Rat choice
But I agree that more recently Bates's insights have seemed to me to be more obscured than sharpened by the "rational choice" methodology in political science... how does the "rat choice" method of PoliSci differ from that of economics? supposedly, rat choice logic is one of the major theoretical tools that sharpens rather than obscures economic thinking, right? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
South Korean fire sale
New York Times, April 22, 2000 Renault Agrees to Buy Troubled Samsung Motors By JOHN TAGLIABUE PARIS, April 21 -- Renault, the French automaker, reached an agreement today to acquire the ailing Samsung Motors of South Korea, concluding its second major acquisition in Asia in the last year. Renault, which last year acquired 37 percent of Nissan, the troubled Japanese carmaker, said last month that it hoped the takeover of Samsung Motors would enable it to challenge Hyundai, the market leader in South Korea, by securing 10 percent to 15 percent of the nation's automobile market. Financial details of the Samsung acquisition were not announced, but Renault is believed to have agreed to pay $340 million to $350 million. Renault is expected to pay about $100 million immediately, and the rest over 10 years. Renault will also assume about $200 million in Samsung debt. The acquisition agreement was reached after four months of negotiations when Samsung's South Korean creditors, led by Hanvit Bank, agreed to settle $262 million in debt that the French carmaker had discovered. The deal represents the latest entry by a Western carmaker into the Asian market, which was shaken badly by the region's economic crisis in 1998. Last month, DaimlerChrysler agreed to pay $2.1 billion for a 33 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors. The last two years, seven of Japan's 11 carmakers have linked up in various degrees with foreign partners. Another South Korean carmaker, Daewoo, is up for sale, and Western carmakers, including General Motors, Ford Motor, DaimlerChrysler and Fiat of Italy, are bidding for control. Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/renault-samsung.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
The Typical American Doesn't Have Much to Gain from Globalization
GLOBALISM ON THE ROPES The Typical American Doesn't Have Much to Gain from Globalization Mark Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. "Power," Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers once said, "is the ability of a labor union like the UAW to make the most powerful corporation in the world, General Motors, say 'Yes' when it wants to say 'No.' That's power." On December 1, 1999, as clouds of tear gas hovered over the streets of Seattle, President Clinton said yes to 50,000 protesters, when he wanted to say no. He agreed, in principle, to making labor rights an enforceable condition for trade among the countries of the World Trade Organization. That's not to say that he meant it - quite the contrary, in fact. The process proposed by the administration would take decades, and is unlikely to ever yield meaningful results. But that is not what mattered, since the immediate effect of his statement was to scuttle the millennium round of the WTO. Clinton knew that would be the result of his speech; he didn't want it, but he went ahead with it anyway. This is what happens when a broad cross-section of labor, the environmental movement, the religious community and campus activists put aside their differences to pursue a common goal. This grand coming together also made for great theater: the Seattle police, overdressed in their gas masks and riot gear; black-masked anarchists; environmentalists in sea-turtle costumes; bare-breasted Lesbian Avengers with "BGH-free" scrawled across their chests; and giant puppets and protesters on stilts with huge glowing wings of the monarch butterfly (the kind that seems to have trouble with the pollen from genetically modified corn). Greenpeace floated a big green condom over the labor march that said "Practice Safe Trade." The pundits were not amused. The prospect that, as one businessman said at the World Economic Forum in Davos the next month, "we could lose" seems to have touched a raw nerve. Michael Kelly, writing in the Washington Post, accused President Clinton of taking "a dive in Seattle for labor, the enviros and the loony left." For Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, the protests were "ridiculous," "crazy," carried out by "a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates, protectionist trade unions and yuppies looking for their 1960's fix." George Will noted that "semi-autarky has been the left's recurrent temptation. Protectionism is imperative for the left's agenda, which is ever-increasing government allocation of wealth and opportunity." Michael Kinsley assured readers of Time that "the WTO is OK" - without saying anything about what it does - and urged them to "do the math. Or take it on faith." These mostly contemptuous dismissals betray an underlying intellectual weakness. There are good reasons that the defenders of the status quo do not wish to engage their critics on these issues. While they have been largely successful in pretending that they have the bulk of economic research and theory on their side, this turns out not to be true. Let us begin with the simplest, commonly accepted definition of globalization: an increase in international trade and investment. Is this necessarily beneficial for everyone involved? Or even for the majority of people in any given country? In the United States, trade is now almost twice as large, as a percentage of GDP, as it was in 1973. Foreign investment, both outward and inward, has also risen sharply. At the same time, the median real wage in the United States has been stagnant over the past twenty-six years. This one statistic tells a very big story, a fact which the more ardent advocates either don't understand or pretend they don't. Median: that means the fiftieth percentile, i.e., half of the entire labor force is at or below that wage. This includes office workers, supervisors, everyone working for a wage or salary - not just textile workers or people in industries that are hard hit by import competition or runaway shops. Real: that means adjusted for inflation, and quality changes. It is not acceptable to argue, as is often done, that the typical household now has a microwave and a VCR. That has already been taken into account in calculating the real wage. This means that over the last twenty-six years, the typical wage or salary earner has not shared in the gains from economic growth. Now compare this result to the previous twenty-six years (1946-1973), in which foreign trade and investment formed a much smaller part of the U.S. economy, and was more restricted. During this time, the typical wage increased by about eighty percent. This is one reason why it is so uncommon for anyone to defend the era of globalization on its merits. opportunities for a better world. Full article at: http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2000/03/03/2.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
When Karl Marx played the stock market
From Francis Wheen's new biography "Karl Marx: a Life" (W. W. Norton, 2000): The annual rent for Modena Villas was £65 almost twice that of Grafton Terrace. Quite how Marx expected to pay for all luxury is a mystery: as so often, however, his Micawberish faith was vindicated. On 9 May 1864 Wilhelm Lupus Wolff died of meningitis, bequeathing all my books furniture and effects debts and moneys owning to me and all the residue of my person estate and also all real and leasehold estates of which I may seized possessed or entitled or of which I may have power dispose by this my Will unto and to the use of the said K Marx. Wolff was one of the few old campaigners from the 1840s who never wavered in his allegiance to Marx and Engels. He worked with them in Brussels on the Communist Correspondence Committee, in Paris at the 1848 revolution and in Cologne when Marx was editing the Neue Rheinishe Zeitung. From 1853 he lived quietly in Manchester, earning his living as a language teacher and relying largely on Engels to keep him up to date with political news. I dont believe anyone in Manchester can have been universally beloved as our poor little friend, Karl wrote to Jenny after delivering the funeral oration, during which he broke down several times. As executors of the will, Marx and Engels were amazed to discover that modest old Lupus had accumulated a small fortune through hard work and thrift. Even after deducting funeral expenses, estate duty, a £100 bequest for Engels and another £100 for Wolffs doctor Louis Borchardt much to Marxs annoyance, since he held this bombastic bungler responsible for the death there was a residue of £820 for the main legatee. This was far more than Marx had ever earned from his writing, and explains why the first volume of Capital (published three years later) carries a dedication to my unforgettable friend Wilhelm Wolff, intrepid, faithful, noble protagonist of the proletariat, rather than the more obvious and worthy candidate, Friedrich Engels. The Marxes wasted no time in spending their windfall. Jenny had the new house furnished and redecorated, explaining that I thought it better to put the money to this use rather than to fritter it away piecemeal on trifles. Pets were bought for the children (three dogs, two cats, two birds) and named after Karls favourite tipples, including Whisky and Toddy In July he took the family on vacation to Ramsgate for three weeks, though the eruption of a malignant carbuncle just above the penis rather spoiled the fun, leaving him confined to bed at their guest-house in a misanthropic sulk. Your philistine on the spree lords it here as do, to an even greater extent, his better half and his female offspring, he noted, gazing enviously through his window at the beach. It is almost sad to see venerable Oceanus, that age-old Titan, having to suffer these pygmies to disport themselves on his phiz, and serve them for entertainment. The boils had replaced the bailiffs as his main source of irritation. Mostly, however, he dispatched them with the same careless contempt. That autumn he held a grand ball at Modena Villas for Jennychen and Laura, who had spent many years declining invitations to parties for fear that they would be unable to reciprocate. Fifty of their young friends were entertained until four in the morning, and so much food was left over little Tussy was allowed to have an impromptu tea-party for local children the following day. Writing to Lion Philips in the summer of 1864, Marx revealed an even more remarkable detail of his prosperous new way of life: "I have, which will surprise you not a little, been speculating partly in American funds, but more especially in English stocks, which are springing up like mushrooms this year (in furtherance of every imaginable and unimaginable joint stock enterprise) are forced up to a quite unreasonable level and then, for most part, collapse. In this way, I have made over £400 now that the complexity of the political situation affords greater scope, I shall begin all over again. Its a type of operation that makes small demands on ones time, and its worth while running some risk in order to relieve the enemy of his money." Since there is no hard evidence of these transactions, some scholars have assumed that Marx simply invented the story to impress his businesslike uncle. But it may be true. He certainly kept a close eye on share prices, and while badgering Engels for the next payment from Lupuss estate he mentioned that had had the money during the past ten days, Id have made a killing on the Stock Exchange here. The time has come again when with wit and very little money, its possible to make money in London. Playing the markets, hosting dinner-dances, walking his dogs in the park: Marx was in severe danger of becoming respectable One day a curious document arrived, announcing that he ha been elected, without his knowledge, to the municipal sinecure of
Fw: AAG 2001 CALL FOR PAPERS (fwd)
CALL FOR PAPERS POST-MARXIST HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES AAG ANNUAL CONFERENCE: NEW YORK, 2001 (27th FEB MARCH 3rd) Convenors: 1. Dr Richard Smith ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 2. Dr Marcus Doel ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Despite the enormous influence of Marxism on human geography there have been few attempts to specify and assess the innumerable departures from Marxism in recent decades. We aim to bring together human geographers interested in post-Marxist theory and practice: some of whom may envisage their work as breaking with Marxism, while others may see their work as a continuation and/or radicalization of Marxism. The sessions will explore the potential of post-Marxian human geographies in terms of theory, politics, and practice, and consider the extent to which contemporary human geography expresses a Marxian political unconscious. Possible themes for papers include: The limits, crises, and aporias of Marxism The heterogeneity and incommensurability of Marxisms Beyond class reductionism and economic determinism Feminist and post-colonial interventions Doing justice to the politics of difference and anti-essentialist Marxisms Rethinking modes of production and reproduction Political economy after the cultural turn Radical democracy Post-isms In addition to these themes, papers may wish to address reactions to Marxism in the work of authors such as: Adorno, Arendt, Aronowitz, Balibar, Bardhan, Baudrillard, Bauman, Benjamin, Callinicos, Coward, Deleuze, Derrida, Elster, Forgacs, Foucault, Geras, Guattari, Habermas, Hall, Hartmann, Hindess, Hirst, Irigaray, Laclau, Lyotard, Mouffe, Pzeworski, Ramazanoglu, Roemer, Touraine, Walby, and Walker. Clearly, the multiplicity of reactions has not produced an homogeneous post-Marxism. However, as human geographers we can begin to work through this unstable constellation of departures from Marxism in the hope of new kinds of geography. Prospective titles and abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to either of the convenors by 1st June 2000. __ 1. Dr Richard Smith, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, England, LE1 7RH 2. Dr Marcus Doel, Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, England, LE11 3TU Dr Richard Smith PhD (Bristol), Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3845 Fax: +44 (0) 116 252 3854 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Note: away in New York until May 10th)
RE: plateaus
Doug Henwood wrote: in 1901 ... real prices stayed pretty flat for 15 years before a deep bear market set in. So this 15 years gets us from 1901 to 1916, right? Anything else happening in the world right then that might correlate to an absence of plateaux and even a general crisis of capitalism? Mark Jones
RE: plateaus (fwd)
Something happened between the two: the Panic of 1907 in the US. The crisis "involved a bank run, a stock market crash and a following recession" (James Livingston, _Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money,Class and Corporate Capitalism:1890-1913, Cornell U. Pres) Mine in 1901 ... real prices stayed pretty flat for 15 years before a deep bear market set in. So this 15 years gets us from 1901 to 1916, right?
