Re: mucking
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't remember who sent the e-mail message, but it stuck in my head. Someone made an off-hand remark about two pen-l participants (Doug and myself, seemingly) who mucked up the list or some such. Jim To tell the truth, I don't even know now who I was referring to. It was most definitely an indefinite reference. After the melee, I just meant, well a couple guys got rather heated and/or uncooperative. I suppose your tactic of saying, look, here are some on the left who think this (the supposed emotional, non-rational response). And then there are some asking us to perfect our research tools. Why don't you two sides go at it? I don't think Pakistanis, Indians or Turks or Japanese (even when they self-other and self-orientalize)--or Osama Bin Laden for that matter--are any more or any less inherently rational than Americans or British who go around all the time talking about the rational foundations of their metaphysical science projects. Saying you are rational or scientific doesn't make you actually rational or scientific, though it is a standard strategy in western discourse. My take on it is that was too neat a dichotomy, and I didn't think that was the major dissension or important point of contention. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
Re: Chinese manufacturing exerts deflationary pressure
Interesting article. I wish we could get real business, financial and economics journalism from the left side of the spectrum, but then I wish I could have my barmicidal cake and eat it too all the time. If I were forced to pick three things that have caused the deflationary malaise of current Japan they would be: 1. Cheap Chinese imports into Japan, from agricultural products, to clothing, to electrical appliances. And cheap commodities from the US, Canada and Australia. And cheap oil. 2. An overly strong yen, wildly overvalued against the currencies of China, Australia, Canada, and most importantly the US dollar. 3. Liberalization that has in many ways surpassed anything that has taken place in the US. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
quotation on liberals and radicals?
I understand that in a letter to Bernstein in 1882 on the South Slav question, Engels noted in passing that at first he and Marx, like many other people, were liberals and radicals. (but now in the context of Russian Czarism it was necessary to get rid of sympathy for the oppressed South Slavs.) Does anyone have the quote, or know where the text is on the internet? (It is not in Engels' letters on the Marxist Internet Archive for 1882 or for Bernstein.) Chris Burford
Bank of England trapped
In London the decision of the Bank of England not to cut interest rates, despite the poor state of British industry, illustrates the tight corner that the imperialist powers are in financially. The Bank of England ignored growing calls for a cut in interest rates by leaving base rates unchanged on Thursday at 4 per cent for the 11th consecutive month. This equalled the post-1950s record for interest rate stability between February 2000 and January 2001, when rates were on hold at 6 per cent. The news, while expected, disappointed manufacturers, who hoped for a cut to re- invigorate stagnant production and help to counter falling demand for exports. The Bank's monetary policy committee - back to its full complement of nine after the appointment of Sir Andrew Large as a deputy governor - as usual did not disclose its reasons. But it has been attempting to strike a balance between the gloomy global outlook and continued vigour in the domestic housing market. The housing market especially in London is booming to a catastrophic degree, with essential working people unable to get housing. What is happening is that as stock prices look to fall, savings and investment are switching to housing, often on a buy to rent basis. What is happening underneath? The state, in coordination with other imperialist states, defended the west against the Asian financial crisis several years ago by a coordindated reduction in interest rates. This depreciated the value of existing capital in order to maintain the circulation of the current economy. The burden has fallen on pension funds in particular. But interest rates have dropped to such a low level that further cuts are becoming irrelevant. They would also push up the price of housing even more. The use value of housing is based on an assumption that the circulation of the economy will continue to sustain consumers. British industry will not be helped by a further cut in interest rates, so it is said. The only thing now that will help British industry is a revival or the European economy. So the problem is increasingly demanding a global solution. Thus the workings of capitalism, whatever short term measures its servants try to impose. Western consumers have only to start heeding the advice to save more in preparation for their retirement, for the imperialist economies to find they can no longer defy the law of gravity by spinning in the air with circulation in the service sectors. The fundamental contradiction between the accumulation of capital and the limited consuming power of the masses remains. For capital to continue to accumulate, the masses must accept a reduction in their pruchasing power whether on their current spending, their credit card interest rate, or in their future spending as pensioners. Productivity may increase the use values available but in terms of exchange value this is ultimately a zero sum game between capital and labour. Meanwhile the news about the expansion of Chinese manufacturing exports is ominous for the imperialist west. No remaining reduction in the Bank of England's lending rate could balance the impact of low Chinese labour costs coupled with advanced methods of production. Chris Burford
President Blair of Europe
The astonishing expansion of the European Union by 10 more countries in the next couple of years, is explicable only by reference to the fundamental relations of production in late capitalism. It is not because slavs have suddenly come to trust saxons, or slovaks czechs. It is because the size of the market to which competitive capitalist enterprises must now produce, has long transcended the bounds of the nation state. Meanwhile political manouverings continue within the EU, not excluding the possibility of a president Blair before the end of the decade. Chris Burford London FT 10.10.02 Franco-British proposals for a powerful EU president to be the public face and political driving force of Europe have gained provisional backing from Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor. At a private dinner in Brussels with Romano Prodi, head of the European Commission, Mr Schröder said he would support the plan if he was assured the new president of the EU council would not undermine Mr Prodi and his colleagues. France and Britain want to bolster the European council - the forum for national leaders - and believe an appointed president would put member states in control of the political agenda. The idea has already won support from Spain and Sweden, but most smaller EU members, who believe their interests are best represented by a strong Commission, are oppsing it vigourously. Mr Schröder's support is vital for the plan's success. Mr Schröder said the current EU presidency, which rotates every six months between different member states, did not work. He could see merit in the plan, promoted by President Jacques Chirac of France and Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to give the council a full-time president if balancing powers were handed to the commission. One senior official at Wednesday's dinner said: He said he would only go along with it if it wasn't in any way undermining the work of the Commission, which he thinks should be strengthened. By giving qualified backing to the Franco-British plan, Mr Schröder has given new momentum to the creation of the council president, whom many believe will be pitched into constant power struggles with the Commission president. There has been much speculation, rejected by London, that Mr Blair might be a candidate for such a globe-trotting post, likely to be created in 2005 or 2006 if the proposal is accepted.
Re: employment
--- Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I suppose that what interests me in this discussion is not the question of the political significance of the third digit right of the point, but rather that of the social role of different kinds of unemployment and near-unemployment. Correct! But that is determined through political struggle, not by academic spats over (as you say) the third digit to the right of the point. I'm concerned that too many maillist denizens come to think that winning an argument on a maillist has anything to do with winning political struggles. Carrol The problem as I see it is this academic tendency to reify the concept over the social reality that it is supposed to model or represent in political discourse. If I have to take a calculation on unemployment out to the third digit to satisfy the statistician down the hall, so be it. If I have to multiply a simple total (of unemployed) by two to three because my collection methods are so inadequate, I might as well be wanking myself with all ten digits. I think the whole concept of employment is equally absurd. I'm absolutely sure that the work I do of most social--and economic--value is my volunteer editing duties--totally unremunerated. Quite a bit more satisfying, though, if you think about it, than taking one hour of part-time work a week at an employment security office for 8 dollars just so some government stats person can say I'm no longer unemployed. C. Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
Re: Bank of England trapped
Is this shift from stocks to real estate going on elsewhere? On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 07:35:07AM +0100, Chris Burford wrote: In London the decision of the Bank of England not to cut interest rates, despite the poor state of British industry, illustrates the tight corner that the imperialist powers are in financially. The Bank of England ignored growing calls for a cut in interest rates by leaving base rates unchanged on Thursday at 4 per cent for the 11th consecutive month. This equalled the post-1950s record for interest rate stability between February 2000 and January 2001, when rates were on hold at 6 per cent. The news, while expected, disappointed manufacturers, who hoped for a cut to re- invigorate stagnant production and help to counter falling demand for exports. The Bank's monetary policy committee - back to its full complement of nine after the appointment of Sir Andrew Large as a deputy governor - as usual did not disclose its reasons. But it has been attempting to strike a balance between the gloomy global outlook and continued vigour in the domestic housing market. The housing market especially in London is booming to a catastrophic degree, with essential working people unable to get housing. What is happening is that as stock prices look to fall, savings and investment are switching to housing, often on a buy to rent basis. What is happening underneath? The state, in coordination with other imperialist states, defended the west against the Asian financial crisis several years ago by a coordindated reduction in interest rates. This depreciated the value of existing capital in order to maintain the circulation of the current economy. The burden has fallen on pension funds in particular. But interest rates have dropped to such a low level that further cuts are becoming irrelevant. They would also push up the price of housing even more. The use value of housing is based on an assumption that the circulation of the economy will continue to sustain consumers. British industry will not be helped by a further cut in interest rates, so it is said. The only thing now that will help British industry is a revival or the European economy. So the problem is increasingly demanding a global solution. Thus the workings of capitalism, whatever short term measures its servants try to impose. Western consumers have only to start heeding the advice to save more in preparation for their retirement, for the imperialist economies to find they can no longer defy the law of gravity by spinning in the air with circulation in the service sectors. The fundamental contradiction between the accumulation of capital and the limited consuming power of the masses remains. For capital to continue to accumulate, the masses must accept a reduction in their pruchasing power whether on their current spending, their credit card interest rate, or in their future spending as pensioners. Productivity may increase the use values available but in terms of exchange value this is ultimately a zero sum game between capital and labour. Meanwhile the news about the expansion of Chinese manufacturing exports is ominous for the imperialist west. No remaining reduction in the Bank of England's lending rate could balance the impact of low Chinese labour costs coupled with advanced methods of production. Chris Burford -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: mucking
Title: RE: mucking Charles writes: I don't think Pakistanis, Indians or Turks or Japanese (even when they self-other and self-orientalize)--or Osama Bin Laden for that matter--are any more or any less inherently rational than Americans or British who go around all the time talking about the rational foundations of their metaphysical science projects. Saying you are rational or scientific doesn't make you actually rational or scientific, though it is a standard strategy in western discourse. I thought I put Western in quotes when I refered to Western rationality and the like. A lot of science may have come from the West, but it's not really Western. No do I think that all those who think of themselves as rational or scientific are really so. Nor did I say so. My point is that if we want to understand the world and change it, it's best to try to be scientific, rational (but not rationalist). I can't think of an alternative. Paul Phillips says I came off with a aggressive and hostile tone toward Sabri. I don't think so. I genuinely didn't understand what he was saying and was trying to find out. When I do come off with a aggressive and hostile tone, it's because (1) I try to be very clear about what I'm saying and (2) some people seem to misunderstand me nonetheless. I was irritated that (1) all I said was that official US stats can and sometimes do convey (some) valid information; but (2) some people thought that I was saying that the unemployment rate was the be-all and end-all, a summary statistic for all of the dimensions of working-class experience. Jim -Original Message- From: Charles Jannuzi To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 10/10/2002 11:24 PM Subject: [PEN-L:31235] Re: mucking --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't remember who sent the e-mail message, but it stuck in my head. Someone made an off-hand remark about two pen-l participants (Doug and myself, seemingly) who mucked up the list or some such. Jim To tell the truth, I don't even know now who I was referring to. It was most definitely an indefinite reference. After the melee, I just meant, well a couple guys got rather heated and/or uncooperative. I suppose your tactic of saying, look, here are some on the left who think this (the supposed emotional, non-rational response). And then there are some asking us to perfect our research tools. Why don't you two sides go at it? I don't think Pakistanis, Indians or Turks or Japanese (even when they self-other and self-orientalize)--or Osama Bin Laden for that matter--are any more or any less inherently rational than Americans or British who go around all the time talking about the rational foundations of their metaphysical science projects. Saying you are rational or scientific doesn't make you actually rational or scientific, though it is a standard strategy in western discourse. My take on it is that was too neat a dichotomy, and I didn't think that was the major dissension or important point of contention. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
what is science?
i have been following the discussion about whether certain characteristics are intrinsic to science or not. i am curious about what the participants believe is this thing called science? how do you delineate it from other activities so as to provide meaning to your positions on the matter. could not the correctness of your position hinge on the very definition you adopt? (yes this is all old hat: if you are too strict in your definition, such as defining science as a 'method', then it has been demonstrated that what we accept as science often breaks this 'method' rule. if you make the definition more general, say a form of discovery or reporting, then many activities, that the high priests are unwilling to accept as science, qualify). my own suspicion (which i will try to flesh out if this thread proceeds) is that what is broadly accepted as science or scientific activity (or approach), by the high priests and their followers, is indeed inherently dehumanizing (i think that's carl remick's [sp?] position?) and dangerous. again i am reminded of martin heidegger: science does not think. i must stress my use of the word 'suspicion' (since the last time i said something on a similar matter, i upset jks terribly). i wish i had more time to tie this thread to the thread about language and formalism (where i raised the question of whether a language can be developed that is not strictly formalized but can still lead to consistent and finite proofs of truth for various propositions). --ravi
RE: what is science?
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31244] what is science? Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. -- Richard Feynman. That doesn't mean that all self-styled (or society-styled) scientists live up to Feynman's definition. No-one's perfect, while some don't understand this view. BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific (logical-empirical) thinking. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: ravi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 8:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:31244] what is science? i have been following the discussion about whether certain characteristics are intrinsic to science or not. i am curious about what the participants believe is this thing called science? how do you delineate it from other activities so as to provide meaning to your positions on the matter. could not the correctness of your position hinge on the very definition you adopt? (yes this is all old hat: if you are too strict in your definition, such as defining science as a 'method', then it has been demonstrated that what we accept as science often breaks this 'method' rule. if you make the definition more general, say a form of discovery or reporting, then many activities, that the high priests are unwilling to accept as science, qualify). my own suspicion (which i will try to flesh out if this thread proceeds) is that what is broadly accepted as science or scientific activity (or approach), by the high priests and their followers, is indeed inherently dehumanizing (i think that's carl remick's [sp?] position?) and dangerous. again i am reminded of martin heidegger: science does not think. i must stress my use of the word 'suspicion' (since the last time i said something on a similar matter, i upset jks terribly). i wish i had more time to tie this thread to the thread about language and formalism (where i raised the question of whether a language can be developed that is not strictly formalized but can still lead to consistent and finite proofs of truth for various propositions). --ravi
Re: what is science?
i wrote: (yes this is all old hat: if you are too strict in your definition, such as defining science as a 'method', then it has been demonstrated that what we accept as science often breaks this 'method' rule. if you make the definition more general, say a form of discovery or reporting, then many activities, that the high priests are unwilling to accept as science, qualify). my own suspicion (which i will try to flesh out if this thread proceeds) is that what is broadly accepted as science or scientific activity (or approach), by the high priests and their followers, is indeed inherently dehumanizing (i think that's carl remick's [sp?] position?) and dangerous. to throw in a bit more into this: some of this suspicion arose from observing a magician and defender of western science (and i agree with jim's use of the quoted prefix 'western'), named 'the amazing randi', carry out some tricks at bell laboratories. in a self-congratulatory tone he described his travels to third-world nations to expose superstitions and errors (among the 'experts' and the people there), and was met with much adulation and applause from the assembled ph.d's and men of science. recently a leading researcher, a rising star in the scientific community, at the very same bell labs was found to have been doctoring his data and results, for years. what was more interesting was to note that the magician's lecture was carried to various other sites using old techniques of simulcasting, but also by multicast streaming over the internet. and that latter technology, one of the fastest growing and far reaching efforts of the last few decades, had derived little contribution from the inbred community that was enjoying the magician's 'in' jokes. this caricature in many ways seemed to represent the way science exists in society. --ravi
Re: RE: what is science?
Devine, James wrote: Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. -- Richard Feynman. That doesn't mean that all self-styled (or society-styled) scientists live up to Feynman's definition. No-one's perfect, while some don't understand this view. i do not understand this view. leading scientists have consistently fooled themselves (whether it be eddington about the relativity experiment, shockley about race, etc etc), non-scientists think in ways that attempt to not fool themselves but whose thought nonetheless is often pre-scientific i.e., if its rigour and honesty that we are talking about then that is hardly unique to science. or if feynman says that science provides a unique way to avoid fooling oneself (i.e., we are back to the formalization issue and feynman is left with a very small subset of what is accepted as science today), i would like to hear more about that. i am afraid this definition, standing by itself, doesn't help me. BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific (logical-empirical) thinking. but people have been thinking logically and empirically before there was 'science', have they not? and incompleteness means that we have to act even when logical empirical evidence is non-conclusive, and (computational theory) complexity tells us that we have to apply non-optimal rules of thumb to choose such actions. worse, penrose argues that the process of proving (as carried out by humans) contains non-computational steps. i do not believe the question is one of an *alternative* to scientific thinking. the question is only what position does *scientific thinking* (once we have defined what it is) take within the umbrella of *thinking*. --ravi
Re: Re: what is science?
Random thoughts on Western science I have little trouble in respecting the achievements of what we're calling Western science; however, on an economics list I think that a note of caution might be in order. Economists often attempt to piggyback their work on the concept of science -- even though most science is inductive and what economists refer to as science is a set of deductions from dubious premises. Attempting to give a more holistic analysis, such as Marx tried to do it appears unscientific or even sociological within economic circles. Economists' attempt to verify their theories empirically is rarely convincing to me. First of all, most of the econometric tests are very brittle. Second, much of the data is highly questionable. When I was in graduate school, I paid attention to the construction of the statistics of the capital stock. I found it ironic that economists would pay great attention to their residuals without taking account of the weakness of the data that they use. Some of you may be familiar with Oskar Morgenstern's On the Accuracy of Economic Observations. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
RE: what is science?
Title: RE: what is science? Ravi writes: to throw in a bit more into this: some of this suspicion arose from observing a magician and defender of western science (and i agree with jim's use of the quoted prefix 'western'), named 'the amazing randi', carry out some tricks at bell laboratories. in a self-congratulatory tone he described his travels to third-world nations to expose superstitions and errors (among the 'experts' and the people there), and was met with much adulation and applause from the assembled ph.d's and men of science. recently a leading researcher, a rising star in the scientific community, at the very same bell labs was found to have been doctoring his data and results, for years. what was more interesting was to note that the magician's lecture was carried to various other sites using old techniques of simulcasting, but also by multicast streaming over the internet. and that latter technology, one of the fastest growing and far reaching efforts of the last few decades, had derived little contribution from the inbred community that was enjoying the magician's 'in' jokes. this caricature in many ways seemed to represent the way science exists in society. FWIW, the little I've seen of James Randi's stuff is that he tries to debunk _all_ views, both Western and non-Western (following the tradition of Houdini). He sheds doubt on the whole phenomenon of hypnotism and altered states of consciousness (for example), which goes too far. The entire skeptic community (Martin Gardner, the late Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, et al) can be self-righteous. Methinks they don't apply enough skepticism to their own enterprise sometimes. (Shermer is a libertarian right-winger, whereas other skeptics, such as the late Stephen Jay Gould, are on the left. They disagree with each other sometimes: for example, as a psychologist, Shermer rejects Randi's rejection of hypnotism.) But these guys at least have fought mysticism, the spoon-bending of Uri Geller, etc., etc. I wish economists would be more skeptical, rejecting mystical notions such as that of the Invisible Hand (a.k.a., the Walrasian Auctioneer). (One of the reasons why we see antagonism toward science on pen-l is because most economists mix mysticism with a dollop of science and then call it science.) The Bell Labs guy got caught -- by other scientists. That's a victory -- of the bittersweet sort -- for science. Of course, it was a blot on science's escutcheon that such fraud would ever occur and that the guy would be so respected for so long. It suggests the corrupting influence of the star system on science. In a different message, I wrote: Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. -- Richard Feynman. That doesn't mean that all self-styled (or society-styled) scientists live up to Feynman's definition. No-one's perfect, while some don't understand this view. Ravi answers:i do not understand this view. leading scientists have consistently fooled themselves (whether it be eddington about the relativity experiment, shockley about race, etc etc), non-scientists think in ways that attempt to not fool themselves but whose thought nonetheless is often pre-scientific i.e., if its rigour and honesty that we are talking about then that is hardly unique to science. or if feynman says that science provides a unique way to avoid fooling oneself (i.e., we are back to the formalization issue and feynman is left with a very small subset of what is accepted as science today), i would like to hear more about that. i am afraid this definition, standing by itself, doesn't help me. Contrary to what I said, Feynman's phrase is not a definition. But the point of is that scientists should take no perspective for granted. Skepticism should be the rule, while there are no final conclusions, only hypotheses to be tested in a logical and/or empirical way. (In addition, I would point out that scientists often fall for a logical/empirical fallacy of supposing that a narrow specialization can be adequate. But this leaves important matters out.) Eddington -- and other scientists -- have been fooled, but that's because scientists are human (and in society, to boot). It should also be noted that there are some propositions in science which can't be tested in any way. This is the basis for Kuhn, _et al_'s work. (Occam's Razor, for example, is one of these.) But a scientist should be conscious of the role of such propositions, highlighting their role. BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific (logical-empirical) thinking. Ravi:but people have been thinking logically and empirically before there was 'science', have they not? Of course. Science is nothing but a distillation of an important component of human thinking. BTW, the (hopefully) old-fashioned scientific disdain for folk science is not inherent in scientific thought. It's part of the arrogance of (European-based) Enlightenment/Modernist thinking,
Re: what is science?
When we talk about science, we frequently talk about two different kinds of order without adequately distinguishing between them. One kind of order has to do with laws of causality, the other has to do with conscious intent. If one lives at the edge of a cliff, it is consistent with the laws of physics to throw one's garbage over the side -- the garbage will fall. But that grave result doesn't take into account other possible or even likely consequences, such as the effect of toxic waste on an eco-system below or on people dwelling at the bottom of the cliff. Some or many of the consequences of an action may be, practically speaking, unknowable. It would take so long and so much energy to find out all the consequences that one would never be able to act. Because inaction itself may have consequences, the dilemma is unresolvable. Therefore one forms intentions on the basis of experience and judgment, not on the basis of a complete assessment of how the laws of causality apply to a given situation. When I say experience and judgment I imply memory because it is what we remember from our experience (whether consciously or subconsciously) that forms the basis of our judgment. If I forget that there may be people living at the bottom of the cliff, it doesn't really matter any more to my judgment that I once knew it. Now, memory doesn't obey the laws of physics but it does obey the laws of nature (I am speaking metaphorically when I use the terms law, physics and nature, although I am not certain *how* metaphorical). It is possibly that I may capriciously bring to mind only these or those physical laws when forming an intention. If I claim that my action was scientific because it scrupulously took into account the physical laws that I capriciously remembered, there is something missing in my account. We might refer to the missing element as humility. Science without humility -- that is without a proper regard for the vagaries of memory and intention -- is unscientific. The fact that the facts emphasized are indeed facts trivializes the relationship between memory, intention, action and causality. Of course, it is entirely possible for people to form intentions that completely disregard causal (or probabilistic) relationships. Otherwise who would buy lottery tickets? Is it somehow more scientific to throw one's garbage over the side of a cliff than to buy a lottery ticket because in the former act one has taken into account at least *some* of the laws of causality? How many laws and how much judgment and memory must come into play to distinguish between the scientific and the unscientific? Where does one draw the line between science and caprice? Consciousness is qualitative. Analysis forms an important part of consciousness, but consciousness cannot be reduced to analysis. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: Re: what is science?
Tom Walker wrote: When we talk about science, we frequently talk about two different kinds of order without adequately distinguishing between them. One kind of order has to do with laws of causality, the other has to do with conscious intent. If one lives at the edge of a cliff, it is consistent with the laws of physics to throw one's garbage over the side -- the garbage will fall. But that grave result doesn't take into account other possible or even likely consequences, such as the effect of toxic waste on an eco-system below or on people dwelling at the bottom of the cliff. Some or many of the consequences of an action may be, practically speaking, unknowable. It would take so long and so much energy to find out all the consequences that one would never be able to act. What is specific to the structures of knowledge in the modern world-system rather is the concept of the 'two cultures'. No other historical system has instituted a fundamental divorce between science, on one hand, and philosophy and the humanities, on the other hand, or what I think would be better characterized as the separation of the quest for the true and the quest for the good and the beautiful. Indeed, it was not all that easy to enshrine this divorce within the geoculture of the modern world-system. It took three centuries before the split was institutionalized. Today, however, it is fundamental to the geoculture, and forms the basis of our university systems. This conceptual split has enabled the modern world to put forward the bizarre concept of the value-neutral specialist, whose objective assessments of reality could form the basis not merely of engineering decisions --in the broadest sense of the term--but of socio-political choices as well. Shielding the scientists from collective assessment, and in effect merging them into the technocrats, did liberate scientists from the dead hand of intellectually irrelevant authority. But simultaneously, it removed from the major underlying social decisions we have been taking for the last 500 years from substantive--as opposed to technical--scientific debate. The idea that science is over here and sociopolitical decisions are over there is the core concept that sustains Eurocentrism, since the only universalist propositions that have been acceptable are those which are Eurocentric. Any argument that reinforces this separation of the two cultures thus sustains Eurocentrism. If one denies the specificity of the modern world, one has no plausible way of arguing for the reconstruction of knowledge structures, and therefore no plausible way of arriving at intelligent and substantively rational alternatives to the existing world-system. In the last twenty years or so, the legitimacy of this divorce has been challenged for the first time in a significant way. This is the meaning of the ecology movement, for example. And this is the underlying central issue in the public attack on Eurocentrism. The challenges have resulted in so-called 'science wars' and 'culture wars' which have themselves often been obscurantist and obfuscating. If we are to emerge with a reunited. and thereby non-Eurocentric, structure of knowledge, it is absolutely essential that we not be diverted into side paths that avoid this central issue. If we are to construct an alternative world-system to the one that is today in grievous crisis, we must treat simultaneously and inextricably the issues of the true and the good. --Immanuel Wallerstein Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
RE: Kissinger speaks out
C. Hitchens is now to the right of the guy he takes for a war criminal. mbs I am viscerally opposed to a prolonged occupation of a Muslim country at the heart of the Muslim world by Western nations who proclaim the right to re-educate that country, said the former secetary of state, Henry A. Kissinger, who as a young man served as a district administrator in the military government of occupied Germany. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/international/11PREX.html?pagewanted=2 Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: Kissinger speaks out
Yes, I was going to state something to that effect but I am trying to keep Michael Perelman mellowed out. At 02:44 PM 10/11/2002 -0400, you wrote: C. Hitchens is now to the right of the guy he takes for a war criminal. mbs I am viscerally opposed to a prolonged occupation of a Muslim country at the heart of the Muslim world by Western nations who proclaim the right to re-educate that country, said the former secetary of state, Henry A. Kissinger, who as a young man served as a district administrator in the military government of occupied Germany. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/international/11PREX.html?pagewanted=2 Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: Kissinger speaks out
- Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] I am viscerally opposed to a prolonged occupation of a Muslim country at the heart of the Muslim world by Western nations who proclaim the right to re-educate that country, said the former secetary of state, Henry A. Kissinger, who as a young man served as a district administrator in the military government of occupied Germany. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/international/11PREX.html?pagewanted=2 === But Henry, how else would the US have brought democracy and capitalism to Viet Nam if it had won the war? Ian
RE: Re: Kissinger speaks out
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31256] Re: Kissinger speaks out I am viscerally opposed to a prolonged occupation of a Muslim country at the heart of the Muslim world by Western nations who proclaim the right to re-educate that country, said the former secetary of state, Henry A. Kissinger, who as a young man served as a district administrator in the military government of occupied Germany. Ian: But Henry, how else would the US have brought democracy and capitalism to Viet Nam if it had won the war? -- we would have had one of friendly generals (Thieu, Ky, etc.) run the country. There was some (small) validity to the view that the war was a civil war: the US sided with the Catholic landlords (etc.) against the largely Buddhist peasants (etc.) If we had won, the former would have full sway. JD
Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon
Has anyone else seen and opened the 483k attachment to Ralph Johansen's post? I don't think such posts should be sent except after a preliminary post announcing that they are coming and that they are virus-free? Carrol
Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon
Yes, I have asked before not to send big things like this. On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 03:15:47PM -0500, Carrol Cox wrote: Has anyone else seen and opened the 483k attachment to Ralph Johansen's post? I don't think such posts should be sent except after a preliminary post announcing that they are coming and that they are virus-free? Carrol -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: what is science?
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific (logical-empirical) thinking. I'd say intuition, but that's only a hunch :) Carl _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
RE: Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31260] Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon It doesn't seem to have a virus, though. (I didn't save it. I just opened it. Norton didn't object. Nor did Kramden.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 1:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:31260] Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon Yes, I have asked before not to send big things like this. On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 03:15:47PM -0500, Carrol Cox wrote: Has anyone else seen and opened the 483k attachment to Ralph Johansen's post? I don't think such posts should be sent except after a preliminary post announcing that they are coming and that they are virus-free? Carrol -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: The Limits to Growth
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31253] The Limits to Growth It depends on how one measures growth. The usual economist -- of the sort criticized below -- measures growth by looking at real (inflation-adjusted) GDP, which is simply a measure of growth of commodity production, of exchange value, i.e., of capitalism. (It's not exactly that, but close.) But growth might be measured using something like the Genuine Progress Indicator, which (among other things) corrects GDP-style growth for the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources. Not surprisingly, GPI-growth has not been doing well in the US, even when GDP-style growth was doing well. (See Redefining Progress, http://www.rprogress.org/projects/gpi/.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 11:02 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:31253] The Limits to Growth CounterPunch October 11, 2002 The Greatest Deception of All Time: The Blessings of Growth by Jerre Skog You hear it almost daily. Growth first half year has fallen to less than 0.3% or Economical growth has to increase if we are not to... or We have to have steady growth or we have nothing to distribute. Except for the obvious reply Why don´t we distribute, more fairly, the wealth we already have? (and the fact that the wealth added by economical growth is generally distributed with something like 10% to the poor, 20% to the middle classes and 70% to the already wealthy), there´s a fundamental flaw in the growth philosophy: Everlasting growth is dependent on everlasting supply. The producers might be able to con people into buying almost everything in these days of murdering sales promotion and ads but unless they have the raw materials nothing will come out of the machines. And the raw materials are limited! Which means that the economical gurus who hail growth as the base for economical success and the statesmen who make this an overriding goal (probably 95% of them) for some reason either must have missed almost all their geography lessons when in school, or are lying like mad. According to all science the earth has a certain mass and dimensions which don´t seem to increase as to follow the growth-idiots´ plans. But of course the people who talk about eternal growth know very well that it can´t go on. That´s why they are so desperate to lay their hands on as much of the natural resources they can before they run out completely, some in the next ten to forty years. Don´t they have children or grandchildren? Do they expect their offspring to live in caves? Maybe in the future they have plans to ship iron ore from the moon or copper from Venus, I don´t know, but having experienced the common just-in-time trend in business I greatly fear for the delivery time and price if I need a 20mm M6 bolt for my Opel and the raw material has to be dug up in a mine on the moon. Perhaps that´s what the traditional economists have envisaged for their children. To start interstellar raw materials freight lines? Let´s be absolutely clear about this! (I mean really, and not in the Nixon sense of making things perfectly clear.) The planet earth consists of only so much iron, copper, uranium, oil, gold, cobalt and other materials, and not one bloody milligram more. Any growth that is based on taking out these limited resources from the ground is doomed to come to an end. While talking about limits we should perhaps remember that all talk about oil and a lot of other things as being produced is lies! We don´t produce any oil, we take out what is there. We don´t produce copper, we refine ore already there. And what is there, surprise surprise WTO, is limited. Unlike the pig Saerimner, in the vikings´ belief of the beyond death, Valhalla, who is slaughtered every winter and reappears to be slaughtered next winter again, that part of our common cake is not renewable. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/skog1011.html Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Kissinger speaks out
I am viscerally opposed to a prolonged occupation of a Muslim country at the heart of the Muslim world by Western nations who proclaim the right to re-educate that country, said the former secetary of state, Henry A. Kissinger, who as a young man served as a district administrator in the military government of occupied Germany. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/international/11PREX.html?pagewanted=2 Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
The Limits to Growth
CounterPunch October 11, 2002 The Greatest Deception of All Time: The Blessings of Growth by Jerre Skog You hear it almost daily. Growth first half year has fallen to less than 0.3% or Economical growth has to increase if we are not to... or We have to have steady growth or we have nothing to distribute. Except for the obvious reply Why don´t we distribute, more fairly, the wealth we already have? (and the fact that the wealth added by economical growth is generally distributed with something like 10% to the poor, 20% to the middle classes and 70% to the already wealthy), there´s a fundamental flaw in the growth philosophy: Everlasting growth is dependent on everlasting supply. The producers might be able to con people into buying almost everything in these days of murdering sales promotion and ads but unless they have the raw materials nothing will come out of the machines. And the raw materials are limited! Which means that the economical gurus who hail growth as the base for economical success and the statesmen who make this an overriding goal (probably 95% of them) for some reason either must have missed almost all their geography lessons when in school, or are lying like mad. According to all science the earth has a certain mass and dimensions which don´t seem to increase as to follow the growth-idiots´ plans. But of course the people who talk about eternal growth know very well that it can´t go on. That´s why they are so desperate to lay their hands on as much of the natural resources they can before they run out completely, some in the next ten to forty years. Don´t they have children or grandchildren? Do they expect their offspring to live in caves? Maybe in the future they have plans to ship iron ore from the moon or copper from Venus, I don´t know, but having experienced the common just-in-time trend in business I greatly fear for the delivery time and price if I need a 20mm M6 bolt for my Opel and the raw material has to be dug up in a mine on the moon. Perhaps that´s what the traditional economists have envisaged for their children. To start interstellar raw materials freight lines? Let´s be absolutely clear about this! (I mean really, and not in the Nixon sense of making things perfectly clear.) The planet earth consists of only so much iron, copper, uranium, oil, gold, cobalt and other materials, and not one bloody milligram more. Any growth that is based on taking out these limited resources from the ground is doomed to come to an end. While talking about limits we should perhaps remember that all talk about oil and a lot of other things as being produced is lies! We don´t produce any oil, we take out what is there. We don´t produce copper, we refine ore already there. And what is there, surprise surprise WTO, is limited. Unlike the pig Saerimner, in the vikings´ belief of the beyond death, Valhalla, who is slaughtered every winter and reappears to be slaughtered next winter again, that part of our common cake is not renewable. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/skog1011.html Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: Western Rationality
--- joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 05:12 PM 10/10/2002 +, you wrote: Again, I believe it's the nature of science itself -- not just the corruptive effects of capitalism -- that so often causes technology to have a destructive, dehumanizing impact on society. The ever increasing specialization of scientific knowledge seems to *require* division of labor, bureaucratization of RD and minimization of individual responsibility for long-term consequences -- an extremely toxic combination. Right, all I'm saying is that this definition of science as a discipline that slices things into increasingly thin slices, that ignores connections, that ignores context, that cannot conceive how the observer can be included in the observation is mostly an effect of cultural and economic practices, not a cause. I am also saying that science does not have to be limited to the above definition. Joanna Scientific 'progress' has been mostly a series of lurches this way and that (sometimes 'forward', at least in the sense that we can not turn back time and sometimes it's an improvement to forget how we used to do things). When a major discovery is accidentally or creatively made (yet the creativity involved is largely ignored), we all pile on hoping to stake a claim to a bit of the glory. Anything we wish to call a science is a science (though we often spend more time calling another's hobbyhorse 'pseudoscience'). To convince others of the status claimed, it certainly helps if you can take over a university department or press in order to do so. One could argue back that this is absurd, but look at how just about every field of knowledge and inquiry conducted at universities claims scientific status now. However, I see no essential connection between 'advances' in knowledge, in the sense of an increased ability to understand our world or improve our lives, and status as a science. Like at a certain university I know where most experiments are sophomoric training exercises or just a huge waste of money on shit results (which get written up as shit reports in order to justify lots of the real shit--the green shit--to go to the school from the government). Run enough, though, and after we've put out the explosion in the lab next door, we've found a compound stronger than nitroglycerin. Progress! C. Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos More http://faith.yahoo.com
RE: Re: RE: what is science?
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31261] Re: RE: what is science? said I: BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific (logical-empirical) thinking. Carl: I'd say intuition, but that's only a hunch :) ha! of course, contrary to scientistic/positivistic propaganda, intuition is part of science. What was Einstein, if not intuitive? (I'm told that his math wasn't very good.) Scientists use their intuition all the time. But then the products of intution that can't be validated logically or empirically fall by the wayside. Jim
Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science?
Devine, James wrote: of course, contrary to scientistic/positivistic propaganda, intuition is part of science. What was Einstein, if not intuitive? (I'm told that his math wasn't very good.) Scientists use their intuition all the time. But then the products of intution that can't be validated logically or empirically fall by the wayside. i would use the example of the mathematician ramanujan, whose mathematical results were stupendous, but who neither cared for nor was good at proofs (leaving hardy to do the dirty work to establish his impressive results). his justification for the results he proposed were often based on his intuition or the claim that the goddess 'parasakthi' told him so, in a vision. i hate rehasing this issue, but i have to point out that scientists will be quick to point out that intuition is alright in the 'context of discovery' but what makes science 'science' is that rigorous proof is required in the 'context of justification'. this claim is quite a distance from reality. pkf among others points out the political - the desires of the humans carrying out the justification - and theoretical - theory-laden'ness of facts - limitations of of this 'context of justification' claim. --ravi
Re: what is science
Jim Devine wrote, of course, contrary to scientistic/positivistic propaganda, intuition is part of science. What was Einstein, if not intuitive? (I'm told that his math wasn't very good.) Scientists use their intuition all the time. But then the products of intution that can't be validated logically or empirically fall by the wayside. The first product of intuition is intuition of itself. This product cannot be validated by exogenous logical or empirical criteria. I think therefore thinking exists. The indivuated sumness of it is far less certain.
Re: what is science?
From: ravi [EMAIL PROTECTED] my own suspicion (which i will try to flesh out if this thread proceeds) is that what is broadly accepted as science or scientific activity (or approach), by the high priests and their followers, is indeed inherently dehumanizing (i think that's carl remick's [sp?] position?) and dangerous. Yes. At heart I guess I'm just a peasant with a pitchfork eager to storm Dr. Frankenstein's castle. And indeed, I have my very own mad scientist right in the neighborhood. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory -- headed by Dr. DNA himself, wacky ol' James D. Watson -- is just a couple of miles from where I live. Carl _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science?
RE: [PEN-L:31261] Re: RE: what is science? - Original Message - From: Devine, James said I: BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific (logical-empirical) thinking. Carl: I'd say intuition, but that's only a hunch :) ha! of course, contrary to scientistic/positivistic propaganda, intuition is part of science. What was Einstein, if not intuitive? (I'm told that his math wasn't very good.) Scientists use their intuition all the time. But then the products of intution that can't be validated logically or empirically fall by the wayside. Jim = What's the difference between intuition and guess? What's the difference between intuition and analysis? When does the one process leave off and the other begin in the dynamics of cognition and emotion? From which of the contrasting and possibly complementary terms/processes do we make the distinction[s]? And are these differences connected in any way to our individual and group abilities to perceive/conceive randomness and patterns within our bodies, societies and space-time? If I recall correctly, several mathematicians thought Eisntein would have made an excellent mathematician and geometer. Rohrshach blotter...I mean blots, anyone, Ian
Re: RE: Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31260] Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon Criminentlies, cmrds, I am learning. I posted as original rather than as attachment because I have correspondents who tell me they don't open attachments or can't do so. But no more. I had no URL to send, because this was my rendering of a 25-year old Guindon cartoon. And I sent it as a memento of thejingoist holiday coming up, withoutsuspecting that it consumed 423k. Advice, please. Should I send things that are this long only following an invitation to request that they be sent separately? That's no fun. What other way? Anyhow, my apologies. I also installed Norton-Symantec several months ago, and now a device to let me know whether virus alerts are bogus. Alarums and night creatures abound in the hazardous world of the binary digit. I should maybe get out the way, or go find a twitlist. Incidentally, I've just read Nelson Peery's The Future is Up to Us, and I find it to be loaded with thoughtful material.It needs review and analysis, but maybe this has happened and I've missed it. I find only Lew Rosenbaum's reviewvia Google, which is not very analytical. Peery in part takes off from Marx's observation [without attribution, by the way] in the Grundrisse about the destruction of the value relation through robotization marking the crisis of legitimacy for capital. And Peery owes the reader a bibliography or footnotes, although I understand that this book comprises interviews and conversations. Ralph - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 10:26 AM Subject: [PEN-L:31262] RE: Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon It doesn't seem to have a virus, though. (I didn't save it. I just opened it. Norton didn't object. Nor did Kramden.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 1:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:31260] Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon Yes, I have asked before not to send big things like this. On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 03:15:47PM -0500, Carrol Cox wrote: Has anyone else seen and opened the 483k attachment to Ralph Johansen's post? I don't think such posts should be sent except after a preliminary post announcing that they are coming and that they are virus-free? Carrol -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bush admin pulling visas of Marxist intellectuals
I stole this from the LBO list. More disturbing news. [This is from the excellent Turkish political economist Sungur Savran, who's been a guest on my radio show twice. Please spread far wide.] Dear Friends, This is a circular letter aiming to warn friends living in the US about the treatment meted out to Dr.Haluk Gerger, one of the foremost Marxist intellectuals and human rights activists of Turkey, by the Bush administration and the INS. This incident is even graver than that experienced by Tariq Ali at the beginning of this year as he was flying out of Germany, since as I will shortly explain, this was methodical and deliberate whereas in Tariq Ali's case a lot of bureaucratic stupidity and overshooting was involved. Hence it is clear proof that, in its attack on civil liberties, first and foremost those of aliens, the Bush administration targets not only so-called Islamic terrorists, but also leftist critics of the imperialist system. I firmly believe that publicising Dr.Gerger's case would be very important for the struggle against the policies of the Bush administration and for civil rights in the US. That is why I am sending out this letter to you. Dr.Gerger, accompanied by his wife, arrived at Newark Airport, NJ, on October 1, 2002 for a private visit. He was immediately interned and told that his 10-year visa, granted in 2000, had been revoked by the State Department. He was also told that he would be questioned, which he promptly refused. He was then fingerprinted and photographed and was put on the return flight of the plane aboard which he had arrived. (His wife was told that she was free to enter the US, but declined to do so out of solidarity with her husband.) Dr.Gerger is a specialist in international relations renowned for his work inside Turkey. He received his Master's degree at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, and also studied and did research at the American University of Beirut, Stockholm University and Oxford University. He was associate professor of international relations at the Faculty of Political Sciences of Ankara University until 1982, when he was illegally removed from his post by the military junta of the early 1980s. (Those of you who know me well may remember that I myself resigned from my post at Istanbul University in 1983 in protest against such practices.) He has taught as visiting professor at Darmstadt Technical University and the University of Applied Sciences of Darmstadt, Germany, on various occasions. In the 1980s and 1990s, Dr.Gerger stood out as a staunch defender of democracy, human rights and the fight of the Kurdish people for recognition and dignity. He was convicted twice for pure crimes of opinion by the notorious State Security Courts in the 1990s and imprisoned for a total period of 24 months in 1994-95 and 1998. His relentless defense of human rights was recognised by many international and local human rights and progressive organisations and he was awarded, among others, the Hellman-Hammett Award of Human Rights in 1966, was an honorary guest of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) the same year and was made honorary member of the British and Austrian chapters of Pen Club International. Apart from numerous articles in journals and newspapers, he has published many books on international relations, containing a healthy dose of critique of the imperialist policies of various US administrations. (I will forward a brief résumé of Dr. Gerger to those who may wish to have a more detailed information.) It was no doubt for his outspoken critique of such imperialist policies and his unswerving struggle against the reppressive policies of the Turkish government, one of the closest allies of Washington, that he was considered to be a threat by the State Department, which, to add insult to injury, did not notify Dr. Gerger of the revocation of his visa, despite the fact that tha American embassy in Ankara was in full possession of his coordinates. Since Dr.Gerger is such a prominent figure in Turkey itself as an opponent of the repressive policies of the government, there can be not a shade of doubt that the State Department acted on the basis of purely political motives in the hysteric atmosphere of the post 9/11 period. I personally believe that publicising Dr.Gerger's case within the United States would be a service to the American movement against the imperialistic amd militaristic policies of the Bush administration and for the protection of civil rights. The impending war on Iraq makes this even more urgent from another point of view. Turkey will be a major frontline state and an ally of the US on the ground and Turkish intellectuals will no doubt suffer new instances of repression at the hands of the Turkish state. I can think of at least two different modes of action. One would be a petition to be circulated among American intellectuals
RE: what is science?
Title: RE: what is science? In reference to my comment on the normal role of intuition (e.g., Einstein) in science, Ian writes: What's the difference between intuition and guess? I'm not sure it matters what the difference is. What's the difference between intuition and analysis? When does the one process leave off and the other begin in the dynamics of cognition and emotion? there seems to be a dialectical interpenetration of opposites, in which emotions and cognition condition each other, determining each others' character (within the social context, of course). The same can be said about intuition and analysis. But that doesn't say that all of these are one big mush, so we can jettison logical/empirical analysis, give up trying to separate cognition and analysis from emotion and intuition, and sit back smoke some weed. We should try to be in touch with our emotions (as we say here in California), but we want our actions and views to be as rational as possible. From which of the contrasting and possibly complementary terms/processes do we make the distinction[s]? And are these differences connected in any way to our individual and group abilities to perceive/conceive randomness and patterns within our bodies, societies and space-time? I don't understand the above very well. I'd bet that it's easier to deal with such issues if they were stated in concrete terms (with examples) rather than dwelling in abstraction. Ravi writes: i hate rehasing this issue, but i have to point out that scientists will be quick to point out that intuition is alright in the 'context of discovery' but what makes science 'science' is that rigorous proof is required in the 'context of justification'. this claim is quite a distance from reality. pkf [Feyerabend?] among others points out the political - the desires of the humans carrying out the justification - and theoretical - theory-laden'ness of facts - limitations of of this 'context of justification' claim. I have no complaint with this. I just think that using idealized science-style thinking to oppose capitalism (and the Pentagon and the scientific star system, etc.) is going to be more effective than embracing mysticism or whatever the alternative is to science-style thinking. Carl: ... At heart I guess I'm just a peasant with a pitchfork eager to storm Dr. Frankenstein's castle. ... but isn't it a mistake to rely on your heart (emotions) as a guide for action? Obviously, emotions can and should play a role, but there must be a role for thinking about the consequences of action and the like (as I'm sure you do). Luckily the Committee on Experimentation with Human Subjects prevents people from doing Frankenstein-type (or Milgrom-type) experiments. The need for such a committee tells us something that we already knew: science should never be the be-all and end-all. Jim
Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science?
If what "can't be validated logically or empirically" falls by the wayside, how/why do we have economics? In confronting mainstream micro purveyors, anything empirical put before their noses is dismissed as "anecdotal." An intuition that is validated by unfolding events is "anecdotal." Meanwhile they can validate neither empirically or logically. Give me intuition or give me freedom from "economists." Gene "Devine, James" wrote: said I: > >BTW, I still want to know what the alternative is to scientific > >(logical-empirical) thinking. Carl: > I'd say intuition, but that's only a hunch :) ha! of course, contrary to scientistic/positivistic propaganda, intuition is part of science. What was Einstein, if not intuitive? (I'm told that his math wasn't very good.) Scientists use their intuition all the time. But then the products of intution that can't be validated logically or empirically fall by the wayside. Jim
Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Columbus as prototype - afterGuindon
Greetings Economists, Ralph, you can put a graphic through Image Ready part of Adobe's Photoshop and reduce the file size down to manageable levels. It will tell you how big the file will be once you have finished reducing the original to an 'optimized' size. There may be similar tools out there in other image manipulation programs but I don't know them. I would not send out a graphic larger than 50kb, and better to keep a graphic smaller than 25kb. thanks, Doyle Saylor
Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science?
Ian Murray wrote: What's the difference between intuition and guess? What's the difference between intuition and analysis? At least according to Susanne Langer analysis is dependent on intuition. Her example: Suppose someone admits that All men are mortal and that Socrates is a Man, but cannot see that therefore Socrates is mortal. That would be a failure of intuition. And hence, I guess, the explanation of intuition (gee the 'tions' add up) would be a problem of neuroscience, not of logic or philosophy. Carrol
Re: RE: what is science?
RE: what is science? - Original Message - From: Devine, James Hey, you have a different font! In reference to my comment on the normal role of intuition (e.g., Einstein) in science, Ian writes: What's the difference between intuition and guess? I'm not sure it matters what the difference is. === It may matter somewhat if we are to discern not only the cognitive processes of scientists as they try to report to others how they go about working through various problems, but, further, as a way to get a handle on the anti-science backlash borne of the 60's and 70's, when intuition was somewhat romanticized, to borrow a phrase. Given that there is still a lot of anti-science attitudes in US culture which completely evades the issue of how science has been totally subordinated to capitalism for the past 350 years, it would seem to behoove those of us who wish to see science serve different social agendas along with concomitant transformations of the psychology of scientists and anti-scientists alike, t oget a somewhat better handle on how scientists and philosophers and artists etc. have thought about the distinction. I broached the question because it was raised in a very serious manner by Bas Van Fraasen back in the 80's in a symposium dealing with some controversial issues in the philosophy of science, one of which was the vaunted problem of induction, the inference to best explanation and their justifications as methods of organizing scientific data. What's the difference between intuition and analysis? When does the one process leave off and the other begin in the dynamics of cognition and emotion? there seems to be a dialectical interpenetration of opposites, in which emotions and cognition condition each other, determining each others' character (within the social context, of course). The same can be said about intuition and analysis. But that doesn't say that all of these are one big mush, so we can jettison logical/empirical analysis, give up trying to separate cognition and analysis from emotion and intuition, and sit back smoke some weed. We should try to be in touch with our emotions (as we say here in California), but we want our actions and views to be as rational as possible. I 'see' them as complements rather than opposites; because if we each harbor multiple intelligences then we're dealing with issues of pluralism and coherence as the notions of Self we've gotten from Luther, Descartes, Locke and Kant as well as many others lose their tennuous grip on Western Culture. In a related issue, we might still, following Wordsworth, wonder, after we've separated those processes from 'one another,' what motivates us to engage in such distinctions as well as what 'ends' they serve. From which of the contrasting and possibly complementary terms/processes do we make the distinction[s]? And are these differences connected in any way to our individual and group abilities to perceive/conceive randomness and patterns within our bodies, societies and space-time? I don't understand the above very well. I'd bet that it's easier to deal with such issues if they were stated in concrete terms (with examples) rather than dwelling in abstraction. = Fair enough; how does the distinction between intuition and guess help us with the mathematics of induction and the role of randomness in statistics, probability theory and information theory as well as the choices we make in applying them to understanding social phenomena? If intuition is not reducible to analysis and is not the same as guessing, 'what' is 'it'? Ian
Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science?
Eugene Coyle wrote: If what can't be validated logically or empirically falls by the wayside, how/why do we have economics? In confronting mainstream micro purveyors, anything empirical put before their noses is dismissed as anecdotal. An intuition that is validated by unfolding events is anecdotal. Meanwhile they can validate neither empirically or logically. Give me intuition or give me freedom from economists. I think this discussion tends to treat SCIENCE has a Platonic form with a mind of its own. And this weird beast is then expected either to be perfect or to correct itself. But science is a web of social relations, inseparably enmeshed in the social relations which constitute the entire society. So when Science does something horrible or stupid, it isn't science that does it, its a general social failure. The errors of SCIENCE will never be corrected by the kind of critique Carl offers because what Carl is attacking doesn't exist Carrol
corporate can of worms
Trying to close a can of worms Prosecutors hoping for early 'closure' in their dealings with corporate America are likely to be disappointed, writes David Teather [EMAIL PROTECTED] Friday October 11, 2002 It begins to become interesting to see where the investigators and prosecutors will draw the line in their interrogations of corporate America. The temptation is to use certain figures as examples to the rest. Take the case of Arthur Andersen, the hapless accounting firm that had the misfortune to be the auditor for Enron, the disgraced Houston-based energy business. The government rushed to indict the entire firm for obstruction of justice, accusing it of shredding literally tons of documents to keep them from the hands of investigators. The result? A dubious conviction, the firm loses its licence and the big five becomes the big four. Yet Andersen is not the only one of the accounting firms to have been involved in audits of scandal-struck companies. PricewaterhouseCoopers was responsible for auditing Tyco, where senior executives have been accused of looting the conglomerate for their own gain. But the mood among prosecutors here is very different. The offices of the Manhattan district attorney are considering criminal charges against a number of the auditors but not against the firm itself. There is clearly no political appetite to reduce the big four to the big three, with the accompanying outcries from people losing jobs and from investors losing confidence in the system altogether. But it may be difficult to close this Pandora's box. The more that is uncovered of corporate America and particularly Wall Street's ways of doing business during the 1990s, the more rife the corruption and sheer recklessness becomes apparent. When everyone was getting rich, clearly no one cared. Now that Wall Street is moving toward its third consecutive year of losses and the Dow Jones index is hitting five-year lows things are different. At Citigroup, the focus has been on a single analyst, Jack Grubman, who has been vilified for helping to build the stock market bubble with his over-enthusiastic backing of telecoms companies. As an analyst, his advice to investors was supposed to be independent. But he stands accused of ramping stocks that were in reality in a precarious position in order to persuade those companies to give the group their investment banking business. Mr Grubman, who had earned $20m (£12.8m) a year, left the bank in August with a $32m payoff. Citigroup would clearly like that to be the end of the matter. But it isn't. Mr Grubman, despite his handsome payoff doesn't like the idea that he is the focus of attention. His lawyer this week promised that would be happy to show how Jack was part of a bigger problem. He hardly needs to. Some of the internal emails that have been published by the New York state attorney-general, Eliot Spitzer, in a separate lawsuit make it clear that Mr Grubman did not act alone. Rather that, as he maintains, he was operating within the rules of the prevailing culture. The culture of ramping that has emerged from the fabric of Wall Street is now acknowledged to have played a significant role in the destructive boom and bust that is now coming back to haunt the banks. In the telecoms sector for instance, the banks used loans to companies as loss leaders - a means of securing other investment banking business and fees. That helped to increase the capital investment in networks way beyond the actual levels of demand - according to estimates, more than 95% of the broadband capacity in the ground is unused. This is not the fault of one man, or even one company, but the result of the extraordinary times that encouraged so many to overstep the line. Many of the current conflicts are put down to the deregulation of the banking sector, which allowed US financial institutions to forge huge conglomerates during the 1990s offering everything from credit to fund management, analysis and investment banking. The result of current events may be a sharp reversal. Citigroup has offered to split research from investment banking entirely. To adopt a phrase commonly used in the US, investigators and regulators also clearly feel the need to move towards closure in the scandals with enough of the system still standing to allow the economy to get back on its feet. How far can the investigators continue to unearth wrongdoing on Wall Street in the name of the small investor? As long as scandal is in the headlines, the small investor is not benefiting in any material way as share prices continue to tumble. The perp walks - when criminals are displayed in handcuffs for the camera - of white collar criminals are intended to restore some confidence. But how many fresh scandals can anyone stomach? That need for some form of closure was evidenced when a week ago, many of the chief prosecutors in the Wall Street scandals came together to agree to pool their interests and attempt to achieve
Germany
How Germany paid for the boom The Dax's 50% fall shattered the dream of a share-owning democracy Heather Stewart and Charlotte Denny Friday October 11, 2002 The Guardian Investors in Britain and the US watching their pension savings rapidly shrinking might think things couldn't be any worse. But they would be wrong - they could have invested in the German stock market. Germany is in the middle of the worst market crash since the Depression. Two weeks ago, the German stock exchange pulled the plug on its hi-tech offshoot, the Neuer Markt. The index, which aspired to be the European equivalent of the US Nasdaq - has lost 96% of its value since its peak in March 2000. The Neuer Markt's debut five years ago was a high-profile symbol of Germany's fledgling shareholder culture. Spurred on by the decade-long bull market in New York and London, investors started to see the equity markets as an attractive place to put their savings. In the same way that Margaret Thatcher's sell-offs of state utitlities in Britain in the 1980s spread share ownership to the wider public, the privatisation of Deutsche Telekom in 1996 helped raise the proportion of households owning shares from 9% to 21% by 2001. For these newcomers to the equity game, it has all gone rather sour. Since the start of the year, the index of Germany's leading stocks, the Dax, has halved in value, compared to reductions of 30% in London and New York. Germany's top 30 blue-chip shares are now valued at less than the combined worth of America's top two corporates, Microsoft and Wal-Mart. It must seem a bit unfair for the new converts to Anglo-Saxon style equity financing that they arrived just as the party was about to abruptly end. Germany's investors now appear to have a worse hangover than America's. Danny Gabay at JP Morgan says German investors are suffering from the fact that the firms they bought into went on a transatlantic spree just as share prices reached their peak in 2000. They spent the equivalent of 3% of national output buying up or taking over US hi-tech firms. German corporates seem to have come to the conclusion that if you can't beat them then buy them. They came across the Atlantic with their shopping trolleys and just hoovered them up. With no domestic savings to rely on to fund its investment boom, America's stock market bubble in the late 1990s was funded by sucking in massive foreign invesment. The hi-tech bubble may have been an American phenomenon, but it was European - and in the main German - companies that paid the bill. Every penny they made in Europe from 1997 to 2001 they shipped over to buy up US companies, says Mr Gabay. And as long as the US stock market was rising, this seemed a good strategy. It certainly excited local investors, who powered the Dax to a peak of 8,064 in March 2000. But what it disguised was how weak growth was at home. Germany's economy has been faltering since the fading of the post-reunification boom of the early 90s. in the last five years, output growth has averaged 1.6%, well below the 2.8% achieved by the other countries in the euro zone. David Walton of Goldman Sachs says Germany is still struggling with the burden of absorbing east Germany's clapped-out economy. The decision to convert the old eastern ostmark to the deutschmark at a rate of one to one locked in long term uncompetitiveness. Germany faces a situation where its workers cost 40% more than their French counterparts and 60% more than the average Italian. Faced with an uncompetitive cost base at home, German firms seem to have decided to hitch their wagon to the US tech boom. Their view seems to have been that all they had to do was sit back and watch the profits roll in, says Mr Gabay. But when US investors woke up to the fact that dotcoms were never going to make money, Germany's corporate sector was saddled with worthless investments and a pile of trouble at home. The European version of the tech bubble was a telecoms industry which had massively overpaid for third generation mobile licences. Germany's equity markets were further hit by fiscal limits imposed by Brussels and the world economic slowdown. All the euphoria about recovery has gone up in smoke, says David Brown, Bear Stearns' chief European economist. Germany is flirting with recession. It is bad sentiment, it is the worries about geopolitical risks - and it's structural. It was not only the firms that indulged in tech speculation that got their fingers burnt. The banks who paid too much for shares have been forced to liquidate their portfolios as prices have collapsed, reinforcing the market slide and taking them dangerously close to their solvency levels. As a result they have begun tightening lending criteria, pushing firms far removed from the new economy into bankruptcy. According to the Bundesbank, lending to manufacturing fell 3.3% in the year to August, a clear sign that distress in the financial sector is hitting the rest of the economy.
what's in a name?
Title: what's in a name? I propose a name for the recent resolution, passed by the Congresscritters in the D of C: the Gulf of Texaco resolution. Jim
the D word
Title: the D word Economist.com/October 12, 2002 FINANCE ECONOMICS Of debt, deflation and denial FOR decades inflation was the bogeyman in rich countries. But now some economists reckon that deflation, or falling prices, may be a more serious threat--in America and Europe as well as Japan. That would be decidedly awkward, given the surge in borrowing by firms and households in recent years. Particularly worrying is the rise in borrowing by American households to finance purchases of houses, cars or luxury goods. Deflation would swell the real burden of these debts, forcing consumers to cut their spending. Policymakers in America and Europe have been quick to dismiss any fears of possible deflation. Bond markets, on the other hand, reckon that the risk is mounting: bond yields have fallen to historical lows. Many products, from clothes to cars, are certainly cheaper than they were a year ago. But full-blown deflation requires a persistent fall in the overall price level. The recent fall in the prices of durable goods has been offset by rising prices of services; so outside Japan, average prices continue to rise, albeit at the slowest pace for decades. As measured by the GDP deflator, the best economy-wide gauge, America's inflation rate has fallen to 1.1%, its lowest for 40 years. Its consumer-price index has risen by 1.8% over the past 12 months, but prices have fallen in half of its 16 main product categories--the biggest proportion since the current series started. The world is still awash with excess capacity, in industries from telecoms and cars to airlines and banking. Until this is eliminated, downward pressure on inflation will persist. A good measure is the output gap, the level of actual minus potential GDP. Historically there has been a close relationship in most countries between the size of the output gap and changes in the inflation rate. When the output gap is negative (ie, actual output is below potential), inflation usually declines. The OECD estimates that America's GDP is about 1% below its potential. If growth remains at or below its trend rate of around 3% over the next two years, the negative output gap will persist into 2004, pushing inflation even lower. It would not take much to tip into deflation. Optimists argue that deflation is much less likely today than in the 1930s because services now account for a bigger slice of the economy. The prices of services tend to be more resistant to dropping than the prices of goods because they are more labour-intensive, and wages rarely fall. However, Stephen Roach, an economist at Morgan Stanley, observes that service-sector inflation is now much weaker than usual. The rate of increase in the services component of America's GDP deflator fell from 3% in the year to the fourth quarter of 2000 to 2.2% in the second quarter of this year. In the previous six recessions, service-sector inflation actually increased over the comparable period. Although Mr Roach reckons that deflation is a serious risk, economists at Salomon Smith Barney argue that fears of it are vastly overdone. Incompetent monetary policies were largely to blame for deflation in America in the 1930s and in Japan today. Outside Japan, they argue, no central bank would tolerate a persistent decline in prices. A recent paper by economists at the Federal Reserve draws lessons from Japan's deflation and concludes that, when inflation is unusually low, central banks must be especially alert to the risk of deflation and cut rates by more than is normally justified by inflation and growth rates. The Fed is at least aware of the risks. However, not all central banks may be either willing or able to learn from Japan's mistakes. Germany probably faces a higher risk of deflation than America. The ECB's interest rate of 3.25% is broadly appropriate for the euro area as a whole, given its inflation rate (2.2%), the size of the output gap, and the bank's chosen inflation target of less than 2%. But the ECB seems unlikely to cut interest rates until inflation dips below 2%. And its inflation target is arguably too low. Research by the IMF and the Fed suggests that, if central banks aim for inflation below 2%, the risk of deflation rises markedly. If the ECB had an inflation target with a mid-point (rather than a ceiling) of 2%, it could now trim interest rates. Even then, however, rates would still be too high for Germany. Since it is the highest-cost producer within the euro area, a fixed exchange rate tends to cause price convergence by forcing inflation to be lower in Germany than in the rest of the euro area. Germany's core rate of inflation (excluding food and energy) has averaged 0.6 percentage points below the euro-area average over the past three years; it is now a full point lower, at 1.1%. Since interest rates are the same across the whole of the euro area, this implies that real rates will be higher in Germany and growth consequently slower. Germany's output gap, at an
news from the edge of America
Title: news from the edge of America from SLATE: According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of people who try to outdrive a Los Angeles Police Department officer in a high speed car chase has gone up 40% in the last three years while the average in the rest of the state has dropped. Many of the suspects have no reason to flee, except, the police now think, that they want to be on television. Apparently citizens of Los Angeles have a uniquely big appetite for car chase reality TV, and no fewer than seven broadcast news stations compete to show the live chases. my (current) home town! JD
RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science?
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31272] Re: RE: Re: RE: what is science? I wrote: of course, contrary to scientistic/positivistic propaganda, intuition is part of science. What was Einstein, if not intuitive? (I'm told that his math wasn't very good.) Scientists use their intuition all the time. But then the products of intution that can't be validated logically or empirically fall by the wayside. Gene Coyle: If what can't be validated logically or empirically falls by the wayside, how/why do we have economics? In confronting mainstream micro purveyors, anything empirical put before their noses is dismissed as anecdotal. An intuition that is validated by unfolding events is anecdotal. Meanwhile they can validate neither empirically or logically. of course, the strictures of science are even harder to apply in the social sciences (though I can't see anything that can replace scientific attitudes). The problem is deeper, though: most economists purvey pseudo-science. They use all sorts of scientific lingo while practicing a version of religion. This is especially true of the Chicago school. But the only way to fight this crap is to be more scientific, not to try to present an alternative religion. Jim
Re: what's in a name?
sounds good. How about "The Shell game" if they don't go for yours? Gene "Devine, James" wrote: I propose a name for the recent resolution, passed by the Congresscritters in the D of C: "the Gulf of Texaco resolution." Jim
testing
Title: testing testing
Re: testing
testing - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 6:32 PM Subject: [PEN-L:31284] testing testing failing..
Re: Bush admin pulling visas of Marxist intellectuals
[This is from the excellent Turkish political economist Sungur Savran, who's been a guest on my radio show twice. Please spread far wide.] This is bad news. Does anyone here have Sungur's e-mail address? Sabri
Re: RE: Western Rationality
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] Carl writes: Again, I believe it's the nature of science itself -- not just the corruptive effects of capitalism -- that so often causes technology to have a destructive, dehumanizing impact on society. The ever increasing specialization of scientific knowledge seems to *require* division of labor, bureaucratization of RD and minimization of individual responsibility for long-term consequences -- an extremely toxic combination. I don't understand why scientific (consistent logical empirical) thinking _requires_ division of labor, bureaucratization, and the rest. Please explain. The sheer complexity of modern technologies requires that RD be a team effort; no one individual acting alone can supply the expertise needed to advance the state of the art. If you have a team effort, you need administrators to coordinate efforts, allocate resources, etc. Further, is there any way to convince anyone of the validity of your vision except in a (social) scientific way? Ah! I think enlightenment comes from within, not from any evidence the social sciences can produce. But that's just me channeling R. W. Emerson again. Carl _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Invite to Global Policy Encyclopedia (Progressives)
FellowProgressive Political Economists!I would like to invite you to look over the materials forthe International Encyclopedia of Public Policy. If you see some areas linking to your expertise and want to join the encyclopedia as a writer, and/or member of the editorial board please contact me. There are many articles that you will find relevant topolitical economy, and heterodox themes.You can view the current state of the encyclopedia at:http://pohara.homestead.com/files/iepp.docand contact me at:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Looking forward to hearing from you!Phil O'HaraDirectorGlobal Political Economy Research UnitCurtin UniversityPerth. Australia.http://pohara.homestead.com/POH.html Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos, & more faith.yahoo.com
Re: Columbus as prototype - after Guindon
Better: do not send attachments to a list. If you receive attachments do not open them. Only open attachments if you know who they are coming from and what they are. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
