[PEN-L:12068] Re: Greenspan on Govt. Intervention in Markets
Yeah, and what about the Minsky paradox, and the danger of validating threatened financial practices? The factoid I quoted yesterday, that the bailout era has been one of financial crises of unprecedented severity and frequency, argues that indulgence does have its downside. I don't dispute the presence of a downside. I would say conservatives routinely exaggerate the downside (like your friend Jim Grant, whose book I read and enjoyed). I wouldn't accuse liberals of doing the contrary, but I think you could say fairly they (we) err on the side of indulging inflation rather than deflation. (That would be the proletarian liberals, as opposed to Robert Rubin's ilk.) The point is the extent of the net gain, if any, right? And the Mexican working class did so well by that country's 1995 "bailout." Targeted bailouts are different than monetary ease that is aimed at quieting financial markets. For financial institutions, I would argue against such bailouts and support the use of monetary policy to soothe the economy's subsequent irritations, such as they are. In the case of Mexico, some kind of debt relief would be the right and progressive thing to do. In a different political universe, one could imagine separating relief for the government from relief for the relevant, undeserving rich. I was reacting to Walker's imitation of Jim Grant (Tom -- "Money of the Mind" is very entertaining and by virtue of its critique of the democratization of credit, an excellent tutorial in the virtues of the democratization of credit). Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12135] Can You Top This
Dumbest comment I've heard on Diana: Bob Edwards on NPR this a.m. (Friday) about the situation in London: "It's almost a social revolution." MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12075] Re: Greenspan on Govt. Intervention in Markets
From: "DICKENS, EDWIN (201)-408-3024" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12071] Re: Greenspan on Govt. Intervention in Markets of last resort. Max: why aren't lender of last resort interventions like dropping a big bag of money on ailing institutions? If the point is to They are; I was talking more about monetary ease and noting that dropping the bag has an analagous effect. help labor, let the private-sector institutions fail and set up public-sector alternatives to drop big bags of money on labor. I don't disagree, as I tried to say in my reply to Doug. By the way, where ya been? Haven't seen you in these parts for a while. Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12153] Re: Can You Top This
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12136] Re: Can You Top This This sort of derision is unnecessary, and possibly outsmarts itself; a majority of the British population is telling the royal family to shape up or ship out, and that _is_ almost a social revolution. Though you might prefer to see the cobblestones ripped up and Parliament stormed in one grand jacquerie, in an old monarchy that has presided over much glory it's first things first. valis Occupied America And Walker said, among other things: What seems to be happening is that "the people" are choosing their next king, King William, that is. The current designated successor to the throne is being discretely "chucked out", if you'll pardon the expression. I think not. All this shows the public needs the royals more than ever. They are offended by the sub-zero demeanor of Queen E., much preferring the cuddly Queen Mum. But what they are really longing for is the next real-life fairy tale to begin. Looks like they'll have to wait for young Harry and William to start shagging debutantes. The bottom line is they can't stand to think about their own lives and the real problems of the mundane world, so they are drawn to fantasy. Kind of like ultra-leftists (present company excepted). And I'd gladly pay to see a jacquerie. Otherwise Occupied == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12154] Re: consumer price changes due to trade and trade
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 19:11:22 -0700 (PDT) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Robert Naiman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12130] consumer price changes due to trade and trade agreements...? Is anyone aware of attempts to empirically measure "increases in consumer surplus" due to international competition, e.g. due to NAFTA or other multilateral trade agreements? I don't mean here the usual equilibirum models -- i mean someone actually checking prices before and after the change in trade regime, like the price data of the bls. Talk to Dean Baker at EPI. He's got a new unit of measurement -- "Gatt's", which is the extent of well-being under neo-classical micro theory you get from GATT. Thus he can show how much assorted progressive policies provide in GATTS. E.G., reduced unemployment provides six gatts, etc. I don't remember the actual numbers, but it turns out the 'welfare gain' from trade liberalization is sufficiently small to be a convenient numeraire for many other policies. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12176] Re: Can You Top This[?] If you insist.
Max Sawicky wrote, shagging debutantes. The bottom line is they can't stand to think about their own lives and the real problems of the mundane world, so they are drawn to fantasy. To which Tom Walker, in a rare moment of unalloyed yeehaw, replied: I couldn't agree more. Really now, gents, must the opposite of A always be Z? It seems to me that the left has suffered some pretty bizarre cults of personality in its time. Can't the admiration of a famous person's good qualities be accepted as more than a subconscious evasion of one's troubles? Generations of black children have been given George Washington Carver as a role model (no points for _de rigueur_ tirades about his name); would you prefer they get Farrakhan or Shaque O'Neill? Get the idea? I think so. Your point about the public's identification with the good qualities of a famous person is well-taken, but in this case problematic. One has to ask whether we've crossed the point where the imagined proportion of goodness has far outstripped the real part, as well as where the superficial and salacious features of a personality (e.g., tall, blonde, beautiful super-babe making a clean breast of it, so to speak, from balconies) actually are the locomotive for public sentiment and the alleged good works are the caboose. The contrast with Mother Teresa, whose good works by bourgeois criteria are at least on a par with Di's, is obvious. Cheers, MBS P.S. Loved the Harry Hopkins quote, irrelevance notwithstanding. == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12323] Re: Desperately Seeking Superlatives
With Valis doing my choreography and Max Sawicky my diet (beans, rice, stale cabbage) all I need is someone to design my wardrobe -- any volunteers? Hint: my stature, bearing and and facial characteristics are those of a commedia dell'arte Scaramouche. I never accused you of consuming stale cabbage. I see you in hooded sackcloth and sandals, bearing a staff but bereft of sheep. Ba-a-a ba-a-a, MBS
[PEN-L:12316] Re: New Democrat got her ass kicked
The major municipal union, DC 37, led by the undead Stanley Hill, has just endorsed Rudy. I was at a dinner party a few months ago with Mario Cuomo's former tax commissioner, who's never voted for a Republican in his life - and he's voting for Rudy (because Rudy "proved that New York City isn't ungovernable"). Even multiple adulteries seem not to have undermined Rudy's popularity. "Multiple"? You mean Vanity Fair missed one? Given RG's image, the adultery story is probably helping him. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12307] Re: language thought
. . . BTW, I am assuming that ESP doesn't work. I knew that. MBS
re: Kevin Phillips
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 13:27:09 -0700 Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kevin Phillips, who I read regularly in the L.A. TIMES and hear on (U.S.) National Public Radio, seems to be a leftist Perotist. I don't think he's a leftist (and it's nauseating to think that he may be counted as one of the He's a left populist -- wants to curb but not destroy corporate power and reduce but not eliminate inequality. Perot never spoke much about inequality, whereas it has been one of KP's main preoccupations. KP has also long been critical of balanced budget mania, which of course has been Perot's main issue. few leftists in the capitalist press). It was Ross Perot who got him out of That would be news to me if true. It is nauseating that ideas germinated years ago by left academics have not gained a hearing and legitimacy until KP put them forward. But that's on the media, not KP. the Republican orbit. It's possible that he's being shunned by the inside-the-beltway crowd, encouraging him to be more independent in his KP is a consummate i-t-b person in everything but his ideology and analysis. He's not shunned at all. He's just in a minority. thinking, allowing him to be more populist. He's also always been much more historically-minded in his analyses than the vast majority of pundits. That's a good thing. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Do the Jews Own America?
. . . Right now one of the only signs of optimism is the fact that bands like Rage Against the Machine are among the most popular among angry white youth. . . . There's some new group from Britain called "Chomba Womba" which is supposed to be left-wing. The name alone is promising. One of the things that got discussed here a while back was a PEN-L Web Page. . . . I would volunteer to work on a project like this. It would do a lot more to change society than sterile discussions about the labor theory of value. You probably wouldn't have to do any actual research, since there is tons of material already on the web. What does not exist is a web page that serves as a hand-holding 'tour guide' that could provide a narrative and links to where the facts are, as opposed to a mere list of links. In the process of following this treasure hunt, the reader would get acquainted with a wide variety of progressive web sites. If you want to do the work, I can suggest some of the sources, as could others here. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: A Rising Profit Rate?
"Business Economics" also had an article with the same conclusion. Weather the recent data are only a "short cycle" (1986-1995) around the long-term decline (1945-1985) remains to be seen. Thanks. I'd appreciate a more complete cite, if you can provide it. Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: utopias
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks. . . . This sounded no different than the routine operation of local government. What is new and improved in the decision-making process, aside from the likely non-existence of special interests stemming from capital ownership and the absence of commercial inducements to private consumption? Wouldn't there still be special interests stemming from other factors (e.g., my block versus yours) even with no private ownership of capital? By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are financing everything via head taxes? Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Deleuze and Guattari experiment
From: Dennis R Redmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] I apologize in advance to PEN-Lers who are probably bored stiff with all this theory-stuff and are wondering what all this has to do with economics, but bear with me. . . . that a revived Left can't limit itself to the identity-struggles, but must embrace these along with environmentalism, human rights campaigns, union drives, etc. What 19th century trade unionism was to classical Marxism, micropolitics is to global Marxism. It seems that "micropolitics" in your sense of the term is a formula for atomization of social life and the de-collectivization of radical politics which the U.S. left seems particularly prey to. I refer to what I hear about going on in university settings, to the splintering of the U.S. student movement (not by ideology but by race, gender, sexual preference, etc.), to the routine spectacle of purported radicals flouting basic working-class interests. What sort of revolution emerges from this micropolitics? In the early 80's when I was a grad student there was a demo on Central America that it attended. As campus affairs go, it was not unrespectable. About forty people showed up, with little visible interest on the part of passers-by. While leaving I came upon a huge knot of students in front of the student union, all screaming at each other. I worked my way to the center of the crowd, and there was a little group of Jewish students with a petition on a tiny card table denouncing Louis Farrakhan to which many black students were making heated, albeit non-threatening, objection. That's the kind of stuff that got people excited. Not Central America. My contention is that it's this kind of thing that is killing the left, at least on campuses. I am more confident that workers will not fall prey to such foolishness and bring the students back into the game. This will only happen through the framework of class, broadly defined, in my view. Hence my ignorant hostility to POMO, beyond the general principle that anything written so turgidly has to be suspect. Call me a classical ex-Marxist. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: utopias
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are financing everything via head taxes? An important first step is that income is distributed equitably in the first place -- which we believe it is in a participatory economy. . . . If incomes are judged 'fair' but still differ, do you still want head taxes? I grant that less dispersion in incomes makes head taxes less objectionable, and zero dispersion makes them kosher, so how much does a regressive tax framework flout your system? On the free-rider issue, it sounds like your scheme presumes that public goods are optimally assigned to types or levels of government. Naturally the assignment itself is the object of political controversy. With imperfect assignment, you could still have free-rider problems. For instance, local jurisdictions understate their preference for super-highways. Or West Virginia declares that it is in charge of environmental policy within its confines, so forget about taxing coal. That's somewhat arcane and maybe not too important. What I was more focused on the typical play of interests, log-rolling, and political strategizing in any decision-making process, income or property ownership aside, which would still be present in your setting. Moreover, while tax shares might be equal, benefit shares would not. The nature of the public provision, such as whether the new swimming pool is two blocks from my house or from yours, could still lead to free-rider difficulties. Finally, your 'vote-with-feet' option is not much of a departure from present circumstances either. . . . Finally, I think the absence of "special interests stemming from capital ownership" and absence of "commercial inducements to private consumption" will be a big help too. Me too. As a footnote: There are some interesting theoretical tax schemes -- "demand revealing" and "pivot mechanisms" -- that make adjustments to proportional charges for public goods in ways that might be considered more fair, or ways that might enhance the incentive for people to develop a greater variety of preferences for public goods, that do NOT trigger the free rider incentive and attendant inefficiencies. I think a participatory economy is a much more friendly and likely insitutional setting for different localities and states to play around with these variations than market systems. Probably so. If we went that far, why not a little further? Re: Clarke taxes, my understanding is the Mr. Clarke's dissertation proposing such a thing was rejected by his committee. He had to slink away to some other university to get his degree. I don't mean to nitpick. I do intend to read Looking Forward. See you in Chicago. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Anarchist Cookbook for 21st Century (formerly: Our National
. . . Or they can send me a roundtrip plane ticket to D.C. so I can give a seminar on Hours of Work to the Economic Policy Institute (I'm sure Max will let me billet at his place for free, as long as I don't eat too much cabbage and beans). Preferably the ticket will be routed so I can stop off in Toronto and zip up to Ottawa to pester a CLCer, NDPer or two. I hear the Red Roof Inn has some really nice deals right now. . . . If Christ were alive today, the Christians would crucify him. Or worse, give him a talk show. If Marx were alive today, the marxists would give him advice on what agency to apply to for a project grant to write Das Kapital. He wouldn't get a grant for that. Too much lead time required. If he could do it in 2,000 installments, it might get syndicated. I'm thinkin multimedia, Internet, Java scripts for little balloons that pop up. "Click here for solution to transformation problem." MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: The ghost in the mirror
The financial accounting myopia has produced the mirror image of that incomplete socialist accounting. Instead of discounting capital depreciation and assigning fictional values to inventory, it discounts the social costs of labour and thereby enormously inflates the value of financial assets. The "way forward" according to such a distorted view is to further depreciate labour. The lesson of the Asian crisis is that the limit of fictional accounting has been reached. Humpty-dumpty has fallen off the wall. This rings a little bell in my fossilized memory of Marx. Why do capitalists persist in over-valuing their financial assets when it gets them into trouble later? Why don't the smart ones breed out the dumb? Why must volatility give way to total collapse? And if it mustn't, what's the big deal? Secondly, why should capitalist accountants record the depreciation of an asset which they do not own? Presumably they can buy labor in whatever state they like. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Lean and mean
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker) From ACCOUNTANTS AND THE PRICE SYSTEM:THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL COSTS . . . Sounds like the overhead costs of labor can be translated as public goods in the neo-classical sense of the term. Don't get me wrong. I love public goods. At the slightest encouragement, I will launch into a disquisition on how to finance them. The immediate relevance is that business firms could be handed 'user fees' or Pigouvian taxes (e.g., taxes that 'correct' externalities, like pollution) and these would show up as costs in any accounting framework. So would general taxes on capital which financed goods whose cost could not be mechanically traced to individual firms (e.g., public education). Motivating such taxes and expenditures would depend in part on the social accounting to which I alluded in my previous post. Does that wrap it up nicely? MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: No comment
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: Tom, there has been a lot of talk about this odd coalition against US participation in the IMF bail-out of South Korea, Indonesia, etc. Aside from labor dinosaurs and eco-freaks, so rudely brushed aside by Rubin, who are some of the powerful members this odd coalition? What are they so angry about? The "eco freaks" include quite a few mainstream organizations, who used to be pro-NAFTA. The "labor dinosaurs" probably wouldn't take this position; it's New Labor, whose days may be numbered, that's taking it. There are about 50 members of the Congressional "progressive" (or in Alex Cockburn's word, pwogwessive) caucus.And don't forget the right-wing Republican back-benchers. All of them agree that this is a bailout of irresponsible financiers at the expense of people who work for a living. Didn't Max Sawicky say the other day that only 1/3 of Congress is behind the $18 billion IMF appropriation now? Yes I said it. I was relaying the view of an authoritative source who works on the Hill. It's not a backbench thing. It's a matter of the core political leadership of the nation, or the real 'executive committee of the capitalist class' -- the Administration (as of two weeks ago, at least) and Gingrich's cabal -- having the burden of selling the bailout to a dubious Congress which has no compelling reason to support it and a good many to oppose it. I would suggest this underlines the fundamentally representative nature of U.S. democracy, deformed though it is by the inordinate influence of capital. "Labor dinosaurs" and "eco-freaks"? I don't know whether to run out of my house screaming or transmit RB's address to the Unabomber. Politics is an interesting and important subject. I would commend it to you all. The " for Dummies" books seem to be quite popular. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: correction-Blaut-A.G.Frank
Exploitation or theft have nothing to do with the extent to which colonization fueled capitalist development. What matters are returns in excess of cost. Even thievery is not possible without costs to the perpetrator. ... Sure, but if you only measure the GNP returns of trade, you are missing the big negative on the other side of the balance sheet. If you wipe out an entire continent and only increase your GNP in nominal terms by 2% measured by trade with exploited countries, you have not addressed what you may have done to their capacity to compete with you in the future. For example, I believe the Bengal region of India was highly productive both in agriculture and in textiles, before the British arrived. They wiped it out, and protected their textiles and agriculture thereby. I agree that returns to business firms' capital discount the social or environmental effects that you allude to, but the private returns are the only thing that could directly contribute to expansion in the colonizer nation. Even that is exaggerated for just the reason you cite -- the colonizer in some sense degrades productive opportunities in the future. So I still think RD's note on the low contribution of colonization to GDP in the colonizer's country is pertinent. In general I see a tendency to let capitalism's moral crimes and despoilation of the environment obscure the advances it brought in terms of productive capacity. The latter doesn't justify the former, but the former does not negate the latter either. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Ken Starr
James Heartfield wrote: . . . In fact the descent into scandal has more to do with the failures of the right-wing opposition - in Britain and in America. Rather contesting the policies of Blair and Clinton, the right have latched onto sexual and other scandals to make up for their lack of a political alternative to New Labour and New Democrats alike. You could also interpret scandal-mongering as a straight-forward strategy to delegitimize government and feed the attitude that nothing constructive can come from government. This attitude is the most powerful brake on social reform, in my view. I agree that we could interpret this strategy as a second-best from the standpoint of conservatives, who might prefer to institute all manner of conservative reforms. It is also true that in the U.S. the conservative agenda appears exhausted if you set aside very ambitious but politically impractical projects like destroying social security or replacing the income tax with a flat tax or sales tax. . . . Congress. There the press are equally craven about the President's policies. They approve of his policies, as you seem to say later. No craveness required, except when it comes to offering objective criticism or evidence which sheds bad light on such policies. . . . The way that Kenneth Starr has crippled the US political process should be a warning of what the future in Britain will be like. The Special Starr is going down unless he lays hands on much better evidence than appears within his reach thus far. So this affair may put a stop to this sort of thing rather than the converse. Given where Clinton's approval ratings have gone in the past week, if he boinks a few more women the Republicans may lose control of Congress. Michael Moore had a George Bush-a-like president start a war against Canada in his straight-to-video classic `Canadian Duck'). That was 'Canadian Bacon', eh? MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Industrial Reserve Army
Don't forget those exceptionally talented people who are socially productive "unemployed" but would be much less socially productive if they were employed. And I'm not kidding. I tried that argument about 30 years ago but didn't have much success with it. Hope it works better for you. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Rightwing scandal-mongering
From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Max writes: You could also interpret [right-wing] scandal-mongering [against Clinton] as a straight-forward strategy to delegitimize government and feed the attitude that nothing constructive can come from government. This attitude is the most powerful brake on social reform, in my view. I agree that we could interpret this strategy as a second-best from the standpoint of conservatives, who might prefer to institute all manner of conservative reforms. It is also true that in the U.S. the conservative agenda appears exhausted if you set aside very ambitious but politically impractical projects like destroying social security or replacing the income tax with a flat tax or sales tax. Since there is more than one right wing, the left-wing/right-wing/middle-of-the-bird metaphor breaks down. Max refers above to the "anti-statist" or "libertarian" or "laissez-faire" right wing, what might be called economic conservativism. But there is also the (very statist) social-conservative or traditionalist right wing. These folks attack Clinton because of his pro-choice (on abortion) attitude and his generally social-liberal attitudes. (They want to impose state control on our bedrooms and bodies; no libertarians they.) Abortion is almost the only It's not obvious that the theocrats want to build up the Federal government for such purposes, though they do not shrink from offering Federal legislation reflecting their concerns. They are very active at the state and local levels. There is also some schizophrenia in the sense that they are so anxious to attack the Feds that they discount the difficulties of reviving the state for their own purposes if that becomes possible for them. issue where Clinton shows any kind of backbone -- and that may be an Backbone hell. The WH is constantly polling, so if they take a position you can bet money they believe it has solid majority support. Exceptions are positions they take which serve basic aims of big capital (e.g., NAFTA, Fast Track). Another class of exceptions are issues where there are fund-raising opportunities (e.g., gays, Hollywood). opportunist effort to maintain his core constitutency. The other social-liberal issues, like his having smoked marijuana and his relatively feminist or pro-gay stance on some issues (from the perspective of this right wing), cling to the abortion issue and stick in the craw of people like televangelist Jerry Falwell. (note the word "relatively.") As for "delegitimizing government," Mr. Ms. Clinton have done a good job here, as with their effort to create a humonguous, overly-complicated, and bureaucratic health insurance system in their first years. Clinton has also embrace the less-gov-is-better line on many occasions. Obviously the health care thing was inadvertent. Less govt doesn't mean govt is bad, only that it is oversized. Actually in their own demented way, the Administration's policies have aimed to rehabilitate government. On the micro level there is Gore's relatively benign Reinventing Govt stuff. On the macro level, I would argue that appearing to fix the deficit has done a lot to rehabilitate govt. "Social reform" also has more than one dimension (FDR economic liberalism, ACLU civil libertarianism, "new movements" feminism or ethnic liberation, sexual liberalism, etc.) I hope Max doesn't mean this phrase as a support for paternalistic statism. Do we want more government? more Pentagon spending? do we really want the central organization of societal repression to be legitimized? This is a double-edged sword. Effective reforms imply a more well-regarded and therefore stronger state, and conversely an unmitigated rejection of the state makes constructive reform and practical politics impossible. we've had this argument before. We probably need a better word than "reform," too, since the recent US "welfare reform." How about talking about the popular struggle for economic justice? Fuzzy, yes, but less so than "reform." Reforms are changes which obviously can be good or bad. I agree that bad reforms ought to be described as such, lest their novelty obscure their malign nature. Michael E. forwards the following: Following up the Lewinsky case and Hillary Clinton's allegations of a "conspiracy," yesterday's _New York Times_ published on p. 22 an article showing how campus right-wing groups and their funders are involved in coordinating the attack. The article is written by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Tim Weiner and former _Wall Street Journal_ reporter Jill Abramson. I have no doubt that there are "right-wing" conspiracies against the Clintons. But Ms. Clinton sinks her own boat by invoking such conspiracies, or rather by using that word. The fact is that there is more than one right I agree she went a little overboard, since there is no single operation against them, but not
RE: Talkin' 'bout _speech_, period!
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 16:20:10 -0600 (CST) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I couldn't clearly distinguish who wrote what. It appeared that it was some sort of joint post, as you posted something that had "from" valis, but no quote indicators. No intention to lump the two of you together if you don't want to be so lumped. Sorry for the confusion. I started using Microsoft Outlook at work and haven't quite gotten the hang of the mail program. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: correction-Blaut-A.G.Frank
Bill, After I responded I realized I may have misunderstood what you and LP said. I agree the colonizer's gain could be more than offset by the victimized country's economic losses, so that we could say in net terms capitalist colonization did not contribute to the world's productive capacity. It could be true at the same time, however, that colonization contributed little to development in the colonizing nations themselves, owing to the small contribution to GNP RD cited. It seems possible on this account that industrialization could have proceeded without imperialism, or that imperialism cannot be explained without recourse to additional factors, some probably not narrowly economic. Sure, but if you only measure the GNP returns of trade, you are missing the big negative on the other side of the balance sheet. If you wipe out an entire continent and only increase your GNP in nominal terms by 2% measured by trade with exploited countries, you have not addressed what you may have done to their capacity to compete with you in the future. For example, I believe the Bengal region of India was highly productive both in agriculture and in textiles, before the British arrived. They wiped it out, and protected their textiles and agriculture thereby. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: dinosaurs and freaks
dear max, by referring to dinosaurs and freaks, I was mocking the contemptuous way technocrats dismiss their opposition, how they so rudely brush people aside. Sorry the irony didn't come out. Don't send my address to the Rakesh, I'm sorry to say your irony was lost on me entirely. I read the passage as consistent with the way some people betray their lack of attention to important political events in the U.S. Unabomber; it's not very nice of you to threaten me with violence. And I Seeing as how the UB will never walk the earth again as a free man, I would have thought the facetiousness of this would be obvious. But since I too am annoyed by implications of physical threats, please accept my apologies for any misunderstanding. as for politics, you may want to check out Herman Gorter's and Anton Pannekoek's anti-parliamentary communism (ed. DA Smart), Hal Draper's first volume on Marx, Gary Teeple's Marx's Critique of Politics, Paul Thomas Alien Politics, Richard Hunt's The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels, and Paul Mattick's critique of the limits of Keynesian anti-cyclical techniques. I haven't read all this myself. What do you think of Thomas Ferguson's investment theory of electoral politics? I might look at them if I had the time or inclination to reengage Marx, but I'm not quite there yet. Thanks for the cites anyway. Don't know what TF's investment theory is. Behind all this is the question of what attention to politics means. My contention, flogged here before, is that there is too much emphasis in PEN-L on academic texts and too much inattention to really-existing politics. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Lost in nostalgia
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eugene P. Coyle) Hey, they sent Jake Garn once, how do you explain that? He was head of the relevant committee. He car-jacked his way in. Diod they want to find out what the effect on a limited IQ is? No. Abel and Baker didn't want to come out of retirement. MBS
re: Worldwide Protests Over Chiapas Massacre
From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Funny thing. Yesterday, the traffic people on the radio said that a big . . . This seems further evidence of the LAT's rapid rightward run, as business considerations dominate editorial policy to a much greater extent under the new regime (which recently endorsed "privatization" of Social Security and hired a Clarence Thomas Affirmative Action political cartoonist, a rightwinger with a conveniently hispanic surname). When Justice for Janitors blocked some key bridges here in D.C. during rush hour, the Washington Post went ballistic. My suspicion is that this had less to do with politics than with direct inconvenience to the staff. They wanted to be sure not to encourage such actions by covering them, so the actions were reported in minimalist terms with absolutely no clue as to what the reason for them was. The moral of the story is that bombings and assassination are o.k. with the Post, but for God's sake don't screw up commuting during rush hour. Meanwhile, yours truly did a "public access" TV stint on globalization messing up labor (with Harry Joanne Bernstein plus David Johnson of the United Electrical workers union; Harry's the retired labor columnist at the LAT). It's not available unless you get Century Cable and I don't know when it will be broadcast. Good for you. We'll make a pundit out of you yet. Next stop, Politically Incorrect. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: globaloney
In the early 1970's, productivity growth dropped in the U.S., well before most of the talk of globalization. This trend can explain much of subsequent U.S. political economy without need for reference to globalization or universalization of the market: the need to reduce wage growth, attack unions, cut public spending, etc. Two possible causes of this change are the fall-off in public investment, and the process of suburbanization, but I'm not all that impressed with these explanations. I wonder if there are more radical ones. As a side note, Bill Burgess wrote: It is the politics of most 'globalization' talk that is the problem. Evading the cardinal difference between 'globalizer' and 'globalized' countries. Populist not socialist opposition to market domination. Relying on capitalist states (protectionism). This cuts two ways, or maybe four ways. Many socialists have made reference to national liberation and an implied distinction between national capitalists (sic) and the foreigners, and populists attack 'big' local capitalists as extensions of the rotten foreign ones, or as part of a supranational capitalist class. You could say the populist gambit is opportunistic because all capitalists are supranational, or anational, in nature, or you could see it as a useful pedagogical device to illuminate the inherent amorality of Capital. Of course, maybe the socialists were really populists, and the populists were really socialists. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Sachs and Summers: Separated at Birth
Listers will probably be interested in today's gossipy Post article on the professional rivalry between Jeffrey Sachs and Larry Summers. The bottom line is they agree on most everything but debt relief. The URL is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/biz1. htm MBS
Re: globaloney
maxsaw wrote: In the early 1970's, productivity growth dropped in the U.S., well before most of the talk of globalization. This trend can explain much of subsequent U.S. political economy without need for reference to globalization or universalization of the market: the need to reduce wage growth, attack unions, cut public spending, etc. The better answer is that the previous period was exceptional. I suspect that the reason includes the spin offs from the intensive scientific efforts associated with WW II. Either way the implied emphasis on the idea of a sharp shift in globalization or capital mobility around 1980 is reduced. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
. . . Agreed, California might be more ethnically diverse than any other state in the US, but that does not explain why class politics did not develop in, say, Massachussetts, Wisconsin or Kentucky. The point I am making is that while the US as a whole migh be diverse, individual regions or states are less so. So to support your claim of the effect of diversity on class politics you would have to show me some correlation between ethnolinguistic heterogeneity in cities and states and the development of class-based politics in those regions. I am not saying such correlation does not exist, all I am saying it must be demonstrated using the appriopriate unit of analysis. An abiding feature of U.S. politics cutting against the grain of class is SECTIONAL rivalry, which rivalry was obviously due in great part to slavery and the disparate economies implied by the rural South versus the industrial North. So race was crucial but to some extent was manifested in sectional conflict. The democratic party in the South was viewed as a defender of regional interests, which in turn were based on racial considerations, among others, and loyalty to the Dems was a major obstacle to the development of class politics. Your point about the diversity of Europe is well-taken, but maybe the difference is that within nation-states, there was relative homogeneity, whereas the significance of this would not follow in the U.S. because are states are constitutionally subordinate to the national government. I was thinking about your point about the Jews in Germany and East (now 'Central') Europe. My impression is that German Jews tended to concentrate in the professional and petit-bourgeois classes, so they would not present an issue for working class unity. Poland was obviously a different story. Maybe Poland's Jews, while poor, tended not to work in large establishments where working class organizing would have flourished most. I don't know. . . . two factors, certain arbitrariness of the national borders (hence German minority in France, Romanian minority in Hungary, Swedish minority in Finland, etc.) as well as the presence of ethnic group without a state (cf. Basque minority, Roma people, Jews before WWII, Ukrainians, etc.). That My bet is that social-democratic or labor movements in these countries largely proceeded in neglect of these minorities, so the phenomenon of 'national socialism' (small n, small s) could have prevailed. If your logic were correct, we should not see the emergence of the Labour Party in the UK torn by the ethnic strife, or the strong labor movements and parties in ethnically divided Spain, or in Germany. Did these labor movements incorporate minorities in their period of inception and growth? . . . - geographical expansion of the empire (or rather how that expansion was played out by the elites, Russia might provide a good counterfactual here); U.S. expansion was clearly an outlet for all sorts of social pressures, though we are still left with the question of why the end of this expansion did not precipitate more class politics. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Enough already
I don't think that we are making much headway here. Max and Nathan approve of the Dem's strategy. Others don't. The proof: I challenge anybody to show that I have said anywhere that "I approve of the Dem's strategy." First of all, there is no "Dem's strategy." There is no "Dem's," and there is no strategy. There are diverse groupings of Dems, none of whom have any strategy, as far as I can see. Nor do I think EPI has a strategy, for that matter. You could say I think positive, incremental, reformist proposals from Dems should be supported, and that in the absence of any left alternative, Dems should be voted for in preference to Republicans, but that an alternative politics based on direct action and independent political organizing needs to be pursued. To me these are all complementary activities. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Australian Update #1
G'day Penners, Believe it or not, Oz is actually an interesting place to be just now. No doubt. One thing I'm hearing more about from my dear friends at the Heritage Foundation is the great experiment in privatization of social insurance in Australia enacted by your blessed social democrats. Wonder if you'd care to elaborate on this. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
The answer as to why class politics did not emerge in the US with an electoral manifestaion as opposed to Europe is SIMPLE. (Skocpol's analysis is so beside the point it is I think this is a good point, though your confidence in its veracity is a little breath-taking. I would note that for the same reasons, we have not had fascism in the U.S. Second, for all the shortcomings of the system, there was a significant change in structure--mostly for the better--between 1935 and 1950 which laid the basis for our welfare state, which we didn't previously have. So there has been some evolution, if not as much as in Europe. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Australian Update #1
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 23:31:10 +1100 Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Australian Update #1 G'day Max, One thing I'm hearing more about from my dear friends at the Heritage Foundation is the great experiment in privatization of social insurance in Australia enacted by your blessed social democrats. Wonder if you'd care to elaborate on this. I do not bless our socdems. I just don't curse 'em as much as the other mob. And it is the other mob who have just privatised the employment section of our Social Security Department. Government contracts seem to have gone out to peculiar types - some with neither office nor experience, it seems. Drake International is said to have picked up a healthy slice of the action. I was talking about the privatization of the financing of benefits in terms of the use of individual accounts, government purchase of corporate stock, or whatever. Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: PJ's critique: US vs. Europe
.. . . Fine, anyone who has ever spent a month in Europe can dig PJ's meaning, but so what? If our guardian angel waved her remote tuner and magically produced a parliamentary system, given the nutbar of obsessions stalking our fractured so-called society there would be more single-issue parties than the UN has countries, and our MPs would arrive for work each day just as drunk or Prozacked-out as required to stay sane. What's more, I can't imagine that a period of rational shake-out and coalescence could occur soon enough to forestall a total meltdown. That's my nightmare and I'm sticking to it. Does anyone have a happier vision of an American parliament? Sure. If we think progressive ideologies in suitably pure distillate form would truly be compelling, then we ought to look forward to a setting where some minorities parties could form and propound such ideologies. At the start, as you say, we'd have a tower of babble, but we ought to evolve from there. mbs == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: US vs. Europe (was: Democrats, labor leaders and NAFTA/IMF)
From Jim D. (no slouch himself in the word-count department), Max writes: I'd say what caused it to break down was, among otherthings, that the Democrats promoted the interests of blacks without due attention to working class interests in general. Do you have any evidence of this? It's pretty clear the Dems (like the GOPs) have never responded too "working class interests in general" but have always responded to campaign contributions (which includes those of the AFL-CIO) and to any groupings which can pressure the party. So it must be that you're talking about the Dems promoting the interests of blacks without due attention to the interest of whites? or are you? if so, do you have evidence? I should qualify by saying that by promoting the interests of blacks, I mean a relatively legalistic, middle-class approach to civil rights. Forthright efforts to help working class blacks ended when the community action phase of the War on Poverty was shut down, around 1969 (the infamous Edith Green amendment) mostly at the demands of white ethnic city machine politicians. After that, the money kept flowing, but it was distributed in the form of transfer payments rather than for economic and social (really political) development. Tom Edsall has discussed the inception of trends in regressive tax policy in Congress in the early 1970's. Then there was of course the Carter Presidency, which launched Reaganomics (capital gains tax relief, deregulation, a slow-down in social spending, and Paul Volcker). You are right to question this (if not other) points I raised, since it was among the more speculative. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: DNC fund-raising
My god, way back in the mid-1980's _Ron Brown_ was the DNC chair, before the DLC took over the Democratic Party from the alliance of Cold War Keynesians (like Humphrey and Mondale) and Dixiecrats. The DLC doesn't control the party. It doesn't even control its own members. The DLC meets a couple of times a year for the purpose of talking to itself and bringing funders together with politicians. There is a national apparatus controlled by the White House and a gaggle of rentiers, bigfoot attorneys, etc. As many have said, it has no mass base. It has mailing lists. There are campaign committees for the House and SEnate which are mostly shells for the national apparatus, but which have some input from House and Senate members. Then there are state parties and local clubs which are mostly disconnected and subject to the whims of elected officials. Below the level of the national party, there is basically an atomized universe of groups, personalities, constituencies, etc. The lack of unity in the party serves the weasels at the top, who thrive in the resulting vacuum. By contrast, the extent of coordination among Republicans is striking. At the same time, however, the relatively unified GOP apparatus is shot through with major ideological conflicts. The lack of ideology on the Dem side dovetails with the anarchy below the top and the control of the party franchise, such as it is, by the few. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: EPI Environmental Economist
In a message dated 98-04-10 17:10:37 EDT, max writes: Feel free to regale him with your pet nostrums of vegetarian leninism ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). ah, but can we regale him with vegetarian stalinism? inquiring minds want to know. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] By all means, let a hundred cabbages bloom. MBS
Re: High Wages or Abolition of Wages?
And how, exactly, is the marginal cost of info-production zero? I can I presume what Prof. Perelman meant was that once created, information can be used by additional persons or additional times without cost, unlike depreciable capital or 'exhaustible' consumption goods. Conveying or preserving said information via the printed page or the byte is another matter and possibly not zero in cost. You might be alluding to the point, with which I don't disagree, that the MC statement is trivial in light of the definition of information, sort of like saying a firm arse tends not to sag. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: A Right-wing ballot initiativer
The name of this initiative suggests that it is a measure in favor of campaign finance reform. One effect might be to force unions to work on organizing more than cozying up to Democratic wing of the money party. The new leadership of the AFL took as its inaugural premise the need for a new, strong emphasis on organizing. I've seen a lot of complaints, present company excepted, about the new leadership's shortcomings, but no serious analysis of how they are fulfilling their stated objectives. How much money they are spending, how they are using these resources, their strategic and tactical choices, and outcomes should all be object of analysis and critique. Instead I see scattered cries of outrage from some super-lefts (mostly on the labor party list, which I no longer inhabit) about specific instances of 'betrayal,' and a more general expression along the lines of 'of why don't they do more?' Assertions that they are doing little or nothing are uninformed; what's at issue is what they are doing, and how it's working or likely to work. I would even suggest that the architects of these strategems at AFL HQ would be interested in such analyses themselves. On the ballot initiatives, one sidelight is that this sort of thing threatens to drive the building trades and all of the most conservative unions firmly to the left, a welcome development. Regarding the predominance of outside right-wing money fueling the California campaign, it might be noted that the Rooney role is a precise parallel to the Teamster triangulation device: Rooney supports the initiative, which helps GOP in state and national legislature, and GOP furthers health care privatization, in which Rooney has a fundamental financial stake. Regarding Mike E.'s criticism of the deal labor made which took the California employers out of the game (by foregoing a parallel initiative aimed at corporations), if the object is to beat the anti-labor initiative, rather than to secure revenge by getting a parallel one for corporations, then taking a big player off the board is defensible, if chancey. I think this has less to do with 'business unionism' then a debatable pragmatic judgement. In the larger context, as noted above, the real question is not the fact of the AFL's stated commitment to organizing, but the actual practice, about which we should all like to know more. MBS
Re: Chase Manhattan responds
Oh, and about the annexation of Canada. I should note that the US citizens of the NorthWest Angle of the US on lake of the Woods are petitioning congress to secede and join Canada because of the rotten treatment they are getting from the US. I just hope the US Government gives them the same support in their seccession movement as it gives to the Kosovo terrorists. Better to have Canada annex the U.S. Just don't make us talk funny or adopt ridiculous rules for our football games. MBS
[PEN-L:12177] Re: Slagging Di
I guess I'm getting old(er) and soft(er), but I have to admit more than a bit of admiration for someone from the bosom of the establishment who uses her (unearned, unjustified) celebrity to tackle the international arms industry and the British Tories on issues like land mines. The issue I think isn't Diana but the common understanding of her, which is deeply flawed, to say the least. Three cheers! Here's someone aware that Diana was as much a prisoner of birth and upbringing as any welfare baby, and that she tried mightily to overcome that circumstance, as well as its typical maladies: guilt, fear, boredom, isolation, self-contempt and every sort of inbreeding. Had she relinquished every perk to make a purer effort, she would have been forgotten as quickly as then Chicago mayor Jane Byrne, whose move as an earnest into a city housing project is now less than ancient history. I suggest that issues of truth and falsehood re the phenomenon of Diana are inseparable from those of monarchy, a state church and a formal class system; in other words, we should be content to observe the British people - particularly the women - sort them out. Diana, welfare babies, and Jane Byrne. Hmmm. My suggestion is that the public is far from "sorting this out"; rather, it seems to be in the midst of constructing the grossest of fantasies. Given all of the phoniness and media hype attached to this woman and her demise, how many leftists can be said to have had a comparable influence? A painful point. It took Robert McNamara's book tour _culpa mea_ in 1995 to confer legitimacy upon the anti-war movement, something that the whole American left had been unable to achieve in the preceding 20-30 years. Would any of you have him recant because of who he is or what he was? Good grief. The anti-war movement became legitimate when the last US helicopter left Saigon. We sure didn't need Robert McN. Abbie Hoffman had more influence than Diana. I defy anyone to specify concrete, noteworthy social changes resulting from her existence. I do not consider charitable activities, however commendable their motives and effects, as social change. Into this you can put all the fund-raising for AIDS, health etc. Nor do I think you can say any change in the disposition of land-mines will have any effect on the conduct of war, repression, or counter-insurgency in the next century. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12175] Re: Can You Top This
Max Sawicky wrote, And I'd gladly pay to see a jacquerie. Or a purple cow? This looks like a Chagall reference, but I don't get it. Please enlighten. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12074] Re: Greenspan on Govt. Intervention in Markets
Maybe we're both making impressionistic generalizations that beg technical issues. You seem to be saying that easy money has beneficial general effects on the economy under almost any circumstances. That seems to me to be a kind of mechanistic Keynesianism. I would argue that the heart of the matter is context, context, context. I was much more specific. I said that most any time since WWII, apart from points I stipulated, LOOSER money, not loose money (the latter a meaningless phrase) would have been helpful. How much looser? Who the hell knows? Until you can anticipate an undesirable increase in inflation relative to expected gains in employment. Note I was focusing mostly on money, not on targeted bailouts. This got some people to thinking I'm for bailing out every sinking capitalist. Bite your tongue. . . . and stinging like a bee." I can't imagine that either doctrinaire tight money policy or doctrinaire loose money policy could offer a superior alternative. Remember I said 'looser.' If that's a doctrine, than I'm an encyclopedist. It's true that policy tools and policy goals go together "to some non-trivial extent". . . . True but too general. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:12070] Re: radio
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 10:18:59 -0700 (PDT) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:12067] radio I'm doing a post-Labor Day special on my radio show (WBAI, New York City) this Thursday evening. I've got Edie Rassel of the Economic Policy Insitute booked to talk about a joint report by EPI and the Institute for Women's Policy Research on nontraditional work, and after her, Stefanie Schmidt of the Milken Institute, to talk about her work showing that worker anxiety in the U.S. is greatly exaggerated (the short version of her argument was in Initially I reacted to Stephanie's result with muted hostility, since you could take it to connote that life is just a bowl of cherries for the working class. But if it isn't obvious, there's an upside to the finding, if true. Less anxious workers can be more militant. Mao's dictum, "the worse, the better" doesn't follow. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
re: drawing a line
. . . political end. Here's part of a recent column by the beloved Pat Buchanan (NY Post, 11/29): I'd like to note that on the level of op-ed analysis, Buchanan's comments here are unimpeachable. The only wrinkle in the quote is the gratuitous, jew-baiting reference to Goldman Sachs. Gratuitous not because G-S is not accurately classified in terms of its interest and political clout, but because it is singled out, in contrast to investment banks with Irish names. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that G-S is a little different. They've reportedly got their hooks into Gingrich and Dole as well as the Clinton Administration. Moreover, they are insulated by their jewishness, such as it is. Excessively pointed critiques come off as anti-semitic. Even criticism based on generic references to bankers has been attacked as anti-semitic. "How is Mexico to repay the IMF? The devaluation of the peso by 50 percent doubled the price of U.S. goods and cut by 50 percent the price of Mexican exports. Devaluation thus wiped out the tiny U.S. trade surplus. And when U.S. companies saw the price of Mexican labor had been cut in half in dollars, they laid off their workers, shut down their U.S. plants and headed south for the Rio Grande. "This, then, is the great trade-off of the Global Economy. Wall Street gets reimbursed, while Main Street loses its export market, its factories and its jobs, and is put on the hook by the IMF so "investors" on Wall Street do not have to swallow really bug losses. We do it all -- to make the world safe for Goldman Sachs!" I suspect this sort of argument will get a strong response in the wroking class. People do have a sense there's a crisis out there that can hit them, and that they will pay for the financiers' fun and games. If the workers' movement, and left theorists, don't sharply point the finger at capitalism as responsible for enormous economic uncertainty as well as growing working-class misery, then right- wing populists will win with their line and aim U.S. workers' anger at their brothers and sisters abroad. I very much agree that we have to try to avoid being pre-empted on this. I don't think the hazard in this context is emnity against foreign workers, but ownership of the issue for the neo-fascist right. I do think there are two problems in a critique that is aimed at the System with a capital S. One is political, that it repels workers and pushes them right, since it could be taken to imply an ultimatist left solution or 'maximum program' is the only relief from financial crimes. The second is economic, that the 'systemic' critique is wrong, that financial regulation under progressive governance in a mixed economy could be effective. So I take your point as far as it goes, but think it needs to go further. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Drawing a Line
. . . validating those threatened financial practices. Anyone here want to risk a global deflation? When it goes on a spree, big finance takes lots of hostages. I wouldn't, but I don't think the authorities would either, which ought to create opportunities for concessions. That's why I asked if there is any practical way to dispense financial relief in this context according to precepts of social justice, in the interests of the working class. The question is whether there is a counter-part in this context to alternative SL bailout proposals, such as EPI's. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Drawing a Line
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] . . . Except that these international bailouts, unlike the SL resuce, don't cost U.S. taxpayers anything. The Treasury made a profit on the Mexico bailout, and the Bretton Woods institutions are also profit-makers. The question is how much profit. The average interest cost of public debt is between six and seven percent. After adjusting for risk (and don't ask me how to do that), the Mexico deal should garner more to be declared a good investment for the U.S. fisc, if we're going to be wearing our green eye-shades. If there really is no cost in the narrow sense, then the right focus would seem to be on how the deal is connected to a coerced restructuring that reduces global labor/environmental standards. But that is not likely to be as prominent a political issue, except in the debtor nations. Walker's post is a gem, but I'd like to hear more on the substance of the accounting issues, which really get my juices flowing. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Drawing a Line
From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a somewhat muddled op-ed article in today's L.A. TIMES, Perotoid Populist Kevin Phillips had an interesting suggestion: that any bail-outs of "elite" financial institutions be paid for by a tax on financial transactions, rather than out of general revenues. He called this "privatizing." Said tax is a good idea in its own right, but there is no reason why the proceeds should be wasted on subsidies to 'fat, dumb and happy' capital. Calling this privatization implies the proceeds in some way 'belong' to the taxpayers in the first place, which does not follow. Obviously, real privatization means the risk-taker eats the losses. But you knew that. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Drawing a Line
From: Thomas Kruse [EMAIL PROTECTED] Max's drawing a line post is very timely, very to the point: we really must hash out what a progressive position on bailouts should be. I agree that these are the sorts of crises we will see more of. As evidenced by the NYT article attached below, the mainstream press also seems to see this as a serious, recurring issue. I hope other pen-lers will follow up on this. Some questions for Max (and others) follow. The US labor movement is going to be told, not without reason, that a collapse of Asian economies will destroy US jobs, through I presume reduced imports of our goods and low-ball export pricing to US consumers. Are there any quantitative analyses out there on this? Yes, some people at EPI are kicking some numbers around. I'll post anything worth posting. The question of greatest interest to me is whether there is some practical way to accomplish the sort of restructuring alluded to without going up the blind political alley of simply advocating state takeover of whatever and restitution to whomever. Could you spell this out a bit? Sure. It's not helpful in my view to respond to this by simply calling for socialism. I think we need ideas for arrangements that don't foresee indefinite state control of enterprises that clearly belong in the private sector (e.g., consumer electronics, apparel). At the same time, this is an opportunity to re-socialize firms and industries for which a public rationale can be offered, such as utilities, communications, some finance and insurance, etc. One relevant discussion is how to sort out business activities for such purposes. And a note: it seems to me that a central part of a progressive "no bailout" policy would be pointing to the record of how such bailouts "structurally adjust" millions outside the US into ever greater instability, vulnerabilty and lower wages. In fact, I would suggest that working out a progressive bailout policy would have to be a multinational activity. Right. The proponents of bail-out have to show that bailing out solves the problem and that failure to bail out makes the problem much worse. Neither is obvious to me. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Drawing a Line
It seems to me that our politics lacks the right response to the current and incipient financial events. By "our" I include both a liberal, muddle-through stance and a radical, sit-back-and-gawk posture. The Administration is going to support IMF bail-outs and some of the left is going to be carried along, for lack of a substantive critique and alternative. The right is going to make great political hay opposing the use of taxpayer money to bail out fiscally imprudent foreigners. The further left is going to confine itself to speculating on the nature of the current crisis and what this means for assorted theories and intellectual currents. The US labor movement is going to be told, not without reason, that a collapse of Asian economies will destroy US jobs, through I presume reduced imports of our goods and low-ball export pricing to US consumers. Presently the actual bailout cost in dollars does not seem to be the main issue. It's more the principle of the thing. Until we stand on principle, we face a fate like Prometheus. Our liver is consumed by vultures, it grows back, and the system rolls along. I would like to suggest, if it's not too obvious, that the basic principle should be to bail out workers and small savers, not holders of great wealth or corporations (financial and otherwise). Force banks to write off bad debts, dismiss from positions of authority decision-makers who have made bad decisions, and restructure to keep enterprises open, people working, and small stakeholders solvent. Short of a restructuring plan based on this principle, there should be no support for any bailout at all. There should be no socialism for holders of financial assets, only some kind of insurance for small savers. If we're willing to contemplate the disruption of international trade for the sake of labor, human, and environmental standards, why not for this situation? Just as we indulge industrial action that disrupts commerce and lives, why not deny public subsidy to failed enterprise or capital allocation? (I think the same follows, incidentally, for the global warming agreements.) It all depends on which hostages you're willing to give up. I suggest that the core interests are jobs and incomes, informed by the frameworks of class, race, and gender, and I'm willing to flout the so-called 'public interest' on everything else absent satisfaction on the core issues. Nobody ever won a battle without taking some casualties. The question of greatest interest to me is whether there is some practical way to accomplish the sort of restructuring alluded to without going up the blind political alley of simply advocating state takeover of whatever and restitution to whomever. My instinct is that we're going to see more rather than less of these events -- crises that fall short of apocalypse but which reflect significant acts of economic exploitation and lost political opportunities. What we say about this does matter. After all, it was a minority, radical critique of free trade that has assisted crucially in the development of a major movement (consisting of both left- and right- components) which has culminated in the stalling of further free trade legislation that is unleavened by humane, social concerns. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Dilbert revisited
From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] coming back to the gigantic and crucial theoretical debate that held pen-l by the throat recently (until comrade Sawicki pointed out the correct path to us all), I bought a copy of THE DILBERT FUTURE: THRIVING ON STUPIDITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY (50 per cent off at BookStar). . . . BTW, the book isn't as funny as the other one I read, THE DILBERT PRINCIPLE. It's not funny at all. I think Adams has been mass-producing humor in order to exploit his 15 minutes of fame. This is his third book in about a year and a half. And one can't mass-produce humor. I think his daily strip has also gone down hill. Obviously anybody is going to have good days and bad. You can't judge Marx, for example, by his disappointing "Favorite Schnitzel Recipies." Another axiom is that people often run out of ideas, so I wouldn't be surprized if Adams couldn't keep up his current pace. I still like the strip, and haven't bothered to read the books. See in you Chicago. Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Global Financial Crisis II
Quoth Valis: Quoth Tom re Max: The disruption and the socialization of the losses are not random processes. Life goes on more or less for some people and just less for others. While Chossudovsky may have been hyperventilating, Max's and Doug's sanguine comments about the "low rate of unemployment" reveal a quaint U.S.-centric parochialism. . . . Good one, Tom. Sometimes I think a few of this list ought to be paradropped into Bangladesh -or even just Spain - without a passport; nothing permanent, one purgatorial week should do. A full fridge and certain basic structural assurances can be corrosive of ideological moorings, it seems, and all of us are susceptible. Hey, anybody actually read my original message? Where I never said "low" unemployment more or less everywhere, but "relatively low" UE in the U.S.? Eh? It ought to be possible to logically separate the issue of historic landmarks of utter, systemic breakdown (e.g., "crisis") from value judgements about how lousy things are for the workers and peasants of Spain, Bengla-Desh, and the places you-all live. Now if you'll pardon me I have to load the fridge with my latest cargo of sumptuary indulgences. Champion of Full Employment == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Global Financial Crisis II
And another thing. Are you saying that _I_ sympathize with Chossudovsky's politics or excuse failures in logic and careless use of data? Or are you just setting up a bogus dichotomy as a platform to pontificate from? I simply was pointing out that Doug and Max were citing low unemployment data as if the significance of that data was self-evident. [Walker] Obviously, in light of this thread, very little of what I said was self-evident. I merely pointed out that the U.S. data of *relatively* low unemployment contradicted one of Cho's several breathless generalizations, but most of my post was a set of questions about the issues of financial fragility and market fixing, which you and Valis turned into a discussion about who had bigger calluses. That doesn't make me a Chossudovsky "sympathizer" or an "adversary" of either Henwood or Sawicky. Henceforth, the names of Walker and Chossudovsky will be forever intertwined, their ethnic contrast notwithstanding, though there may be some truth to the rumor that Chossudovsky's real name was Lodge and he changed it to make it as a radical economist. By the same token, Walker's original name was Lobachevsky and he changed it to make it as a Canadian wilderness guide. Jeez, Colin, what a thin-skinned exercise in guilt by non-association. I sure hope Doug and Max take my points more constructively. As indeed I have. I will say, however, that pooh-poohing the apocalypse can be as much of a pose as apocalypticism itself. It might even be interesting to ask whether apocalyptic pooh-poohing isn't itself just a variation on the theme of apocalypse. In other words, Sawicky's rhetorical labelling of Chossudovsky's tract as "apocalyptic" was itself an apocalyptic gesture. The logic of this utterly escapes me, my hostility to it notwithstanding. Think about it. Hmm. Nope. Nothing. MBS "One man deserves the credit, One man deserves the fame, And Nicolai Ivanovich Chossudovsky is his name! (Hey!)" (First one to trace this gets a free drink at my expense at the AEA meetings.) == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Let Us Now Praise Chossudovsky
For whatever it's worth, lest I be embroiled in an endless intra-Slavic vendetta, let interested parties (if any) please note that in my original post I thought the professor's article sufficiently interesting and substantive to merit a reaction, albeit with some criticisms and questions. If I was given to criticism for its own sake, I could spend all day replying to messages of folks whose names need not be mentioned. Second, the Lobachevsky joke was intended in no way as any sort of aspersion as to the originality of Professor C.'s article or any other work. Max Sawicky == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Chossudovsky Award
First prize for citing Tom Lehrer first goes to E. Dannin. Honorable mention to Prof Rosenberg for tracing the reference one layer back, and also because I'm not certain, given his extra-hemispheric location, whether he was first or not. BTW Bill, Maxine said hello back. Her talk was well received, though ten minutes before its close the long hand of neo-liberalism conspired to empty our building with a false-alarm fire drill. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Amsden on Korea
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 11:02:05 +0800 (SST) The two books one by Amsden (1989) and Woo (1991) are interesting books. FYI: Steve Smith did a report for EPI a couple of years ago on the Asian industrial policy model. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 ===
Notice of URPE/IAFE Meeting
Don't miss the URPE/IAFFE Plenary at the ASSA in Chicago Aspects of a Progressive, Feminist Agenda: ADVOCATES and ACADEMICS Saturday, January 3rd at 8:00 P.M., Hyatt Hotel-Water Tower This year, URPE (Union of Radical Political Economics) and IAFFE (International Association for Feminist Economics) have teamed up to present a panel on how progressive and feminist economists can work together with local activists and legislators for economic and social change. Speakers will address concrete ways in which academics can and do help advocates make a difference in their communities. The panel includes: JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinios State Representative and Secretary of the Conference of Women Legislators MARICELA GARCIA, Executive Director Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Protection RANDY ALBELDA, University of Massachusetts Boston and Co-founder of Boston Area Academics Working Group on Poverty JUNE LAPIDUS of Roosevelt University will moderate.
Re: Dilbert
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 20:15:46 -0500 Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Dilbert Dilbert is a perfect way for cubicle-bound office drones to blow off steam in a socially harmless way. The author's politics are a perfect fit for the way the cartoon is consumed. Don't rebel, don't unionize - laugh at the stupid boss! I said this was a waste of time, and here I am wasting more time. My brain goes into low- power consumption mode after 8 pm. Laughter can be prelude to rebellion. I hypothesize that desperation and gloom less often are. I would bet that an office of 'Dilbert' readers are more likely to unionize than an office of 'zippy the pinhead' fans. The hierarchical structure of Dilbert bears some review. The boss is a perfect idiot, but he's the least of the power structure. At the top of the food chain is Dogbert and his 'special body of armed men,' Bob the Dinasaur. Dogbert is able to con and/or intimidate everyone and is a reasonable model of the fundamental illegitimacy of the social order and the market. He routinely sells products utterly lacking in utility. Bob the D of course is pure physical force, amoral and relentless; his specialty is wedgies, which he is even capable of delivering over the phone lines. Then there is Catbert, "evil director of human resources." who offers nothing in the way of workplace productivity and devotes himself to tormenting workers for the pure pleasure of it, emphasizing the alienation of the w.c. at the point of production and the amorality of capitalism. Finally there is Ratbert, a complete sucker, the apotheosis of the helpless victim of corporate culture. Then there are the gallant workers. There is the female engineer with the big hair, a worthy representative of assertive feminism. There is Wally, who resists and survives by reveling in his unpro-ductivity. And finally there is Dilbert himself, who routinely ridicules his boss to his face without the latter's knowledge and still manages to get his job done. He is clearly more qualified to run the company than the boss himself, though it is not clear he could best the diabolical genius Dogbert in quasi-competitive markets. Which points up the need for radical solutions to the likes of Dogbert and his goon Bob. Some reactionaries have produced great art, and some draw pretty good comic strips. Next week we can tackle an advanced subject like the dialectics of Dirty Harry. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Liberte, Legumite, Fraternite
From: John Treacy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let the new motto of the revolution be: Liberte, Legumite, Fraternite, et Flactuation And long live the Potatoship of the Proletariat. MBS
Liberte, Legumite, Fraternite
Let's see if I've got this straight. We're going to organize a revolution of workers on behalf of a system they don't like (socialism) in order to radically reduce their consumption and change its composition to boot. That sounds like a plan. My only question about the one-hamburger a month ration for global economic justice: do those hot dogs I buy on the street count as meat? Back on the planet we call earth, Teddy K. and my liberal friends at Americans for Democratic Action have commenced a renewed campaign to increase the minimum wage again. (Check the ADA web site for details.) I suppose I should warn them not to push it too high, lest U.S. beef consumption and alimentary radioactivity among the proles rise to dangerous levels. I shouldn't give short shrift to the campaign to curb consumption in the advanced industrial countries, so that more resources might be available for exploitation in the less-developed countries, so that our natural heritage will be left for future generations. Perhaps we can reduce trade and budget deficits. There is a name for this international campaign; it's called neo-liberalism. Regrettably behind the curve, Vegetarian Illich Lenin Edible Plants Institute
Re: Opposition to Privatizing Social Security from Republican Ec
William S. Lear wrote: At the end of last month, Paul Phillips asked about reasons to oppose privatizing social security. Today on CSPAN I saw something I hadn't seen before. A very trim, well-dressed and articulate gentleman, who repeatedly stressed to the audience that he was "a good conservative Republican", royally reamed the ideas for privatizing social security. The forum, held Tuesday the 14th, was entitled "Social Security Privatization" and was chaired by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security (a DC-based group). Martha McSteen, the president, either chaired or also gave a presentation (I only caught a bit of the whole show and didn't see her speak but a few sentences). The economist was identified as John Mueller, Vice President of Lehrman, Bell, Mueller, and Cannon. He presented, from what I gather, a summary of three of his papers he had prepared. He seemed confident, well-prepared, and was able to easily (from my perspective) answer objections thrown up from the audience. Weird. Lehrman Bell is usually considered a right-wing hypermonetarist firm. Weird indeed. Interesting but not necessarily weird. The McSteen group is very well-financed. They have made their fortune by focusing relentlessly on Social Security and Medicare, and damn the consequences for anything else in the Federal budget, quite unlike AARP (who tend to play ball with other liberal groups). They might have simply bought the papers. Chances are the papers are useful, as the Cttee's stuff usually is, up to a point. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: Bourgeois Democracy or Dictatorship?
Jim, Rather than revolutionary pressure, you cite 'outside the beltway' agitation as a force for positive change, which I wouldn't deny. However, under present circumstances we don't observe such agitation around Fast Track, so we (i.e., you) have to consider the possibility that Democratic members of Congress, with no manifest popular agitation, can still do the right thing sometimes, because they represent their constituents' interests to some extent, so there is some scope for parliamentary politics. Ideally, popular agitation would feed into such politics and energize it to greater lengths, but you work with what you have. Ex post, it is of course possible to explain everything according to this theory. A true test of such a theory, however, would be its predictive power, not its power to rationalize history after the fact. Right. But one has to get the theory right first. Fine, but I see nobody leaping to predict how this vote is going to come out by reference to any such theory. Also, we have to face the fact that though it can't be dismissed out of hand, asking _any_ social scientific theory to live up to a Popperian prediction test may be asking too much. (If I remember correctly, Popper himself said that social science could never do so. I think that the prediction test and falsifiability in general should be kept in mind in order to encourage humility.) Popper et al. are out of my territory, but might he be implying that social science cannot predict because it is not really science, in which case he is of no help to any brand of economics. Friday the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Fast Track authority. Most would agree, aside from reservations about anti-free trade politics, that the correct vote for the bourgeoisie is "yes." Accordingly, the only explanation for a 'no' vote by the theory alluded to above is fear of working class mobilization by the ruling class. Not true: there are conflicts w/in the bourgeoisie (and none but the crudest Marxist has denited their existence). Small businesses, especially in textiles and farming, are traditionally protectionist. Such conflicts mitigate against the idea of a DoB, just as the DoP has not been kind to real-world socialist democracy. On top of that, the state is relatively autonomous from the inter- and intra-class conflicts: to some extent the choices of the government officials reflect the way in which decision-making is organized. Various deals can be struck. Once again, no DoB but some kind of multi-part bargaining process. Most would agree the U.S. left is not in a position of strength, the U.S. revolutionary left is invisible, and the labor movement is starting to eat a few Wheaties (sorry for technical terminology) but has a good ways to go before it can leap over tall buildings. It would seem inevitable, therefore, under the theory of bourgeois dictatorship that Fast Track will pass. Not true: see above. The protectionist segment of the capitalist class has been getting weaker over the years, but their defeat is far from inevitable, especially if they ally with environmentalists and unions. The latter forces are weak, as Max notes, but can win small victories here and there when they can ally with capitalists. (Of course, such an alliance says something about the _quality_ of the victories.) As above, the coexistence of protectionism and free trade ideology mitigates against the idea of a DoB. So what can you blokes say before Friday's vote that might explain a Fast Track defeat which is a victory for the working class? Wouldn't you have to revise your view of liberalism, social democracy, and the nature of the State? Unfortunately for your side, a Fast Track victory merely upholds the time-honored maxim that 'shit happens' and does not refute the possibility that good things can happen at other times. I dunno. I think you're arguing with people like Sam Bowles who used to hold that politics was simply class vs. class (or at least that's what his theory implied to me). He's not on pen-l, alas. To say that sometimes the ruling class is divided (something of a contradiction in terms, what?) and sometimes it isn't looks like another out. The ruling class could be divided in any number of ways on any issue. It could be prey to political reversal in a variety of circumstances, even when there is no big popular agitation. But then it isn't really a dictatorship, and politics need not be confined to extra-parliamentary venues. Cheers, Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute.
(Fwd) Re: Bourgeois Democracy or Dictatorship?
Mike E. said: Max, perhaps I am losing my ability to discern your tongue-in-cheek wit from your serious argument, but if this is a series argument, I am surprised it Serious as a heat rash, though you were not the sort of person I had in mind as an implicit target. I was most interested in confronting what I see as an automatic knee-jerk ultra-left view, which isn't you. is coming from you. You should know full well that the forces opposing Fast Track are an unholy alliance that include folks with widely divergent interests. While the labor/left opposition is easy to understand, there are Granted, but conflicts often entail somewhat disparate forces on one or both sides. also elements of the right and business community (read capitalists) who have a vested interest in defeating Fast Track, as, for example, the case of the Florida Citrus Council. There also are the libertarians and others who see in Fast Track another step down the road to an unholy one-world government or who chauvinistically argue against any action that subjects U.S. sovereignty to international control. Just for the sake of getting our right-wingers straight, the right-wing opposition to Fast Track hasn't included libertarians. It has included those who fear world government, but these tend to be pretty marginal figures. More relevant are those who look askance at trade deals superceding state laws. Funny thing is that there is nothing wrong with this view, from my standpoint. I don't want a trade deal that could prevent my state from, say, deciding it wanted to ban fruit sprayed with certain pesticides. Coming from the right-wingers it seems to be mostly an expression of nationalism mixed with xenophobia, since as you know they have little brief for the labor and environmental regulations that are imperiled by free trade. Taken from this perspective, the dichotomy you suggest explains nothing because it is wrong. What it does suggest is that class interests are not monolithic and cannot be reduced to create a bipolar portrayal of events. Sure. But this would suggest even less of a case for a dictatorship of the bourgeosie. If the latter is diverse, it must have some way of arriving at decisions before they are imposed on the rest of us. In the same vein, bourgeois disunity creates more political openings for the w.c. There is more scope for politics. Intra-class divisions have always played an important role, as in the case of divisions within the working class expressed by unions that line up with the employers on different sides of political issues. Unfortunately for your side, a Fast Track victory merely upholds the time-honored maxim that 'shit happens' and does not refute the possibility that good things can happen at other times. Who is the "you" in "your" side? Who's on which side and which side are you on? (Would make a catchy tune, don't you think?) You is whomever the shoe fits. As I said, I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote this, by which I mean I don't think we disagree much, if at all, on this question. You have dodged the question, however, to some extent. I could rephrase it as, if Fast Track loses, don't you think the Democrats in the House voting 'no' will deserve a little more credit than ordinarily given to them on this list? Cheers, Max == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: U.S. Continues To Reserve Right To Attack Iraq
capitalists it serves? Anyone got any figures on proposed U.S. military spending for the 1997-2002 period, and how much to that goes directly to the contractors? You can get it from the Office of Management and Budget web site. You want the 'Mid-Session Review' which has the latest figures, and for contracting you want the numbers for procurement and I believe a separate number for base construction. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Bourgeois Democracy or Dictatorship?
Comrades, It is said that when the U.S. government does something good or fails to do something bad, it is only as a concession to an incipient proletarian-revolutionary movement. When it fails to do something good or elects to do something bad, on the other hand, it is said to merely be acting true to form. Ex post, it is of course possible to explain everything according to this theory. A true test of such a theory, however, would be its predictive power, not its power to rationalize history after the fact. Friday the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Fast Track authority. Most would agree, aside from reservations about anti-free trade politics, that the correct vote for the bourgeoisie is "yes." Accordingly, the only explanation for a 'no' vote by the theory alluded to above is fear of working class mobilization by the ruling class. Most would agree the U.S. left is not in a position of strength, the U.S. revolutionary left is invisible, and the labor movement is starting to eat a few Wheaties (sorry for technical terminology) but has a good ways to go before it can leap over tall buildings. It would seem inevitable, therefore, under the theory of bourgeois dictatorship that Fast Track will pass. So what can you blokes say before Friday's vote that might explain a Fast Track defeat which is a victory for the working class? Wouldn't you have to revise your view of liberalism, social democracy, and the nature of the State? Unfortunately for your side, a Fast Track victory merely upholds the time-honored maxim that 'shit happens' and does not refute the possibility that good things can happen at other times. Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Red Scorecard
Can anyone recommend a book, or preferably an article, which surveys the current state of Marxist economic theory, particularly in terms of delineating the assorted schools of thought and associated persons? Thanks, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: social liberalism
Whatever liberalism came out of FDR's time has now split between a quasi-social democratic view which is oriented to labor and living standard issues on one side, and a more middle-class focus on 'the poor,' ecology, reproductive rights, civil liberties, and at its worst, 'identity politics'. Race gets lost somewhere between the two. To confuse things even more, the latter is often called social liberalism by partisans of the former. Partisans of the latter, in contrast, think of partisans of the former as either labor hacks or unrealistically radical. The poster-boy for social liberalism in this way of thinking is Robert Rubin--favors taxation of the rich, but using the money for deficit reduction; favors free trade; favors social spending to programs narrowly targeted to the poor (sic). Robert Reich is mostly the other kind, though he founders on the rock of free trade and, to some extent, privatization. An article by EPI denizens Ruy Texeira and David Kusnets referred to the labor-oriented type as "worker liberalism," though I favor the more bombastic terminology, "proletarian liberalism." PL is a logical reaction to the failure of PS, but I fear it doesn't go far enough in reckoning with the culture and values of the working class. For that, we need to reinvent American populism. From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" [EMAIL PROTECTED] This message is going to several lists simultaneously. Some time ago on several lists there was a discussion regarding how it came to be that in the US "liberal" came to mean someone who favored government intervention in the economy, in contrast to "classical liberalism" and how the word "liberal" is viewed in most non-English speaking societies, and even in Britain to some degree. Without doubt it had come to mean this in the US by the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a view that might be called "social liberalism." About a month ago there was an essay in _The Economist_ by Harvard's Samuel Beer on the roots of "New Labour" that argued that the key turning point was the British Liberal Party Convention of 1906. Prior to then British liberalism had been "Gladstonian," that is "classical." Lloyd George dominated the 1906 convention, which was in part responding to the formal founding of the British Labour Party that year, and supported a variety of proposals including a minimum wage, protection of union funds, eight-hour working day for miners, health and unemployment insurance, and old age pensions, among other familiar items. He also supported removing the veto of the House of Lords that was implemented in 1911. Keynes was a supporter of Lloyd George and along with Beveridge became an acolyte of this new "social liberalism" that would eventually spread into the US, especially after WW I, such views prior to then being labeled "progressive." That Hayek and Keynes debated over a variety of issues in the 1930s thus can be seen as a debate between these two kinds of "liberalism." Barkley Rosser James Madison University -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED] == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
