This discussion prompts me to try out again a distinction I've been
kicking around in my mind.
The Wolfnick contention that everything determines everything else is
undoubtedly true, though only at a very high level of abstraction.
It is also the case as pointed out by others that it doesn't
For Ajit and Paul Z.
Is your distinction between dominant and non-dominant causes the same
as mine between determinant and contingent causes as described in my
earlier post?
Terry McDonough
Could someone privately send me a couple of references (pref. one
short and one long) on the British Empire and the world market in the
19th Century?
Terry McDonough
Jim D. writes
"If forced to choose a meaning, I would see superexploitation in
terms of labor-power market structures such as those under
apartheid and the like. These non-market impediments ... keep the
rate of surplus value from becoming equalized... Does this view of
superexploitation
Jesse V. asks if anyone knows of any empirical evidence concerning
the existence of Giffen goods.
I am reasonably certain there is NO such evidence. See my
co-authored article on Giffen and the Irish Potato Famine in the 1995
JEI.
Terry McDonough
Barkeley writes:
T. McDonough is probably right about the original br
supposed example of Irish potatoes (see his article). But br
that hardly means that there is no empirical evidence of br
there EVER having been any Giffen goods anywhere. I am br
aware of a study by a colleague of mine,
Regarding a couple of topics from unamerican activities day:
Bill M(ate) might be interested in knowing that Ireland currently has
a system of tripartite wage bargaining between employers federations,
the trade union congress and the government. Interestingly, this
explicitly includes levels
Collective bargaining type models don't work well in progressive
org's because the org shouldn't be using its powerful position as an
employer in the bargaining process. Similarly, the social
consciousness and personalized relationships of the org can be abused
by employees. In one I was
Our computer center here identifies the Good Times email virus
discussed on this list as a sophisticated hoax.
Terry McDonough
Patrick B. takes Jim D. to task over the respective roles of
contingency and theory.
First, it is one of the tasks of theory to specify the role of
contingency.
In relation to the question of accumulation, theory tells us that
because of class struggle and capitalist competition, long term
The following was part of a forwarded post:
I have recently returned from a trip to Cuba with Global Exchange. Thisbr
was my fourth trip since 1971 and my first since Cuba began its currentbr
process of active decentralization in certain sections of the economy,br
political reform, and
In response to Doug H.'s comments on globalization:
First, I agree that recent technical innovations in communication and
transportation are of an incremental character and are therefor
relatively insignificant. Larry Summers is right about the
steamship.
Second, I agree that global
Thanks to Louis for posting the Ehrenreich article. For a while, I
thought perhaps I would have to modify my earlier immoderate
denunciation of BE's academic work. I think BE is basically correct
in taking on pomo. It is increasingly evident that the Sokal affair
marks a turning point in
As people are starting to get testy, let me try to characterize the
discussion so far.
First, Doug H is correct in that the burden of proof is on the
globalization proponents.
Crudely summarizing the anti-global position, it goes like this:
Globalization is not all its cracked up to be.
In
The Irish political system is interesting in this regard. It has
been a very long time since the two main parties have had any
significant policy differences. As a result politics consists of
competing to administer the policy consensus which is developed
outside the party system in 'civil
Sid posts:
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 put immense riches up for grabs
-- vast deposits of natural resources, sprawling factories and lucrative
businesses, ranging from airlines to television networks that the state had owned
for decades. But the massive transfer of property to
Dublin City University has a 3 year contract position in Enterprise
Development. This is really an economics position. They are looking
for a PhD in economics who can teach a course on the economics of
entrepreneurship. If interested, email
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Terry McDonough
Jim D writes:
(2) if the long-term growth rate of labor productivity accelerates,
then a constant growth rate of real GDP can be associated with a falling
growth rate of employment (labor-power demand). The growth rate of
employment may fall below that of the labor force, causing unemployment
Jim D. writes:
...democracy is an end in itself. ... democracy is the only
legitimate political principle.
COMMENT: While I agree that democracy is the political principle
which should be applied in a socialist or communist context, I don't
think democracy is either meaningful or
Ken H writes
Why is this necessarily so? First, even if a country should
try to foster a system that is relatively independent and thus not
subject to control by world market forces, this does not mean that there will
be no trade. US treatment of CUBA is an exception rather than the
rule.
Bill R asks about the policy of a socialist utopia inserted into the
present world order. I strikes me that there are two options. The
first is an abandonment of all ideas and ideologies of technological
progress as isolation from the world market will inevitably lead to
relative
To return to an earlier subthread: If the opposite of globalization
is autocentric development, does this mean that current increases in
globalization make autocentric development impossible (or at least
unlikely)? Has the Korean strategy of export orientation combined
with a relatively
One of the first actions of the Blair administration has been to
grant independence in monetary policy to the Bank of England. It had
previously been responsible to the government. For those of you who
think money is important, this dwarfs any of Maggie T's
privatizations.
Terry McDonough
Ehrenreich has long been a very witty commentator and speaker. She
should stick to these areas. Her theoretical interventions have been
of consistently low quality.
Her early work on women and medicine over romanticizes the premedical
era. All our great artists died in childbirth and
I agree with Doug's more nuanced views on pomo. Identifying the
Sokal affair as a turning point is not to assert that it was the
definitive or even an important critique. We must look elsewhere for
that. Is it profoundly ironic, or profoundly non-ironic that an
ironic intervention (a jape
Jim D. writes
Right. We have to learn how to steer between the Skylla of ethnocentrism
and the Charybdis of cultural relativism.
Absolutely right.
We have to figure out how to
learn from and apply Enlightenment values while respecting other
cultures.
This seems to me off the mark. In any
Jim D. writes about the origin of PC within Maoism. He is partly
correct (pc). "Political incorrectness" was current within Maoism to
describe views, actions, speech practices etc. which analysis could
demonstrate had politically negative consequences, i.e. retarded the
advent of socialism.
Tom Walker writes
Hint: my stature, bearing and and facial characteristics are those of
a
commedia dell'arte Scaramouche
Words and music still by Tom Walker/
Scaramouche?
Scaramouche?
Can you do the fandango?
Freddie McDonough
We have three temporary teaching posts. I'd be happy to discuss them
informally with anyone interested.
Best,
Terry McDonough
National University of Ireland, Galway
Temporary Teaching Posts (3) in Economics
The Department of Economics wishes to invite applications for the
above temporary
We have a job opening. The field is environment or natural
resources. Strong Quant types in other fields will also get
consideration. The department is not heterodox but will
consider heterodox candidates. We already have one heterodox
environmental person on staff. I'd be willing to
Below is a job listing for a new position here in Galway, Ireland.
The level is equivalent to an assistant professorship in the U.S. The
department is heterodox friendly, but is not a heterodox department.
Anyone interested should probably contact me first. Official
literature on the
Below is a job listing for four new positions here at the National
University of Ireland, Galway in addition to the one I posted
earlier.
The jobs are two year contract positions, but may become permanent
eventually. They are located at a new "branch campus" type program
in Sligo. The
I'm just catching up here. Someone asked for an account of the
recent Irish boom.
It has several sources. A list in no particular order:
The legacy of peripheral development, including
a high level of unemployment
relatively low wages
a relatively non-industrialized and therefor green (no
I'm sorry Blair took offence at my reference to *oids. I thought I
was sufficiently non-aligned so that it would be taken as a UMass
in-joke rather than serious abuse. Nevertheless a certain
irreverence is called for when we start identifying our positions as
schools (even when the term may
Upon returning from holidays I would like to commend the exchange
under the above subject by Bill and Jerry to those who may have
missed it. I think Bill is rate-breaking, not least by all that bike
riding. It is with some trepidation that I observe that Bill's
activities support my
Thanks to Eugene C. for the citation. Other people have observed the
apochryphal character of the famine Giffen goods story, so perhaps I
am not to blame for Barro. :] Along the lines of our JEI article,
Barro's assertion of the historical invariance of the law of demand
is
I want to respond obliquely to some of Jim's critical thoughts.
First, I don't think Jim is right in his characterisation of
neoclassicism and game theory. The neocl. position is all the
world's the practice of utility max and all relationships are
contracts. In this sense much (most?) of
Blair makes way too much of one word in my post. Nevertheless, any
scientific paradigm grows through conceptual elaboration and
addition. Paradigms can degenerate through the addition of concepts
inconsistent with their basic "problematic". This was the origin of
Althusser's critique of
Blair writes:
Between Edwards and Gintis, I think this really says something about the
whole social structure of accumulation crowd.
I must insist that Blair read the first section of Social Structures
of Accumulation by Kotz, McDonough, and Reich, CUP 1994, before
tarring the SSA
In partial response to Doug H.'s latest post (which I by and large
agree with) it strikes me that the valuation of the ecosystem and the
objective limits this sets on the size of the human economy
establishes a standard by which to judge the implementation of
technology which goes beyond the
Allan F.'s extended reply to Mike M. on the relationship of value to
nature is spot on. While I'm not very ofay with the Red-Green
discussion, this exchange seems to illustrate Jim D.'s problem with
the word value. In the Marxist sense its about social relations, in
the classical and
Peter Burns raises an essential question on the relationship of
ecology to democracy. I'm not against democracy (it is one essential
component of socialist and advanced communist society). I guess I
wanted to say that the position which says We're not opposed to
technology we just think it
Blairs last post was an accomplished and eloquent rant if rant it
was. It raises three substantive issues: is the human economy
properly understood as a subsystem of the natural ecology; does the
human economy "compete" with the natural ecology and can the
precautionary principle I proposed
Short response to Ken H. 's post:
My position was not that the value of the environment is infinite,
simply that the remaining environment is more valuable than any
conceivable alternative use. Nevertheless, I think Mike M.'s
position might be defended in an alternative way. In Mike's
It seems to me that past increases in productivity have been
accompanied by decreases in working hours, hence the employment slack
from innovation has never been taken up completely through the
creation of new jobs. It may be that this applies to the switch from
agriculture to industry as
Lisa asks: What positive utility? and utility to _whom_? the local
pro-'growth' forces would like to know, and I'm curious what your
answer would be. Also, discounting across generations is immoral and
inconsistent based on what?
I really not comfortable with utility arguments, but here
J.Treacy writes:
Teaching people to think about what is coming at them and how to
develop some discrimination skills is going to be more in demand
from educators that listings of easily assembled facts.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] COPYRIGHTED
The Nov 95 issue of the Monthly
Doug through Larry Summers raises two issues: Is there any
qualitative change due to a) the telecommunications revolution and b)
globalization in the current period.
At a very basic level there cannot have been qualitative change as
long as class relations are fundamentally unchanged. The
Regarding Justin's point about wage slavery. This was precisely the
attitude toward waged work in classical Greece. To accept wages was
to lower your social status almost to the level of a slave.
Terry McDonough
For what its worth here are a couple of suggestions relating to
Blair's question.
I too find that students are confused by critiquing the text. It
raises the very reasonable question as to why it is assigned in the
first place. Solution: assign the text as representative of one
paradigm in
Mike M. posts on the topic of the views of the right wing have been
food for thought. Francis "the end of history" Fukiyama was recently
interviewed on the BBC pedalling essentially the same line as Olasky.
It seems to me there currently exists two partially incompatible
right wing
Mike P. is right about unemployment and poverty and its impact on
families. My point was in fact that it is hard to get our analyses
heard. The point about poverty and families is similar to our
(undoubtedly correct) analysis of the relationship of poverty and
crime. But this fails to
OK, I'll take a crack at it.
Fascism in its classic European form is distinguished by the
following three characteristics.
1. A populist appeal to middle strata on the basis of perceived
threats from both above and below them in the social scale.
2. The location of the solution to this
I tried sending this earlier. Apologies if you get duplicate
posts...
OK, I'll take a crack at it.
Fascism in its classic European form is distinguished by the
following three characteristics.
1. A populist appeal to middle strata on the basis of perceived
threats from both above and below
The concept of private property first develops in the context of the
Roman civil law. This body of jurisprudence was necessary as the
result of the extensive merchantile activity taking place within the
empire. Much of this trade if not the bulk of it was in slaves and
the products of slave
Justin S. turns my rhetorical take on property rights into a
syllogism which he then argues is false. This is a little unfair
though certainly not completely out of bounds as itself a rhetorical
strategy. The tradition of private property which descends to those
of us in the West begins
The question of the movie star is not really that complicated. The
size of the stars income is determined by the monopoly possession of
either a unique talent or (more likely) name recognition which can
sell movies. Most of the stars income is therefor a deduction from
the surplus. Local
Eric gives me the chance to ride this hobby horse again. I think I
agree that structure and agency is an unproductive duality but
because it poses the wrong question. The discussion so far assumes
that agency belongs to individuals and the question becomes what is
the relationship of the
I have been wondering about the subject of Lisa's post for some time
now. First, as neoclassical theory is set up any observed behavior
can be maximizing, if you're not working, you're enjoying leisure,
etc. Is this also true of models which see animal behaviour as
maximizing reproductive
Blair writes:
Here's a question: how do you consider the effect on value if the price of
a commodity doesn't change but greater attractiveness makes total revenue
greater through greater quantity demanded?
I was going to say that the name value increases the value of a movie, and
generates
Pig farmers in Ireland called for a boycott of the movie.
Terry McDonough
Jim D. writes.
Q: why did so many voters vote for Buchanan?
A: They saw the movie "Babe" and decided that pigs aren't all
bad.
Anybody remember the sixties slogan: Today's pig is tomorrow's pork
chop.
While not politically
Eric writes
I'm not sure the last statement is true (that is, "only in
neoclassical theory . . ")
For instance, Veblen apparently argues that only agents act
but their actions are guided by things like norms, custom,
etc.. Perhaps Terry is assuming that "institutionalism" =
what
Blair writes:
I "agree" with your analysis, but still don't quite get it: is this just a
failure of imagination on my part that I want the uniqueness and ability to
command rent to manifest in an increase in price per unit? This is, for
example, what happens with the value inherent in Nike
Eric writes
Is the claim that the whole is greater than the parts really
necessary for a structuralist perspective? Is this claim just
the relic of some past attempt to defuse counterattacks
from methodological individualists? Does this claim implicit
recognize the claims of meth-ins?
Ken Hanly writes:
In an article in the Review of Radical Political Economics (Vol 24, 1992,
pp. 60-67 David Houston argued that a new SSA (social structure of
accumulation) has been developed by capitalism to replace that described
as in decay by Bowles, Gordon, and Weisskopf in various
Some comments on the new SSA comments.
In the SSA framework a crisis is generally defined as the breakdown
of the institutions which underpinned the previous period of
accumulation. Generally this should manifest in the accumulation
process becoming more problematic. The main props of the
Reuters
Nottingham
UK
...
Local businessmen believe Robin Hood and his Merry Men are the wrong
image for a city projecting itself as more engaged in technological
revolution that the art of archery. Four advertising agencies have
been invited by Nottingham First, a consortium of businessmen,
Gary D writes:
In further response to the claim of our Irish correspondent, I also
would like to point out that "Braveheart", a movie of exceeding gore and
unrelenting action -- but also a flic propounding the themes of Celtic
unification and struggle against imperialist oppression -- won the
The Irish times reports that Australians of non Anglo-Celtic origin
have started to refer to the Anglo-Celts as Skips after the TV bush
kangaroo.
Terry McDonough
Rakesh writes
1. How does SSA school relate to other attempts at periodization: the
regulation school and the techno-economic paradigms of Christopher Freeman
and Carlota Perez. What unites and separates them? What is the
relationship of these schools to Keynesianism?
As I understand it,
Doug writes:
Vile toxins emitted by the chief executive of the world bourgeoisie
I can't help thinking that Clinton reveals his true colors in actions
like this. But in order to start some discussion - I have been
bothered for some time now by the following thought: Since the
For those who don't follow it already, the government here has
finally admitted the connection between the practice of grinding
up cow's brains to feed to cows, and the human form of a disease
known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease. The
human form is referred to
This doesn't really contain any new info, but a quick look at chapter
2 in The General Theory suggests that Keynes was using classical in a
very loose sense. He includes Marshall among the classical
economists and makes the classical theory dependent not only on Says
Law, but also on the
Jim D. writes
Though all class societies involve the appropriation of
surplus-labor, not all ruling classes appropriate surplus
_value_. For surplus-labor to be surplus-value, the
surplus-product has to be in the form of commodities. Though
Southern U.S. slavery produced a surplus of
Jim D. asks
Was it Marx who said "the truth shall set you free"? ;-)
No, Marx said, in order to abandon illusions, we must first abandon
the conditions which demand illusions. Which pretty much says the
opposite actually. :]
Of course, Lenin said, without revolutionary theory, there is no
Ken H. writes
The system also achieved an educational system
which despite being ideologically blinkered was reasonably open and a
university system that didn't charge an arm and a leg in fees but gave
allowances to students. It also had a health care system that was arguably
much more
Jim D. writes
Yes, I agree. But I think we should be very careful with the word
"extra-economic." It asks the question: what in heck do we mean
by "economic"? One of the good points that Herb Gintis made
before he went off the deep end was that the "economic" part of
the society
Blair writes,
Maggie, I think the movie was called, "The Long Run," or something close to
that (?).
The name of the movie was Logan's Run. In Logan's Run everyone over
30 was dead. In The Long Run we are all dead.
the movie, Burn, *Great* movie.
Also known under the title Quemada.
un chiste para los chismosos:
WOW! I didn't know men could gossip like this about the
intricacies of family relationships. I always had a sneaking
suspicion that men were better gossips than women!
;)
Susan Fleck
I don't think this is true, because women are generally more aware of
Just a short response to a thread which has petered out. I don't
think there are any economic structures which are universally
characteristic of socialism. Because of its transitional character
the economics of socialism will change drastically over time. While
we may expect the commanding
Max writes:
To some extent I think you are right, but now we are verging onto
what I regard as very problematic and politically dangerous
territory -- the elitist critique of the philistinism of the masses.
Comments -- which you have not made here -- to the effect that working
people are
While I agree with the general point that happiness is not well
correlated with consumption, I wouldn't take surveys of Americans'
levels of happiness too seriously. In America, to admit to being
unhappy is to admit to personal failure.
Here in Ireland, to claim to be happy is to raise
Jim D writes
BTW, I checked my department's EconLit cd-rom and Gary Becker's
article on the economics of suicide never got published (at least
not after 1980). I guess that says something good about the
journals.
On the contrary, the journals were so steeped in neoclassical
ideology
I wrote:
The problem with lower income doesn't really have directly to do with
lower levels of consumption. Below some minimum, a lack of income
will mean exclusion from normal social interaction. To take a simple
example, in Ireland not being able to buy one's round in the pub
Jim D. writes
Wojtek Sokolowski writes:
Why do Wojtek's post only appear in the archive?
Terry McDonough
While I'm prudishly disapproving of this sort of thing, especially
the defense of German high culture, I thought the list might find
this amusing.
Terry McDonough
--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 21:31:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alex Trotter [EMAIL
From today's Labor Economics abstracts:
"The L.A. Riot and the Economics of Urban Unrest"
BY: DENISE DIPASQUALE
University of Chicago
EDWARD L. GLAESER
Harvard University and NBER
Paper ID: NBER Working Paper 5456
Jim writes,
Yes. I should have been clearer: if "efficiency" means the
minimum-cost attainment of some given goal, I was talking about
efficiency in the pursuit of a goal of which I approve.
A hypothetical case. Suppose it takes one worker eight hours to do a
job. It would take two
Dear Pen-l,
Below is a call for papers for a conference I am helping to organize.
Proposals more than welcome.
Best,
Terry McDonough
THE
THIRD
GALWAY CONFERENCE ON COLONIALISM
DEFINING COLONIES
17-20 JUNE 1999
CALL FOR PAPERS
The aim of this multidisciplinary conference is to
Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 04:21:00 -0600 (CST)
From: valis [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:2990] re Enived wave, et al
To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jim D, rebutting someone, in part:
... Day and Walter are more concerned with
The study concluded that the 14 cases where governments had been
the most draconian -- notably Denmark and Ireland in the mid-1980s --
resulted in the fastest growth. "The simple 'Keynesian' view of fiscal
consolidation is that lower government purchases or higher taxes reduce
aggregate
Bladerunner and Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? are pretty
different kettles of fish. Electric Sheep like a lot of Dick's stuff
is about the psychological construction of reality whose instability
in turn destabilizes the psychic identity of the constructor (have
you lived your life or
Louis P. mentioned L. Frank Baum as an unalloyed defender of
capitalism. I've always been under the impression that the Wizard of
Oz (no, this is not about you, Rob S.) is a critical allegory about
the populist movement[farmers - the scarecrow, industrial workers -
the tin man, the AFL - the
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 16:46:02 -0600 (CST)
From: "William S. Lear" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:2887] Re: Re: Surrender, Dorothy.
To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Thu, February 4, 1999 at 16:40:18 (-0500) Max Sawicky writes:
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 15:20:17 -0500
The time has come, the Walrus said,
To speak of many things.
Of ships and shoes and sealing wax
And whether pigs have wings.
(I think I left out something here)
The time has come the Walrus said,
To talk of many things.
Of shoes and ships
Following up on Jim D's post on the U.S.'s global ambitions.
If the motivation is not oil and resources,
If it is not humanitarian concern,
If it is not sheer irrationality,
Perhaps the motivation is territorial. Rather than Jim's theory of
attempted global dominance, it might be more
Ken Livingstone writes
Sorry, comrades, the Serbs aren't nice old Communists
We might have avoided the slaughter in Bosnia, but few on the left were
prepared to speak out
Instead, we have negotiated with him while, year by
year,
the status of Yugoslavia. I asked: why, when we enjoy
A concrete "experiment" in relation to this question is the executive
salaries in the British utility privatizations. In all cases, CEO
salaries rose substantially after privatization. This is interesting
because the neoclassical maximum competitive market value of these
individuals had
Eric raises the question of the creation of hegemony by international
capital vs national capital.
I want to first observe that to unselfconsciously discuss as we have
been doing national vs. international capital IN THE METROPOLE is one
candidate for the indicators of qualitative change.
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