I would like to second many of your observations about John Roemer's
"vision" of a coupon economy -- I am reluctant to call it "coupon
socialism" even though I no longer am anxious to use the label "socialism"
for the kind of participatory economy I favor. In the case of Roemer's model
I think
While Bob Pollin "urged Jim Devine to look more carefully into the Roemer
model before being so dismissive," I would urge Bob Pollin to read Roemer's
book more thoroughly before endorsing the model. Pollin writes: "capital
assets have been evenly distributed, so that all non-wage income is evenly
Jim Devine points out that the greater atomistic individualism, the
more serious principal/agent problems become and the greater the degree
of social conscience the less seriuos p/a problems will be. Doug Henwood
asks "how do you begin to encourage cooperation and a social conscience
in a society
After considering apologizing for being a little "testy" in some of
my postings on coupon socialism and people's comments about coupon
socialism, I've decided not to. Instead I'll offer an opinion about why
diminishing returns set into discussions: People do not respond to other
peoples' direct
I fail to understand why presenting a specific argument as to why
Roemer's model of a coupon economy -- his label, not mine -- is neither
egalitarian, equitable, nor democratic is an "ad hominem" attack on
Roemer himself. I also think that it is a matter of public record that
Roemer does not
In Roemer's model the coupons all get evenly distributed by taking
all their stocks away from today's capitalists and handing out new
coupons to every citizen so they all have identical portfolios --
although if you think about that it makes for very strange porfolios.
But then, if there is any
Sorry Gil. My earlier posting to you, asking you questions never got
posted, surely because of my technical blundering. So apologies for
chastizing you for not responding when you had never received anything.
But I am happy you did respond to my two queries. In response to your
responses: I
In response to Doug Henwood's question: I don't believe there is any point
to coupons if you can't trade them. If you couldn't trade them there would
be no need to hand them out. The government chould simply send each citizen
an equal size annual dividend check -- which was Lange and Lerner's
Got to love people who organize as well as blab! Way to go Susan Fleck.
Hasta la Victoria Siempre
I agree with my colleague from AU: In a dynamic model with endogenous
preferences, such as spelled out in Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics,
which none of the nasty neoclassical famous fellows has ever read or cited,
the tobacco companies would be seen as maximizing over time, which would
be
Please email me a copy of the poverty reports -- 97k. thanks.
Glad to see that Doug found Roemer's book irritating. I sure did. But I
also found many pen-lers responses to Roemer's book -- not to speak of
the little club that Erik Olin Wright organized to comment on the book --
even more irritating.
For your interest, Doug, I vented all my spleen on the
In an earlier message Gil Skillman said that while he could not endorse
my call for a vision with an economy with zero markets in the limit, that
he could certainly endorse a call for having n-1 markets if we have n right
now.
That amounts to saying that some sort of market socialism would be an
We progressives have two favorite sports, it seems. Freaking out at how
incredibly neanderthal the right really is, especially when they do well
in elections and remind us that they have a solid base among the masses.
[Solid probably doesn't mean even 25%, but who are we to knock it, right?]
Our
I am glad to hear that Gil Skillman thinks that the static efficiency
properties of markets are the "least important" features that recommend
them. In other words, Gil is conceding that markets generate reasonably
accurate estimates of social benefits and costs of different goods and
services --
I have been eaves dropping on the great Penl rationality debate.
At this point I would like to second the posting from Gil Skillman
that argues that most important progressive critiques of capitalism
can be conducted within the confines of reasonable rationality
assumptions.
I have always
The essential issue, I believe, is whether or not particular social
institutions promote socially productive or socially unproductive
behavior. [I'm sure we could argue for a while about how to define
what is socially productive and unproductive, but let's assume we
could agree on that for the
I have no disagreements with Kevin Quinn's recent posting at all.
The reason I want to see what kind of behavior different institutions
promote is that I want to "choose" what kind of person I would rather
become. But the way to know what kind of agent is going to "go with"
a particular
Just to tell you I am using your environmental text in a course
at American University with 35 eager students. I and they like it
a lot. You did a great service to those of us who teach under-
graduate environmental economics and were tired of retching over
Tietenburg. As we come up with
I think Laurie Dougherty has stated the case perfectly. Ole.
I, like others, have long taught that one of the ceteris paribus
assumptions is that expectations remain constant. This allows for the
usual interpretation of the kind of situations Doug listed -- that
the market demand curve is sloping downward -- sigh of relief since
this means the "law of
Eric, you should have gotten a sample copy of "Social Justice in Political
Economy" from McGraw Hill recently. It is a 23 page piece on economic
justice, exploitation, alienation, the logic of labor and credit markets,
and rising income and wealth inequality in the US and the World.
I use it in
I'm sorry your request for information about PhD programs in political
economy stirred up such a hornets nest. I think you should take a look at
our program at AU. I would not say this if I didn't believe that it is
an excellent program for students right now. There were times over the past
20
Regarding the implications of endogenous preferences for normative
economics, what parts of traditional welfare economics does, and does not
"go out the window" is the subject of a long, painstaking treatise titled:
Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics, by Hahnel and Albert, Princeton Univ
WhileB. Rosser is correct that many advocates of socialist planning
do NOT address the issue of what classes might or might not develop,
and do NOT explain HOW workers (and consumers) would exactly participate
in the planning process; that is NOT true of either Pat Devine whose
book and articles
The system we call participatory planning bears no resemblance to one
long student council meeting. Like any economic model that purports to
be "worker managed" we provide full opportunities for workers to participate
in decisions about what they will make and how they will make it. We also
Mike Albert has a nice piece in the current issue of Magazine that
criticizes the Mother Jones piece.
The mainstream line on externalities has long been: "Serious economists
have always known that external effects produce inefficiencies -- and have
never claimed otherwise." But then, the
It's not really for a Marxist Economic Theory class. As a matter of
fact, its radical political economy but presented WITHOUT using the
labor theory of value to explain exploitation and alienation or macro
failures or "crises." If you'd like to see a table of contents with
short descriptions of
I use and highly recommend the Dollars and Sense special issues for
undergraduate teaching -- not just at the intro level. At a minimum
they provide progressive perspectives on topical issues. I do not think
it is a criticism of them to say they are NOT an alternative text, nor
do they provide
I may well know good people who are interested. Can you tell me any more
about what courses they would teach and salary?
There is a difference between what use people DO make of a theoretical
framework and what use COULD BE made of a theoretical framework. And this
difference is part of what fuels the Skillman/Ajit debate it seems.
But it is also true that certain theoretical frameworks LEND THEMSELVES
MORE
For next fall South End Press will have an introduction to political
economy book -- not exactly text, but it does have some problems, ex-
cercises, etc. -- intended for an intro audience -- i.e. no prior
economics is assumed. I wrote it [sorry for the self-promo -- not to
be confused with pomo]
You need to get Eddie Wolff's book on Wealth published by the 20th
Century Fund. I borrowed data from that source and put it in "The
Political Economy of Economic Justice" (McGraw Hill 1996) available
from them for $4.50. Also See the latest EPI version of the State of
Working America and The New
progressive. I recommend them highly.
Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics
American University
Washington DC 20016
202-885-2712
202-885-3790 fax
Feel free to edit or amend as you see fit without further consultation.
If you're using Schiller's text, I hope you're getting "Political Economy
and Social Justice" for free for your students. If you order the module
along with the text it comes wrapped with the text at no extra cost to
the students. You need supplemental material on income and wealth distribution,
I have been too busy to respond to recent postings on market "socialism"
but would like to say that one reason I reject market socialism as my
vision of a desirable economy is that it does NOT help us develop our
capacities for solidarity and cooperation, but rather whets our invidious
and
Barkley, are you going to use labor markets? If so, you will get highly
unequal labor incomes that are also quite inequitable. Michael Jordan will
get $20 million per year and a nursery school teacher will get $20 thousand.
If you don't permit labor markets to determine labor income, they you
I completely agree with the healthiness and usefulness of the thought
expressed by Harry Cleaver as: "We've just GOT to be able to do better
than this" --- "this" being capitalism.
If it's of any help to anyone, I can state my position on markets
very simply: Regarding markets I'm an abolitionist but not a fool.
By which I mean:
(1) Markets play NO part in an economy that I consider desirable. [Desirable
can be spelled out at great length but I believe markets are
I have always embraced the label "utopian" and wear the badge proudly.
I have also always criticized Marxists who rail against utopianism as
wrong headed if not self-serving. I'm sure Louis wears his labels with
pride.
I would like to express my agreement with Barkley Rosser's explanation
of the soft budget constraint as a problem in market socialist economies
where different levels of government extended credit to insolvent firms
for political reasons, but as a problem that does not afflict centrally
planned
I stand corrected on the relative importance of MITI and the Ministry
of Finance in the Japanese economic oligarchy. I think Rosser has better
information on this than I do.
Louis: You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed the reference I steered
you to: The minority dissenting opinion in Science and Society about
the terrible utopian essays their fellow board members and editor were
printing. I personally think it stands as a monument to the stupidity
of some practicing
My utopian badge is red and black and is polished every day by
the memory of millions who have given their lives for a more just
democratic economy that strengthens people's solidarity for one another.
It's hard to reply briefly about "aggregation" in participatory planning.
Our model (and utopian vision) is very different from small semi-autonomous
eco-economies ala Gar Alperowitz or Howie Hawkins -- or the more famous
Murray Bookchin. We have a large national economy model with federations
of
I've been called worse by better than Comrade Proyect.
I mentioned my teaching of comparative systems and visits to work with
Cuban planners in an attempt to argue that, for better or worse, my utopian
thinking is not totally uninformed by some study and familiarity with the
history of "once
Michael Albert and I developed our utopian model of a participatory economy
in large part in response to our historical evaluation of the strengths and
weaknesses of the Soviet, Chinese, Yugoslavian, and Cuban experiences. We
wrote about those experiences for 2/3 of a book -- Socialism Today and
Here! Here! Let's here it for a Jim Devine's defense of utopian thinking.
And, I'd like to add that I consider my recent reading of Bellamy's
Equality -- his lesser known but more complete work on utopianism --
and William Morris' News from Nowwhere -- a libertarian response to
what Morris
I agree with Max that an excellent argument for lower interest
rates is that it is a humongous budget balancer -- a freebee so to
speak. Since much of today's debt is the result of tax cuts for the
rich and spending the Soviet Union into bankrupcy -- two highly successful
Reagan period
On what percent of what I pay to the Feds goes to military and debt
service. I was wrong, but it does depend on what you count -- particularly
social security taxes. I was thinking about my federal income tax excluding
my social security tax, since that is how we fill out our 1040s. In the
back
Wages don't have to be equal to marginal revenue products. And since paying
people their marginal revenue products is often very unfair -- Michael Jordan
gets $20 million a year and a nursery school teacher gets $20 a year --
an equitable economy requires us NOT to pay according to MRP. But, for
While one might hope that relative wages in a workers' managed market
socialism would be set according to some criterion other than marginal
revenue products -- as Rosser implies they would/could be -- I know of no
analyst of such a system who does not conclude that the labor market in
such a
I was only remarking that in central planning wage rates do not have
to be equal to marginal revenue products in order to achieve static
efficiency. In market socialism, it seems to me they do. And that includes
employee managed market socialism a la Vaneck. I know that wage rates
were not fair
The market teaches people that they DESERVE to get in accord with the
market determined value of their contribution. The market teaches people
to think that way every day -- just ask my students! But progressive
taxation requires one to think that to each according to the market value
of his or
I agree with PBurns that central planning does not necessarily solve
external effect inefficiencies. What is required is for normal procedures
to correctly signal social costs and benefits. Trying to correct after the
fact is both intellectually and politically daunting -- as in, it won't
happen
For one quick referrence on externalities see E.K. Hunt and R.C. D'Arge,
"On Lemmings and other Acquisitive Animals: Propositions on Consumption,"
Journal of Economic Issues, June 1973.
For one quick illustration: One recent study of 500 consumer goods
concluded that market prices diverged from
Is it responsible to suggest that progressive income taxes WOULD
actually make labor market outcomes reasonably equitable in a market
socialist economy?
In labor markets people have to justify what they're paid on the basis
of the value of their contribution. After doing that why will most
I second Jim Devine's message about neoclassicals and the environment in
its entirety. The astounding misinterpretation of what the Coase theorem
actually tells any reasonable analyst about the likelihood of environmental
efficiency being achieved through voluntary and private negotiations of
I second Jim Devine's message about neoclassicals and the environment in
its entirety. The astounding misinterpretation of what the Coase theorem
actually tells any reasonable analyst about the likelihood of environmental
efficiency being achieved through voluntary and private negotiations of
I really like Bill Rosenberg's analogy and the conclusions it suggests
are quite useful in my view.
I think Rosenberg's think piece is exceedingly useful and on the mark.
An observation about "planning" that may, or may not be useful:
A plan is, by definition a single outcome we all will live with. If one
wants to add the adjective "central" to plan in recognition of this reality,
I suppose that's OK. But the general equilibrium of a market economy is also
a
Max: You could profitably look at either Pat Devine's model of democratic
planning he calls negotiated coordination (Democratic Planning, Westview
1988) or Mike Albert and my model of participatory planning (The Political
Economy of Participatory Economics, Princeton, 1991). Both treatments
deal
Matewan is a great labor movie.
Gar Lipow wrote:
I think the critical points to make over and over again are that
A) The U.S., in attacking Yugoslavia is committing atrocities of it's
own.
B) It is creating situations where worse atrocities are happening
since the war than before the war started.
C) It has not prevented
I'm sorry for my garbled post which may have been difficult to decipher
as it appeared. Below is a legible version:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
Gar Lipow wrote:
I think the critical points to make over and over again are that
A) The U.S., in attacking Yugoslavia is committing atrocities of it's
I'm in search for a single piece of information on the Luddites:
Approximate dates during which they were active.
I already have my "position" on their movement which is considerably
more positive than standard mainstream OR "left" positions. I just want
to locate them in the right century!
Doug Henwood wrote:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
Ginis among men, and ginis among women -- yes. But that just tells us if
something -- wages, income, wealth, whatever -- is more or less unequal
among men or women. What would a gini between men and women mean?
Nothing I think.
I meant
john gulick wrote:
So at last all the latent anarcho-syndics on pen-l come out of the
woodwork. I'm pleased. A few questions posed at a fairly high level
of abstraction.
1) Even at the admittedly free-wheeling level of
pencil-and-paper "models," it's easy to talk about and celebrate
More belated response to Markland and Gulick on utopian vision:
I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests
while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to
take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of
More belated responses on utopian visions:
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote:
At 12:37 PM 12/2/97 -0500, you wrote:
One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider
problem for expressing desires for public goods.
How exactly does it eliminate
the FR problem for
Louis Proyect wrote:
Robin Hahnel:
Or, you
put your faith in what a Swedish union official once answered a British
trade unionist demanding to know how Swedish unions came to an agreement
on a particular issue: "We have a meeting."
This was not intended as a criticism
Nevertheless, of greater interest to me is the contention that there
will be "No private property at all", which I claim is quite literally
impossible and therefore it is a question of how you limit (or just
plain "deal with") private property that should be addressed.
At this late date, I'd
maxsaw wrote:
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public
goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks...
This sounded no different than the routine
operation of local government. What is new
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote:
That [participatory plannings way of handling collective consumption] would take
care of some problems, but what about:
1) people who don't have kids who won't support increasing the education
budget for elementary schools?
2) people who vote against increasing
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
Robin,
Well, it is your judgment that all the other arguments
besides the one you cite are "hot air." Maybe, maybe not.
Fair enough. That's why I gave the full reference for Oates' article so
people wouldn't have to take my word for it.
Personally
Note to Robin: I wonder if non-tradable permits auctioned with a floor aren't really
pollution taxes.
Permits and taxes are not the same. The only thing that is "the same" is
that IN THEORY -- if there are no market failures in the permit markets
-- auctioning off a particular number of
Now please remind me why my
eco-guru Wally Oates said permits are more efficient
than taxes?
First late me quote Professor Oates. (Cropper and Oates: Environmental
Economics, JEL June 1992, p. 687) "Some interesting issues arise in the
choice between systems of effluent fees and marketable
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
Replies to Perelman, Schneiderman, Hahnel, Meyer, Proyect
Farmer Perelman said:
Emissions trading is a crock. If you want to give polluction
credits, why not give everybody an equal credit instead of rewarding
people for historical patterns of pollution?
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
If government gives away emissions permits, then clearly
corporations do not benefit as a group, since one firm's
sale is another's purchase. If the government sells them,
corporations are net losers in the aggregate.
For every tradable pollution permit
Doug Henwood wrote:
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
Another wiggle, close but not the same, is that a
system can be behaving very regularly and then quite
suddenly start behaving very erratically ("chaotically"),
with different and smaller changes than the first case.
I don't like
Gar W. Lipow wrote:
Granted that parecon would generate full social and ecological price signals, I
still don't understand why in capitalism non-tradable, auctioned, permits with a
floor are not superior.
I doubt you mean "non-tradable" in the above, since non tradable permits
are the
I've already said I prefer auctions to handouts.
Robin challenges us to say when were there auctions (they
were proposed in Wisconsin, but not carried out).
I knew about the Wisconsin case, and must say I'm not surprised that
although auctions were proposed (obviously only by some) they
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
Actually I think that this discussion, although I am
not going to participate further in the dino extinction
part of it, is relevant. I remind that this arose out of a
debate over environmental/ecological economic issues. It
slid over into a discussion
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
Unless I've become too much of a town-booster, Milwaukee is the _only_
American city with socialist government in its purple past,
You have. The city of Reading, PA had a socialist
mayor by the name of Stump. He had a fondness for
the bottle but is generally
Dennis R Redmond wrote:
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote concerning the
demise of the dinos:
...the current scientific
consensus that they got zapped by an asteroid hit is really
coming on strong. Among other major pieces of evidence has
been the discovery of the
I am in charge of working with all graduate students teaching
sections of economics courses at American University this next
year. So I help them select materials. In that capacity I'd like
you to send me one instructors, or review copy of everything you
listed in your apologetic email
My long answer was in Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics,
Princeton University Press, 1990. It took 15 years and a long
book to come up with an answer that satisfied me to the question:
what should a radical mean by efficiency?
My short answer is: While radicals are right to be more worried
Disequilibrium inefficiency -- landing us inside the proverbial
production possibilities frontier -- is certainly inefficiency.
I call it "Keynesian inefficiency" because it was the only kind
of inefficiency that Keynes and his followers focus on regarding
capitlism.
Nuclear power is NOT efficient when all social costs and benefits are
taken into account -- including the probability of accidents and the
disposal impossibility problem. One of the inefficiencies of real world
capitalism was that it allowed -- worse still sponsored this terribly
inefficient
Only very weak neoclassicals "define efficiency as what the market does
and then miraculously deduce that the market is efficient."
I have many students entering my classes these days who have been
bombarded with the western -- and now eastern -- medibarage that
markets always do the efficient
South End Press will be publishing "The ABCs of Political Economy" by
me during the spring of 1997. It is an attempt to fill the gap you're
discussing.
Nathan Newman wrote:
This statement by the Youth Section of DSA is incredibly good
and I would say it reflects my views almost in total.
--Nathan Newman
This statement by the Youth Section of DSA is incredibly slick and plays
to humanitarian
Gar Lipow wrote:
Not all work is pleasant even in small amounts. There is a certain
amount of dirty work which has to be done, which simply is not a
source of pleasure to many. Not all of this can be automated out of
existence even in a decently run society (no examples of which are
known)
June 19th 1865, I believe, is the day slaves were freed in Texas -- which
was in a more than usually ambiguous status during and right after the
Civil War. I wonder if that makes Texas the last place on earth to have
abolished slavery? Brazil?
There is a celebration of June teenth in Anacostia,
Carla Feldpausch just completed her PHD thesis,"The Political Economy
of Chaos: Multiple Equilibria and Fractal Basin Boundaries in a Nonlinear Envir
onmental Economy" with Walter Park (American University), Barkley Rosser
(James Madison Univerity), and Robert Blecker (American University) this
What time is Costanza's brown bag at EPI? I'd like to come.
I'd be very interested in your paper on housing and the home mortgage
interest deduction if you could send it to me at the Department of Economics
American University, Washington DC 20016. It sounds excellent.
I remember when I was able to deduct all interest payments from my
income before calculating my tax liability: credit card interest,
consumer loan interest, personal loan, student loan, as well as mortgage
interest.
Ah -- those were the good old days!
Then only home mortgage interest was
I'll take your word on this, Lou - and Trotsky himself was no fool, for
sure. But what happened? Why did Trotskyist groups - all Marxist groups
did, but it seems to be most extreme among Trot formations - show such a
prediliction for rigidity, cultishness, and schism? Why have they been
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