Re: Re: query: intro textbooks

2000-03-14 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Pen-pals, Was it here someone was asking about micro-readings? If so, have you seen Louis Putterman's *The Economic Nature of the Firm: A Reader* (1993, CUP) - all the biggies - from Smith, Marx, Hayek, Coase, Chandler, Simon, Liebenstein, Jensen etc etc - and a very useful piece by

Re: Re: U.S.Monetary Policy

2000-03-23 Thread Rob Schaap
Evening all, If Greenspan were a horse (and you chose to race him rather than consign him to the knacker's yard), would you not see in the formguide years of attempts to regulate those animal spirits out there through hints and empty warnings? A deliberate leakage is my bet here. And one with

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx and financial crises

2000-03-29 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Tom, You write: I thought you were agreeing with Kindleberger, who thinks that the world needs fiat currencies to prevent stagnation, consequently, the lack of a "world hegemon" exacerbated the Great Depression. But you do not agree with Kindleberger, since such a "world hegemon" only

Re: Re: Keeping Tabb

2000-03-30 Thread Rob Schaap
Title: Re: [PEN-L:17522] Re: Keeping Tabb G'day Doyle, You tax Max thus: >>More schizophrenia here, I think. >The phrase is anti-disabled. ÝYou know (I assume you are ignorant of the movement, the phrase "you know" is just a >writing tic) this country had a disability rights movement spring

Re: [Fwd: Re: Keeping Tabb]

2000-03-30 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Carrol, Yes. I believe some other poster tried to confuse issues by claiming that when originally coined the word was intended to mean "split mind," but the claim is pointless. There is no significant sense in which schizophrenia is characterized by a "split mind," and the use of the term

Re: RE: Re: Sorry and statistics question

2000-04-03 Thread Rob Schaap
Good on yez, Barnett Max! Ta. Rob. This issue is discussed in detail in "Beware the U.S. Model." an EPI book (http://epinet.org) Authors are Mishel, Schmitt and Bernstein. mbs Rob Schaap wrote: And, btw, (following Joel Blau's post of the other day), is there a table of

Re: Turkish Movies, Query. (fwd)

2000-04-05 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, Just by the way ... .i don't know if you can find "Arkadas" (Friendship) specifically, since I had seen it back to turkey many moons ago. There are apparently a couple of words for 'friend' in Turkish, and I'm given to believe 'arkadas' is the one closest to 'comrade' (with

Re: Re: past and future of multilateral institutions (fwd)

2000-04-09 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Mine - and all you IPEs, This reading and other considerations make me hope that April 16thers will also direct their attention to the panoply of forces to which the WB/IMF are themselves subject: Just wondering - Do we still speak of the Bilderbergers and Trilateral Commission in

Bilderergers

2000-04-10 Thread Rob Schaap
But seriously folks, DO we still speak of the Bilderbergers/Trilateral Commission as either symbolic of, or central to, the role of trans-national, trans-sectoral integrated first-world elites in shaping the international political economy? There was a flurry of such talk a few years back (Cox,

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Anti-Eurocentrism: IdealistDiversionfromAnti-r...

2000-04-12 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Ted and Justin, Well, I've seen quite a few football mobs in my time, and, whilst a large skinhead or 'bovver-boy' contingent was ever present, the violent mob mentality was (a) not inevitable (it only took hold sometimes, albeit predictably so if traditional rivals were avisiting - eg

Re: Re: Anti-Eurocentrism: Idealist Diversion fromAnti-racism/anti-imperialism (fwd)

2000-04-12 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Mine, as Marx said in the Communist Manifesto, working classes should "settle accounts with their own bourgeoisie first". Evidence is Soviet and Chinese communism, and other anti-imperialist struggles around the globe. That's old evidence, Mine. How'd you reckon a working class

Re: Anti-Eurocentrism: Idealist DiversionfromAnti-racism/anti-imperialism (fwd)

2000-04-13 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Chas, What is the difference between a strategy of anti-imperialism and a strategy of international solidarity against capitalism. International capitalism is imperialism. Perhaps Rod means that 'globalism' should (on a Marxist account) be globalising and thus on its way to standardising

Re: billionaires

2000-04-16 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Pen-Pals, The Margin Call - a sound never heard by ordinary punters in Australia before - is booming across the land. The market here is down 6 per cent for the morning, and there's no sign of serious bottom-feeding yet. Of course, you have to remember that NewsCorp is a whopping

Re: Keynes the radical

2000-04-26 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Michael, Whilst I am wholly aware of JMK's insistence that a fight between the bourgeoisie and the great unwashed would find him firmly on the side of the former, I still think there's room for a generous reading of all this. It seems, for instance, wholly consistent with the writings of,

Re: Re: Evaluating pen-l retrospectively

2000-05-08 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Mike Louis, Sez Louis: It depends. If you narrowed the search to posts by Jim Devine, you'd find them extremely relevant. The problem is that very few people with his kinds of expertise feel motivated apparently to write analyses on PEN-L. Whether this is because of time constraints or

Re: RE: American looneyism EVERYWHERE

2000-05-12 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, About this Civil War business (a topic the judicious foreigner should leave well alone, I know). Ain't it true that the War is remembered by only the northerners as a war about slavery? I'm not even sure most *at the time* had it down as a war about slavery. Anyway, why a

Re: RE: Re: Forwarded from Anthony Boynton

2000-05-12 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, Whilst I reckon there's something to Mark's words (below), the fact is they don't really matter like they used to. You can't beat the US strategic might, so you have to beat their resolve (which just about any long war would do, as long as it weren't important enough to tempt Unca

Re: Re: Re: Baseball and economic growth

2000-05-12 Thread Rob Schaap
Hi again, Sez Jim: Yes, baseball is like craft-based capitalism; So how's cricket different? That's the reference point in this daft proposition, isn't it? Anyway, it might be true that the US and Japan play baseball. But the Cubans love it, too, don't they? What's the conclusion these

Re: Baseball, Reductionism, and Engenderization(fwd)

2000-05-13 Thread Rob Schaap
But, Mine! Isn't football (the real one - ie. the one they play with their feet) the sport most played by the world's girls and women? And you'd be living in a strange place indeed if an awful lot of the women weren't just a tad interested in the men's game, too, I reckon. Women can be as

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sowing Dragons (fwd)

2000-05-15 Thread Rob Schaap
Please find attached one manly cyber-hug, Justin! Well-spoken, comrade! If, as Frost said, 'poetry is what gets left out in translation' (though I'm convinced Dryden managed to keep plenty of Chaucer in), 'tis even the translation that's left out in the postie critique, where the heroic couplet

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sowing Dragons (fwd)

2000-05-15 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Mine, Two men expressing affection in a homophobic world may do so by hugging each other, but only if they bring their forearms hard against each others' backs, preferably bruising some ribs, and then, for but a moment, making sure to hug hard enough to induce pain. This is a very

Re: Marx Engels, was Re: Marx and Malleability

2000-05-18 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Charles, You say "Materialist dialectics was Engels' , and not Marx's." I rteckon we have to be very explicit and specific here. I thought, for instance, that you and I had come to agree that materialism is not the same as physicalism? Social *relations* are material for Marx, and,

Re: : withering away of the state

2000-05-19 Thread Rob Schaap
And hello again, Charles. CB: This is a problem for you because of your utopianism. Marx predicted that the Paris Commune would be a folly of dispair, but also knew that it was the beginning of actual socialism, with all its faults, and advanced his theory of socialism based on it. Similarly

Flame

2000-05-20 Thread Rob Schaap
Allows our Carrol: I'm not saying that Sam Pawlett really wants to keep women in the nursery. No, and neither should you even dare make mention of it. Just like you're in no position to question people's trustworthiness; to demand they prove themselves to, well, you; and to accuse

Re: Re: NIPA history

2000-05-20 Thread Rob Schaap
Beaut post, Reverend Tom! What's that Kuznets reference, btw? Cheers, Rob. The automobile and the elevator were also great inventions. Idealizing them led to monstrosities like the le Corbusier plan for Paris, urban renewal, Pruitt-Igoe etc. I would expect that, consistent with his

[PEN-L:4197] Oz consumer debt

1999-03-07 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, I see in yesterday's *Australian* that personal debt has quickly risen to $65 billion - averaging out at $3600 per Ozzie, and blowing our balance of payments out to hell. And it's nearly all done on credit cards, mostly at better than 16%pa. Of course, our smug (and no-one on

[PEN-L:4207] Re: Kubrick dead

1999-03-08 Thread Rob Schaap
Kubrick has died. I recently saw "Lolita" and "Paths of Glory" for the first time. Both were excellent, though I think "Paths of Glory" provokes a sharper response, drawing the angry bile upward as quickly as any movie I've seen. Never mind Kubrick. Films are all very well, but they're not

[PEN-L:4522] Re: Why Kosovo

1999-03-25 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Mike, Reckon the B2 Stealth Bombers just need a coupla trial runs before the bulk order gets signed. And the unknown seems so big a part of this (and so many of the known bits seem so redolent of cataclysmic mistakes past) that it absolutely must qualify as stupid. Sad, too. Rob. Is

[PEN-L:4563] Re: [PNEWS] OP: Drudge Reports Russia Ready ToLaunch Nukes!

1999-03-26 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Mike, Whilst I agree this Yugoslav business constitutes an obscenely irresponsible risk in light of Russia's troubles and proclivities (amongst those of several significant others), I'm not sure about this bit: Moscow will immediately supply powerful armaments to Belgrade and the Serbs

[PEN-L:5475] Wall St running out of steam?

1999-04-19 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, Two thoughts: (1) I reproduce three very short articles from *The Australian* public web site below - is this the sort of thing we should be trying to avoid on PEN-L? That'd be daft, imho, (all fully attributed, and from a publicly accessible page, too) but I'll happily oblige

[PEN-L:5040] Re: RE: Nato to Serb TV: Stop presenting Serbviewpoint or be bombed

1999-04-10 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Max, Starting a process that almost inevitably gets to this stage, is a stupidity of logical priority. After all, if they're gonna keep bombing, the definition of 'military targets' is gonna have to get an awful lot broader Cheers, Rob. -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max

[PEN-L:5190] Re: Re: Re: random thoughts on the slaughter

1999-04-13 Thread Rob Schaap
What about the devil-may-care bravado with which he installed that cigar? Raw courage in my book. Our world is so hopelessly distorted, I suspect it's the one thing this *!# bastard is gonna be remebered for - long after all the dead are nameless dust. But, yeah, point taken. Rob. I defy

[PEN-L:5245] Re: What's My Line

1999-04-14 Thread Rob Schaap
Did I hear General Clarke right? He says the pilot who attacked the train bridge 'intently' looked at his monitor, and noticed the train on the bridge only at the last second, when it was no longer possible to divert or abort. The bit where I spill my morning cuppa follows: the 'same thing'

[PEN-L:5436] Welfare Economists, Uncertainty and Planning

1999-04-18 Thread Rob Schaap
Tom writes of Abram Bergson, about whom I know nothing but that he corresponded with von Mises, concerning whom I am in the far better position of knowing very little, which is enough for a list so merciful to its well-meaning ignoramuses as Pen-L ... I get intigued where von Mises dares argue

[PEN-L:5373] Re: RE: Chump change

1999-04-16 Thread Rob Schaap
The good reverend waxes beauteously, and then qualifies thusly: Please don't puke at this maudlin idyll, Max, Maudlin idyll! Puke? Perhaps I'm being overly daring revealing this, but this maudlin idyll constitutes the basis of all my politics! Doesn't it constitute yours, Tom? Rob.

[PEN-L:5438] More Dark Musings

1999-04-18 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, Where in this world does one look, if not for comfort, at least for the possibility of it? India's just knocked off its fifth government in three years, its stock market is in free fall, its 20 million public servants are on the streets, its sabres are rattling nervously in all

[PEN-L:5457] Re: Re: More Dark Musings/FTAA

1999-04-19 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Robert, It was reported yesterday by the Beeb World Service. Several ministers were pointing at the WTO bananas determination and criticising it roundly - in politically circumspect, but pleasantly familiar, terms (not a million miles from the 'dependencia' insights of yore) - I very much

[PEN-L:5039] Re: Re: Re: survey of possible nations to bomb

1999-04-10 Thread Rob Schaap
People have forgotten Joannah B. already. Shows how powerful spin can be, eh? A perfectly credible witness convincingly details a rape (in every sense and to the full extent of the word - more so than the other cases I can remember), and not even her liberal feminist sisters get behind her.

[PEN-L:4907] Re: The banana war

1999-04-07 Thread Rob Schaap
I don't understand the details here (other tha that US-owned TNCs prevail over paternalistic gestures towards erstwhile colonies as a matter of course), but isn't this WTO judgement to the effect that the US may now impose tariffs against Euro-imports to the tune of the estimated amount

[PEN-L:4866] Re: Re: Jingoism

1999-04-07 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Nathan, Always enjoy your posts, mate - even if I seem to be disagreeing with you a lot of late. Your speculations concerning South Africa make a point, but allow me to speculate to try to make one in return. We're up against murderous nationalism here - on the part of Serbian forces

[PEN-L:4588] Re: Re: NATO Bombing (a clarifier)

1999-03-27 Thread Rob Schaap
I think I should make clear that (a) 'a couple of years of economic suffering and the dramatic dissolution of old identities' don't necessarily turn us into thugs - just that they can - and (b) I'm not saying that this is what Russia's people have become (just that it might do so anywhere as

[PEN-L:4587] Re: NATO Bombing

1999-03-27 Thread Rob Schaap
My heart (and much of what passes for my brain) is with Paul's take on this, but Max always serves a necessary purpose for me on these lists, in that he reminds me that even a fairly coherent set of default settings is not the best apparatus with which to read my world. When Paul assures Max he

[PEN-L:4562] Yugoslavia reaps what the West has sown

1999-03-26 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, A twenty-minute surf through the PeaceNet pages and some relevant book blurbs offer these insights on the West's role in creating the Yugoslav nightmare. We may have an episode now that makes NATO's unprecedented unilateral invasion cause for mixed feelings, but if you look at the

[PEN-L:4458] Re: Mad Dow Disease

1999-03-21 Thread Rob Schaap
Hi again, Penners, And good on you, Tom! 'Mad Dow' ... Heh, heh, heh ... 'Prosthesis' ... HA, HA, HA!! How accurate would my suspicion be that an index does not a reality represent? Mike tells us the NASDAQ is but ten winners and a few thousand losers. I remember some news after Xmas that

[PEN-L:4314] Japan and Oz

1999-03-15 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Brad, Tom Jim, Jim writes: One thing is that Japan is highly dependent on imports of raw materials, so that a high Yen makes them cheaper. This counteracts the effect of exports becoming more expensive in dollar terms as the Yen rises. Does Oz a bit of good, too - as we are a salient

Re: Re: Re: Up a Hayek in a kayak without a paddle

2000-07-16 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Justin, Or any sort of philosopher. But he was analytical, among his other virtues. Awright, comrade. You've said this twice now, so I'll chance a nibble. Why was Marx not any sort of philosopher? Why, for instance, should *A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right*

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism

2000-07-16 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day, Michael, Sez you: Wow! Summers has discovered Schumpeter! Geez, I'd love to know where Schumpeter says that stuff about monopoly rents being requisite for investment! I'd missed that in my vulture-pecking of the great man's corpus, and it'd fit some stuff I'm writing on

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Markets and socialism

2000-07-16 Thread Rob Schaap
Glad it was only a major theme - else I'd be a bit embarrassed at missing it ... Glowing redly, Rob. It is a major theme of his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Rob Schaap wrote: G'day, Michael, Sez you: Wow! Summers has discovered Schumpeter! Geez, I'd love to know where

[PEN-L:6794] Re: una preguntita

1999-05-14 Thread Rob Schaap
Doug writes: Didn't Joan Robinson say that the only thing worse than being exploited under capitalism is not being exploited? Your mate Manuel Castells seems to say this, too. Without having much to say for or against the Marxian argument for the category of exploitation, he merely pronounces

[PEN-L:6820] Re: Re: Re: Re: Gregor Gysi letter to SlobodanMilosevic

1999-05-15 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Barkley, You write: Social forces are obviously important, but would World War II in Europe happened if Adolf Hitler had died in World War I? Keynes hadn't heard of Hitler when he forecast big trouble as a consequence of Versailles' impact on German socio-economic prospects - not a

[PEN-L:6900] Re: Re: Re: RE: Old foggies/fogeys

1999-05-18 Thread Rob Schaap
Geez you can give value for 2k, Doug! Right on the button, for mine, on both counts - in Oz as it is in US. As far as dangers go, this is pretty far down on the list in 1999. And any U.S. radical has to take a critique of petit bourgeois (no quotes for me, thank you) influence seriously - e.g.

[PEN-L:6951] Re: Re: Petit Cache

1999-05-18 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Tom, I once read a piece by Simmel called something like 'How is society possible?', and remember being very impressed - there wouldn't happen to be a cyber-site for the below piece, would there? I think I'm going through a dead-white-guys thing just now and the below is quite

[PEN-L:7010] Re: Re: Re: Re: Petit Cache

1999-05-19 Thread Rob Schaap
My internet service provider thanks you for putting me on to your site, Rod. I'm off back to it now. Top quote the stoic Oates, I may be some time, chaps ... Rob.

[PEN-L:7102] Re: Re: political economy sources

1999-05-20 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Paul, I got a lot out of Carnoy, Castells, Cohen and Cardoso (1996) *The New Global Economy in the Information Age*. Penn. State and this introductory classic (in case it doesn't rate as a classic over there) Hettne, Bjorn (ed) (1995). *International Political Economy: understanding

[PEN-L:7141] Re: Re: Re: Creative Destruction

1999-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Jim, I'd written: Historical dialectics and an invocation of central planning - all from the pen of a seminal econometrician. Strange stuff, economics ... and you responded: Schumpeter was neither an econometrician nor a mathematical economist. He _was_ a conservative but open-minded

[PEN-L:7142] Re: Re: imperialism and Imperialism

1999-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
Hi again, Jim, BTW2, I don't see my goal as a socialist to promote "state ownership of the means of production" (Barkley's definition of socialism) unless it also involves popular-democratic control of the state. In fact, I would emphasize the latter over the former: state control of the means

[PEN-L:7149] Re: NATO's Unintended Targets List Grows LaborConference

1999-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
May 21 -- State media say NATO bombs a Kosovo jail, killing at least 19 people and injuring scores. May 22 -- BBC say NATO bombs same jail again, twice. Rob.

[PEN-L:7235] Re: Re: jim o'connor on harvey review

1999-05-27 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, Chas writes: It would be difficult to prove which culture and tradition definitely has the best practice regarding living and using the earth in North America and elsewhere in the long run of the future. But overall, in the historical larger picture, the methods of the

[PEN-L:7144] Re: Re: Balkan confusion

1999-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Barkley, You write: The Gang That Can't Bomb Straight has not only hit the Swedish embassy, but also the residences of the Norwegian and Spanish ambassadors (NATO members vigorously supporting the war effort, last time I checked). They also hit a hospital, ugh, but not the Swiss

[PEN-L:7103] Re: Creative Destruction

1999-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Seth, Perhaps you don't define 'creative destruction' quite as Schumpeter might have liked (I think Doug O's sadly unremarked-upon post of last week on innovation and value takes it more literally), but I take your point with gusto. Which reminds me of this delightful Schumpeterism

[PEN-L:6960] Re: Re: Re: Re: Rosser on Kurds/Kosovars

1999-05-19 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, The Italians have broken NATO ranks by agreeing with everybody in the world except about a dozen NATO spokespeople that the bombing doesn't seem to have worked as NATO had (said they'd) expected it to. The Greeks go further - stop the bombing long enough to give diplomacy another

[PEN-L:6953] Re: Asian irrational euphoria?

1999-05-18 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Henry, Might the 'irrational euphoria' discerned by Camdessus not be a bit of hedging - y'know, money trickling out of Wall St in anticipation of hikes and such? Mebbe Asia's stock markets are slowly taking on the countenance of relative safety for money that can still not find options as

[PEN-L:6952] Re: Re: Re: Rosser on Kurds/Kosovars

1999-05-18 Thread Rob Schaap
In reply to Ken and Brad ... As at 23 March, it was, I think, importantly true that the KLA was not Albanian Kosovo and the Kosovar Serb militias were not mainstream Serbia. I dunno if anyone saw that Drenica Valley doco, but all the killing of Albanians in that seemed locals upon locals (with

[PEN-L:6872] Re: Re: RE: Old foggies/fogeys

1999-05-16 Thread Rob Schaap
Just thought I'd clarify: I meant the issue has been dressed up as two 'opposites' neither of which we need necessarily embrace - but if we don't embrace 'em, our discourse isn't in the frame - the frame constituted for economic debate today is one of Hayekian freedom plus price as optimal

[PEN-L:6302] Re: venting in frustration.

1999-05-02 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Michael, I know I shouldn't say things so many of us have said before, but your reference to 'reasonable' others and 'postmodern' wars forces my hand. The only post-modern thing about what's happening in Yugoslavia is that its purported representations don't represent it. Of course, I'd

[PEN-L:6303] Kenichi Ohmae and *The Australian*

1999-05-02 Thread Rob Schaap
A little economics to balance my whinging moralism. Ohmae agrees with a lot this list was agreeing about a year and a half ago (which makes him an absolute seer by the standards of most finance press columnists). In this weekend's *Australian Financial Review*) he stuns his Rolexed readers (but

[PEN-L:6312] Re: Re: Re: venting in frustration.

1999-05-03 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Doug, Now wait a minute. The actual "postmodernists" I know - and as usual that word is being used without any reference to actual people or texts - are mostly opposed to this war. Well, be fair. I've been pretty specific about names and texts in other matters pomo (and I did give

[PEN-L:6495] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Swift

1999-05-07 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Ajit, What's her problem? Doesn't she understand Foucault? Cheers, ajit sinha Maybe just not his single most important argument, eh? Actually, I'm not sure I understand it either, but I know when I see someone who understands it less. And hack into him as I do, Michel was not an

[PEN-L:6496] Re: Greenspan sez....

1999-05-07 Thread Rob Schaap
Greenspan's blather about tight 'labour markets' and inflation (and interest rate hikes in June) has scared the guts out of the Oz markets today. I'd take a couple of mill. out in cash if I were you lot - first thing. Methinks the bloke is experimenting with the idea of gently pricking a bubble

[PEN-L:6510] Re: Saving Marxism

1999-05-08 Thread Rob Schaap
Thanks to Doug Ohmans for his idea of substituting Marx's notion of 'average constant capital' with that of 'marginal constant capital'. A terrific read as I try to square the apparent profit engine that is information with the law of value. Does information proffer 'gratuitous service' such as

[PEN-L:6544] Re: Greenspan sez....

1999-05-09 Thread Rob Schaap
I'd written: Methinks the bloke is experimenting with the idea of gently pricking a bubble ... and Doug replied: Yeah, he tried that about 6,000 Dow points ago, with his tortured "irrational exuberance" remark.* Didn't work very well, did it? *AG, 12/5/96: "Clearly, sustained low

[PEN-L:6309] Re: historical question

1999-05-03 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Michael, I used the term postmodernism to reflect the wierd sort of splitting up of broad political groupings in unexpected ways. Yeah, you did - but I'm not sure it's that weird in a world where PR so deeply penetrates public communications (you have be time-rich or professionally

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re:Re:Re:Re:MarxandMalleability (fwd)

2000-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
Mine, The monarchy had already been overthrown by December 1917. The Duma Lenin shut down was not "under the patronage of the monarchy." The electoral winners, were socialists and revolutionary ones. Just a different brand than Lenin's Bolsheviks. Marx praised the direct election of

Re: Re: Withering away of the state

2000-05-22 Thread Rob Schaap
Nice post, Rod! And I tend to side with Barkley on the SR Constituent Assembly, too - which seems to me to have been a more promising midwife for the sort of transformations you discuss (especially in light of the resolutions they were passing in their last days) than the dictatorship of a

Re: prostitution

1998-01-08 Thread Rob Schaap
t, we have here the possibility of prostitution presenting some with a career choice that is tenable/optimal from both economically rationalist and politically socialist points of view. Cheers, Rob. **** Rob Schaap

Re: The Hong Kong peg?

1998-01-17 Thread Rob Schaap
if this is a load of bollocks. Cheers, Rob. ******** Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia. Phone: 02-6201 2

Re: Asian economic crisis the US

1998-01-28 Thread Rob Schaap
. Westerners train locals accordingly. 9. G8 nations, especially selfish ol' Japan, offer open markets and at least growth maintenance. Well, waddya reckon? Cheers, Rob. Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra

Quotes that stick in the mind

1998-02-19 Thread Rob Schaap
. Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia. Phone: 02-6201 2194 (BH) Fax:02-6201 5119 'It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet

Re: Quotes that stick in the mind

1998-02-22 Thread Rob Schaap
and start thinking of new ways to characterise our problems and our options. Plenty of the canon still there, but with new modes of exploitation and new dynamics upon which to apply the logic. Waddya reckon? Cheers, Rob Rob

Re: Extra Credit Assignment

1998-02-17 Thread Rob Schaap
, so is capitalism's historical trajectory beyond the control of the capitalist. I better stop - I'm losing my grip. Cheers, Rob. Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia. Phone: 02-6201

Re: Latin? With prose like this who needs it?

1998-02-08 Thread Rob Schaap
history in academic economics?) inextricably links the two (for however one might wish to link them, linked they most certainly must be)? Just wondering, Rob. ******** Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Austral

Re: Industrial Reserve Army

1998-02-05 Thread Rob Schaap
rks better for you. Housebound mums? Cheers, Rob. **** Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia. Phone: 02-6201 2194 (BH) Fax:02

Re: IMF Bears Soul

1998-01-17 Thread Rob Schaap
this strange institution ostensibly and incongruously advocates - equally stand accused of making bad contracts)? Cheers, Rob. Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia. Phone: 02-6201 2194 (BH

Opportunistic comparisons 2

1998-04-28 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, Having already blathered on about the politics of comparing 'efficiencies' on the wharf, I find myself in need of some data. Not much - but the same sort of thing. A study has just been promulgated in Oz which shows that our part-publicly-owned Telco charges more for its calls

Australian Update #1

1998-04-11 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, Believe it or not, Oz is actually an interesting place to be just now. Some things remain the same (whilst most people you meet are far from openly racist, the political culture of the place still oppresses Aboriginees much more than occurs in Canada or the US) and some things are

Re: Australian Update #2

1998-04-12 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, At 11.00pm on Tuesday night, Patrick Stevedores sacked all its workers around Australia. All were unionists (members of the strong and relatively militant MUA) and all were sacked because they were unionists. Most were not out on strike, were working well up to the productivity

Re: Australian Update #1

1998-04-13 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Max, One thing I'm hearing more about from my dear friends at the Heritage Foundation is the great experiment in privatization of social insurance in Australia enacted by your blessed social democrats. Wonder if you'd care to elaborate on this. I do not bless our socdems. I just don't

Re: Australian Update #1

1998-04-13 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, With reference to Oz, Max writes: I was talking about the privatization of the financing of benefits in terms of the use of individual accounts, government purchase of corporate stock, or whatever. I know nothing about this, Max! Are you talking about something that's allegedly

Australian Update #3: Native Title

1998-04-14 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, For those of you interested in Australia's travails re. native title, here's a little crash course. It's a lot more than you'll want, but it's too complex to be done in three or four k, and, anyway, I needed to explain it to myself. Please delete now if interest is marginal. In

Australian Update #4: The Wharf

1998-04-14 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, I've a bucket-load of work to do so I shall have to pull my head in for a few days. Here's the latest from the docks. I think I mentioned yesterday that the union had allowed tug boats to dock a government line vessel. It was duly unloaded. But MUA leader Coombs swore the goodies

Boddhi on Japan

1998-04-16 Thread Rob Schaap
Hello again all, Some extremely superficial speculations re Boddhi's impressively erudite observations: I'm thinking a strong yen requires one or both of two manouevres, make the Yen attractive via higher interest rates and/or get the BoJ to buy more Yen. The former immediately restrains

Re: Australian Update #6: The Wharf

1998-04-17 Thread Rob Schaap
Just a quickie I've just been listening to IR Minister Peter Reith. There's a new tone in his voice. This operation is not coming off quite as he might have hoped. One government line ship, apparently originally diverted to a Patrick dock by the government, has now been rediverted, probably

Patrick appeal to Federal Court FAILS!

1998-04-23 Thread Rob Schaap
Dear all, Justice Wilcox is intoning the findings of the full bench of the federal court as I write. Justice Tony North's famous findings of Tuesday remain in place - ie. 'tightly structured and compelling' and 'free from appellable error'. North's injunction requiring that MUA wharfies be

Re: Comparative waterside worker salaries and effect on forestryexports

1998-04-28 Thread Rob Schaap
Bill Rosenberg suggests 'productivity' figures may work for, rather than against Ozzie wharfies. Too true! A new report out yesterday (I think they're calling it the Drury Report or some such) points out that a decisive variable in Oz productivity stats is the fact that most ships unloaded here

RE: Citizens as clients/consumers

1998-04-27 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, Australia is following NZ into a black hole of across-the-board privatisation. We've just flogged 1/3 of our erstwhile public monopoly telco ('Telstra') and we're about to chuck the other 2/3 after it. One thing this is doing (and this was very much part of Thatcher's agenda

Re: Boddhi on Japan

1998-04-17 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, First, Jim, yeah, I was being a bit narrowly monetarist. But wouldn't tax cuts or cash injections counteract the upward pressure of consequent government deficits on interest rates? More cash in circulation - less demand for credit - lower interest rates? Or doesn't the

Re: Australian Update #5: The Wharf

1998-04-16 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day all, Another outrageous turn of events. Now that the MUA wharfies have been sacked, you'd think they'd qualify for the dole, wouldn't you? Wrong. The MUA, you'll remember sought and got an injunction against the sackings. Patrick had avoided getting into trouble vis the Unfair

Superannuation plans

1998-04-14 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Max, Apparently, Australia has a means-tested basic retirement benefit and a "privately managed superannuation system," which I take to be individual savings accounts of some type subject to and/or resulting from government regulation. Oh, yeah. We do have that. My super resides with

Re: Australian Update #1

1998-04-13 Thread Rob Schaap
G'day Penners, No intention to bombard your mailboxes with press articles, but a couple of quickies - (a) to update the wharfies' dispute (not good), and (b) to contextualise by way of electoral climate (could be worse - and note the government's attempts to save the private health insurance

Re: Australian Update #2

1998-04-13 Thread Rob Schaap
Non-union wharfies' 'historic moment' From AAP 12apr98 THE unloading of an Australian-crewed ship by non-union wharfies in Sydney's Botany Bay today was a "decisive and historic moment", federal Workplace

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