the issues that he would have raised, such as affordable housing, a living wage and the decriminalization of marijuana. I thought the debate would have been substantially better with me in it,
testing
Title: testing testing... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: left discourse
Devine, James wrote: you'll be glad/sad/mad/afraid to know that people on the right and in the middle follow the same kind of habit in their discourse. Well, no, they don't really. They operate on lots of presuppositions, often unstated, but there just isn't the laundry list habit. It's an ideological deformation of the left, and it's one of the reasons our publications are largely unreadable and our meetings largely unbearable. I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. Doug
Re: Re: left discourse
Is that distinction between left and right or between powerful and powerless? On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 12:33:19PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Don't we see the same thing in every anti-war statement? X is a very bad person. I don't support X, but . On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 11:23:05AM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: There's this extremely annoying habit in left discourse (cue to Carrol Cox to say that the left doesn't exist) that requires you to invoke a whole set of positions and pieties, and failure to include them in every statement is a sign that you're ignorant, insensitive, or straying from the fold. The hell with that. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Re: left discourse
I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. is Kinsley a heretic or a convert? dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication may contain confidential or privileged information and is for the attention of the named recipient only. It should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. (c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates. Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
Re: RE: Re: left discourse
- Original Message - From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 9:51 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31064] RE: Re: left discourse I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. is Kinsley a heretic or a convert? dd Why the binary? :-) Ian
Re: employment
Jim Devine wrote, What is the problem with using some (but not all) government statistics as a half-bad/half good way of understanding what's going on, in conjunction with other information and reasoning? Sabri Oncu wrote, Life is not as rational as you think it is. For that matter, the rate's rationality may not be all its cracked up to be. My answer to Jim's question is: nothing is wrong if we fully acknowledge the limitations of the government statistics -- or any statistics -- to measure the phenomena they purport to measure. The problem is that we _do not_ acknowledge those limits but become indignant or uncomprehending when someone once again raises the usual objections, let alone unusual ones. The basis of rationality is non-contradiction: the same person cannot at the same time hold the same to be and not to be. By the same token, presumably, the same person cannot be employed and unemployed at the same time. Voila, we have a statistic! However the same person *can* be employed and unemployed at successive moments. The definition of unemployed includes that the person is actively looking for work and therefore, implicitly at least, will be employed at some time in the future. To qualify for unemployment benefits, one must have worked a minimum number of weeks in the recent past. Thus unemployment is only unemployment in relation to a past and/or future employment, usually both but not certainly either. In other words, the state of unemployment implies a movement toward or away from itself. Dynamically, the concept relies on contradiction. Only statically does it appear to be non-contradictory. The statistic necessarily treats unemployment at rest, so to speak. A statistic gives a static picture. It is no coincidence that both words begin with the same four letters. Zeno's paradox shows the problems inherent in treating a moving object as if it occupies successive positions of rest. I won't go into the details. Contradiction isn't necessarily a bad thing, it simply points to the limits about what we can say about dynamic phenomena. The illusion of a dynamic picture of unemployment is created by placing last month's or last year's static picture beside this month's. We say unemployment is up or unemployment is down when we really have no idea of how many employed people are moving toward unemployment, and how fast they are moving in that direction or conversely how many unemployed people are moving how rapidly toward employment. I'll just mention in passing that gross movement into and out of the labour force typically swamps net change in the ratio between employed and unemployed labour force participants. In fact, people in the U.K. who have studied this have found that much of the movement occurs directly from non-participation to employment or from employment to non-participation and not incrementally between non-participation, unemployment and employment. The U rate thus refers to something quite different than what is happening. (The expected response here is that we know this but it is useful as an indicator of what is happening. The caveats on an indicator have worn smooth, plus or minus 3%, 19 times out of 20, before that indicator enters into general circulation.) Also according to the principle of non-contradiction, a person cannot be an unemployed certified aircraft mechanic at the same time he or she is an employed telephone salesperson, for as little as one hour a week. Perhaps Jim or Doug would like to point out that we can tease out the extent of underemployment or discouragement from various supplementary sources. Indeed we can tease out, somewhat, the extent of these but not their intensity. Subjectively, it is the intensity of unemployment or underemployment that matters (e.g., did I make enough this month to pay the rent) and here you have a phenomenon that is utterly absent from the numbers. Don't ask me what data would describe this intensity of un/underemployment. It is a qualitative fact and not a quantitative one. One might say, given the bounds of rationality, that the government statistics are not all that far from the best we can do quantitatively, especially if we are hoping for a single number that summarizes the whole damn thing. Admittedly 5.6% tells me a whole lot more than some number pulled out of the air, say 1068 or six of one, half a dozen of the other. A large part of what that 5.6% means to me, though, is constituted by what I know the number doesn't tell me. Namely, it doesn't tell me that unemployment is down this month (or up this month). Unfortunately that is *precisely* how it is talked about in the media, by government officials etc. and thus that is the discursive frame imposed on it. Remember the definition of rationality: not believing something to be and not to be at the same time. If the discourse about unemployment rate were rational, it wouldn't be about ups and downs. Even when we are talking about the measurable equivocations of
Binaries, was Re: Re: RE: Re: left discourse
Complex thought and thought about complex conditions is _not_ achieved by replacing binaries with whatever, it is achieved by multiplying binaries. Any one step of an argument or a collective exploration should be, can be, and probably can't not be a binary. I may develop this on another day but right now I'm having a lost more fun on a Milton list than on any of the political lists. :-) Carrol Ian Murray wrote: - Original Message - From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 9:51 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31064] RE: Re: left discourse I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. is Kinsley a heretic or a convert? dd Why the binary? :-) Ian
Re: Re: employment
Tom Walker wrote: My answer to Jim's question is: nothing is wrong if we fully acknowledge the limitations of the government statistics -- or any statistics -- to measure the phenomena they purport to measure. The problem is that we _do not_ acknowledge those limits but become indignant or uncomprehending when someone once again raises the usual objections, let alone unusual ones. I would agree with this with a qualification. I don't know how to express it abstractly so I'll try a hypothetical example. 1) A cites a given set of statistics -- S(X) 2) B objects to those statistics. So far, so good, UNLESS, 3) B is not criticizing the _usefulness_ of S(X) to a given question, but merely asserting that he/she prefers or believes in S(Y) It's a wash, and both parties ought to go home and read a little Homer. Carrol
Re: re: employment
The articles, if anything, say more about the precision of the BLS measure than anything else. If the unemployment numbers missed people who only worked part of the month for September, it stands to reason that they will be counted as unemployed for October. (Note that the article says that the BLS might understate the losses in September, not that it will miss them entirely forever.) The errors are by definition, not intentional omission. But, just in case: total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers: Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 1996 6.6 6.3 6.1 5.7 5.6 5.7 5.9 5.4 5.3 5.1 5.3 5.2 5.7 1999 5.0 4.9 4.6 4.3 4.1 4.6 4.7 4.3 4.3 4.0 4.0 3.9 4.4 2000 4.6 4.6 4.5 3.9 4.1 4.4 4.4 4.3 4.0 3.8 3.9 3.9 4.2 2001 4.9 4.8 4.8 4.5 4.4 4.9 5.0 5.1 4.9 5.2 5.5 5.6 5.0 2002 6.5 6.4 6.3 6.0 5.8 6.3 6.2 5.9 5.6 You don't really start getting numbers substantially higher than this until you add workers on part-time basis for economic reasons, which suggests that the marginally employed, as a fraction of the labor force, is pretty small. Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers: Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual 1996 10.8 10.7 10.3 9.7 9.5 10.0 10.0 9.3 9.0 8.8 8.9 9.2 9.7 1999 8.5 8.2 7.9 7.4 7.1 7.9 7.7 7.2 7.0 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.4 2000 7.8 7.6 7.4 6.7 6.8 7.3 7.3 7.0 6.6 6.3 6.8 6.7 7.0 2001 8.1 7.9 7.6 7.2 7.2 8.2 8.1 8.1 8.3 8.7 9.0 9.3 8.2 2002 10.5 10.1 9.8 9.4 9.2 9.8 9.9 9.5 9.0 (BLS Note: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.) Christian -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 10/8/2002 7:52 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31046] Re: Re: Re: employment The US unemployment rate appeared steady earlier this year, despite the slowing economy and mounting job cuts, but it eventually climbed well above last October's 30-year low of 3.9 per cent. Many economists expect the rate to rise to more than 6 per cent next year. The Labor Department conceded it might have understated September's losses since it counts payrolls that were active and includes workers who were employed only part of the month. (FT, Oct. 6, 2002) --- A new stimulus package in the neighborhood of $100 billion, or 1 percent of G.D.P., is needed now. The Federal Reserve will probably cut rates at its next meeting, but interest rates are already so low that further cuts may not help much. Much of the federal money should go to workers, who need it and will spend it. The rising jobless rate has understated the jobs weakness. Discouraged workers are leaving the work force in droves and are not counted as unemployed. (NYT, Oct. 3, 2002) --- In the case of unemployment, analysts fear the new jobless numbers will convince ordinary Americans that what most have treated as little more than a pause in economic growth may be something more durable and dangerous. The psychology is beginning to change, said Mark A. Zandi, chief economist of the West Chester, Pa., research firm Economy.com. People have been acting like the slowdown was a blip. Now, they're starting to think this could last for a while and they had better prepare by reducing their spending. To the extent that people treat the unemployment rate as a barometer of economic uncertainty, there is some reason to think they should have begun to trim their spending earlier. That is because up until now it's likely the rate has understated the true dimensions of job loss, analysts said. In contrast to some other periods of economic slowdown, a substantial fraction of workers has been reacting to the economy's weakness by dropping out of the labor force when they are laid off and can't find a new job. Their departure reduced the number of people working, but it also removed them from the unemployment calculations. Analysts said the trend helps explain how the jobless rate managed to stay so stable and low in the face of layoffs. But it may also have helped lull people into a false sense of security, a conviction that whatever cutbacks companies were announcing were not translating into an overall economic decline. It's meant the unemployment rate is not as good an indicator of
Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Michael Perelman wrote: Don't we see the same thing in every anti-war statement? X is a very bad person. I don't support X, but . No, it's not the same. X (= Saddam, Slobo, etc.) generally is a very bad person. I was at an antiwar demo - a very good, inspiring one - in NYC just the other day where you heard very little of that in fact. Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name names, for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and The Nation magazine than they do actually engaging with American politics. It's self-marginalizing and stupid. Doug
Re: Re: re: employment
Christian Gregory wrote: You don't really start getting numbers substantially higher than this until you add workers on part-time basis for economic reasons, which suggests that the marginally employed, as a fraction of the labor force, is pretty small. Don't forget forced overtime and multiple jobholders. There's at least as much overwork in the U.S. economy as there is underwork. But since that wasn't the case in the 1930s, most American leftists can't think about it. Doug
marc cooper part n+1 (was Re: Re: employment)
Doug Henwood wrote: Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name names, for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and The Nation magazine than they do actually engaging with American politics. It's self-marginalizing and stupid. one could argue that its marc cooper who is policing the left in a stupid way. i would not say he is self-marginalizing, for his intent seems to be to stay as close to the mainstream as possible while sporting a leftist philosophy. i am not american, and i am not a leftist of any consequence, but i had no quarrel with marc cooper until his ill-reasoned ad hominem attack on amy goodman. --ravi
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name names, for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and The Nation magazine than they do actually engaging with American politics. It's self-marginalizing and stupid. Doug This is topsy-turvy. Most of the policing of left ideological boundaries have in fact come from Nation Magazine contributors like Doug, Liza Featherstone, Eric Alterman and Marc Cooper. (And Christopher Hitchens before his mutation was complete, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Has anybody seen Hitch walking across the ceiling yet? Wouldn't surprise me at all.) In a series of articles in the Nation and other venues like LA Weekly, these folks have attacked elements of the anti-war movement over and over again. They don't like the ISO. They don't like Ramsey Clark. They don't like apologists for all those icky people who end up in the gunsights of US imperialism. Meanwhile, the WWP, the ISO and other groups out there organizing people scarcely pay attention to this kind of attack. However, I do pay attention and plan to continue to answer the Marc Coopers of the world on the Internet, as is my democratic right. Michael Perelman might be uncomfortable when I express myself democratically, but I don't plan to ease up any time soon. This is an ongoing debate on the left and since giving an adequate answer to Cooper in the pages of the letters section of the LA Weekly or Alterman in the Nation is about as likely as winning the lottery, I intend to continue speaking my mind through email where I won't be censored. Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Devine, James wrote: Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? See - we didn't invoke the standard litany, therefore we're either ignorant, insensitive, or on the verge of heresy. I'd laugh, but I care about this stuff, though sometimes I wonder why. Doug
Re: Re: Re: employment
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people. And who the hell isn't saying that? Is this is the best progressive economists can do? Doug
Re: Re: Re: left discourse
Michael, that makes no sense. Which is not unusual for PEN-L, but still, you usually make sense. Doug Michael Perelman wrote: Is that distinction between left and right or between powerful and powerless? On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 12:33:19PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Re: employment
Devine, James wrote: I _do_ acknowledge these limits, as does Doug (in my experience). Who is this we you refer to? I really hate being a straw man. Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always involves two different things: (1) actually using them and (2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss. I think our interlocutors are more interested in proving their greater sensitivity and moral superiority than they are in making an argument. Doug
RE: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31067] Re: employment I wrote What is the problem with using some (but not all) government statistics as a half-bad/half good way of understanding what's going on, in conjunction with other information and reasoning? Sabri Oncu wrote, Life is not as rational as you think it is. Who said that life was rational? One of things we should strive for is for life to be more rational. (I'll beg off on the definition of rational for now -- who has the time? Put it this way, it's not the instrumental rationality of Western enlightenment thinking. There's more than one kind of rationality.) Tom Walker: For that matter, the rate's rationality may not be all its cracked up to be. My answer to Jim's question is: nothing is wrong if we fully acknowledge the limitations of the government statistics -- or any statistics -- to measure the phenomena they purport to measure. The problem is that we _do not_ acknowledge those limits but become indignant or uncomprehending when someone once again raises the usual objections, let alone unusual ones. I _do_ acknowledge these limits, as does Doug (in my experience). Who is this we you refer to? I really hate being a straw man. Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always involves two different things: (1) actually using them and (2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss. The basis of [one version of] rationality is non-contradiction: the same person cannot at the same time hold the same to be and not to be. By the same token, presumably, the same person cannot be employed and unemployed at the same time. Voila, we have a statistic! This ignores the fact that there are statistics on involuntary part-time workers, who can be seen as both unemployed and employed at the same time. However the same person *can* be employed and unemployed at successive moments. The definition of unemployed includes that the person is actively looking for work and therefore, implicitly at least, will be employed at some time in the future. If you look, you can find some stats on people's experience over time with unemployment, and I presume, employment. You can also find estimates of hours worked per week, too. To qualify for unemployment benefits, one must have worked a minimum number of weeks in the recent past. In the U.S., at least, there is no connection between such eligibility and officially being counted as unemployed. Thus unemployment is only unemployment in relation to a past and/or future employment, usually both but not certainly either. In other words, the state of unemployment implies a movement toward or away from itself. this last sentence doesn't make any sense. But it's quite easy to get a time series of unemployment data (measured in different ways). In fact, the time series makes more sense, as long as one doesn't focus on month-to-month changes: a year-to-year increase in the official unemployment rate has a very simple meaning: all else constant, workers are being screwed. Of course, all else isn't always constant, so that workers can be screwed without unemployment rates rising. Dynamically, the concept relies on contradiction. Only statically does it appear to be non-contradictory. The statistic necessarily treats unemployment at rest, so to speak. A statistic gives a static picture. It is no coincidence that both words begin with the same four letters. how about statistics? if you take a time series of statistics, it doesn't provide a static picture, even though it it begin[s] with the same four letters as that word. The monthly unemployment rate does represent a snap-shot. But put enough of them together, you get a movie, or at least a slide-show. Zeno's paradox shows the problems inherent in treating a moving object as if it occupies successive positions of rest. I won't go into the details. Contradiction isn't necessarily a bad thing, it simply points to the limits about what we can say about dynamic phenomena. the contradiction disappears if you realize that changes in unemployment rates are more important than the level. The illusion of a dynamic picture of unemployment is created by placing last month's or last year's static picture beside this month's. We say unemployment is up or unemployment is down when we really have no idea of how many employed people are moving toward unemployment, and how fast they are moving in that direction or conversely how many unemployed people are moving how rapidly toward employment. we don't really know many employed people are moving toward unemployment, and how fast they are moving in that direction or conversely how many unemployed people are moving how rapidly toward employment from the unemployment rate, but that doesn't mean we can't find out -- or at least get some idea -- from other statistics that are available. Absolutely
sabbatical
Jim Devine says I need to cool it. I don't think so, but I think I need to take a vacation from PEN-L. The kind of moral posturing I've seen here over the last couple of days makes me furious. It has a lot to do with why the left ends up talking mainly to itself - all too often, statements are made to signify the speaker's purity rather than to investigate or persuade. Given the rather dire state of the world, I'm just not interested in that right now. If there's a departure from this irksome paradigm, please let me know. Doug
Re: Re: employment
Dynamically, the concept relies on contradiction. Only statically does it appear to be non-contradictory. The statistic necessarily treats unemployment at rest, so to speak. A statistic gives a static picture. It is no coincidence that both words begin with the same four letters. So what if you don't get existential intimacy or subjective versimiltitude from a BLS statistic? Do you keep shoving bread into your VCR and complain when it doesn't come out toasted? Christian
Re: Binaries, was Re: Re: RE: Re: left discourse
Ian and Carrol, There are two kinds of people in discourse, those who use binaries and those who don't. Gene Carrol Cox wrote: Complex thought and thought about complex conditions is _not_ achieved by replacing binaries with whatever, it is achieved by multiplying binaries. Any one step of an argument or a collective exploration should be, can be, and probably can't not be a binary. I may develop this on another day but right now I'm having a lost more fun on a Milton list than on any of the political lists. :-) Carrol Ian Murray wrote: - Original Message - From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 9:51 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31064] RE: Re: left discourse I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. is Kinsley a heretic or a convert? dd Why the binary? :-) Ian
Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:31057] RE: Re: Re: employment Date sent: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 09:06:30 -0700 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of looked like fixation to me. Paul
RE: Re: Binaries, was Re: Re: RE: Re: left discourse
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31082] Re: Binaries, was Re: Re: RE: Re: left discourse Ian and Carrol, There are two kinds of people in discourse, those who use binaries and those who don't. Gene actually, it's a dialectic, in which the people who use binaries interpenetrate with those who don't. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Carrol Cox wrote: Complex thought and thought about complex conditions is _not_ achieved by replacing binaries with whatever, it is achieved by multiplying binaries. Any one step of an argument or a collective exploration should be, can be, and probably can't not be a binary. I may develop this on another day but right now I'm having a lost more fun on a Milton list than on any of the political lists. :-) Carrol Ian Murray wrote: - Original Message - From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 9:51 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31064] RE: Re: left discourse I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. is Kinsley a heretic or a convert? dd Why the binary? :-) Ian
testing
Title: testing using Western European (Windows) encoding. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Binaries, was Re: Re: RE: Re: left discourse
Eugene Coyle wrote: There are two kinds of people in discourse, those who use binaries and those who don't. or as the joke goes: there are 10 kinds of people: those who speak/understand binaries and those that do not. if you are in the latter category you probably wont get this joke! ;-) with apologies for off-topic content, --ravi
Re: employment
Doug Henwood wrote, Don't forget forced overtime and multiple jobholders. There's at least as much overwork in the U.S. economy as there is underwork. But since that wasn't the case in the 1930s, most American leftists can't think about it. ...and another thing I was going to mention was overtime and multiple jobholders. Oh but wait, Doug just mentioned it. I'm glad you mentioned it, Doug. And yes, I find it rather peculiar that most American leftists can't think about that. I'm not sure if the generalization is accurate, but it feels as though it is. I view multiple jobholding and forced overtime as pathological symptoms, not as signs of vibrant labour demand. With regard to the unemployment rate, there is no category for full-time composite from two or more part-time jobs. Nor is it regarded as overemployment when somebody who works overtime would prefer not to. Besides what would the statisticians do if there was such a thing as overemployment? Would the overemployment cancel out the underemployment or would the two add together as undesired hours employment? My preference would be for the latter, but nobody's asking me. With regard to the whole schmozzola of under-, over-, un-, and just plain unpleasantly employed, later today I'll post to Pen-l a piece on the work ethic and its discontents I started writing for the shorter work time list. Those of you who may have encountered difficulties following my last re: employment message will be happy to know that in the forthcoming message I clear up any possible confusion. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31084] Re: RE: Re: Re: employment I wrote: Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? Paul responded: Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of looked like fixation to me. the number I cited included discouraged workers, which is not THE official unemployment rate. I prefer the kind of treatment that Dean Baker employs: he goes through all of the official stats in the BLS press releases and tries to draw out the implications. This discussion is pretty useless, not to mention involving too many messages. On the one hand, Doug and I think that official statistics such as the BLS-calculated unemployment rate --or the equivalent in Canada -- conveys some information that is useful to leftist economists; despite its obvious limitations, the official U rate isn't like Enron accounting. (Christian Gregory has lept on our mini-bandwagon, it seems.) On the other, people incorrectly believe that just because we use the U rate, (1) we think that this is the _only_ statistic we think is relevant to understanding labor-power markets or (2) that we aren't familiar with the limitations of the statistic. Maybe there are people who think bourgeois statistics are nothing but propaganda, and thus should be avoided, though no-one has said so. I think Ian said the right thing in an off-list discussion: The BLS stats are solid as far as they go; it's the norms and behaviors that lead to unemployment that concern us far more than the stats. regarding unemployment, no? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: left discourse
I meant that the search for heretics is more common among the powerless. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 02:06:44PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael, that makes no sense. Which is not unusual for PEN-L, but still, you usually make sense. Doug Michael Perelman wrote: Is that distinction between left and right or between powerful and powerless? On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 12:33:19PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Did I say that you were insensitive and did not concern yourself with the context of the unemployment rate? -- a rate which I use every day in my labour and economic problems classes, btw. Nor was I responding to either Doug or Jim's posts but to Sabri's lament. Every month when the U rate is published the local newspapers and media stations phone me up to ask what is the significance and what does the most recent .1 change in the rate mean for the future of mankind. I spend half an hour every time explaining the measurement and meaning of the rate and what other data one needs (discouraged workers, participation rates, part-time and contingent employment, age/sex structure of jobs, etc.) without which one can not make any sense out of even fairly large changes in the U rate. I know Doug and Jim are not fixated by the single rate -- but the public and the media tend to be, as do an unfortunately large number of mainstream economists. I wish Doug and Jim wouldn't take any criticism of othodox statistics and the way that they are defined or the way they are perceived in the media, the political arena and by the media as a personal attack on themselves. This was neither in the post nor intended and I don't appreciate being damned as a dissident leftist because others don't read carefully the posts to see what is really being said. Paul Phillips Date sent: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 14:04:06 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:31077] Re: RE: Re: Re: employment Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Devine, James wrote: Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? See - we didn't invoke the standard litany, therefore we're either ignorant, insensitive, or on the verge of heresy. I'd laugh, but I care about this stuff, though sometimes I wonder why. Doug
1992
Although I suspect that Doug has already unsubbed (and if not would not answer me anyhow), it is relevant to point out that he has had a fairly heated exchange with Stanley Aronowitz about exactly these questions. You can find Doug's review of The Jobless Future and a brief rejoinder by Stanley at http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Jobless_future.html. Doug relies heavily on official statistics to rebut the notion that work is disappearing. In his reply, Stanley states that his argument is not that jobs are disappearing but that good jobs are. Here is an relevant bit from the article: Aronowitz and DiFazio's whole book flows essentially from the assertions of its first paragraph: We live in hard times. The economic stagnation and decline that changed many lives after the stock market crash of 1987 and blossomed into a full-blown recession in 1990 lingers despite frequent self-satisfied statements by politicians and economists that the recovery has finally arrived (1992, 1993, 1994). Nevertheless, there are frequent puzzled statements by the same savants to the effect that although we are once again on the road to economic growth, it is a jobless recovery. Then, in the months in which the Department of Labor records job growth, we are dismayed to discover that most of the jobs are part-time, near the minimum wage. It's tempting to quote Ezra Pound's wrong from the start - but the first sentence of this excerpt is the only one that's true. Virtually all the evidence marshalled to prove the point is factually wrong. Growth in the two years after the 1987 crash averaged a respectable, if not boomy, 3.4%. The recession that followed was briefer and milder than the post-World War II average. The recovery from that slump was admittedly weak and tentative at first, but it did happen, and it ceased being jobless in early 1992. Over 1.4 million new jobs were created in 1992, and the total since the recession trough is over 12 million new jobs. While many of them are crappy, most are not part-time and few are near the minimum wage. Comparing the two statements above with the following item from US News and World Report of November 2, 1992, one wonders who is closer to the mark: The specter of unemployment haunts the nation's workers For years, Acme Boot Co. dug in its heels in an effort to compete with cheap foreign imports. But last month the Tennessee-based manufacturer finally capitulated to the offshore onslaught and announced that it would shut down its Clarksville plant. The factory closure leaves 480 workers without jobs in a town that already has a 10.4 percent unemployment rate. Life without a paycheck will be especially painful for William and Shirley Stokes, longtime Acme employees with two teenage daughters to support. ''My whole family is out of a job, laments William, a maintenance man who has labored at Acme for 26 of his 44 years. ''At my age, with so many looking for jobs right now, things seem bleak. The future is equally grim for millions of American families. Import competition, defense cuts and rampant retrenchment in a still struggling corporate sector have severely damaged the nation's once vaunted job machine. Annual employment growth has floundered at a mere 0.7 percent since George Bush entered the White House, the poorest job-creation record of any president since World War II. Even worse, during the Bush years nearly 2 million goods-producing jobs have been lost. And, for the first time in recent memory, white-collar workers have been laid off in droves. Many of these people will never get their jobs back. Nearly 9.6 million people are looking for work today, 1.1 million have stopped searching and 6.3 million have part-time jobs but seek full-time employment. The national jobless rate has remained above 7 percent for nine consecutive months, and the next president's top political and economic priority will clearly be getting people back to work. In the final analysis, this is about politics and not statistics. Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: employment
Christian Gregory wrote, So what if you don't get existential intimacy or subjective versimiltitude from a BLS statistic? Do you keep shoving bread into your VCR and complain when it doesn't come out toasted? BLS? VCR? FYAH. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
But Jim, As my last post pointed out, when I responded to Sabri's original post your whole discussion about the problems and additions to the U rate was not being considered. My original post was in response to someone (not you) suggesting that because the figures on registered unemployment were much higher than for survey unemployment, the figures for survey unemployment were deliberately meant to undermeasure unemployment. My point was that they were not measuring the same thing and there is good reason for the difference. I know you and Doug know the meaning and limitations of the unemployment rate and are concerned with the income distribution issues that are affected by unemployment and nowhere have I every said or suggested you don't. I was saying that I understand Sabri's sadness if it is because he believes that most public discussion about unemployment abstracts from the reality and fixates upon the number -- and that makes me equally sad, eh! And that is the last I am going to say on this issue. Paul From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' pen- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:31088] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment Date sent: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 12:05:55 -0700 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I wrote: Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? Paul responded: Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of looked like fixation to me. the number I cited included discouraged workers, which is not THE official unemployment rate. I prefer the kind of treatment that Dean Baker employs: he goes through all of the official stats in the BLS press releases and tries to draw out the implications. This discussion is pretty useless, not to mention involving too many messages. On the one hand, Doug and I think that official statistics such as the BLS-calculated unemployment rate --or the equivalent in Canada -- conveys some information that is useful to leftist economists; despite its obvious limitations, the official U rate isn't like Enron accounting. (Christian Gregory has lept on our mini-bandwagon, it seems.) On the other, people incorrectly believe that just because we use the U rate, (1) we think that this is the _only_ statistic we think is relevant to understanding labor-power markets or (2) that we aren't familiar with the limitations of the statistic. Maybe there are people who think bourgeois statistics are nothing but propaganda, and thus should be avoided, though no-one has said so. I think Ian said the right thing in an off-list discussion: The BLS stats are solid as far as they go; it's the norms and behaviors that lead to unemployment that concern us far more than the stats. regarding unemployment, no? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: employment
Doug, don't be mad, just say yes, yes, perhaps I took that point for granted when I made this other point. Sometime people just want to point the qualitative stuff out. We are all on the same side here, there is so much work to do. I hope the list won't crumble over this. Lisa S on 10/08/2002 1:59 PM, Doug Henwood at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people. And who the hell isn't saying that? Is this is the best progressive economists can do? Doug
Re: RE: Re: left discourse
You all should take a lesson from the coalitions who put together the mass demonstrations...The AntiCapitalist Convergence, Another World is Possible, Direct Action Network, Mobilization for Global Justice, World Social Forum, and a socialist group I forget the name of all plan different types of things for demonstrations. Some legal marches, some reclaim the streets. Some civil disobedience, some puppet making and shouting in the streets. Our unifying message is so much more important than the points that divide us. I agree with Daniel here, none of us are Heritics. LIsa on 10/08/2002 12:51 PM, Davies, Daniel at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I hate to keep quoting Michael Kinsley, but he got it dead right: people on the right are always looking for converts; people on the left, for heretics.
re: employment
Title: re: employment Paul Phillips writes: But Jim, As my last post pointed out, when I responded to Sabri's original post your whole discussion about the problems and additions to the U rate was not being considered. My original post was in response to someone (not you) suggesting that because the figures on registered unemployment were much higher than for survey unemployment, the figures for survey unemployment were deliberately meant to undermeasure unemployment. My point was that they were not measuring the same thing and there is good reason for the difference. I know you and Doug know the meaning and limitations of the unemployment rate and are concerned with the income distribution issues that are affected by unemployment and nowhere have I every said or suggested you don't. I was saying that I understand Sabri's sadness if it is because he believes that most public discussion about unemployment abstracts from the reality and fixates upon the number -- and that makes me equally sad, eh! And that is the last I am going to say on this issue. Paul me too. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: employment
Jim, It looks to me like you reacted to my message paragraph by paragraph without treating the message as an unfolding whole. This in itself should be a warning against the cinematographic method you uphold. What I have to say is even more objectionable if you take it sentence by sentence. Word by word, it's incomprehensible. Letter by letter, it is a totally meaningless sequence. Jim Devine wrote: Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always involves two different things: (1) actually using them and (2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss. but elsewhere Jim writes: The monthly unemployment rate does represent a snap-shot. But put enough of them together, you get a movie, or at least a slide-show. I was trying to point out the methodological limitations that arise precisely from the cinematographic illusion. You seem to think the illusion, far from being a limitation, is a redeeming feature. This would suggest to me that you are not aware of the limitations. Later on, Jim wrote, this tells us we should ignore rising measures of unemployment produced by the BLS? For someone who doesn't appreciate being told what you think, you sure are free and easy with the non sequitur reductio ad absurdums, if you'll pardon my French. brevity is the soul of wit. Shit. Shinola. Remember that, Jim, and you'll be alright. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Donna Haraway query
I've been (re)reading Donna Haraway -- the earlier essays and some of the later -- for a class I'm teaching this semester. And I've come to the realization with this second reading (first time in the 1980s): 1) just what a profound thinker she was (and is), and 2) that I'm definitely a hybrid network of meat and metal -- a cyborg! Anyway, Haraway tells us that boundaries between organisms/machines, nature/culture, individuals/worlds have been transgressed -- and the dominant thinking/writings in science, technology, and other disciplines is socially constructed. I can understand how feminists have latched onto the Haraway thesis that what is natural -- in the modernist sense (Descartes and followers) -- has actually been constructed through many sources and for many purposes...and...can therefore be deconstructed and reconstructed for other purposes. Haraway's thesis is NOT one of isolation/separation/alienation but rather one of connections/networks and the reconstruction uses these influences instead of rejecting them and wanting to go back to a pre-network era. My question is this: Certainly the evolution of economic systems has involved all kinds of transgressions of the Haraway sort, is there a deconstruction and reconstruction story here to tell as well within the established connection/networks? Any suggested readings on the Haraway thesis and economic systems? Ms. Cyborg
Re: Re: employment
BLS? VCR? FYAH. Tom Walker 604 255 4812 FYAH? Fuck you ass hole? Inquisitively, Christian
RE: Re: employment
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31098] Re: employment Tom W writes: Jim, It looks to me like you reacted to my message paragraph by paragraph without treating the message as an unfolding whole. This in itself should be a warning against the cinematographic method you uphold. What I have to say is even more objectionable if you take it sentence by sentence. Word by word, it's incomprehensible. Letter by letter, it is a totally meaningless sequence. Jim Devine wrote: Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always involves two different things: (1) actually using them and (2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss. but elsewhere Jim writes: The monthly unemployment rate does represent a snap-shot. But put enough of them together, you get a movie, or at least a slide-show. Tom replies: I was trying to point out the methodological limitations that arise precisely from the cinematographic illusion. You seem to think the illusion, far from being a limitation, is a redeeming feature. This would suggest to me that you are not aware of the limitations. that is not true. JD
Re: Re: employment
BLS? VCR? FYAH. Tom Walker 604 255 4812 Seriously, the critique of representation only gets you so far. Then, if you can't come up with something else, you're left muttering that it's all representations and so can't be trusted, etc. So, sure there should be some index of job holders who have two temp (or full-time) jobs as a composite of one. But pointing out that this statistical measurement is missing from a statistical data set is different (and more germane) than saying that statistics don't capture suffering and therefore can't be trusted or are incomplete. The latter amounts to beating your head against the wall. Christian
Re: Donna Haraway query
- Original Message - From: Diane Monaco [EMAIL PROTECTED] My question is this: Certainly the evolution of economic systems has involved all kinds of transgressions of the Haraway sort, is there a deconstruction and reconstruction story here to tell as well within the established connection/networks? Any suggested readings on the Haraway thesis and economic systems? Ms. Cyborg === Machine Dreams by Philip Mirowski. I'm reading it right now and like Michael Perelman has stated to the list, it is excellent. Also take a peek at Niklas Luhmann's Social Systems. Ian
Re: Re: Re: employment
I have been teaching all day and I am bit groggy. How the hell does a simple discussion about data evoke such nastiness? I see that Doug has already left. Why can't we just communicate? If you want to get angry, direct it towad the war mongers. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 04:27:44PM -0400, Christian Gregory wrote: BLS? VCR? FYAH. Tom Walker 604 255 4812 FYAH? Fuck you ass hole? Inquisitively, Christian -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: employment
We are going to war and you guys are getting nasty over BLS data. Give me a break! Cut the crap. This is not directed at any single individual, but the entire thread. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 12:45:30PM -0700, Tom Walker wrote: Christian Gregory wrote, So what if you don't get existential intimacy or subjective versimiltitude from a BLS statistic? Do you keep shoving bread into your VCR and complain when it doesn't come out toasted? BLS? VCR? FYAH. Tom Walker 604 255 4812 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: sabbatical
I am sorry for your choice. Your absence will certainly diminish pen-l. I was teaching all day and did not get to stop the foolishness in time. My statement about heretics was that weeding out was a reflection of powerlessness, not political approach. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Tony Mazzocchi died Sunday
Unusually respectful, even gracious, by the WP's standards. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57534-2002Oct7.html
Re: Western Rationality
Ian: Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses to which logic, scientific thinking etc. have been put and those problems are not reducible to the problems created by capitalism. Yes, I think the basis of many of modern society's worst difficulties is the pernicious objectification of the individual that results from the scientific method, in all its many forms -- especially including the social sciences -- and with all its many appurtenances, including collection and analysis of statistics such as the jobless rate. I don't know any answer to this problem, since science is so central to modern life, but I do see it as a problem. Scientific study by its nature puts distance between a human observer and human subject, creates a hierarchical relationship and deliberately limits development of empathy. I think this has had a deeply damaging effect on human relations overall. Carl _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Doug is only gone temoporarily.I don't think attacking him or Liza is appropriate here. I wish that Doug had not brought up Cooper. I agree with Lou that the policing does no good. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 01:58:02PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name names, for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and The Nation magazine than they do actually engaging with American politics. It's self-marginalizing and stupid. Doug This is topsy-turvy. Most of the policing of left ideological boundaries have in fact come from Nation Magazine contributors like Doug, Liza Featherstone, Eric Alterman and Marc Cooper. (And Christopher Hitchens before his mutation was complete, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Has anybody seen Hitch walking across the ceiling yet? Wouldn't surprise me at all.) In a series of articles in the Nation and other venues like LA Weekly, these folks have attacked elements of the anti-war movement over and over again. They don't like the ISO. They don't like Ramsey Clark. They don't like apologists for all those icky people who end up in the gunsights of US imperialism. Meanwhile, the WWP, the ISO and other groups out there organizing people scarcely pay attention to this kind of attack. However, I do pay attention and plan to continue to answer the Marc Coopers of the world on the Internet, as is my democratic right. Michael Perelman might be uncomfortable when I express myself democratically, but I don't plan to ease up any time soon. This is an ongoing debate on the left and since giving an adequate answer to Cooper in the pages of the letters section of the LA Weekly or Alterman in the Nation is about as likely as winning the lottery, I intend to continue speaking my mind through email where I won't be censored. Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: sabbatical
I meant to send this to Doug. I still can't see how people got so worked up about this. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 03:26:00PM -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: I am sorry for your choice. Your absence will certainly diminish pen-l. I was teaching all day and did not get to stop the foolishness in time. My statement about heretics was that weeding out was a reflection of powerlessness, not political approach. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: employment
That's more like it. You're right, the critique only gets you so far. The rest of the journey is grounded in experience, which can be narrated but not reduced to a set of statistics -- even a fairly comprehensive set. I use official statistics all the time. I charge clients real money to dig up and describe the most meaningful statistics to support their case. I even compile statistics from raw data. Good numbers support a well-constructed argument, but even the best numbers can't construct the argument for you. From my perspective the biggest political defect of statistics is that they necessarily refer to something that has happened in the past. Doug H. referred to the rather dire state of the world. Michael P. wrote, we are going to war. Would it be too coy of me to ask where is the statistical evidence for either of those statements? But that is precisely the kind of question that gets thrown at us when we raise questions about, say, precarious employment or the polarization of working hours. The first question is about the numbers (which, unlike the unemployment data are often between two and five years old). The second question is what makes you think it is anything other than peoples' preferences being revealed? The classic way to not take action is to refer a matter for further study. In that respect, representation can't get you any further than can critique. Whatever you come up with can always be referred for even more study. Do I sound like someone who's been there and done that? Christian Gregory wrote, Seriously, the critique of representation only gets you so far. Then, if you can't come up with something else, you're left muttering that it's all representations and so can't be trusted, etc. So, sure there should be some index of job holders who have two temp (or full-time) jobs as a composite of one. But pointing out that this statistical measurement is missing from a statistical data set is different (and more germane) than saying that statistics don't capture suffering and therefore can't be trusted or are incomplete. The latter amounts to beating your head against the wall. For your arcane hermeneutics... Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: Re: employment
Michael Perelman wrote: Doug is only gone temoporarily.I don't think attacking him or Liza is appropriate here. I wish that Doug had not brought up Cooper. I agree with Lou that the policing does no good. i hope doug does not find me in the list of those he finds unreasonable. whether it be my general responses to his posts, or to the particular issue of marc cooper (and i agree that we should avoid discussing personalities), i have tried to be honest and friendly. if that impression is untrue, i apologize. --ravi
Re: Re: Western Rationality
At 10:35 PM 10/08/2002 +, you wrote: Scientific study by its nature puts distance between a human observer and human subject, creates a hierarchical relationship and deliberately limits development of empathy. I think this has had a deeply damaging effect on human relations overall. That's how it worked out, but it's not how it started. If I had to do it all over again, I think I'd write my dissertation on the Devotio Moderna movement in the late Middle Ages. This was primarily a religious reform movement which sought to substitute the mystical/zen commandment of cultivating a quality of selfless attention to the world (as an articulation of the divine) for the traditional authoritative/hierarchical structure of the church-led religion. I believe it was this ideal of selfless attention that evolved historically into the vaunted scientific distanced objectivity. As any mystic/zen practitioner will tell you, this self-less attention is both empty and dangerous without a deep-self knowledge. Needless to say, the self-knowledge requirement dropped out of modern science (under the influence of industrialization -- think of a scientist as an interchangeable part, and his object of study too). Problem is, when you the leave the subject out of science, you harm both science and the subject. Best, Joanna
RE: Re: Western Rationality
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31107] Re: Western Rationality Ian: Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses to which logic, scientific thinking etc. have been put and those problems are not reducible to the problems created by capitalism. Carl: Yes, I think the basis of many of modern society's worst difficulties is the pernicious objectification of the individual that results from the scientific method, in all its many forms -- especially including the social sciences -- and with all its many appurtenances, including collection and analysis of statistics such as the jobless rate. so we shouldn't care about the number of unemployed individuals, even when this number is measured accurately, because it peniciously objectifies the individual? so if I refer to the high unemployment rate of 1933 in the United States, I am objectifying people (and doing so perniciously)? I don't know any answer to this problem, since science is so central to modern life, but I do see it as a problem. Scientific study by its nature puts distance between a human observer and human subject, creates a hierarchical relationship and deliberately limits development of empathy. I think this has had a deeply damaging effect on human relations overall. How does scientific study do this by its nature? and what is the alternative to scientific thinking? By scientific thinking, I mean thinking involving an attempt to be logical, to back up assertions with references to perceived empirical reality if possible, and trying to avoid leaving major parts of perceived reality out of the story. It involves trying to convince people of the truth of propositions rather than simply making assertions. BTW, to Ian's comment above, I agreed that bureaucratic socialism could be just as much a source of the problems of modernity. To paraphrase Harry Braverman, the USSR imitated the capitalist world, in an effort to survive encirclement and invasion, and to catch up economically. Jim
RE: Re: Re: employment
ravi wrote: i hope doug does not find me in the list of those he finds unreasonable. whether it be my general responses to his posts, or to the particular issue of marc cooper (and i agree that we should avoid discussing personalities), i have tried to be honest and friendly. if that impression is untrue, i apologize. Doug Henwood's emails are full of words about his extreme annoyance, anger, frustration, irritation etc; all of that is humiliating and insulting to his possible interlocutors. It also looks like a cry for help, it's not even repressed rage any more, but open and in-your-face anger and capriciousness. There is no need to apologise. Doug is or was a psychoanalyst, wasn't he? He ought to recognise some warning signs. Probably his Oedipal struggle with the patriarchal Gods of socialism will soon be over, he will slough off that skin and re-emerge as the rock-ribbed repug he really is. Will they still have him though? That's the problem. After all, he already was a repug, long ago before imagining that he was of the left after all. Maybe he upset a few people during his commute up and down the Damascus road and now they don't want him either. Mark
Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
RE: [PEN-L:31107] Re: Western Rationality - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 4:00 PM Subject: [PEN-L:31113] RE: Re: Western Rationality Ian: Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses to which logic, scientific thinking etc. have been put and those problems are not reducible to the problems created by capitalism. Carl: Yes, I think the basis of many of modern society's worst difficulties is the pernicious objectification of the individual that results from the scientific method, in all its many forms -- especially including the social sciences -- and with all its many appurtenances, including collection and analysis of statistics such as the jobless rate. so we shouldn't care about the number of unemployed individuals, even when this number is measured accurately, because it peniciously objectifies the individual? so if I refer to the high unemployment rate of 1933 in the United States, I am objectifying people (and doing so perniciously)? I don't know any answer to this problem, since science is so central to modern life, but I do see it as a problem. Scientific study by its nature puts distance between a human observer and human subject, creates a hierarchical relationship and deliberately limits development of empathy. I think this has had a deeply damaging effect on human relations overall. How does scientific study do this by its nature? and what is the alternative to scientific thinking? By scientific thinking, I mean thinking involving an attempt to be logical, to back up assertions with references to perceived empirical reality if possible, and trying to avoid leaving major parts of perceived reality out of the story. It involves trying to convince people of the truth of propositions rather than simply making assertions. BTW, to Ian's comment above, I agreed that bureaucratic socialism could be just as much a source of the problems of modernity. To paraphrase Harry Braverman, the USSR imitated the capitalist world, in an effort to survive encirclement and invasion, and to catch up economically. Jim = Sometimes the simplest questions catalyze the most complex thinking we're capable of. How do we conjoin the best science and logic[s] we have in the service of our most mutually enobling and enabling emotions? No platitudes allowed :-) Ian
Whither ecological economics?
Just out of curiosity, why is there so little discussion of the ecological economics movement on this list? My memory isnt the greatest, but I dont recall ever hearing any mention of Herman Daly, Robert Costanza, Richard Norgaard, the International Society for Ecological Economics, the journal Ecological Economics, the steady state economy, natural capital, etc (except in response to a few of my own posts). This puzzles me because the ecological economics movement has produced the most potent sustainability policy implications Ive seen. Is ecological economics that far off the radar screen that it doesnt even register with PEN? Or is PEN not really concerned with sustainability issues? Brian Czech Arlington, VA USA
The Corn-Fed Empire Re: Food for thought
[From NY Press, Adipose Nation] In a nation of child-raping priests, child-murdering pedophiles, insane jihadi terrorists and kleptomaniac capitalists, this domestic fat crisis might seem on first inspection to be a relatively benign problem. ... But I would suggest that the bloating of our nation is more insidious than any of these other threats to our health and well-being, both because it reflects the behavior of most Americans rather than a relatively small number of deviant criminals and because this behavior inspires so little condemnation. ... Describing the gluttony in America as an epidemic of obesity shrouds the individual decisions that are its root cause. It is as unhelpful as speaking of an epidemic of cooked corporate books or a plague of sexually molested children. Because getting fat is not like getting polio or leukemia or elephantiasis. It is a lot like getting drunk a conscious decision to choose a sensory pleasure despite known negative consequences. It is a choice that goes to the great moral question of civilized man shall we indulge our desires or restrain them? Whether a hand reaches for that third chocolate eclair or a choir boy or the money from the company pension fund, the answer is the same. ... [http://www.nypress.com/15/41/newscolumns/feature.cfm] Carl Americans will never be slim and wholesome unless they manage to pull off a feat beyond a mere regime change here: the overthrow of the capitalist world empire -- the empire that has wielded cheap and unhealthy drug foods as weapons of mass destruction, while making the work and commute hours of the proletariat at its heartland so very long that they can only manage to scarf down fast food to stay alive. First, competition among several capitalist empires: * Sidney Mintz (1986) perceptively notes that sugar was the crucial drug food of the industrial revolution, providing cheap, low-cost calories to the growing industrial proletariat in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is no secret that this sugar was grown on plantations that wreaked havoc with the natural environment. The environmental devastation effected by the sugar plantation system led to declining productivity throughout the early modern era, and continually spurred the expansion of the capitalist world-economy to new areas - from the Atlantic islands, to Brazil, to the small and then the large Caribbean islands. As a result, vast new supplies of labor power were necessary, which slave traders procured (Moore, forthcoming). The case of sugar shows how class formation in the core (the industrial proletariat) and periphery (slaves) on the one hand, and ecological transformation on the other, are closely bound moments of world scale capital accumulation. http://csf.colorado.edu/jwsr/archive/vol6/number1/commentary/index.shtml * Then came the hegemony of the corn-fed American empire: * Published on Friday, July 19, 2002 in the New York Times When a Crop Becomes King by Michael Pollan ...One need look no further than the $190 billion farm bill President Bush signed last month to wonder whose interests are really being served here. Under the 10-year program, taxpayers will pay farmers $4 billion a year to grow ever more corn, this despite the fact that we struggle to get rid of the surplus the plant already produces. The average bushel of corn (56 pounds) sells for about $2 today; it costs farmers more than $3 to grow it. But rather than design a program that would encourage farmers to plant less corn - which would have the benefit of lifting the price farmers receive for it - Congress has decided instead to subsidize corn by the bushel, thereby insuring that zea mays dominion over its 125,000-square mile American habitat will go unchallenged ...Our entire food supply has undergone a process of cornification in recent years, without our even noticing it. That's because, unlike in Mexico, where a corn-based diet has been the norm for centuries, in the United States most of the corn we consume is invisible, having been heavily processed or passed through food animals before it reaches us. Most of the animals we eat (chickens, pigs and cows) today subsist on a diet of corn, regardless of whether it is good for them. In the case of beef cattle, which evolved to eat grass, a corn diet wreaks havoc on their digestive system, making it necessary to feed them antibiotics to stave off illness and infection. Even farm-raised salmon are being bred to tolerate corn - not a food their evolution has prepared them for. Why feed fish corn? Because it's the cheapest thing you can feed any animal, thanks to federal subsidies. But even with more than half of the 10 billion bushels of corn produced annually being fed to animals, there is plenty left over. So companies like A.D.M., Cargill and ConAgra have figured ingenious new ways to dispose of it, turning it into everything from ethanol to
international spillovers from Sarbanes-Oxley
US clean-up angers Hewitt Law designed to prevent another Enron is seen as threat to British business Julia Finch Tuesday October 8, 2002 The Guardian Trade secretary Patricia Hewitt will today make a stinging attack on new US legislation designed to ensure there is never another financial scandal like Enron or WorldCom. Ms Hewitt is expected to tell a meeting of the 100 Group of financial directors from FTSE companies that the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act was a knee-jerk reaction and its impact on non-US firms had not been properly thought through. It is an example of legislating in haste and repenting at leisure, said a source close to Ms Hewitt. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, masterminded by Maryland senator Paul Sarbanes and congressman Michael Oxley, was rushed through the legislative process and signed off by George Bush on July 30. The president described it as the most far-reaching reform of American business practice since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It applies not just to American business but to non-US companies which have securities traded on the New York stock exchange or Nasdaq, or have corporate bonds that could be held by the US public. The securities and exchange commission has exemptive powers that could reduce the burden on non-US firms, but so far, despite pressure from Whitehall and the European Union, no exemptions have been agreed. There is political pressure on the SEC to maintain its tough approach. In addition to today's tough words, Ms Hewitt will make a direct plea to US commerce secretary Don Evans later this week and another UK minister, economic secretary Melanie Johnson, meets SEC chairman Harvey Pitt next week to press the case for exemptions. Ms Hewitt will also announce a consultative document to review the future of the Accountancy Foundation, which was set up by the accountancy profession to fight fraud. Ms Hewitt will say that she accepts the reasoning behind Sarbanes-Oxley and that it was necessary to push through a strong message to shore up investor confidence. But she believes it was done with little thought to the international repercussions and that a number of general and partial exemptions are justified because of the stricter regulatory environment in Britain. She is going into battle on behalf of groups such as the CBI and the UK Institute of Chartered Accountants, which fear a takeover by American regulators. A survey by Parson Consulting found that 58 of the FTSE 100 firms fail to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. The act calls for chief executives and finance directors to provide sworn statements that their accounts are fair and honest and includes rules on financial reporting and disclosure, corporate governance, and defines the role of the accounting profession. Anyone shredding documents that could aid an investigation faces a 20-year jail term.
The work ethic and its discontents
The work ethic and its discontents by Tom Walker Anis Shivani extols Charles Bukowski's _Factotum_ as offering the only answer that makes sense to the sham that is modern work (The Life of a Bum: Against the Work Ethic, http://www.counterpunch.org/shivani0925.html). Henri Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego in that novel, shows utter disrespect for the work ethic. The problem with liberal critics of capitalism, Shivani argues, is that they don't want to mess with the foundations of the system. His answer to this faintheartedness? Refusal of work means that you have given up the deceptive fight to ameliorate its conditions. Of course, not all anti-work dissidents have the perserverence to drink, fuck, goof-off and get fired like Henri Chinaski, let alone write like Charles Bukowski. A handful of Bukowski acolytes may write a novel or two. A few more pick up a degree in literature. Most probably end in something more dependable like advertising or journalism. Robert Frost wrote that he never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old. That's a fear worth attending to. This is not to disparage Bukowski, only the notion of Bukowski as a beacon of revolt against the work ethic. The catch is that a little youthful rebellion never brought down a regime. Nearly forty years ago, Timothy Leary invited youth to turn on, tune in and drop out. Somehow the work ethic has weathered both Henri Chinowski's picaresque contempt and Leary's pixelated pied-pipering. Shivani is right that today's work ethic is an abomination. Modern work is a sham -- not all work, mind you, but all too much of it. It is highly improbable that a bit of tinkering can set things right. So where does that leave us? Can't live with it, can't live without it and can't reform it? Can't get over it, can't get under it and can't get around it? Not quite. The work ethic and the refusal to work are the two poles of an axis. Amelioration of working conditions also lies on that axis, located somewhere between the two poles. But there is another dimension at stake that forms its own axis, an axis that intersects the work ethic one. That other dimension is time. Unless the word time brings to mind such names as Marcel Proust, Henri Bergson or Walter Benjamin, it may not be what you think it is. In his preface to _Time and Free Will_, Bergson asked, whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by certain philosophical problems do not arise from our placing side by side in space phenomena [namely the experience of time] which do not occupy space... It may be worth asking if the insurmountable difficulties presented by work and the work ethic do not arise from our acquiescence to an illegitimate quantification of time and to the incoherent practical and moral consequences that flow from it. It is, after all, discontent with such practical and moral incoherence that motivates such an inquiry. It does seem reasonable to wonder, as Freud did, whether people would perform necessary work without coercion. It's another matter when a political and economic elite insists on coercion for fundamentally aesthetic reasons -- because it pleases them to see an increase in measured output without regard to whether that output contributes to public welfare or detracts from it. How does one distinguish between reasonable doubts about the relationship between work and coercion and unreasonable certainties? Shivani's glorification of the _Factotum_ lifestyle trivializes the Freudian doubts, as did beat sensibility and 1960s counter-culture. Liberal proposals for workplace reform enshrine those reasonable doubts to an extent that paves the way for a return of the unreasonable certainties. It remains to be shown that we are throwing virgins into the volcano, not because we believe it will appease the volcano god and not only because we have been doing it so long that it has become a habit but, most disturbingly, simply because we can't think of anything else to do. Not thinking of something else to do is a moral lapse that makes Henri Chinaski's ennui positively heroic by comparison. But only by comparison. The anti-hero's heroism is parasitic in that it depends on the complacency of the squares. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But when everybody tries to be a bum, goofing-off loses its cachet. Ultimately, the work ethic returns stronger than ever as an indignant reaction to the beat ethic -- no longer a true positive but a double negative. They're the worst kind. Work ethic? We don't got no work ethic. This ungrammatical, double negative work ethic doesn't even have to stand on its own two feet. It can lean against its own shadow. Its adherents believe it is sufficient to proclaim there is no alternative to overrule any objection. For crying out loud, there is an alternative. Those who deny it are liars, cheats and embezzlers. The alternative is an affirmation of work that is unequivocally subordinated to an
Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
Ian Murray wrote: How do we conjoin the best science and logic[s] we have in the service of our most mutually enobling and enabling emotions? No platitudes allowed :-) When the question is a platitude the only correct answer is a platitude: VIII. Social life is essentially _practical_. All mysteries which mislead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice [emphasis added] AND IN THE COMPREHENSION OF THIS PRACTICE. The platitude is that theory/thought can never be more than a _partial_ comprehension of the most advanced practice. Carrol Ian
Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
- Original Message - From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 6:11 PM Subject: [PEN-L:31120] Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality Ian Murray wrote: How do we conjoin the best science and logic[s] we have in the service of our most mutually enobling and enabling emotions? No platitudes allowed :-) When the question is a platitude the only correct answer is a platitude: Like I said in advance, the question was a simple one; the notion that it has a simple answer is ridiculous given that you did not answer it Ian
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
Ian Murray wrote: Like I said in advance, the question was a simple one; the notion that it has a simple answer is ridiculous given that you did not answer it Yes I did: I said that it is not a legitimate question, and therefore has no answer, simple or complicated. When it comes up as a legitimate question, it would come up in the course of collective practice, and would be answered in the contgext of that practice. What would an ennobling emotion be? And would it exist in the abstract? The same emotion (i.e. the same bodily state) would in different circustances give rise to quite different complexes of thought and feeling, and it would be the feelings/thoughts, not the emotion, that could then, _in that context_, be discussed. Carrol Ian
Re: The work ethic and its discontents
The work ethic and its discontents by Tom Walker Anis Shivani extols Charles Bukowski's _Factotum_ as offering the only answer that makes sense to the sham that is modern work (The Life of a Bum: Against the Work Ethic, http://www.counterpunch.org/shivani0925.html). Henri Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego in that novel, shows utter disrespect for the work ethic. Tom, have you ever read what the autonomists have written about the refusal to work. I've always thought that it is a crock of shit myself. -- Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
work ethic, time, economics
Title: work ethic, time, economics Tom Walker's essay on the work ethic and time comes at an interesting time, to wit, at the preamble of the change back to standard time. I'm against it. As a person, I've felt for a long time that the switch back and forth between standard and daylight saving time robs me of some of my experience of the changing seasons, the dying fall. I'm not the only one who feels this. I've read stats that auto accidents increase in the weeks following the time changes. I've also noticed that national elections follow the change, as does the federal income tax payment day. Get 'em while they're discombobulated, I say. Anyway, I'm interested in what economists have to say about the relative merits and demerits of springing ahead and falling back. To foster that end, I'm including the words of a song penned while thinking about it. Dan Scanlan -- I'm Taking Back My Day © 1994 Dan Scanlan F Gm I popped out Pacific War Time C7 F Atom monster under my bed F Gm Sun rise an hour later Easter C7 F That's what my first grade teacher said. Nightfrost threaten Mister Pumpkin, Yankees, Dodgers for the World, Sun tucked hour early yesterday Just before election flags unfurled. CHORUS Bb Stick your banker-made daylight saving time F Back in Pavlov's vault C F Bb F I got no reason, I got no rhyme to live life by default Bb F Ain't gonna' punch your time card no matter what you pay C Bb C F And hey! I got news for you: I'm taking back my day! C Bb C F And hey! I got news for you: I'm taking back my day! Time was I open my eyes A million years or more or so ago Sun warm over cloudy far, Took no tick nor tock to make it glow. Now dangles on a fob, Heart stress by design Misplaced infinity Now is now so far behind. (chorus) Spot inside my belly Thinks it knows what time it is Gland inside my mind Neurotransmittin' fizz. Bell Labs flopped the light: Hawthorne Effect. E equals MC squared: A moment tarry defect. (chorus) -- During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell END OF THE TRAIL SALOON Live music, comedy, call-in radio-oke Alternate Sundays, 6am GMT (10pm PDT) http://www.kvmr.org Visit Cool Hand Uke's Lava Tube http://www.oro.net/~dscanlan I uke, therefore I am. -- Cool Hand Uke I log on, therefore I seem to be. -- Rodd Gnawkin
Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Come on, let's cool it with the personalities. On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 12:37:06AM +0100, Mark Jones wrote: ravi wrote: i hope doug does not find me in the list of those he finds unreasonable. whether it be my general responses to his posts, or to the particular issue of marc cooper (and i agree that we should avoid discussing personalities), i have tried to be honest and friendly. if that impression is untrue, i apologize. Doug Henwood's emails are full of words about his extreme annoyance, anger, frustration, irritation etc; all of that is humiliating and insulting to his possible interlocutors. It also looks like a cry for help, it's not even repressed rage any more, but open and in-your-face anger and capriciousness. There is no need to apologise. Doug is or was a psychoanalyst, wasn't he? He ought to recognise some warning signs. Probably his Oedipal struggle with the patriarchal Gods of socialism will soon be over, he will slough off that skin and re-emerge as the rock-ribbed repug he really is. Will they still have him though? That's the problem. After all, he already was a repug, long ago before imagining that he was of the left after all. Maybe he upset a few people during his commute up and down the Damascus road and now they don't want him either. Mark -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: employment
I hope this topic is not completely verboten. Any thread that gets that many responses can't be all that bad, even if the exchange got heated. I'd like to point out--without inflaming anything I hope--that 'employment' and 'unemployment' figures are kept and analyzed as economic indicators. Also, unemployment statistics really are the result of bureaucratic activities in regards to official job searches and unemployment payments (which is a type of job insurance). The real issue in the US is just how ungenerous that insurance actually is. Finally, think about how so many of these concepts are culturally determined. If 'unemployment' in the US were determined the way it is in Japan, the figure would jump about 1% with one calculation. This would probably cause the markets to peel off a thousand points as fast as their little 'circuit breakers' would allow. Also, some in the US would be relieved to have levels of unemployment at the level reported in Japan while many Japanese talk ominously of post-war highs in such a troubling economic indicator. But then again, the Japanese full-time job market is now very much against working women, more so than the US, I think. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
Re: Re: employment
Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment rate should include something to adjust for the quality of available jobs. My idea never resonated. I am sure that it could not be calculated with any exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with better jobs. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 11:55:15AM -0700, Tom Walker wrote: Doug Henwood wrote, Don't forget forced overtime and multiple jobholders. There's at least as much overwork in the U.S. economy as there is underwork. But since that wasn't the case in the 1930s, most American leftists can't think about it. ...and another thing I was going to mention was overtime and multiple jobholders. Oh but wait, Doug just mentioned it. I'm glad you mentioned it, Doug. And yes, I find it rather peculiar that most American leftists can't think about that. I'm not sure if the generalization is accurate, but it feels as though it is. I view multiple jobholding and forced overtime as pathological symptoms, not as signs of vibrant labour demand. With regard to the unemployment rate, there is no category for full-time composite from two or more part-time jobs. Nor is it regarded as overemployment when somebody who works overtime would prefer not to. Besides what would the statisticians do if there was such a thing as overemployment? Would the overemployment cancel out the underemployment or would the two add together as undesired hours employment? My preference would be for the latter, but nobody's asking me. With regard to the whole schmozzola of under-, over-, un-, and just plain unpleasantly employed, later today I'll post to Pen-l a piece on the work ethic and its discontents I started writing for the shorter work time list. Those of you who may have encountered difficulties following my last re: employment message will be happy to know that in the forthcoming message I clear up any possible confusion. Tom Walker 604 255 4812 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Western Rationality
--- Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The platitude is that theory/thought can never be more than a _partial_ comprehension of the most advanced practice. Carrol In 'education science' they would call that a theory. I had a theory the other day, just as I was coming out of sleep. By the time I had thought the whole thing out though, I realized the theory was obsolete. Or in other words: for me, the best theories are short-lived and never get stated at all. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
personalities
I am distressed that people still are trying to put Doug Henwood as a person as a major topic. I don't agree with Doug all the time. Hell, I don't even agree with me all the time. I would hope that we are here to learn and even at times to enjoy one another. So, anyway, try to keep things smooth. Thanks. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thousands in Cincy Protest Bush's Call for War on Iraq
THOUSANDS IN CINCINNATI PROTEST BUSH'S CALL FOR WAR IN IRAQ By Dan La Botz* [Cincinnati, Oct. 8, 2002] Thousands protested in Cincinnati yesterday [Monday, Oct. 7] as president George W. Bush spoke, calling upon the American people to support a Congressional measure which would give him the power to carry out a war against Iraq. While Bush spoke inside, demonstrators lined the sidewalks in front of the Cincinnati Museum Center (the former Union Terminal) and for blocks around, chanting, singing, and waving signs opposing the war. What an amazing peace rally that was last night! When I first sent out an e-mail one week ago to mobilize people, I had hoped to get 1,000 people to protest Bush's speech for war. We estimate over 5,000 people gathered last night! It was beautiful! said Sayrah Namaste, one of the organizers of the event. Local news media and NPR also reported thousands at the event. Organized in just three days, protesters came from dozens of churches, several universities and high schools, and from people of all walks of life. Carrying signs reading, No war on Iraq, No blood for oil, and just plain Peace, the demonstrators stood, marched, and danced for as long as four-hours first in the late afternoon and then into the evening. When evening came they lit candles and turned on flash lights illuminating the streets throughout the area. Churches Pray-and March-for Peace Mainly organized by e-mail, leaflets and word-of-mouth, the call for the demonstration spread through hundreds of social networks throughout the region. Pastors and preachers and lay activists organized their churches had large turnouts. The groups carried signs and banners identifying a wide spectrum of denominations: Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, United Church of Christ and many others. At an organizing event held in Cincinnati two days before, representatives of those and other faiths read statements from their national leaderships and local congregations opposing the war. Among those who read a statement was Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the well-known African American civil rights leader, who strongly opposed the war. High School and College Students Swell the Demonstration College students from Miami University carried a large, blue banner emblazoned with their opposition to the war. Other students from Earlham College in southern Indiana, wearing school sweatshirts and waving pompoms danced and chanted, snaking their way through the crowd. Others came up from universities in Lexington, Kentucky. The day of the march a group of 15-year old students distributed a thousand leaflets to 2,000 fellow students at Walnut Hills High School, and students from many other Cincinnati schools were there shouting and waving signs as well. Everywhere one looked were young people, groups of African American high school students, young people from the Muslim community and other Middle Easterners, as well as a few Latinos, a relatively new immigrant group in the area. Labor for Peace Dan Radford, executive secretary-treasurer of the Cincinnati Labor Council, put out an e-mail to union leaders and members informing them about the demonstration, and explaining the national AFL-CIO position. The President will be in Cincinnati at Union Terminal at 8 PM tonight. He is coming specifically to speak about Iraq to a group of people hand-picked by the Chamber of Commerce. The event is by invitation only, and no one is permitted to ask the President questions. This hardly seems the type of robust public debate called for. Several local labor union leaders and activists attended the rally, as well as many union members, though they mostly came as citizens. Bob Park, a member of AFGE Local 3840 and that union's delegate to the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council, wore the orange t-shirt of a protest monitor and directed demonstrators toward the Museum, explained that he was there because as he sees it, The Bush administration is launching an assault in many fronts. One front, said Park, is in world diplomacy and aimed against Iraq, trying to rearrange the whole Middle East situation. Another is the labor front with the threat to invoke Taft-Hartley, and their worry about shipping problems related to war. It's also another example of modernizing the workforce, getting rid of unions, getting rid of workers. That seems to be one of their goals. There were other labor activists as well. Dick Wiesenhahn, a golf equipment salesman and the local volunteer organizer of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) boycott of Mt. Olive pickles, stood up at the front of the demonstration between the protesters, the police, and a handful of Bush-Cheney supporters waving little read-white-and-blue pompoms. I'm here because I thought it was absolutely important for people of all ages to be here and make a statement just by being there. If people don't step up, then I think the
Re: Re: Re: employment
On 9/10/2002 12:49 PM, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment rate should include something to adjust for the quality of available jobs. My idea never resonated. I am sure that it could not be calculated with any exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with better jobs. Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where the unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than 5% if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. As the anarchists around here put it, unemployment for all, not just the rich! Thiago Oppermann - This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au
Re: Re: Re: Re: employment
makes sense to me. On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 01:41:25PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/10/2002 12:49 PM, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment rate should include something to adjust for the quality of available jobs. My idea never resonated. I am sure that it could not be calculated with any exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with better jobs. Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where the unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than 5% if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. As the anarchists around here put it, unemployment for all, not just the rich! Thiago Oppermann - This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The work ethic and its discontents
Lou, No, are you referring to Italian autonomists in the 1970s? I'm familiar with anarchist and dadaist/situationist tracts against work, which I expect influenced or are influenced by the autonomists. I can see the point of the provocation but one can't live on a diet of spleen. Eventually, one has to start up a punk-rock band or open a boutique or hit up the folks (familial or state). Sorel's myth of the general strike has to be in there somewhere. If it's not it should be. Yes, it's mostly pretty incoherent until you start to notice that it is an echo of the principal incoherence -- a mirror image of the square/bourgeois/capitalist incoherence. If we imagine that infantile leftism has oral, anal and oedipal stages, the refusal of work may well be *precisely* a crock of shit. One of these days someone will figure out why a retired civil servant wrote _Reflections on Violence_. Louis Proyect asked, Tom, have you ever read what the autonomists have written about the refusal to work. I've always thought that it is a crock of shit myself. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
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DPR
DEPARTMENT OF PETROLEUM RESOURCES PLOT 225 KOFO ABAYOMI STREET VICTORIA ISLAND,LAGOS, NIGERIA. DIRECT TEL 234 1 7591519 FAX: 234 1 759 0904 ATTENTION: THE PRESIDENT/C.E.O RE: URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL Dear Sir, I am PRINCE IBRAHIM GAMBARI ,member committee of the above department Terms of Reference My term of reference involves the award of contracts to multinational companies. My office is saddled with the responsibility of contract award, screening, categorization and prioritization of projects embarked upon by Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) as well as feasibility studies for selected projects and supervising the project consultants involved. A breakdown of the fiscal expenditure by this office as at the end of last fiscal quarter of 2000 indicates that DPR paid out a whooping sum of US$736M(Seven Hundred And Thirty Six Million, United States Dollars) to successful contract beneficiaries. The DPR is now compiling beneficiaries to be paid for the third Quarter of 2002. The crux of this letter is that the finance/contract department of the DPR deliberately over invoiced the contract value of the various contracts awarded. In the course of disbursements, this department has been able to accumulate the sum of US$38.2M(Thirty-eight Million, two hundred Thousand U.S Dollars) as the over-invoiced sum. This money is currently in a suspense account of the DPR account with the Debt Reconciliation Committee (DRC). We now seek to process the transfer of this fund officially as contract payment to you as a foreign contractor, who will be fronting for us as the beneficiary of the fund. In this way we can facilitate these funds into your nominated account for possible investment abroad. We are not allowed as a matter of government policy to operate any foreign account to transfer this fund into. However, for your involvement in assisting us with this transfer into your nominated account we have evolved a sharing formula as follows: (1) 20% for you as the foreign partner (2) 75% for I and my colleagues (3) 5% will be set aside to defray all incidental expenses both Locally and Internationally during the course of this transaction. We shall be relying on your advice as regard investment of our share in any business in your country. Be informed that this business is genuine and 100% safe considering the high-power government officials involved. Send your private fax/telephone numbers. Upon your response we shall provide you with further information on the procedures. Feel free to send response by Fax or TEL; expecting your response urgently. All enquiries should be directed to the undersigned by FAX OR PHONE. Looking forward to a good business relationship with you. Sincerely, PRINCE IBRAHIM GAMBARI.
Wednesday: Free Food: Cheap drinks: NO COVER
The Soleil Group, The Lower East Side Community Board, and Essex Restaurant are sponsoring a weekly event that is not to be missed. Excess Wednesdays (Oct. 9th) @ Essex Restaurant 120 Essex St. @Rivington DJs Spinfamous Daddy Dog 6pm-10pm Half Price Drinks!!! 8pm-10pm free hors d'oeuvres (including empanadas, banitzas, phylo-triangles filled with herbed sheep's milk cheese, mini-cubano sandwiches, chicken potstickers, asparagus wrapped with homemade gravlax)!!! Party 'til Late FREE, FREE, FREE!!! RSVP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The Soleil Group is currently hiring staff. Public relations specialists, event planners, promoters, and administrative positions are available. We also host special events and celebrations of all types. Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- If you wish to be removed from this list respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with Remove and your email address in the subject. --
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
- Original Message - From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes I did: I said that it is not a legitimate question, and therefore has no answer, simple or complicated. When it comes up as a legitimate question, it would come up in the course of collective practice, and would be answered in the contgext of that practice. Who the hell are you to unilaterally -- no, monopolistically -- decide what is and is not a legitimate question on this list? Is this list not a manifestation of a collective practice or are we, in your readings of post on this list, all solipsistic-monadic deceptive avatars engaged in a multilogue of the willfully misinterpretive? What would an ennobling emotion be? And would it exist in the abstract? The same emotion (i.e. the same bodily state) would in different circustances give rise to quite different complexes of thought and feeling, and it would be the feelings/thoughts, not the emotion, that could then, _in that context_, be discussed. Carrol You used to be a teacher and you don't know what an ennobling emotion is? An ennobling thought -- thinking that ennobles, enables and empowers Others -- you don't know what those are? Gone, Ian
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
Come on, cool it everybody. On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 09:46:03PM -0700, Ian Murray wrote: - Original Message - From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes I did: I said that it is not a legitimate question, and therefore has no answer, simple or complicated. When it comes up as a legitimate question, it would come up in the course of collective practice, and would be answered in the contgext of that practice. Who the hell are you to unilaterally -- no, monopolistically -- decide what is and is not a legitimate question on this list? Is this list not a manifestation of a collective practice or are we, in your readings of post on this list, all solipsistic-monadic deceptive avatars engaged in a multilogue of the willfully misinterpretive? What would an ennobling emotion be? And would it exist in the abstract? The same emotion (i.e. the same bodily state) would in different circustances give rise to quite different complexes of thought and feeling, and it would be the feelings/thoughts, not the emotion, that could then, _in that context_, be discussed. Carrol You used to be a teacher and you don't know what an ennobling emotion is? An ennobling thought -- thinking that ennobles, enables and empowers Others -- you don't know what those are? Gone, Ian -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
