Re: Re: say it ain't so, Paul
Did PK _return_ the $50K or did he just pocket it and then criticize? Alan At 1/24/2002, you wrote: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Carl Remick wrote: Frankly, I don't think that Paul Krugman is corrupt, at least not in the sense of personal venality. How do you define personal venality? PK got $50K for a do-nothing advisory position transparently concocted to give Enron greater intellectual respectability. Yeah, but to be fair, it was Krugman who publicized the money, unprompted, a year ago, back when Enron was still riding high -- and when he started writing a long series of columns excoriating Enron and its influence over the Bush administration and the way it was screwing California. I thought he was a pretty strong critical voice on both issues, and almost alone among establishment economists. So if venal means allowing the money to hush or soften your opinions, he wasn't venal. I think rather Enron has a beef against him for being disloyal :o) _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
RE: Re: Re: say it ain't so, Paul
Alan asks:Did PK _return_ the $50K or did he just pocket it and then criticize? Jim Devine: I doubt it, since he gets a lot of payments from corporations (as indicated by the letter below, in today's Los Angeles TIMES) and he seems to see them as payments for specific services rendered: [to the editors of the L.A. TIMES, 1/24/02:] Your Jan. 19 editorial (Enron's Far-Reaching Web) conveyed the impression that (a) I was in some sense on the take from Enron and (b) I hid that involvement. Both impressions are totally false. In 1999 I briefly served on Enron's advisory board. I ended that connection when I agreed to write for the New York Times in the fall of 1999. I also disclosed that past relationship the very first time I mentioned Enron, in a column sharply criticizing the company's role in California's energy crisis, in January 2001. Enron paid members of its advisory board $50,000 for attendance and presentations at two meetings (one of mine was canceled at the last minute), each spanning two business days. This payment, as a daily rate, was if anything somewhat less than I was regularly receiving for presentations to other companies: At the time, as an expert on international financial crises, I was in high demand as a speaker. Your editorial quotes my remark that the board had no function I was aware of. This was self-deprecating humor: I later wondered whether the board was of much direct value to the company. However, I devoted as much time and effort to my presentations as I would have for any other corporate event. Given how scrupulously I have followed the strict conflict-of-interest rules at the New York Times, and how tough I have been on Enron this past year, I am astonished that the Los Angeles Times would imply that I had any ethical lapses. Paul Krugman Columnist, New York Times -Original Message- From: Alan Cibils To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 1/24/02 6:00 AM Subject: [PEN-L:21834] Re: Re: say it ain't so, Paul Did PK _return_ the $50K or did he just pocket it and then criticize? Alan At 1/24/2002, you wrote: On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Carl Remick wrote: Frankly, I don't think that Paul Krugman is corrupt, at least not in the sense of personal venality. How do you define personal venality? PK got $50K for a do-nothing advisory position transparently concocted to give Enron greater intellectual respectability. Yeah, but to be fair, it was Krugman who publicized the money, unprompted, a year ago, back when Enron was still riding high -- and when he started writing a long series of columns excoriating Enron and its influence over the Bush administration and the way it was screwing California. I thought he was a pretty strong critical voice on both issues, and almost alone among establishment economists. So if venal means allowing the money to hush or soften your opinions, he wasn't venal. I think rather Enron has a beef against him for being disloyal :o) _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: RE: Re: Re: say it ain't so, Paul
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alan asks:Did PK _return_ the $50K or did he just pocket it and then criticize? Jim Devine: I doubt it, since he gets a lot of payments from corporations (as indicated by the letter below, in today's Los Angeles TIMES) and he seems to see them as payments for specific services rendered: [to the editors of the L.A. TIMES, 1/24/02:]... Enron paid members of its advisory board $50,000 for attendance and presentations at two meetings (one of mine was canceled at the last minute), each spanning two business days. This payment, as a daily rate [!], was if anything somewhat less [!!] than I was regularly receiving [!!!] for presentations to other companies: At the time, as an expert on international financial crises, I was in high demand as a speaker. Oh, that's OK then. I'll stop my carping and let PK continue his tireless task of speaking truth to power. Carl _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Gaining on Time
I propose we continue this by your putting forward four (or less, if possible) basic policy changes that would make possible the reduction of the working day. To hold up my end, I will do the same now: Lower or no taxes on the first X dollars of labor earnings, higher on the remainder (there is more than one way to do this, but the principle is the main thing). Preclude payment of health care costs by business firms. (also disability life insurance, other fringes) by establishing alternative sources Increase mandated overtime pay (definition of work week, etc.) Facilitate non-standard work arrangements that permit shorter weeks (conditional on ensuring fringes noted above) Then anyone who cares to can pick apart the proposals or their rationales. mbs You're right. Now is a good time to talk about it. That still leaves the heap o' work. -- mbs I have to fall back on the position that it is therefore *always* important in principle to do the heap of work it takes to launch that discussion. . . .
SOME ITEMS THAT YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN OR BE ABLE TO ADVISE ME ON
These are the items that iam interested in selling.. Could you help me with some details on the goods, history, origin etc. are these worth anything and if so who would i contact with regards to selling them? and the best way to sell them ie auction etc APOLOGISE IF YOU HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED THIS E-MAIL JPEGS ARE AVAILABLE AT YOUR REQUEST MANY THANX kriss rolo tel: 0044 182760393 office (uk) 0044 1216864211 home (uk) 0044 7814294018 mobile (uk) return e-mail address [EMAIL PROTECTED] UK ONLY VEHICLE REGISTRATION NUMBER N64 CON NINTENDO 64 CONSOLE item 1 hand carved round table with metal chain link in the middle item 2 magnum laurent perrier vintage 1988 champagne item 3 miniture football on stand from euro96 signed by pele and bobby charlton item 4 is a bit more interesting. its a protana minifon attache, as u will see ive enclosed notes from a web site regarding this and you will see back in the 50's it cost $340.00 so i could imagine this to be worth a bit. it also has an original tape inside i do not know what is on this tape, but judging by who made it and the cost of the machine, the tape could have some important information on it. heres the note. The Minifon, developed in the early 1950s by Monske GMBH of Hanover(or by Protona GMBH- I'm not certain), was an ultra-miniaturized, battery operated magnetic recording device. It could not (initially at least) record the full range of sounds and was thus limited to voice recording, but it did offer easy portability in a very small package. The idea of offering a pocket dictating machine was novel, since dictation had previously been done in the office. However, it was thought that people like salesmen could take the machine on the road with them. Once on the market, the Minifon's promoters discovered that many people took advantage of the recorder's small size to make secret recordings to be used as evidence, as in court.BR BR The legitimate use of the Minifon, as a dictating machine, was somewhat problematical. Recordings made on regular dictating equipment were usually letters, and thus were normally sent almost immediately to a typist. The Minifon offered no obvious advantages over standard dictation equipment for office use, but its developers hoped to cultivate new uses for dictation equipment, such as stock taking in warehouses, or the use of the machine as a substitute for note-taking by reporters, insurance adjusters, salesmen, and others. In its original form, the Minifon was a wire recorder, using a type of wire medium developed by the Armour Research Foundation of Chicago and employed in many similar devices since the late 1940s. The machine at its introduction in 1952 had a recording time of one hour, which was remarkably long, and weighed only about 3 pounds at a time when a typical office dictating machine weighed upwards of 10 pounds. It accomplished this small size and light weight in part through the use of miniature tubes and clever mechanical design. The basic machine cost $289.50-- a price that sounds high today but was very much in line with competing office dictating machines. The parent company attempted to set up distribution, sales and service networks in the United States. It established a business office called the Minifon Export Corp in New York, and an existing company, Harvey Radio in New York City became the main distributor. Although smaller tape recorders appeared at about the same time, the main competition in the voice recording field was from an American company, Mohawk, which made a small, battery-operated cartridge tape recorder called the Migetape. Both products sold less than 10,000 units per year in the U.S.BR After a few years, the Minifon was modified to use transistors and magnetic tape, further lowering its weight and cost. By 1962 the basic machine weighed in at only 1.5 pounds. Competition by this time had helped bring the cost down to $249.50. The Minifon after about 1962 was distributed by the international conglomerate ITT through its subsidiary in the U.S., Federal Electric Corp. A little later, distribution was taken over by the ITT Distributor Products Division in Lodi, New Jersey. (I don't know whether these were the same company with different names) By the time ITT became associated with this product, it had taken on the name of Minifon Attache, and a new line of models and options appeared. These included a hi-fi model, the 978H, which sold for $330.50.Usinga two-track, 1/4 inch tape cartridge operating at 1 7/8 inches per second, the machine claimed a frequency response of up to 12,000 Hz, plus or minus 3db. The coming of magnetic tape did not completely displace wire. The Model 240 series of recorders introduced in the early 1960s were probably the last wire recorders in regular production. The 240L, at a price of $269.50 used a special long-playing wire cartridge that held 4 hours of wire. Otherwise it looked like both the tape model and the 240S,
Stop This Brutality in Our Name
Stop This Brutality in Our Name The Daily Mirror (London) January 21, 2002 Editorial Stop This Britality in Our Name THIS is what is being done in the name of humanity, civilisation and the British people. These prisoners are trapped in open cages, manacled hand and foot, brutalised, tortured and humiliated. We are assured they are cruel, evil men, though not one has been charged, let alone convicted, of any offence. Yet that does not justify the barbaric treatment they are receiving from US forces. Barbarism which is backed by our Government. Tony Blair says he is standing shoulder to shoulder with President Bush. Not on our behalf, he isn't. Mr Bush is close to achieving the impossible - losing the sympathy of the civilised world for what happened in New York and Washington on September 11. Today he celebrates a year in office. He came to the presidency after a squalid vote-fix, yet in the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center, he achieved enormous popularity among the American people. The treatment of the prisoners in Cuba is no more than a sick attempt to appeal to the worst red-neck (sic) prejudices. The pictures showing how these men are being abused were actually taken by an official US photographer. The President and his head-banging associates are proud of them, proud of the cruelty inflicted in their name, proud of the vengeance they are taking. What the American President does is his business. But what our Prime Minister does is ours. Tony Blair has played a unique role in the war on terrorism. He persuaded Mr Bush to calm down in the days immediately after September 11. He has done more to forge and hold together the great alliance of nations which is dedicated to ridding the world of terrorism. Today he should be playing another leading role. He should be telling George W. Bush that the treatment of the prisoners in Cuba is not acceptable. If Mr Blair thinks it is, he should have a word with his wife, Cherie. She is a leading human-rights lawyer. His Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said last week that the prisoners should be treated humanely. They clearly are not. Once again, Mr Straw has failed to make the slightest impact. Even if these men had been found guilty, they should not be treated like this. It is not doing anything to help the war on terrorism. These pictures will do the opposite - inflame the belief among some young Muslims that America is their enemy. Anyway, who are these prisoners? It is said that some may not belong to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda at all, but were members of the Taliban. That was a horrific regime and the Afghani people are delighted to be rid of it. But it achieved power with the help of the United States and the UK. Since September 11, America has walked a fine line between fighting for humanity and lusting after revenge. The treatment of these prisoners shows how far the balance has tilted the wrong way. If Mr Bush insists on following this path, the rest of the world should leave him in no doubt that he walks it alone. And Tony Blair should be leading the protest. What is happening at Guantanamo is a disgrace. It must not be done in our name, Mr Blair.
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: say it ain't so, Paul
Oh, that's OK then. I'll stop my carping and let PK continue his tireless task of speaking truth to power. Carl I know you're being ironic, but I'll reply in a non-ironic way: PK doesn't speak truth to power except within the usual political context of what's good for capital (the real world of power that's idealized by economists like PK as a market system perceived as good -- with some technocratic fiddling -- for the public interest as long as special interests like labor unions don't have excessive influence). What's really venial among academic economists is the winner-take-all system in which super-star economists (who are selected by similarly-minded neoclassical ideologues) run the top graduate programs, get abundant research grants, attain high-paying positions, publish in prestigious journals, etc., which allow them to in turn pull in cash from corporations as consultants, to publish in establishmentarian outlets like the NY TIMES, and to choose the next group of super-stars, while deciding which departments are top, who gets grants, who gets promoted, which journals are prestigious and who gets published in them, etc. In this context, PK is what C. Wright Mills termed a new entrepreneur (in his WHITE COLLAR), a person who prospers by jumping back and forth between academic, business, and government bureaucracies (like Henry the K). Jim Devine
reform and rev
reform and rev by Rakesh Bhandari CB: I am not familiar with Pashakunis' liquidation specifics, although I believe it was after the Bolsheviks were dissolved into the CPSU. How convenient that you are not familiar with the history of the Soviet Union that you have defended on email lists for six years! CB: I am familiar with the history of the Soviet Union. Do you think the specifics of the death/murder of Pashakunis is a major event in the history of the Soviet Union ? I recall in reading Pashakunis wondering why a Marxist lawyer wouldn't start with private property as the root of study rather than contract and circulation, as Pashakunis did. He does start with private property, especially in regards to the peculiar property that workers as putatively self possessed juridical subjects alienate freely on the market. Whether he makes the transition to production of surplus value is another subject, but failure to do so would be grounds for critique, not murder, I would think. ^^^ CB: The workers' are not the main owners of private property in capitalism. Nonetheless, what do you think is the important contribution in Pashakunis' writing ? What would be grounds for murder ?
Re: From the Heartland
Max wrote, That still leaves the heap o' work. -- mbs Having conquered the lump o' labour, the heap o' work should be a piece o' cake. Here arefour non-exhaustive suggestions for things that need to be done: A comprehensive, cross-referenced, annotated bibliography on economics and history of work time limitation. A survey of the use of accounting in collective bargaining with specific attention to the costing of work time. Workshops that take union members through the steps needed to makeinformed decisions about work time issues. A 'how to' book and free-standing computer program for use by unions in collective bargaining. It would also help immensely if people would pay a bit more attention themodest heap o'work that has already been done on the issue, like Anders Hayden's Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet andAndre Gorz's Critique of Economic Reason. Tom Walker
don't complain, it's unAmerican!
here's a Brit perspective on what's going on in the US. To complain is to be unAmerican The president wants to make the US safer for the Republican party Matthew Engel Wednesday January 23, 2002 The Guardian [U.K.] My fellow non-Americans (and also any Americans who might happen to be listening)... That start in itself makes this state-of-the-union column more inclusive than President Bush's own state of the union address will be when he stands in front of the massed ranks of Congress next Tuesday to make his most important speech since the post-September 11 epic. He will be addressing the American people. Anyone else who happens to be listening will be an eavesdropper. To a large extent, that's how it always is in this country, most especially in an even-numbered year, whether or not the election directly involves the president himself. And it's particularly true with this president. The past few months have changed things, but not in the way outsiders like to think. The world has not become more interdependent. Instead, as seen from the Oval Office, it has become divided into three: the United States; countries willing to do the US's bidding; and nuisances/enemies. It's not a good idea to be a nuisance/enemy. But the essential fact is that the union - as presidents like to say on these occasions - is strong. Very strong. September 11 has bound the country together in a remarkable fashion that has confounded sceptics (including this one) and surprised even the administration. The transport secretary, Norman Mineta, was able to say last week that patience is the new patriotism apropos the continuing chaos at the airports; and no one howled him down. Airport check-ins are like the old Soviet bread queues, but without the shared black humour. Complaining is considered unAmerican, even though the security procedures are ludicrous, with solemn searches of elderly ladies' flat heels and kids' baseball caps - while luggage, despite a tightening of the law last week, can still be loaded on to planes with nothing to stop them having enough explosive to blow up Rhode Island. It's not a political issue here, just as the treatment of the detainees in Guantanamo - which so troubles the bleeding-heart pinkos of the Mail on Sunday - is not an issue. If they weren't bad guys, they wouldn't be there. End of subject. There are fewer flags around than there were a couple of months back, but the post-September spirit has not diminished. Americans want to do their bit, but aren't sure how to. So it comes out mainly as an acceptance of their rulers' good intentions and competence. Sure, there is a hardcore who share the widespread European view that the president is a dangerous chump incapable of simultaneously chewing a pretzel and watching TV. In that sense, the analogy with the Reagan administration is a close one, because, now as then, it is the view of a small minority. And, truly, a year has gone by and the administration has not - by its own lights - cocked up much, except for losing control of the Senate. It has resisted the temptation to invade half the developing world. So far, it has barely been singed by the flames of Enron, even though the words Bush and Cheney are carved into the burning logs. There is even some tentative polling evidence (cf Britain in 1992) that economic troubles might make voters more inclined to huddle closer to the party of the right. You hear justification for the public's support in strange little ways. For instance, two separate state department officials - both liberals - have recently told me that staff morale is higher than for at least a decade. Why? Because both Clinton's secretaries of state, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, were useless managers incapable of relating to (or making proper use of) the ordinary Joes at the desks, whereas Colin Powell knows how the thoughtful word or gesture can make all the difference to the troops. The administration's good intentions are not that obvious to me. Bipartisanship is the word they plan to use to screw the opposition. Karl Rove, Bush's political Svengali, has told the party that security will be a Republican issue in this year's mid-term elections. And he is probably the orchestrator of the current demonisation campaign against Senator Tom Daschle, their most dangerous opponent. My theory is that if Al Gore had been president on September 11, there would have been no bipartisanship at all. The Democrats would have been in their ninth year in the White House; and the right would have blamed Clinton and Gore for leaving the country defenceless. We might now be in the middle of impeachment hearings. Whatever high-flown rhetoric comes from the president next week, the reality is clear-cut. It's a successful administration, so far. The White House is not concerned with making the world safer, it wants to make America safer. And it wants to make the country safer for the Republican party. That's politics, by the way.
study abroad in Econ??
Hi to all, I have a very good African-American student who wants to spend his Junior year studing economics abroad. He has some preference for Europe, but is most interested in a good educational experience. Does anybody have any suggestions I can give him. So as to not clutter you the already too busy list, please respond to me directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks, Doug Orr
China demolishes towns to construct mammoth dam
The Times of India MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2002 China demolishes towns to construct mammoth dam AFP MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2002 BEIJING: China on Sunday began destroying the first of 22 cities and counties which will be submerged by rising waters from the world's largest hydroelectric power project -the controversial Three Gorges Dam. Demolition crews began blowing up buildings in Fengjie county on Sunday, a 2,300-year-old town chosen as the first to be destroyed for the mammoth project, the official Xinhua news agency said. A big blast reduced the 3,000-square-meter office building of the county's Yong'an township government to a heap of debris in a few seconds. Two factory buildings and a 50-meter chimney of the Fengjie County Power Plant are scheduled to be demolished later Sunday in the same way, Xinhua said. Some 1.3 million people are to be relocated to make way for Three Gorges Dam project. Many of them, such as residents of Fengjie, have been given money to move -some to cities built from scratch on higher ground while others were moved to faraway places elsewhere in the country. China also began building a controversial hydro-electric power station on its portion of the Mekong River, state media reported Sunday, despite objections from Southeast Asian countries which fear it will then gain control of the river. Xinhua reported workers have begun building the power station, which will be second in size only to the Three Gorges Dam power project. Originating in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, the Mekong, runs 4,880 km through southwestern China as well as five other Asian countries - Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. These countries are worried that with the completion of the dam, China will be able to control the river's flow and the discharge of water into the sections of the river running through their countries. Much of the Three Gorges Dam has been built and it is expected to begin holding back water on China's longest river, the Yangtze, in June next year. The buildings are being blasted to control pollution and ensure navigation safety once the Three Gorges reservoir is filled.The reservoir will inundate 22 counties and cities, including Fengjie, and hundreds of towns and villages in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River when the project is completed by 2009, Xinhua said. The project has been plagued by massive corruption, with millions of dollars in resettlement money embezzled. Residents forced to relocate, but not given adequate compensation, have staged protests and some have moved back home after finding the places they were relocated to not to their satisfaction. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
Markets make for generosity
There is a page 1 column in the Wall St. Journal today that argues that "The more involved people are in market activity -- such as working for wages or buying and selling goods to others -- the MORE generous they are." A Cal Tech anthropologist is quoted: "The most altruistic and trusting societies are those that are the most market-oriented." The same scholar suggests that Maybe altruism is a luxury that only developed societies can afford. ??? Sam Bowles quotes are used to support the theme, though they are ambiguous. The text is pasted below. Gene Coyle WSJ.com] January 24, 2002 Capital The Civilizing Effect Of Market Economics THE MARKETPLACE allocates resources efficiently and unsentimentally, pausing to contemplate neither fairness nor feelings. So one might expect people in societies that embrace money and the market to be richer, but less generous and altruistic, than small bands who hunt and farm communally in isolated parts of the Amazon or Africa. But is that reality? American generosity after Sept. 11 doesn't suggest hard-heartedness. What if we randomly picked pairs of people from the same community and did an experiment? Tell neither the other's identity. Offer Player One $100, and test his generosity by telling him to split the money any way he chooses with Player Two, who knows how big the stakes are. Add one catch to restrain Player One from being selfish: If Player Two refuses the offer, neither gets anything. A coldly rational person -- think bond traders -- would offer as little as possible, maybe $10. And if Player Two were coldly rational, he would accept; after all, $10 is better than no dollars. But such people exist only in economists' minds. In repeated experiments of this sort, people cast as Player One were more generous than the calculating bond trader. And people cast as Player Two were more likely to reject small offers, even though that left them with nothing. This left economists scratching their heads and wondering why we don't act as their theories say we should. Along the way, they wondered what sorts of people act more generously: Nomadic Hazda hunter-gatherers who forage in Tanzania? Or farmers in Hamilton, Mo., in the heart of our market-oriented society? Americans, it turns out. Hazda cast as Player One offered the equivalent of $33 on average. Hamiltonians in the same role offered $48. Anthropologists didn't use the same sums in both places, of course. The stakes were roughly a day's pay in each. THE PATTERN across societies where experiments were conducted is counterintuitive, but consistent. The more involved people are in market activities -- such as working for wages or buying and selling goods to others -- the more generous they are. "The most altruistic and trusting societies are those that are the most market-oriented," says Jean Ensminger, an anthropologist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Experiments aren't precise substitutes for real life. But by doing enough experiments, using substantial stakes and sifting results statistically, researchers are uncovering ways in which people tend to behave differently depending on where they grow up. At first, the researchers experimented with college students in Indonesia, Japan, Slovenia and the U.S. They found few differences. That simply proved that college students tend to be alike no matter where they're from. Then a young anthropologist named Joseph Henrich, who was doing unrelated fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, found that these games could be played with unsophisticated people. His work offered early evidence that people in primitive societies might be less generous with one another than we are. Intrigued foundations dispatched a dozen anthropologists to play this and other games with 15 communities from the Orma in East Africa, who often trade cattle and work for wages, to the Quichua in Ecuador, who don't. The games also were played in rural Hamilton and urban St. Louis. EXPERIMENTS DON'T REVEAL why market-oriented people like the Orma make more-generous offers ($44 on average) than subsistence, slash-and-burn farmers like the Quichua ($25). Nor do they explain why Americans and others in market-oriented settings come much closer to offering partners a 50-50 split than other people do. But the games do suggest something profound about the way markets shape human behavior and relationships. "Many people thought markets would make people selfish and amoral. That view is at least too simple, if not just plain wrong," says Samuel Bowles, an economist at the University of Massachusetts and the Santa Fe Institute. Maybe, suggests Ms. Ensminger, altruism is a luxury that only developed societies can afford. Or maybe market societies grow accustomed to conventions, like splitting windfalls 50-50. Or maybe, as she and other researchers suspect, markets do change the way people behave, but not in the way we often think. "Markets teach us to behave decently to strangers,"
reform and rev
reform and rev by Rakesh Bhandari 23 January 2002 17:01 UTC Marxism-Leninism has a fully developed theory of colonialism and neo-colonialism. May be, but you are not doing much to defend it. Why not check out how Perlo attempted to defend and develop the theory that you tell us you are committed to? Rakesh CB: Why don't you ? Find your book and read it. I'll explain anything to you you don't understand. I'll have to buy a new copy, but here are a few questions: How does Perlo explain the turning points in the business cycle in which you had earlier informed us Marxists have little interest? What are the limits that Perlo sees to Keynesian fine tuning of the economy? How does Perlo reach the conclusion that there had been no profit squeeze in the late 70s due to a reduction in the rate of exploitation? Then how does Perlo explain that bout of stagflation? rb ^ CB: Yes, actually, I was going to type in some of Perlo's chapter The Rate of Profit. The funny thing is Perlo uses both the famous anti-consumptionist quote from Vol. II that you stand on and the ultimate cosuming power of society quote from Vol. III that shows your view is only part of Marx's view. So, the funny thing is your list position may end up closer to the Staliinist-Leninist economist analysis than you thought , ha ha. I don't think you are focused in on what the orthodox Marxist position is in writing. Rakesh: How does Perlo explain the turning points in the business cycle in which you had earlier informed us Marxists have little interest? Economic Crises and The Business Cycle is chapter 15 (out of 18 ) in Perlo's book. Similarly to Marx's leaving his direct discussion of crisis to Vol. III. The placement of the subject tells you something of the importance of it already. But back to the direct point on this, don't you agree that the Marxist ( Marx's ) position is that there is no taming the business cycle under capitalist relations of production ? And that therefore, even if you have the perfect explanation of it, nonetheless that explanation cannot be implemented to stop crises ? So , business cycle theory has to be a secondary concern for Marxists ? Marxists are against capitalism even during the boom phase of the business cycle. Business cycle moderation is a reform struggle, not that Marxists ignore reforms. And what is your reform program again ? I know you said it but one more time. And on reforms, it is common sense that an underconsumption claim is solved by giving the working masses something more to consume with, i.e. money. Isn't it obvious that Marxists' short term or reform solutions must be some version of raising the incomes of workers, not figuring out how to raise the rate of profit of those who profit.
reform and rev/ Golden 50's
reform and rev/ Golden 50's by Rakesh Bhandari 23 January 2002 01:36 UTC CB: Tax the rich ! Return to the Golden Age of the Early 50's ! Rooseveltian reforms resulted in a 90% tax rate for the highest incomes in the U.S. and an economic golden age. A black man who wants to return to the golden age of the 50s? I have long feared Charles that you are someone's caricature of a black bolshevik. CB: Rakesh, I think your historical analysis is a bit upside down here. The 50's were the period of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, Ella Baker, MLKing's rise, The Brown vs Bd of Ed. Supreme Court victory, the Civil Rights Movement. Black people were winning victories in the 50's compared with other periods. If we could get a Black movement today like that of the 50's , we'd be doing good ( see below) We Bolsheviks were having trouble with HUAC and McCarthyism. Tuesday, January 22, 2002 _ Contact: Melissa Jameson 212-228-0450 Melissa Muro 917-400-9052 55 Arrested at US Mission to the UN Urging Changes in U.S. Foreign Policy Fifty-five people were arrested today on the steps of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations this morning as they called for a change in US foreign policy that would continue the legacy of peacemaking begun by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the spirit of King's anti-war stance, the men and women occupied the steps of the mission demanding an end to the war in Afghanistan and renouncing any expansion of the war. Tuesday's act of nonviolent civil disobedience was the culmination of a four-day series of presentations and training reflecting on the life of Dr. King. Dr. King's dream of a just society has yet to be realized. As King said, 'The greatest purveyor of violence is my own country,' said Ceylon Mooney of Memphis, TN, one of those arrested today. As I and many others have seen, this is still true, and our collective conscience calls us to confront not only the violence committed on behalf of Americans, but also the institutions committing those acts. Joining the group on Tuesday morning were Amber and Ryan Amundson, widow and brother of Craig Scott Amundson, who was killed on September 11 in the attack on the Pentagon. Bush has said that the 'war on terrorism' requires sacrifice from the American people. The nonviolent protest in front of the U.S. Mission to the UN is really a frontline battle of the war on terrorism, and the people who were arrested are showing the sacrifices needed to lead to a true victory against all forms of terror, said Amundson. The protest was sponsored by War Resisters League (www.warresisters.org), Voices in the Wilderness (www.nonviolence.org/vitw/) and Kairos Community/ALC. -30-
Re: reform and rev
^ CB: Yes, actually, I was going to type in some of Perlo's chapter The Rate of Profit. The funny thing is Perlo uses both the famous anti-consumptionist quote from Vol. II that you stand on and the ultimate cosuming power of society quote from Vol. III that shows your view is only part of Marx's view. Charles, I wrote a long reply to you that I do not block inadequate consumption from view; I attempt to explain in terms of difficulties in production. You never did reply. So I am not going through ground hog day with you. So, the funny thing is your list position may end up closer to the Staliinist-Leninist economist analysis than you thought , ha ha. Have you read Richard Day's book on Soviet economic debates. I have. Varga prevailed, and it should be obvious to you that I reject his underconsumptionist theory. Moreover, I reject the whole Bolshevik (Lenin-Trotsky-Bukharin)deformation of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I think Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Mattick, Hal Draper and Paul Thomas (my former teacher) are correct. I think we were moved further away from Marx by the Bolsheviks. That is the source of our present acrimony. You said that we all were reading Marx because of the Bolsheviks; you do not speak for me. By now, you should know that you do not speak for me. So why ignite matters with sloganeering? I don't think you are focused in on what the orthodox Marxist position is in writing. what is the orthodox Marxist position. Rakesh: How does Perlo explain the turning points in the business cycle in which you had earlier informed us Marxists have little interest? Economic Crises and The Business Cycle is chapter 15 (out of 18 ) in Perlo's book. Similarly to Marx's leaving his direct discussion of crisis to Vol. III. The placement of the subject tells you something of the importance of it already. I don't think such conclusions can be drawn from placement. Marx's crisis theory comes together in the third volume. But back to the direct point on this, don't you agree that the Marxist ( Marx's ) position is that there is no taming the business cycle under capitalist relations of production ? No, the business cycle can indeed be tamed; contradictions deferred for some time. I already wrote this. And that therefore, even if you have the perfect explanation of it, nonetheless that explanation cannot be implemented to stop crises ? One kind of explanation (underconsumption) may imply that certain reforms could tame them even if the analyst herself rejects that conclusion. The reasoning matters. So , business cycle theory has to be a secondary concern for Marxists ? no. What if the theory is one of widening and deepening business cycles? Marxists are against capitalism even during the boom phase of the business cycle. Business cycle moderation is a reform struggle, not that Marxists ignore reforms. And what is your reform program again ? I know you said it but one more time. No not one more time. Find the posts and respond to them. And on reforms, it is common sense that an underconsumption claim is solved by giving the working masses something more to consume with, i.e. money. Isn't it obvious that Marxists' short term or reform solutions must be some version of raising the incomes of workers, not figuring out how to raise the rate of profit of those who profit. I don't know what you are responding to. Rakesh
Re: reform and rev
reform and rev by Rakesh Bhandari CB: I am not familiar with Pashakunis' liquidation specifics, although I believe it was after the Bolsheviks were dissolved into the CPSU. How convenient that you are not familiar with the history of the Soviet Union that you have defended on email lists for six years! If it were isolated event, no. CB: The workers' are not the main owners of private property in capitalism. Nonetheless, what do you think is the important contribution in Pashakunis' writing ? Pashukanis seems to me to have demonstrated that legal relations do have some objective basis in the relations of exchange. He overstates the case, and he does not understand the connection to production. But drawing from Roger Cotterrell, I wrote on LBO a long time ago: Especially interesting, though I think incorrect, is his critique of Pashukanis's reduction of the autonomous Kantian subject to the codified illusion of the juridical subject (a dramatis personae) who since she presumably can freely dispose of whatever she happens to own can and should be bound by the contracts into which she enters. That is, legal reasoning cannot conceive of a contractual relationship except as a formally free agreement of wills. The fact that the actual freedom to negotiate is often non existent in contractual situations (in particular of course for the working class) does not allow us to dismiss this fundamental legal principle as irrelevant mystification because it is through this assumption, in defined circumstances, of free agreement that the general justification for making contractual terms binding is found and the binding obligations arising from the contracts are fixed in a predictable manner according to general principles. As soon as the idea of compulsory 'contract' is introduced--that is, as Pashukanis notes, agreement which the parties are compelled to make in furtherance of a plan imposing obligations on both or all of them--it becomes extremely difficult to fix, through contractual rules, the limits of their reciprocal obligations. What would be grounds for murder ? I am against capital punishment. rb
Thu., Jan. 31: 'The War on Drugs': Uncle Sam Wants YOU -- in theDark
Critical Perspectives on Wars, Classes, Empires 'The War on Drugs': Uncle Sam Wants YOU -- in the Dark Speakers: Sarah Clark Sean Luse, Students for Sensible Drug Policy Date: Thursday, January 31 Time: 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Location: 115 Stillman, OSU 1947 College Rd., Columbus, OH Come and discuss the links between the war on drugs at home and U.S. counter-insurgency warfare abroad, between incarceration of people of color at home and attacks on the wretched of the earth abroad, and between the rise in incarceration and the decline of such social programs as public education! ® The current U.S. rate of incarceration (including both prison and jail) of 699 persons per 100,000 population advances the U.S. position as the world leader in imprisonment. The U.S., which has 5% of the world population, has more than a quarter of its prisoners. An estimated 60% of all incarcerations are related to drug convictions. ® African-Americans make up 12% of the nation's population and 13% of drug users but comprise 59% of drug convictions. 46% of the overall prison population is black. (In contrast, in the 1930s approximately 75% of prison admissions were white while 22% were African-American.) ® America is spending 6 times more to incarcerate 1.2 million nonviolent offenders than the federal government spent on child care for 1.25 million children. ® From 1976, the year when free higher education was eradicated, until the end of the century, on average a new prison was constructed in America every week. ® States around the country spent more on building prisons than colleges in 1995 for the first time. ® Nearly two-thirds of the country's top state and local prosecutors say they are having little to no impact in stopping the production, distribution, and consumption of illegal narcotics. ® The war on drugs increases corruption among law enforcement officials on the front line. For instance, in the fiscal year 1997, 79 officers were convicted for drug-related offences as a result of FBI-led law enforcement corruption investigations. Drug-related convictions amounted to 53% of all officers convicted for corruption. (Sources: The Sentencing Project, www.sentencingproject.org; Jeffrey Reiman, and the Poor Get Prison: Economic Bias in American Criminal Justice; Human Rights Watch, Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa; The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, www.lindesmith.org; Justice Policy Institute, The Punishing Decade, www.cjcj.org/punishingdecade/punishing.html; David Phinney, Prison Funding Explodes in Growth, abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/prisoneducaton980707.html; H. Bruce Franklin, The American Prison in the Culture Wars, www.louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue6/franklin.html; Tony Samara, Prisons, Punishment and Profiteers, www.louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue6/samara.html; General Accounting Office Report to Rep. Rangel, May 1998, www.csdp.org/research/gaocrptn.pdf) Sponsors: the Student International Forum www.osu.edu/students/sif and Social Welfare Action Alliance. Co-sponsor: Students for Sensible Drug Policy. OSU Campus map: www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/stillmanhall.html. For more info, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 614-668-6554; or Keith Kilty at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 614-292-7181. The flyer for the teach-in is available at http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/warondrugs.doc. The flyer for upcoming SIF/SWAA events is available at http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar4.doc. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
Popular rebellion in Argentina?
The FI writes: Thirty dead, more than 439 injured, 3273 arrested, has been the price of a popular rebellion by the traditionally unrecognised, ordinary people of Argentina. For the first time in our history, a democratically elected government was toppled, not by a military coup d'etat but by the direct action of the working and popular masses. This action was not a thunderbolt that fell from a peaceful sky. A multiplicity of struggles, popular actions and activity rejecting the existing order, paved the way. Karl: This is incorrect. The popular actions on the streets and elsewhere are not a rejection of the existing order. To constitute a rejection of the existing order these masses would have to be communists. In general they are from communism. They simply want to have a more reasonable standard of living. They are reformists rather than communists. They are of the view that capitalism can be reformed into a system that is more generous to the masses. But this is to misunderstand capitalism's nature. Accordingly the reformism of these street fighting masses will reflect itself in their demands and slogans. For too long there have been attempts by radical lefties to present mass mobilisation as constituting an offensive against capitalism. This can only be so when the mass mobilisation expresses a communist as opposed to a reformist consciousness.
Democracy, Not Capitalism
Democracy, Not Capitalism sounds like a good bumper sticker. But how many of us would be so indiscrete as to put it on our cars? The line is in a funny new book by John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War. The new book is The Voice of the Butterfly. I think it is funny, though some might not have the same view. And it is powerful, funny or not. Nichols is getting more forceful as we all age. Gene Coyle
BLS Daily Report
Daily Report: Thursday, January 24, 2002 Recent signs of strength in consumer confidence and manufacturing activity may show that the economy is poised to rebound from recession by spring, a panel of top banking economists said January 23. Despite lingering concerns over the economy, the Federal Reserve's aggressive actions over the past year should soon generate visible signs of recovery, said Gregory Miller, chairman of the economic advisory committee and chief economist at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta. A years worth of interest rate reductions takes time to germinate within the economy (Daily Labor Report, page A-5). Data from newly negotiated contract agreements compiled by BNA through Jan. 21, 2002, showed that the average first-year wage increase was 4.0 percent, compared with 3.7 percent in the comparable period of 2001. The median first-year increase for the same settlements was 3.7 percent, compared with 3.1 percent a year ago, and the weighted average increase was 2.1 percent, compared with 3.6 percent (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Female managers are not only making less money than men in many industries, but the wage gap has also deepened during the economic boom years of 1995 to 2000, a congressional study to be released today reports. Full-time female managers earned on average less than their male counterparts in the 10 industries that employ 71 percent of all female workers, and in seven of the 10 fields, the pay difference widened. The study found that a full-time female communications manager earned 86 cents for every dollar a male made in her industry in 1995. In 2000, she made 73 cents on the man's dollar. The study was prepared by the General Accounting Office using data from the Department of Labor's quarterly Current Population Survey (Washington Post, page A2). Even without a Congressional economic stimulus package, a few sources of stimulus seem to be quietly bolstering modest growth in consumer spending, increasing prospects that the recession is ending. Most economists still expect this year's recovery to be tepid, in part because household spending has not declined in the recession and little pent-up demand exists for houses, cars and other big purchases. Barring a strong recovery, unemployment is likely to remain at least at its current level of 5.8 percent for most of this year (New York Times, page C3). The difference in managerial salaries for men and women in American industry grew from 1995 to 2000, a Congressional study has found. During one of the nation's biggest economic booms, managerial salaries for women not only failed to catch up to those of their male counterparts, they lost ground in several industries, according to the study, which was released today (New York Times, page A22). application/ms-tnef
Letters in support of the RAWA needed
[Send electronically to either [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]] The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is going to hold a big function on February 4, 2002 in Pakistan to commemorate the 15th martyrdom anniversary of its founding leader Meena. Your message of solidarity on the occasion would be highly appreciated. Please send message by Jan.28 so we could translate into Persian and Pushtu to be read out in the function. Thanks in advance for your show of solidarity with RAWA and ill-fated Afghan women. Kindest regards, Mehmooda = Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) Mailing Address: RAWA, P.O.Box 374, Quetta, Pakistan Mobile: 0092-300-8551638 Fax: 001-760-2819855 E-mails: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://www.rawa.org Mirror site: http://rawa.fancymarketing.net
IMPORTANT - U.S. Coalitions Call March On Washington
IMPORTANT - U.S. Coalitions Call March On Washington April 20 Washington - Please Distribute Widely From: Joseph Gerson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:11:39 -0500 (Note: if you received this email as a forward and would like to be added to our list, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and type add in the subject line. If you would not like to receive any further postings, please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and type remove in the subject line. You can also find additional materials on our web page: www.afsc.org/pes.htm http://www.afsc.org/pes.htm . Thank you.) Apologies for Duplicate Postings: Following is a call to join a major March on Washington, April 20. Please come if you can and encourage others to come with you. For those in the Boston area, AFSC will be working with other groups to facilitate travel arrangements. More information about this will follow. For Peace AND Justice, Joseph Gerson American Friends Service Committee NATIONAL YOUTH AND STUDENT PEACE COALITION CALL TO ACTION It's time for all those who believe in and still cherish democracy, freedom and equality to demand accountability from government officials and Stop the War, at Home and Abroad! March on Washington, D.C. April 20th, 2002 The War on Terrorism Breeds More Terror. . . and It's Unamerican Too! The White House promises a war without end. Under the pretext of strengthening security, our democratic rights are being further eroded, hundreds of people have been disappeared into jails and prisons, and corporate interests are shamelessly trying to use this crisis to their advantage. It is clear: unless we, the people of this country, rise up and come together now, the future for us and for people around the world is very bleak. But united, as we have done in the past, WE CAN MAKE CHANGE! There is an alternative! Join us on April 20th to demand: -A U.S. foreign policy based upon social and economic justice, not military and corporate oppression. -An end to racial profiling and military recruitment targeting youth of color and working class youth. -Government funding for programs to benefit the economic victims of the 9-11 attacks and the recession. -An end to the degrading and secret imprisonment of immigrants. -Increased funding for non-military-based financial aid for education -Full disclosure of military contracts with universities. Preparatory events will be held in various cities prior to April 20th. Trainings and other activities will take place that weekend, including the Colombia Mobilization rally on April 21 and lobbying on April 22 and 23. HOSTING GROUPS: National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, National Coalition for Peace and Justice, 9-11 Emergency National Network, Labor Against War COALITION ORGANIZATIONS: 180/Movement for Democracy and Education, Black Radical Congress-Youth Division, Campus Greens, JustAct, Muslim Students Association, National Youth Action Coalition, Student Environmental Action Coalition, Student Peace Action, Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations, United Students Against Sweatshops, United States Student Association, Young Communist League, Young Democratic Socialists, American Friends Service Committee, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Black Radical Congress, Global Exchange, Pax Christi, Peace Action, Shundahai Network, School of the Americas Watch, Veterans for Peace, War Resisters League, Women's Action for New Directions, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Independent Progressive Polit
Re: Gaining on Time
My response to Max's four proposed policy changes, my own suggested changes amplify Max's fourth proposal: Lower or no taxes on the first X dollars of labor earnings, higher on the remainder (there is more than one way to do this, but the principle is the main thing). This is one I can endorse without any qualms. I've been advocating it vigourously for five years here in Canada and it seems to finally be getting some attention from an employer group, restaurant and hotel, and the federal government. Several years ago Lars Osberg (with a bit of prodding from guess who) advocated this in a federal govt. discussion paper on the changing work place. Preclude payment of health care costs by business firms. (also disability life insurance, other fringes) by establishing alternative sources. Same as above. Increase mandated overtime pay (definition of work week, etc.) This one I'm more skeptical of. I would suggest that any increase in OT premium should be in the form of a unemployment insurance surcharge and not income for the employee. There is a contradiction in giving workers incentives to over work. I'm also not convinced that 40 hours a week is onerous. I think some tinkering would be in order: such as a weekly absolute limit, say 50 hours and an annual limit on total overtime. Facilitate non-standard work arrangements that permit shorter weeks (conditional on ensuring fringes noted above) Again, total agreement. Some of the facilitation could be policy, some persuasive and some collectively bargained (not to preclude mixtures of the three). One specific suggestion would be what I call rewarding years of service with more time off and it basically has to do with extending the way service increments are structured. The established practice is for increments in vacation time and pay rate. The principle can easily be extended to reduced hours of work. Related to the above, but also distinct is to remove the financial barriers to a more gradually phased retirement. Pension plans that base benefit levels on income during the last years of service are an example of such a barrier, discouraging people from cutting back on work time late in their careers. Unions need to start servicing their members on the working time issue. One of the big problems, IMHO, is that unions have long emphasized the political aspect of the issue, while neglecting its technical subtleties. The result has been a failure on both the political and technical terrain. Similarly, there is a mythology among employers that if there was a business case for reducing work time, it would already be happening. This overlooks the extent to which it does already happen. It also sets up a prejudicial standard for innovation: if it isn't already being done, it must not be worth doing. Further it fails to recognize the extent to which a widespread change may be beneficial but isolated innovations may simply expose the innovativing firm to predatory behavior from non-innovators (something like the way Manitoba trains nurses for export to Texas and North Carolina).
RE: Gaining on Time II
A few other policy changes that should be thrown into the discussion are VASTLY improved parental leave and income replacement (the Sweden model), a similar educational leave and income replacement scheme (Norway) and some kind of basic income or citizen's income.
Re: Popular rebellion in Argentina?
At 1/24/2002, you wrote: Karl: This is incorrect. The popular actions on the streets and elsewhere are not a rejection of the existing order. To constitute a rejection of the existing order these masses would have to be communists. In general they are from communism. They simply want to have a more reasonable standard of living. They are reformists rather than communists. They are of the view that capitalism can be reformed into a system that is more generous to the masses. But this is to misunderstand capitalism's nature. Accordingly the reformism of these street fighting masses will reflect itself in their demands and slogans. For too long there have been attempts by radical lefties to present mass mobilisation as constituting an offensive against capitalism. This can only be so when the mass mobilisation expresses a communist as opposed to a reformist consciousness. I begg to differ. As someone who has participated (and continues to do so) in many of these protests and neighborhood assemblies, people ARE calling for a change of system. They are not calling for the end of capitalism, true, but as I am sure you are aware, there are many shades of capitalism. In other words, reformists can also call for an overthrow with the existing order. They won't replace it with the same system a communist would choose. People have clearly spoken out against the neoliberal model which destroyed the country over the past ten years. This was a demand that came from the middle class, the unemployed, some of the unions, and many other progressive organisations. People have also strongly questioned the political system and the justice system. As I write this, several thousand are gathered in the regular Thursday cacerolazo in front of the supreme court building demanding their resignation or removal. So, as I see it, this is most definitely a demand for a change of system. Maybe not a change for the kind of system I would prefer, but a change nonetheless. Also, it has been very interesting to see how people have become radicalized. I live in a very middle class neighborhood, yet our neighborhood assembly has issued strong solidarity statements in support of far more radical groups, such as the piqueteros' (groups of organized unemployed who block highways as a form of protest). They have also become very radicalized by their personal experience with the banking system and have a pretty accurate reading of the predatory nature of international finance. Alan _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Chartalism - by Liu
The State Theory of Money (Chartalism) assserts that the fundamental function of taxation is to create on the part of the public a financial obligation to the state through the levying of taxes which is payable with the currency issued by the state. Taxes are what give currency value. The fact that the state spends tax revenue is merely to recycle the money supply. Thus taxation is very much part of monetary theory. A government that has no tax revenue (or insufficient) would have to support its currency through other means, such as a gold standard. This is where Reagan missed the point when he compared government with a corporation. Corporation have no authority to impose taxes, although many try through monopolies. The Chartalist approach is of significance at this particular time in history becuase of the total dependance of global trade on fiat currencies. Globalization has elevated the importance of trade above its previous status. Trade issues now dominates domestic monetary and fiscal policies of all nations. The global foreign exchange market now drives central bank interest rate policies and currency valuations. Argentina, along with recurring financial crisis in Mexcio, Asia, Brazil, Russia and Turkey in the last decade highlights this point. The currency board, though still arguable whether it was directly responsible for Argentina's financial and economic problems, undeniably reduced the flexibility of the government to call on all options to deal with the situation of recession, unemployment and deficits. I wrote in PKT on December 24, 2001: Argetntina should file for bankruptcy under Argentina law and have all dollar debts discharged by Argentina courts. Foreign banks will not lend to Argentina for a while, which is precisely what Argentina needs: to avoid any new foreign debts. Instead of a currency board, Argentina should proceed with a monetary regime based strictly on the State Theory of Money. All Argentina exports must be paid in new Argentina currency, thus creating a global demand of its new currency. A job guarantee program can be financed with local currency backed by future tax revenue. All dollar denominated commodities that Argentina must import, such as oil, should be put on barter with Argentinan exports. Full employment should be the starting point to revive the economy. Argentina does not need more foreign credit, parrticularly if it aims at repaying foreign debts already incurred. Before Argentina declares bankruptcy and dischareges the $150 billion foreign debt, servicing which was consuming 50% of government revenue before the political crisis, no financial rescue was possible. Money takes on top importance in finance capitalism different from its role of units of eschange in industrial capitalism. And whether the Chartalist approach to money is theoretically more valid than other approaches is now only of academic concern, because all governments now practise it and the entire foreign exchange market operate on it. Money is the creature of the State over which the State has a monopoly on issuance. Taxes drive money in that the public needs mony to pay taxes. The government does not need the publics money to spend. The conservative tiresome whinning on taxes being the people's money is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. The government can buy anything money can buy merely by providing the money. The function of a government deficit is to make up for the penchant of the public to hold extra money. The purpose of government bonds is not to finance the deficit, but to provide interest bearing money to the use of the economy. Thus the Chartalist appraoch leads to monetary and fiscal policy alternatives, such as full employment, the elimination of overcapacity through demand management, not opened to other, particularly monetarists views of money. Such policy alternatives are of particular importance in this era of globlaized finance capitalism to moderate its structural contradictions. Foreign exchange is necessary only when trade is conducted, and globalized trade at that. Bilateral trade has relatively simple foreign ecxchange issues. But bilateral trade now is merely a sub-unit of global trade, in the sense that no product is anymore made in one or two single country. A Japanese car has 60% of its parts and 90% of its raw material made ouside of Japan or outside of Japanese car assembly plants worldwide. Similarly with American and German cars. Detroit is the main importer of foreign steel, much to the unhappiness of US steel makers. Thus when a car is sold in New Jersey for dollars, the foreign exchange implication of that one simple transaction is highly complex, as funds flow through multi-currency conduits of varying interest rates and values. Trade is no longer the merely exchange of goods and services. It has become the exchange of obligations and claims. Wages take on exaggerated importance in the trade regime and have become
Chinese banks
http://www.feer.com China's Bankers: Rotten to the Top A U.S. investigati0n into corruption at the Bank of China has toppled one of the country's leading bankers and exposed the extent to which politics sabotages professionalism in its banking system. Only sweeping reforms can hope to stop the growth of bank graft By Bruce Gilley/HONG KONG with Susan V. Lawrence and David Murphy/BEIJING TWENTY YEARS AGO, a newly market-oriented China was shocked by revelations that an executive at the state-run Bank of China had pulled strings to get his son a job in the foreign exchange department of the bank's Guangzhou branch. The son borrowed $61,000 in foreign exchange and sold it on the blackmarket for a higher price. Today, that seems like child's play. Hardly a week goes by without a report of a senior banker in China being arrested for millions of dollars in corruption. Sometimes, suspects jump from tall buildings before the noose is tightened. At other times, they flee abroad. The extent of crooked bankers in China was brought into focus with the sacking of China Construction Bank president and former Bank of China president Wang Xuebing on January 11. Both banks are among China's big four state banks. Wang's departure came just days before the announcement by the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the results of a two-year U.S. investigation that uncovered widespread misconduct at the Bank of China's New York branch between 1991 and 1999. Wang headed the branch from 1988-93. The Chinese government has accused Wang of having direct and indirect responsibility for the misconduct. He has made no public comment since his dismissal and has not been charged. Analysts say, however, that Wang's case is only the tip of an iceberg in a system so riddled with malpractice that many senior bankers do not even know when they are breaking the law. His departure is expected to set the stage for a wider blood-letting in the banking sector. The national auditor has announced that the China Construction Bank will be the target of an extensive probe this year. The ripples will spread wider, including possibly to the central bank and its management of the country's foreign-exchange reserves, and could affect the planned listing of the Bank of China's Hong Kong unit this year. The Bank of China is actually one of the most tightly controlled banks in China. If they get away with it there, imagine how much easier it is at other banks, says one former senior Bank of China executive at an overseas branch. At the root of the problem is a banking system smothered by politics. Since bank executives in China are expected to lend money to support an array of state objectives, they have wide scope for discretionary use of deposits. While making loans to prop up money-losing state enterprises, many bank managers also redirect millions of dollars for private purposes. A lending officer who questions a loan may be told it is to make a contribution to the country and support the reforms, according to the former BOC banker. Bank lending is also at the centre of the crony-based patronage networks that thrive in China's closed political system -a big reason why many of the smaller and more independent banks have not been spared the scourge of corruption. The result is that graft is endemic in the system. That problem is more visible as China integrates with the rest of the world and its corruption spills across borders. The result for the banks is lower returns and often the accumulation of more nonperforming loans, already estimated to account for half to two-thirds of all loans in China. Some scholars in the country are warning of a Latin Americanization of the banking system, in which flight capital and corrupt lending bring the financial system to ruin. That has serious implications for China's economic reforms and the future of the ruling Communist Party. China's ill-served savers have been forced to entrust their $894 billion in personal savings with state banks since they have little choice. Those who put what they have managed to put aside into risky illegal savings schemes offering higher interest rates often lose more. The southern city of Shantou was rocked by weekly protests in December after a scheme run by the state-owned Guangdong Number Two Construction Company went bust. But depositors are clearly getting fed up with reports of their savings being squandered by corrupt fat cats in state banks. Concerns about a public uproar may explain why Wang remained in office until the U.S. probe forced Beijing to dump him, and why the state-controlled media was virtually silent on the case. Some bank leaders at first passively, but later outright actively, seek opportunities to be corrupted. They treat their power to grant loans as a tradeable commodity, to be used to benefit themselves, said an editorial in the Beijing-based Huaxia Times, one of the few Chinese papers to cover the case. If loans aren't
post FSC fallout
Thursday January 24, 3:04 pm Eastern Time EU trade official plunges into US trade disputes By Doug Palmer WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The European Union's top trade official was expected to plunge into billion-dollar trade disputes with the United States over tax breaks and steel on a two-day visit starting on Thursday, U.S. government aides said. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy was to meet U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick as the world's top trading areas seek to avert EU sanctions of up to $4 billion on U.S. exports after a ruling this month allowed retaliation for illegal U.S. tax breaks to exporters. Lamy's first visit to the United States since June also comes as the Bush administration mulls restricting steel imports to help the U.S. industry, a move the Europeans have threatened to seek to overturn at the the World Trade Organization. Despite the rows, the sides also hope the trip will help build momentum for a new round of world trade talks. Lamy was scheduled to talk on Thursday with key members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Both panels share jurisdiction over tax and trade issues at the forefront of the dispute over the tax breaks for exporters, which involve granting concessions to firms using offshore branches. In a case of huge importance to top U.S. companies ranging from Boeing (NYSE:BA - news) to Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), the WTO ruled this month for the fourth time the U.S. tax breaks amounted to an illegal export subsidy. That sets the stage for the EU to retaliate on up to $4 billion worth of U.S. goods later this year unless Zoellick and Lamy reach some agreement on how Washington will comply with the ruling. It is the highest amount ever sought in a WTO row. Lamy will meet on Friday with Zoellick and White House chief economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey. U.S. business groups and some lawmakers, such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, complain the WTO ruling unfairly discriminated against the U.S. tax system. They would like the EU to agree to negotiate on the issue as part of a three-year round of world trade talks launched in November last year in Doha, Qatar. EU officials have shown little appetite for that. While Lamy stressed Brussels faces no deadline for applying sanctions, he has urged the Unites States to come forward quickly with a proposal for complying with the WTO ruling. LOOMING STEEL SHOWDOWN Lamy was also scheduled to meet on Thursday with Rep. Phil English, a Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the House Steel Caucus and a driving force behind the ``section 201'' steel investigation launched last year by President George W. Bush. With that proceeding now drawing to a close, Bush faces a decision by early March on whether to restrict steel imports to give the financially struggling U.S. industry some breathing room to get back on its feet. The EU has threatened to take the United States to the WTO if import restrictions are imposed and would most likely be joined by other trading partners -- such as Brazil, South Korea and Japan -- that could see their market access curbed. Steel and the export tax break dispute are expected to be high on the agenda when Lamy meets with Zoellick on Friday. The two trade officials also are expected to discuss how to best advance the new round of world trade talks, known officially as the Doha Development Agenda. Those negotiations begin formally on Monday with a meeting in Geneva of the WTO Trade Negotiating Committee, which will oversee the talks
Afghanistan Again
Developments in Afghanistan are a mystery. Most of the time we are presented with the Chief Karzi the dandy. You would be forgiven for thinking that he is the only Afghan show in town. The rest of the so called government we hardly hear anything of. It as if Karzai is the most powerful native figure in Afghanistan. We hear little or nothing about these great victorious armies that crushed the Taliban. Genreal Dostun has become virtually invisible. We are not informed as to what is happening in the different parts of Afghanistan -such as Herat. We are informed of the character of the relations between the different armies and factions. We do not hear of any funerals of those that were Taliban soldiers. In short the bourgeois media is highlighting its bankruptcy as a provider of information. We just have not got a clue as to what is going on in Afghanistan. Pakistan is little better. We do not know what the real response of the Pahstuns are to the new governmnent. Regards Karl Carlile (Communist Global Group) Be free to join our communism mailing list at http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Small will be beautiful in Afghanistan
I agree with Karl that Karzai is a rather bland figure head for the purposes of the western media, but things are no doubt under contention beneath the surface. From New Scientist 26 Jan 02 an initiative which could be reformist or it could be radical. It sounds better than setting up chains of McDonald's franchises. It might keep the value of labour power circulating in the local communities. But no doubt it will be the subject of class struggle, to maintain what is positive in it. Will there also be support for intermediate technology? Chris Burford A unique experiment in rebuilding a nation is about to begin in Afghanistan. Donor countries have unveiled a $15 billion reconstruction programme which calls for a small-is-beautiful strategy. Rather than wheeling out massive nationwide projects, the rehabilitation will begin with villages organising themselves to install solar panels and small hydroelectricity schemes, and rebuild local roads and wrecked irrigation canals. Donor nations pledged an initial $3 billion towards the rebuilding at a meeting this week in Tokyo, after the programme was outlined in a report by the World Bank, the UN Development Programme, the Asian Development Bank and the interim Afghan government. Twenty years of war have left Afghanistan ravaged, says the report, with few services and no central administration equipped to provide them. For instance, only six people in every hundred have access to electricity. However, the report sees no point yet in setting up a national infrastructure, such as an electricity grid. It calls instead for 'community and small-scale private approaches for supplying electricity, including village-managed hydroelectricity. The report also recommends that each community should continue to provide its own water and sanitation, and says local enterprise will be the key to rebuidling roads. Some ministers in the interim Afghan government are keen on this village-based approach. One is transport minister Ishaq Shahryar, who pioneered solar energy in the US after emigrating from Afghanistan more than 40 years ago. Last year, before his appointment, he called for the creation of 'model villages' in post war Afghanistan, powered by solar energy and with schools and medical centres wired to the interet. 'Here's a country that is destroyed. To go back and rebuild it, my God, what a sense of opportunity,' he said.
Dean Baker weighs in on Enron
Published on Thursday, January 24, 2002 by Common Dreams Lying On Top by Dean Baker The third quarter is going to be great. That's what Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay said last September to a room full of workers who had come to hear about the company's prospects after a recent wave of bad news had sent the stock price plummeting. These were workers who had devoted their careers to building up Enron into one of the nation's biggest companies. Most of them were counting on Enron stock to provide the bulk of their income in retirement. Not only did Mr. Lay lie to these workers about the state of the company, he went on to encourage them to persuade their family and friends to invest in Enron as well. As despicable as Mr. Lay's behavior was, he actually performed a valuable service for the nation. He showed the incredible contempt with which the nation's elite-the ones with million dollar houses, yachts, and servants-view the people who have to work for a living. Unfortunately, Mr. Lay's conduct is not unusual among the rich and powerful. He just happened to get caught. While the corporate world is filled with Kenneth Lays, as millions of workers and shareholders are coming to realize, the ones that are most visible to the public are the nation's political leaders. If you want lies from on high, a good place to start is the Republican attacks against people who want to rollback part of their tax cut. The Republicans are trying to convince the public that there is a conspiracy afoot to raise their taxes. Of course none of us want to pay higher taxes-but the Republicans recognize that the taxes for the vast majority of the public will not be affected by the tax proposals on the table. Some members of Congress are pushing to limit the portion of the tax break that would go to the richest 2 percent of the population. For most of the nation the tax rate paid by this group has as much relevance as the tax rate in Portugal-we might end up paying those taxes one day, but it's not very likely. Given the choice between cutting Bill Gates' taxes or extending health care coverage to the growing number of uninsured people and making prescription drugs affordable to seniors, most people would probably opt to have Bill Gates pay more taxes. But, if a little bit if lying can convince the people that it is their tax dollars at stake-well you've got the Republican party platform. Lying to the public is one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement. The press recently reported that the Democrats will attack the Republican tax cuts-not by saying that they unfairly benefited the wealthy, or by pointing out that this money could have been used for important public needs-but rather by claiming that these tax cuts jeopardize Social Security and Medicare. According to the insiders, this argument scores better in the focus groups. News Flash: the tax cuts have no effect whatsoever on Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare have accounts that are separate from the overall budget. When the programs are running surpluses-as they are now-this money is used to buy government bonds. The programs will hold exactly the same amount of government bonds regardless of whether this money is saved or spent. Therefore Social Security and Medicare cannot be affected at all by the tax cut, unless Congress were to default on the nation's debt, a policy that no politician in Washington would advocate. Everyone in Washington knows this to be true-the Social Security and Medicare trust fund are described in numerous public documents. However, instead of addressing real issues, the Democrats believe that their best political strategy is to scare people about the future of these vital programs. In short, the country is filled with Kenneth Lays, people who have made it to the top by lying and stealing, and who have nothing but contempt for ordinary people. The effort to retake the nation is a long and difficult battle. But the first step has to be restoring honesty to political debates. The next time you hear a politician complain about tax increases, or threats to Social Security and Medicare, just remember: the third quarter is going to be great. Dean Baker is currently Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is co-author (with Mark Weisbrot) of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press) and writes the Economic Reporting Review, a weekly analysis of media economic coverage.
Brit neo-colonialism and the contradictions of land reform in Zimbabwe
The struggle for our land Britain is interfering in Zimbabwe in support of corporate power and a wealthy white minority George Shire Thursday January 24, 2002 The Guardian The crisis currently gripping Zimbabwe has its roots in Britain's racist colonial policies, the refusal of a previous Labour government to act against the dictatorship of the white minority and the failure of Britain to stick to its promises after my people finally won independence 20 years ago. But instead of acknowledging their own responsibilities and helping overcome the legacy of the past, the British government and media - and their friends in the white Commonwealth - are fostering a flagrantly partisan mythology about the conflict in the country, while intervening in support of a privileged white minority and international commercial interests. Take the continued white monopolisation of Zimbabwe's best land, which is at the heart of the upheavals and is routinely presented in Britain as a spurious pretext to keep a despot in power. In reality, the unequal distribution of land in Zimbabwe was one of the major factors that inspired the rural-based liberation war against white rule and has been a source of continual popular agitation ever since, as the government struggled to find a consensual way to transfer land. My grandfather, Mhepo Mavakire, used to farm land in Zimbabwe which is now owned by a commercial farmer. It was forcibly taken from the family after the second world war and handed to a white man, because he had fought for king and country. Many of my relatives died during the Zimbabwean liberation war, trying to reclaim this land. I joined Zanu, which played the central role in the war, in the late 60s and there was never any doubt in my mind that it was both a duty and an honour to fight for that land. Land reform is now a socioeconomic and political imperative in Zimbabwe. The land distribution programme of Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF government is aimed at redressing gross inequalities to meet the needs of the landless, the smallholders who want to venture into small-scale commercial farming and indigenous citizens who have the resources to go into large-scale commercial agriculture. These are modest, but worthwhile, objectives. The western-backed Movement for Democratic Change opposition, by contrast, is very reluctant to be drawn on how it would resolve the land question. And although middle England continues to be fed the tale that nothing was done about land until the MDC began to challenge Zanu-PF's power base, the truth is that the white-dominated Commercial Farmers Union has fought the government's strategy for land distribution at every stage since the 80s. The Farmers Union and members of the defunct Rhodesia Front, strongly represented in the MDC, could not care less who governs Zimbabwe as long as they can keep the land and continue to live in the style to which they have become accustomed. The lack of money for land acquisition, cumbersome legal procedures required by Britain in the independence negotiations and the withdrawal of international donors in recent years - as well as the explosive political restiveness and farm occupations - have all combined to force the Zimbabwean government to speed up resettlement. But of course a process of land acquisition and resettlement of indigenous landless people cuts across the networks that link the farmers, the producers of agricultural inputs, the banks and insurance houses, all dominated by the white minority. And this network also spreads into the international capital arena. Many poor Zimbabweans believe that the interests of this white network have been allowed to overshadow the morally legit- imate cry of the impoverished and landless majority in post-colonial Zimbabwe. While I unreservedly condemn all forms of political violence and criminality that have come to dominate the contemporary political culture of Zimbabwe, violence is in fact being perpetrated by people with links to both sides of the political divide. In the last couple of weeks alone three people have been killed by MDC supporters, who also went on a rampage in Harare, petrol-bombing shops belonging to Zanu-PF supporters. Senior MDC figures have been implicated in the murder of a Zanu-PF official, Gibson Masarira, who was hacked to death in front of his family. And in Kwekwe, suspected MDC supporters burnt three Zanu-PF officials' houses. None of these events has been reported in the British media. Such MDC violence echoes the activities of the Rhodesian police and notorious Selous Scouts in the late 70s - which is perhaps hardly surprising since several are now leading lights in the MDC. It was the Selous Scouts who killed refugees, men, women and children, at Nyadzonia, Chimoio, Tembue, Mkushi, Luangwa, and Solwezi, where they still lie buried in mass graves. David Coltart, an MDC MP for Bulawayo South, was a prominent member of the Rhodesian police and he and his bodyguard Simon
Produkte update
The genius of capitalism personified, Kenny-boy,joins the sandwich parade: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/genius.htm Tom Walker
Walden Bello on Porto Allegre
[from ATTAC] 1- Porto Alegre Social Summit Sets Stage for Counteroffensive against Globalization By Walden Bello Porto Alegre is not exactly a Third World city. Located in one of Brazil's more prosperous states, Rio Grande do Sul, and populated by people mainly of European stock, this city of 1.2 million people is First World when it comes to infrastructure and social services. In fact, it ranks near the very top in terms of the country's quality of life index. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE Yet Porto Alegre, site of the World Social Forum (WSF) last year and again this year, has become the byword for the spirit of the burgeoning movement against corporate-driven globalization. Galvanized by the slogan Another world is possible, some 70,000 people are expected to flock to this coastal city from January 30 to February 4. This figure is nearly six times that for last year. Fisherfolk from India, farmers from East Africa, trade unionists from Thailand, indigenous people from Central America will be among those making their way to Porto Alegre. But there will also be a sizable contingent of people from the Northern countries. And the place will be graced by personalities who have come to exemplify the diversity of the movement against corporate-driven globalization-among others, activist-thinker Noam Chomsky, Indian physicist-feminist Vandana Shiva, Canadian people's advocate Maude Barlow, and Egyptian intellectual Samir Amin. COUNTERPOINT TO DAVOS The World Social Forum emerged as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the global corporate crowd in Davos, Switzerland. Proposed by a coalition of Brazilian civil society organizations and the Workers Party that controls both Porto Alegre and the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the idea triggered strong international support from organization such as the French monthly Le Monde Diplomatique and Attac, an influential Europe-wide organization supporting a tax on global financial transactions, and received financial support from progressive donors like Novib, the Netherlands Organization for International Development Cooperation. Driven by this energy, the first WSF was put together in a record time of eight months. A televised trans-Atlantic debate between representatives of the WSF and some luminaries attending the WEF was billed by the Financial Times as a collision between two planets, that of the global superrich and that of the vast marginalized masses. The most memorable moment of that confrontation came when Hebe de Bonafini, a representative of the Argentine human rights organization Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, shouted at financier George Soros across the Atlantic divide: Mr. Soros, you are a hypocrite. How many children's deaths are you responsible for. Since its first meeting the stock of the WSF has risen while that of the WEF has fallen. Already put on the defensive as a gathering to discuss how to maintain hegemony over the rest of us, as one of the debaters on the WSF side put it, the WEF was asked by the Swiss government to leave Davos on the grounds that it could no longer guarantee the security of its corporate participants. Sealing off Davos from demonstrators last year had already necessitated the biggest Swiss security operation after World War II, and the authorities anticipated a security and logistical nightmare in the wake of the September 11 events. As a result, the WEF is holding its sessions in New York this year, but many observers say that Davos high up in the Swiss Alps was the key attraction for corporate executives, and without this ambience, the WEF is headed for oblivion. The centerpiece of this year's gathering in Porto Alegre are 26 plenary sessions over four days structured around four theme: the production of wealth and social reproduction, access to wealth and sustainable development, civil society and the public arena, and political power and ethics in the new society. Around this core will unfold scores of seminars, a people's tribunal on debt sponsored by Jubilee South, and about 5,000 workshops. Marches and demonstrations of workers and peasants are also expected, led by the Brazilian mass organizations CUT (Central Union of Workers) and MST (the Movement of the Landless) that are among the key organizers of the WSF. TUMULTUOUS YEAR The anti-establishment forces gather in Porto Alegre after a tumultuous year. Perhaps the apogee of the anti-globalization movement came during Group of Eight Meeting in Genoa in the third week of July, when some 300,000 people marched in the face of police tear-gas attacks. Shortly after the Genoa clashes, in which one protester was killed by police, there was speculation in the world press that elite gatherings in non-authoritarian countries might no longer be possible in the future. And indeed, Canada's offer to hold the next G-8 meeting in a resort high up in the Canadian Rockies in the
Kim Moody on NYC/WEF
[again, from ATTAC] 3- Why Not in the U.S.A.? Around the World, Mass Political Strikes Challenge the Effects of Globalization. Why Not in the U.S.A.? by Kim Moody Around the world in the last few years, labor has responded to globalization and its impact with general or mass political strikes. In Argentina, India, Spain, South Korea, Bolivia, South Africa, and France, labor federations have called on their members and sometimes the entire working class to challenge privatization, austerity, downsizing, and other symptoms of increased corporate power-by stopping work. Not too long ago, the Ontario Federation of Labour organized one-day general strikes in cities across that province called the Days of Action. In 1998, Puerto Rico's labor movement, including most of its AFL-CIO unions, struck in opposition to the sale of the public telephone company. With the Free Trade Area of the Americas coming down the Fast Track, why not a general strike throughout the hemisphere, including across the whole U.S.? It's a novel idea for a labor movement that, especially since the 1940s, has been focussed on industry-by-industry or company-by-company bargaining. Since the go-it-alone strategy is not working in an era of globalization, some changes may be in order. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM It has to be admitted that in the United States, general strikes are as rare as a generous employer. One reason for this is simply that the business unionists who head up most of our unions are not for it. Back in the mid-1970s then-AFL-CIO President George Meany said, We believe in the American system. We don't take to the streets and we don't call general strikes and we don't call political strikes. In one respect Meany was wrong. We certainly do take to the streets, and it hasn't just been in the 1930s or the 1960s. Check out the streets around Pittston's western Virginia coal mines in 1989, or the highways hit by road warriors from Hormel in the mid-1980s or Staley in the mid-1990s. What about the Latino drywallers in Los Angeles a decade ago or the construction workers in New York City a couple of years ago? And then there were the thousands who marched last June in Columbia, South Carolina in support of the Charleston 5, members of the ILA threatened with felony charges for trying to stop scabs. And does Seattle ring a bell? Meany was wrong. American workers hit the streets with regularity. But they don't stop work and hit the streets all at once, together, for a common goal. In large part this is due to the weak class consciousness of most American workers that is both a cause and consequence of business unionism. Over the years, it has been further undermined by a prosperous past, racial divisions, and an approach to politics and social programs unique to unions in the United States. Most accounts of the tightening grip of business unionism after World War II include the, by then, universal presence of no-strike clauses in union contracts; the purge of leftists from the CIO; the growing dependence on the Democratic Party; McCarthyism; increased bureaucracy; and, of course, the Taft-Hartley Act. All of these played a role in the triumph of the narrow ideology and practice of business unionism. But it is important to understand what they did and didn't accomplish. All of these events and trends weakened organized labor in important ways. They wrecked the plan to organize the South, leaving that region a haven for runaway shops to this day. Bargaining in the electrical industry was fragmented and seriously undermined by the attacks on the United Electrical Workers after it was forced out of the CIO. Most unions, however, emerged from the 1940s larger and institutionally stronger. Many grew from the 1950s through the 1970s, although private sector unionism slipped for a time. There were more strikes in the 1950s than in the 1930s, and many of the big gains in collective bargaining came in that decade. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, grew by 250 percent from 1945 to 1975. In most respects, the unions of the 1950s were stronger than they had ever been and much more powerful than they would become. A NARROWED VISION What the very success of the path chosen in the 1940s did do, however, was to undermine the notion of the labor movement as the representative of a class and to narrow the vision of most unions. Frustrated in the late 1940s by a Republican Congress and a rightward moving Democratic Party, leaders of the individual unions turned toward a trend begun by the Mine Workers in 1946 when John L. Lewis negotiated an employer-paid health and welfare fund. If we cannot bring this protection to our members by national legislation, said Textile Workers President William Pollock, we should insist that this become part of our contracts. This trend toward winning social gains union-by-union, industry-by-industry instead of class-wide was given a boost by the
Re: re: the profit rate recession
Hi Jim, I am sorry for my delay in responding to your last message of Monday, Jan. 14. A sick son, an overdue paper deadline, and classes starting next week have kept me otherwise occupied. I just have time for a few brief comments. We seem to agree on the following points (please correct me if I am wrong): 1. The rate of profit declined significantly from the mid-1960s to the 1970s, and this declining profitability was the main cause of the stagflation of recent decades. 2. If the rate of profit is examined from 1980 to 2002 (estimated), then there is little or no upward trend in the rate of profit over this period (and even a slight decline in the share of profit). The years 1980 and 2002 are appropriate end points for the estimation of the trend, because they are at the same point in the business cycle - the bottom of a recession. You have other arguments, using other end points and other selected years, that the rate of profit has increased since 1980. But you acknowledge that all these different measures show only a small increase, and that the rate of profit today remains significantly below its earlier postwar highs. 3. The current recession was caused by a sharp decline in investment spending, beginning in late 1990. 4. The current recession could be made worse because of a subsequent decline in consumer spending. The main point of disagreement seems to be - whether or not the decline of investment spending that caused the recession was itself caused by the decline in the rate of profit since 1997. I argue yes and you argue no. You argue that business investment decisions are not determined by short-run cyclical fluctuations in the rate of profit, but are instead determined by the long-run trend in the rate of profit, and also by the capacity utilization rate. However, it has been widely discussed in the business press that investment collapsed in 2001 as a result of rapidly deteriorating profitability. As we have discussed, the rate of profit turned down in 1997, and has continued to decline ever since, and finally took its toll on investment spending in late 2000. This is how business executives themselves have explained their reductions of investment spending. The investment cutback was probably also influenced by the long-run decline in the rate of profit since the mid-1960s. But the primary precipitating factor seems to have been the sharp decline in the rate of profit since 1997. The capacity utilization rate declined as a RESULT of the recession, it is not a cause of the recession. In the months ahead, the low capacity utilization rate will certainly have a negative effect on investment spending, and thus will make a recovery from the recession more difficult. But the low capacity utilization rate did not cause the initial decline in investment spending which caused the recession. Jim, I still don't understand what you think caused the decline in investment spending that caused the recession. The other crucial question is: what is necessary for a sustainable recovery from the current recession? I argue that a sustainable recovery requires an increase in investment spending, which in turn requires an increase in the rate of profit. One of the main ways to increase the rate of profit is to cut wages. This conflict between profit and wages is an unavoidable fact of life in capitalism, and it is intensified in recessions. However, cutting wages will also reduce consumption in the short-run, and thus will make the recession worse. This is especially worrisome at the present time, because of the unprecedented levels of debt of all kinds - business debt and household debt and US debt to foreigners. These high levels of debt make the economy vulnerable to a more serious downturn. Therefore, the current dilemma seems to be: that which is necessary to solve the fundamental problem of insufficient profitability (cutting wages) will make the current recession worse (by reducing consumer spending), and, because of the high levels of debt, runs the risk of a very bad recession. Jim (and others), do you agree or disagree with the above? Thanks again for the discussion. Fred
Re: Brit neo-colonialism... in Zimbabwe
Bravo I have much more sympathy for Mugabe in resisting mugging by global finance capital and the forces of Empire than I did for Milosevic who turned to crude and ethnically divisive nationalism. Land redistibution is not the most progressive of causes because it creates a large landed petty bourgeoisie but it is a democratic demand against colonialism, neo colonialism, and finance capital. One of the twists that is often not appreciated is that the white land grab of the late 19th century only really bit in terms of the lifes of the landless poor when the farms started adopting aggressive capitalist methods in the last 20 years. The proletariat of Zimbabwe should in this context be making an alliance with the rural dispossed, even if the democratic anti-imperialist demands are in a sense petty bourgeois. There are other concrete cases, and each case must be evaluated on the politics of the conflict, where it may be more progressive for the democratic forces to appeal to the external forces of the Empire. But in this case, despite injustices to the workers in the trade union movements who support the MDM, it is reactionary for the MDM to court the favours of the international imperialist community for their internal agenda rather than unite for the demand of a just and compensated land distribution. The behaviour of Britain is a typical racist disgrace. The Selous scouts, financed indirectly by sanctions busting UK and US oil companies, used to cut off the lips of people when they terrorised the villages. A recent book on torture gives an illustrative account of how a British officer, brought up in the character forming sado-masochistic culture of the British public boarding school, found the most effective technique was this: they would visit a village from which all the young men were absent because they were either in the liberation army or knew they would be accused of being so. The forces of imperial law and order would try to intimidate the senior old men of the village but this usually did not work. They therefore would get the old man's grandson and dunk his head in a bucket of water until he almost drowned, thrashing desperately with his head in the bucket and gasping with terror when his head was lifted out. This display cut through most language problems very rapidly. It broke the will of the old headmen by forcing them to choose between one loved one and another, in front of the rest of the village. The compensation that Britain should pay to the people of Zimbabwe is only a tiny fraction of the total transfer of capital that progressive people in the west should demand goes on a regular annual basis for the safe development of the people and the environment of what is the mother continent of all of us. Chris Burford London At 24/01/02 17:42 -0800, you wrote: The struggle for our land Britain is interfering in Zimbabwe in support of corporate power and a wealthy white minority George Shire Thursday January 24, 2002 The Guardian
