[PEN-L:6855] Re: puzzle
Michael Perelman asked, Suppose you are given an exam which asked you to explain, using neo-classical categories, how market economies throughout the world could experience at the same time 1) rapid technological increase 2) falling wages 3) relatively stable profits Cobb Douglas functions are optimal. I would politely explain to the person who handed me the exam that I am not enrolled in any economics course and therefore am not constrained to use neo-classical categories even if I do choose to explain the dilemma. Otherwise known as the gordian knot solution. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6876] Re: rising rate of profit?
Blair wrote And you a Marxist! Doug, theory tells us that the rate of profit falls over time. These data must be incorrect! ;-) Tsk, tsk, Blair! You left out the crucial term "tendency". Virtually all of Das Kapital is an exercise in explaining what the capitalists do to _resist_ this tendency (including lengthening the working day and introducing new technology) and how that ultimately reinforces the tendency. There's a world of difference between a tendency and a trend. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6916] Canada: Me and Barbara Amiel
Only Canadian subscribers will be aware that Barbara Amiel is the right-wing columnist wife of Conrad Black, owner of the majority of Canadian newspapers. Today, I had the unexpected honour of pinch hitting for Barbara's opinion column in the Vancouver Sun. Don't be alarmed, "Barbara Amiel will return next week." a note assures at the bottom of my opinion piece. The headline for my piece came out with an appropriately neo-liberal sounding slant: "The jobless rate will stay high until government eases payroll taxes." The headline is not the best summary of my argument, which is not that payroll tax rates are *too high*, but that the taxes are *regressive* in their structure and that it is the regressivity of the structure that kills jobs. Elsewhere in today's Sun is the news that the Pope endorses Darwin's theory of evolution and that Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. has offered to purchase 51% of the shares of Southam (owners of the Vancouver Sun). Another story highlights a report released by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business called for reducing payroll taxes to stimulate hiring and complaining about the current "coddled generation" of job seekers. Me and Barbara Amiel Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free Feeling good was easy, Lord, when Barbara sang the blues Feeling good was good enough for me Good enough for me and Barbara Amiel... Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6917] Canada: the discipline of the marketplace
what is paid in and what is paid out by replacing CPP with Super RRSPs, as a certain political party has just proposed, under which contributions would be voluntary but funds would be privately managed and would have the contributor's name on them. People might even stop regarding these taxes as taxes, since they would clearly increase people's net worth. If you agree to all this, maybe you'll get me to endorse your plan. Cheers, Bill Watson Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6923] Re: I'm afraid to say this...
Doug Henwood wrote: Though of course we wouldn't even be talking to each other like this if it weren't for the Pentagon. No, Doug, first things first: SPUTNIK -- October 4, 1957 -- *then* the establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Administration (ARPA) spawner of ARPANET, begetter of internet. Which gives me the perfect pretext for a quote I just can't resist sharing: "Meanwhile, technology is speeding up communication's stepchild, the mails. Guided missles loaded with letters instead of war heads are being planned for the distant future. After their successful launching and arrival, new sorting systems now in use will still be indispensible." From Life Magazine, November 11, 1957: "Tomorrow's Life Today: Man's everyday world" Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6963] re: Krugman
Jim, This is all very interesting. But what we really want to know is: what are his *personal* habits? Does he wipe the rim of the toilet bowl? Does he leave his dirty dishes in the sink? Does he iron his dollar bills before going out on a date? ;-) Michael Perelman calls for my two kopeks on Krugman, my old college roomie. I hate to repeat myself, but I'll simply respond to (and agree with) what Max Sawicky said: He is particularly vociferous when someone with some stature takes a position he doesn't like. Then he starts nattering about credentials or professional competence. Those equally ignorant or without credentials, however, who advance positions of which he approves don't get the same treatment. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6967] Re: AI unionbuster?
maggie coleman wrote, Other friends tell me that progressive places demand a tremendous amount of 'free' time on top of wages which tend to be very low. In a capitalist organization, this would be exploitation to increase surplus value. And Max Sawicky added, I've been hearing stores like this for 25 years. I mention this not to air pessimism but because I think there's a moral: it pays to be cognizant of the limits of collective political action, including the capacity of the working class or their representatives (much less anyone else) to make virtuous, disinterested decisions when given the power to do so. In other words, there are proper limits to government. I agree with both maggie and Max and would like to add my own slant, which is that this issue is not as 'peripheral' as it may seem. Alex Izurieta posted to PEN-L an article by Andre Gorz who, in his _Critique of Economic Reason_, argues for a 'politics of free time'. Gorz's theoretical position was discussed in a recent issue of New Left Review. Perhaps the long losing streak of the left and labour comes from the widespread abandonment of a politics of free time in favour of the politics of the welfare state. My own quirky reading of history (along with a few books I've read) tells me that the welfare state began as a conservative institution to defend the state against revolutionary threats and succeeded in recruiting to its defense the bulk of the radicals whose original argument was for the abolition of the state. This is not to say that there are no 'proper limits' to a politics of free time, either. On the contrary, proper limits are what may make free time a *politics* rather than an beguiling, empty slogan. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:6982] Payroll Tax Ceilings, Employment, and Work Hours (fwd)
I am forwarding Jon Kesselman's response to my column on payroll taxes and work hours that I sent to Pen-l a few days ago. Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 10:44:31 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jon Kesselman) Subject: Payroll Tax Ceilings, Employment, and Work Hours Dear Tom Walker and others on Tom's circulation list: I read Tom's column on payroll taxes and work hours with interest. If any of you wish to delve deeper into the economic evidence on this point, you may refer to my recent discussion paper on "Economic Issues of General Payroll Taxes." A couple of sections in the paper, on both theoretical background and empirical evidence, investigate the relationship between payroll tax insurable (taxable) ceilings and potential effects on employment and hours of work per employee. In fact, the theory on this point is ambiguous (because of the existence of scale effects as well as substitution effects, or profit maximization as well as cost minimization in the behaviour of firms; see several cited articles by Bob Hart and others). The very limited empirical literature investigating this point also offers mixed findings (see my paper for citations). In short, despite the rhetoric on the point of payroll tax ceilings and adverse employment effects, there is in fact little solid evidence to support this point or the related policy concern or alleged cure for the problem. My paper can be found at: http://web.arts.ubc.ca/econ/cresppap.htm#1996 This web page has a listing of discussion papers of the UBC Centre for Research on Economic and Social Policy, and if you scroll down to DP-41 (the last entry), you will find the paper with a link that will download the entire paper in pdf format, which can be read with Adobe Acrobat Exchange. This is the first in the CRESP discussion paper series available for easy downloading in this fashion, and we intend to release all future papers in this manner. For anyone interested in the full monograph on payroll taxes, I expect it to be published some time in the first half of 1997 by the Canadian Tax Foundation. (Chapter 7 of that monograph will contain further discussion of the relation between payroll tax ceilings and employment and work hours, but I am not planning to release that chapter as a discussion paper prior to the monograph.) Regards, Jon K. Professor Jon Kesselman Centre for Research on Economic and Social Policy c/o Department of Economics University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1 Canada Voice 604-822-5608 Fax 604-822-5915 *** Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7000] Politics of free time (reply to Max Sawicky)
I guess I should explore your web site more because I'm not clear on what the politics of free time is about. If it's 'thirty for forty,' then a raft of economic doubts, or issues, at least, come into play. Work sharing is a different, more plausible matter, though I'm not persuaded that it is of such great importance as to be a 'politics' all by itself. By all means explore my web site more, I'd also recommend the following for more comprehensive theoretical and historical discussion: - Andre Gorz, _Critique of Economic Reason_, Verso, 1989. - David Roediger and Philip Foner, _Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day_, Greenwood Press, 1989. - Benjamin Hunnicutt, _Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work_, Temple University Press, 1988. Roediger and Foner argue "The length of the workdays... has historically been the central issue raised by the American labor movement during its most dynamic periods of organization". 'Thirty for forty' is a slogan, not a politics. As for 'economic doubts', I can't agree that political controversies -- even when posed as economic issues -- are typically resolved by feasibility studies or cost/benefit analyses. Again, I'll return to my argument that perhaps the long losing streak of the left stems from its virtual abandonment of the working time issue. May I add a footnote that could open a whole can of worms: In volume one of Capital, Marx, distinguishes between the extraction of absolute surplus value, achieved by the lengthening of the working day and relative surplus value, achieved by lowering the costs of reproducing labour power. These two methods of extracting surplus value correspond to two historically distinctive stages in the organization of the labour process, which Marx labels "Manufacture" and "Modern Industry" (or, in a previously unpublished chapter, included as an appendix to the Vintage translation: the Formal and Real Subsumption of Labour to Capital). To make a very long story short: I would argue that current changes in the organization of the labour process (flexible manufacture, contingent workforces, etc.) strive toward a unique combination of absolute and relative surplus value. So the length of the working day is not simply an important issue, it is the central issue for a progressive politics. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7062] Re: anti-intellectualism against and in the left
I think it's fair to say that _most_ pomo is pretentious bs. Some of it is good stuff, though, and I would definitely include Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida as having made some valuable contributions. I agree with bill that the substance is pretty simple, but I've noticed in trying to explain some of the simplest ideas from pomo that people strongly resist these ideas even when they are stated clearly -- especially when they are stated clearly. In my view, people like Derrida are saying something about language (and 'science' in the wider, European sense) that is roughly similar to what Marx said about the commodity in the section on the fetishism of the commodity in Capital. "A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties..." Try to explain the fetishism of the commodity to someone who believes *religiously* that market exchange is the primordial foundation of all civilization. I think it's intellectually liberating to realize that received ideas are not the product of some iron-clad, inexorable natural processs but, in many cases, are the enshrinement of some pretty silly imaginings and mental errors. It can also be intoxicating. The tower of post-modern babble probably owes as much to this intoxication as it does to tenure envy and post-tenure anxiety. "All that is solid melts into air..." Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7081] re: A Pomo (re)quest
Steve Cullenberg wrote, I have a suggestion given people's concern about Marx and Derrida. What's wrong, good, obtuse, insightful, troubling, about Derrida's _Specters of Marx_? A not completely innocent choice I must confess. I'm glad you brought that one up. I stood in the bookstore for about 20 minutes leafing through _Spectres of Marx_ hoping for some clue of an excuse to buy it, take it home and read it. What I wanted to know is if it had anything to say to contemporary political conditions or if it was strictly an allusive, illusive literary dissertation. I frankly couldn't find anything I could get a handle on. "Seemless prose." And I've read and understood a good chunk of Derrida's other writing. So, Steve, tell us: what's the story? What's it about? Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7087] re: A Pomo (re)quest
Jerry Levy wrote, Oh, yeah: why don't you ask him to summarize _Capital_ for a 30 second soundbite for "Nightline"? Summaries of the "story" of Hegel's _Science of Logic_, Lenin's _Philosophical Notebooks_, Negri's _Marx After Marx_, and Althusser's + Balibar's _Reading Capital_ in no more than two sentences would also be appreciated. I'll gladly summarize Althusser's Balibar's _Reading Capital_ in two WORDS: overdetermined and underedited. Where have all the intellectuals gone? Gone to grad school every one, when will they ever learn? when will they ever learn? I don't know, Jerry. I think 'intellectuals' has too many many syllables. Maybe we should try flowers. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7099] re: A Pomo (re)quest
Doug Henwood summarized Capital for a 30 second soundbite: Took me 24 seconds in my radio mode. Bravo! Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7102] Re: post-modern wars
Doug Henwood asked: What is distinctly modern about the idea of sustainable development? Doug's comment touches on what is wrong with the label postmodernism and the implied opposition "modernism/postmodernism". Blair Sandler had refered to "a *post-modern* analysis of the need for and possibilty of sustainable development", which seems to me to confuse an "oppositional" modernism with postmodernism. The idea of sustainable development is distinctly modern -- not postmodern -- if we may use Lyotard's critique of modernism as resting on the 'grand narratives' of scientific and historical progress. All that the idea of sustainable development does is substitute one version of the grand narrative for another. And suddenly there we are, back where we started. I suppose what happens is that people are quick to apply labels to their arguments as a way of demonstrating their "oppositional" credentials. "This is a *marxist* analysis." "This is a postmodern analysis." Etc. What they may not realize is how little their self-styled "subversion" differs from the official version in its basic narrative structure. Most postmodern writing doesn't sufficiently appreciate the treachery of its own ground (or "ungroundedness"). For example, it's easy to sneer at Marx's "essentialism" as Laclau and Mouffe did; it's much harder to establish a unequivocal position from which to do the sneering. To continue with Laclau and Mouffe as an example of bad postmodernism, the unparralled ugliness of their prose can easily be understood in terms of the contortions they had to go through to hurl critical rocks without shattering the fragile walls of their own glass house. And often when postmodernism does appreciate its own treachery, the result is the all too familiar cynicism -- endless, breathless celebrations of pop-culture rip-offs as "subversion" ad nauseum. After all, when nothing is "legitimate" anything goes, right? Nothing like a sophmoric nihilism to elevate the tone of intellectual discourse. The relationship between modernism and postmodernism has to be more subtle than this. Postmodernism *needs* the modernist grand narrative as a foil. Postmodernism is a crack in the smooth surface of the modernist urn. Yes, the urn leaks, but don't throw it out, yet. The crack, by itself, doesn't carry any water at all. I have a surprise. I think postmodernism makes a worthwhile contribution to analysis of political and economic issues and it makes this contribution best when it doesn't bother to flamboyantly announce and tediously insist upon its supposed postmodern credentials. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7105] Re: nattering nabob
Joe Medley wrote, Tom's two word dismissal of Reading Capital and Anders' disingenous demand for *any* example of a pomo approach that would satisfy *his* criteria, are not cute coming from adults. I wasn't trying to be cute. I was responding in kind to Gerald Levy, who perhaps was trying to be cute -- I don't know. I'm happy to go back to my original complaint about not being able to determine, in a 20 minute perusal, whether Derrida's Spectre of Marx would be worth buying and reading. I assure you that I accord much less than 20 minutes to most new books that come into the bookstore. I don't even pause as I walk past the self-help section or the new age shelf. Perhaps your argument is that I should buy and read all books before passing judgement on whether any particular book is more or less worthy of my concentrated attention. Perhaps if I was a character in a Borges short story, I would do just that. Failing that, what is wrong with the simple request that an author (or the publisher) provide some clue as to what a book is 'about'? Otherwise, I'm buying a pig in a poke. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7111] To citizens La Chatre, Henwood, and Walker --
Well, I guess that settles it. Marx was infallible. ;-) Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7110] re: A Pomo (re)quest
Jerry wrote, If one wants short fairy-tale like answers to complex theoretical and political questions, then perhaps one should revert to reading "Quotations from Chairman Mao" and, thereby, substitute vacuous slogans and prose for analysis. Let's spend some time with this thought. I happen to agree with it 100%. Fairy-tales are not adequate responses to complex theoretical and political issues. And I'm not saying this off the top of my head, narrative policy analysis has been my central research concern for over 10 years. I have written several longer pieces on narrative policy analysis, but I don't think I completely efface the complexity or subtlety of my own analysis when I say, in summary, that public policy decisions _are_ typically made on the basis of "fairy-tale like answers" to complex questions (does "balancing the budget" ring any bells?). Perhaps that is a sad conclusion -- but it's a conclusion that can't be changed by throwing a three-volume theoretical and empirical analysis at it. And it doesn't much matter whether the three volumes are modernist or postmodernist. It's interesting how Jerry has *tactically* come around to my position on this matter. One topic ago -- on the politics of free time -- Jerry quarreled with my statement that: 'Thirty for forty' is a slogan, not a politics. Jerry responded: It was both a slogan and a demand -- primarily of CIO unions. It can be a demand in collective bargaining or a political demand. Clearly, there are many instances of slogans which were part of political movements. My objection to the 'thirty for forty' slogan is that it is not backed up by an analysis of the complex theoretical and political issues. I've got nothing against slogans that represent, in a compact form, a more complex analysis. When I look closer at the 'thirty for forty' slogan, however (using a postmodernist approach of narrative policy analysis), what I discover is that the slogan concedes the high ground to opponents of shorter work time. The implicit 'story' behind 'thirty for forty' is a work-a-day world in which the lengthening of work time is perceived as a natural product of market pressures and the limitation of work time is something that must be *imposed* by regulation or collective action. This 'story', it so happens, is out of sync with the historical record (and I rely here on E.P. Thompson's "Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism" for my interpretation of the historical record). The 'thirty for forty' story also reifies the wages for forty hours work, as if some dollar amount could be nailed to the wall as a perpetual standard. In other words, 'thirty for forty' fully accomodates a market-centric view of the world. Opponents of reducing work time have no difficulty repelling such slogans as thirty for forty with the condescending, "it's a nice idea in theory, but as a practical matter..." To put it bluntly, the hard work of narrative policy analysis is developing "short fairy-tale like answers" that are, never-the-less, faithful to the more complex analysis of the issues. Be assured that if those who understand the complexities refuse to provide 'simplifications' because "one can *not* legitimately summarize a complex body of ideas into a short soundbite", others with less understanding (and perhaps less sympathetic motives) will. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7139] Re: 15 minutes of Derrida's Specters
Thanks to Steve Cullenberg for summarizing _Spectres_. Steve's summary is
pretty close to the impression I got looking at the book. My decision not to
buy and read the book had more to do with my needs and interests as a reader
than with an abstract standard of what any book referring to Marx should
accomplish.
Had _Spectres of Marx_ been a journal article, say in Diacritics, I probably
would have read it and perhaps would have benefited from its insights. If
the year was 1982, I definitely would have read it as a journal article and
might have read it as a book. Perhaps 20 years from now I will read the book
with pleasure.
I'm simply stating the truism that a text encounters readers in historically
specific circumstances.
From time to time, I teach a workshop in plain language writing. This
doesn't mean I think everything should be written so that it can be read by
someone with a grade 8 education. But it does mean I'm aware of the range of
reading (and writing) abilities and the variety of reasons for "difficulty".
It also means that I have trained myself to read difficult prose. I'm as
'comfortable' with the jargon of the civil engineer as I am with that of the
education bureaucrat or the deconstructionist. In fact, alongside much
officialese, Derrida reads as clearly as the Gettysburg Address.
One of the exercises I use in my workshop is to look at a piece of writing
and get students to identify the author's intended message, audience and
purpose. This is classical rhetoric ("bonehead" English Composition 101). I
do something similar when scanning material to decide whether or not to read
it. My judgements usually break down into answers to two questions: does the
text clearly expose the author's intended message, audience and purpose?;
and do I, as a reader, have any affinity with or stake in that message,
audience and purpose?
Note that by invoking the authority of "classical rhetoric" in the preceding
paragraph, I am inviting a comparison between the pomo/modernism face-off
and earlier disputes between classicism and romanticism and the ancients and
the moderns. *Verily, saith the preacher, there's nothing new under the
sun*. What all of these disputes have in common is the prerequisite of
*reducing* texts to one or the other of the categories in question. But
since there is always already a "romantic Marx" and a "classicist Marx" (a
plurality!), a "modernist Derrida" and a "post-modernist Derrida", an
"ancient Aristotle" and a "modern Aristotle", the categories and the
categorization turn out to be arbitrary and invidious.
But I digress. To bring me back to my point (the historically and
subjectively specific circumstances of readers vis-a-vis texts) I will quote
Verne Ball:
What if the ability to communicate in different "registers" - as they say
in linguistics - is more important than not speaking academese? (So yeah,
a good summation of a lot more of Derrida and Negri would be really
helpful, but I'd prefer it in the form of a comic book that I could peruse
for a little longer - surely more than 15 minutes. Derrida could make it.
Exactly. Or, to put it slightly differently, what if "explanation" is not
all there is? What happens when we expand the range of cultural expression
to include not just philosophical texts and didactic comic books, but
painting, music composition, architectural design, performance, etc. In my
view, such a broadening of scope requires us to simultaneously examine
_both_ the material conditions of cultural production and the internal
tendencies of the "work of art" itself.
And this brings us back to Walter Benjamin, who in my estimation continues
to have something to say to contemporary political conditions in spite of --
or perhaps because of -- his philosophical erudition.
Regards,
Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286
The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7140] Re: PoMoTown
It is late on Friday and I want to go home, but do you in all seriousness want me to believe that our saying that you don't know "Derrida from dogfood" is the same as saying that you didn't know "Derrida from diamonds or dictionaries or duality theory". Presumably Jim's "don't know Derrida from dogfood" is a play on "don't know dollars from doughnuts" in which case the derivation probably has more to do with assonance (similarity of sounds) than it does to derogatory intent. That's how I deconstruct it, anyway. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7142] Re: Pomo: Swimming or drowning
Doug Henwood asked, Old language: "The boss is screwing you. Organize and fight back." New language: "The metanarratives are all broken. Liberate yourself through freeplay in the deliciously slippery world of discourse!" This is progress? The old language is clear. In light of the tragic -- and real -- historical experience of exchanging old bosses for new bosses, it's also not credible. In a society where class divisions are obscured by an overwhelming degree of stratification, its clarity may even be deceptive. Does the Korean immigrant, part-time clerk in the corner grocery really have more in common with the $100,000 a year, native-born unionized petroleum industry technician than she does with the grocery store's Korean immigrant owner -- her "boss"? The slipperiness of discourse is not always delicious. To risk overusing a word, it may well be tragic. In this sense, there is no doubt a greater affinity between Marx's analysis and Doug's parody of the new language than there is with the "old language". Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7157] Identity and class struggle
"Identity politics" is redundant. All politics is identity politics for no other reason than that political action must be conducted in a particular place and in a particular language. It's a non sequitur to say that identity politics per se is "reactionary" or "progressive" or "futile". Politics that turns inwards toward the service of a particular group, at the expense of everyone else, is reactionary. What is "progressive" about progressive politics is it's aspiration to universality. Marx thought the working class would be the agent of universal emancipation because it had no particular interest in maintaining itself as a class. It had no privileges to cling to. We've since learned that people cling to things other than privilege. Sometimes people cling to oppression, sometimes they cling to their own humiliation and debasement. Sometimes they just cling to the way things are because that's the way things are. So the class struggle theory turns out to have been a good guess, but not a sure thing. For those who are looking for a sure thing, identity politics is no improvement over class struggle. But for those who are looking for a more nuanced understanding of class struggle, a respectful analysis of identity politics is indispensible. And for activists who are looking to engage a constituency other than themselves, the tortuous path to universality begins on the hard-pan ground of identity. It's all very dialectical. ;-) Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7172] Re: Hmmm
bill mitchell wrote, I went to a university once. Once of the lecturers there hated me. He/she kicked me out of the class. I won't tell you why. So fuckin what! Yeah! And I've been screwed by professors, fucked over by bosses, ripped-off by landlords, jilted by girlfriends, dragged by security guards, pushed by cops, slandered by psychopaths, poisoned by dope addicts, shit on by seagulls, cursed at by rednecks, misquoted by journalists, co-opted by bureaucrats, passed over by funders, harrangued by sectarians, and harrassed by federal agents. Me own mother banished me from dear dad's funeral, God rest his soul! As bill says, "So fuckin what!" But then, I'm no angel, either. I have a suggestion for a new list: UMA-DL (dirty laundry). Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7177] Life is hard. And then you die.
who -- realized that the flash was not the separation of a booster rocket, and yelled, "Shut up, everyone!" A silence descended in time for the students, teachers and administrators at the school where that teacher, Christa McAuliffe, had taught for three years to hear the announcer report, "The vehicle has exploded." (1986) III. METHOD Walter Benjamin: "Pedogogic side of this project: 'To train our image-making faculty to look stereoscopically and dimensionally into the depths of the shadows of history.'" "The work must raise to the very highest level the art of quoting without quotation marks. Its theory is intimately linked to that of montage." "Method of this work: literary montage. I need say nothing. Only show. I won't steal anything valuable or appropriate any witty turns of phrase. but the trivia, the trash: this, I don't want to take stock of, but let it come into its own in the only way possible: use it." "The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again." "History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homogenous empty time, but time filled by the presence of the now [*Jetztzeit*]. Thus to Robespierre ancient Rome was a past charged with the time of the now which he blasted out of the continuum of history... Fashion has a flair for the topical, no matter where it stirs in the thickets of long ago; it is a tiger's leap into the past. This jump, however, takes place in an arena where the ruling class gives the commands. The same leap in the open air of history is the dialectical one, which is how Marx understood the revolution." POSTSCRIPT Text fragment #6: The accuracy of an intercontinental ballistic missle's flight is determined in the first moments when it roars into the sky. Its electronic brain has full instructions. But it needs reminding, too! Borg-Warner makes an ingenious device to do this... to tell instantly if and when any corrections are needed to keep it precisely on course. (1957) Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7301] fetishturgy (fwd)
I'm forwarding a portion of a message from Greg Ulmer (a post-modernist if anyone is) dealing with the term 'fetish' that we recently discussed on Pen-l. This commentary throws a new twist on my assertion that post-modernism takes a similar approach to language as Marx takes in his analysis of the commodity fetish. 1--fetishturgy approaches "fetish" from a position considerably different from your starting point. The point of departure is the status of the term "fetish" historically as pidgin Portuguese, used by Portuguese traders along the "Guinea Coast" in the 1500s to name objects whose valuation in African economy defied European valuation systems. You probably know the excellent history written on this term. I am more interested in pidgin in general, in the discourse network of colonialism, as an analogy for projecting how a postcolonial "cyberpidgin" (contact between non-similar cultures online) might be theorized and practiced. One of the special features of interest in this linguistic context is that while there were and are many other pidgin terms from this same historical moment, "fetish" has a unique history. During the seminar we explored the way in which nearly the entire history of modern theory could be studied as the dissemination of *fetish* into Western society. The heuretic approach, moreover, suggests that any such phenomenon be studied not only from the theoretical (hermeneutic) side, but also from the side of art making. In this respect it is important to note the Western theorists tended to use *fetish* in a pejorative, denigrative sense (with various degrees of inflection), while artists tended to embrace *fetish* as a model for a new practice. One implication is that it might be interesting to look at some other pidgin terms, to consider what they name, and speculate what will have the case if they had been taken up in the same way. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7309] New WWW Site: Jubilee 2000 campaign
Announcing a new web site: IN THE SPIRIT OF JUBILEE: Sound the Trumpet throughout the land. Proclaim Liberty to all people. http://www.lights.com/jubilee Over 3,000 years ago, the ancient Hebrews celebrated the Year of Jubilee. With a trumpet blast throughout the land, debts were cancelled, slaves went free, and EVERYONE had an economic recovery. As we approach the new millenium, jubilee is an ancient idea whose time has come. JUBILEE 2000 is a campaign to celebrate the new millenium by cancelling the unpayable debts of the world's poorest countries. It is a simple solution to break the debt trap and give a billion people a chance for a better future. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7311] Max's Mom's Jubilee
Max Sawicky asks, And what about my Mom, whose sole source of non-Social Security income is a lowly interest-bearing financial asset? This isn't the "widows and orphans" theory of capitalism, is it? By the powers vested in me, I hearby declare Max's Mom *personnally exempt* from any wholesale cancellation of debt (provided that debt cancellation occurs on January 1, 2001). Seriously, though, how about those mutual funds? A couple of weeks ago, we had a drywall installer in to fix a hole in the ceiling. He talked enthusiastically about his contractor pals who were making so much money in the stock market they had given up doing construction work. Then just the other day, I was in a toy store and overheard two clerks talking about how you could borrow money from the bank, buy mutual funds and make enough money to live on the interest and still increase your principal. But there comes a point when the chain letter reaches the bottom of the feeding chain (to mix metaphors, while retaining a link), right? And then we have nothing to lose but our... umm, what's the word I'm looking for... bonds? Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7332] Re: Affirmative Action in public employment and education is dead
I can't agree with the sentiment "Everything feminists have fought for in terms of improving girls' educational opportunities and women's employment is now in potential jeopardy." In one sense, everything has _always_ been in potential jeopardy so this is no big change. But isn't "affirmative action" a rather timid utopia? How could _that_ represent everything feminists have fought for? What about social justice and political power? And, what lessons might be learned from the passage of proposition 209? I also don't see a post-modernist analysis in Myra Strober's post, forwarded by maggie coleman. So I'm wondering whether maggie's p.s. was an aside or a non sequitur. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7391] Re: science
Jim Devine wrote, yeah, but I don't expect that social science can or will be able to answer these questions, since the object of study (people, society) is much more difficult than that of, say, physics. But we should at least try. Doug Henwood replied, Difficult? Don't know about that; it's a lot easier to be an amateur sociologist (or economist even!) than amateur quantum physicist. Less predictable, maybe. To which I reply, It is extremely difficult to be a specialist in a field where anybody who picks up a smattering of the conventional wisdom can consider themselves an amateur expert. That's probably what drives scientists into obscure specialties and drives sociologists and economists to strive for opacity. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7440] transgressive running dogs of performativity
It seems a widespread temptation, not a unique feature of post-modernism, to substitute jargon for thinking. But consider the comic possibilities: slightly disillusioned, but still bristling ex-Enver Hoxha-ite meets itinerant PoMo performance art critic of indeterminate gender and the two of them grope about for a common language. Y'know, the sequel to Kiss of the Spider Woman kind of thing. Whatever. Comedy: They fail. Tragedy: They succeed. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7442] Re: transgressive running dogs of performativity II
On second thought, here's a better idea: a whole *family* of m-l sectarians -- Jed, Jethro, Ellie-may and granma Hoxha -- is accidently granted tenure-track positions at an ivy league comparative lit department. After all, this is America, folks. Land of opportunity. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7715] Re: The rogue, p.m.
Blair Sandler asked, Do you mean "poor" as in "impoverished?" Or "poor" as in "low quality?" Ah, the uses of ambiguity. ;-) Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7734] Re: yet more Social Security
Rev. Devine wrote:
BTW, such confusions ("overreactions") can be avoided by reading
someone's e-message all the way through before (over)reacting to
it paragraph by paragraph.
I tried that once, but my lips got numb.
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^
knoW Ware Communications |
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate."
(604) 669-3286|
^^
The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7623] Re: Fordism or post-fordism? No thanks! -Reply
(what a weird world. Here I am stuck at home with a six 6-year-old all day, but I can communicate with the computer at work to download Patrick's message, and then upload and send my reply.) Now I know why you make so much sense. There's nothing like active parenting to keep the ungrounded abstractions at bay! Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7596] Re: The Long Term II
Doug wrote (and I reversed the order of his sentences), For another view, see http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Work.html And what's so new about this? Doug, Looked through your Work its Future article and its thesis sounds an awful lot like that of the 1983 article by Henry Levin and Russell Rumberger, "The Low Skill Future of High Tech" that I've been carrying around for the last 13 and a half years. They quote projections from the August 1981 Monthly Labour Review that are, naturally, very similar to the ones you quote from the November 1995 MLR. La plus change... In this case, "nothing new here" is not a disparaging expression. Levin and Rumberger were right and you're right. So was Ecclesiates, so what. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7632] Re: How to win strikes in the 90s -Reply
Patrick Bond asked, Why stop at the (broadly-characterised) point-of-production? and argued convincingly for: Corporate campaigns aimed increasingly at both the power and vulnerability that characterise firms' financial relationships. To which I would add, that the strategic state policy framework for the dominance of finance is NAIRU -- the North American Initiative for (W)Recking Unions (more commonly known as the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment). Tactical targeting of firms' financial relationships would be most effective within a comprehensive anti-NAIRU strategy. Which, at the risk of repeating myself, brings me back to the struggle for the generalized reduction of working time. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7707] The rogue, p.m.
Maybe a rogue isn't such a bad thing, after all, considering that a large proportion of novelistic literature is written from the perspective of the rogue. Of course, if (with Lukacs) we take the novel as the exemplary literary form for the expression of bourgeois consciousness -- in other words, of modernism -- we might even say that modernity itself has a certain *rogueish* point of view. The small dictionary on my computer has, as one possible etymology for the term, the 16th century *cant roger* "a vagabond pretending to be a poor scholar." But these days there are so many poor scholars pretending to be poor scholars that perhaps we've no more use for the genuine vagabonds. Perhaps this is what is really meant by post-modernism? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7653] Re: The Long Term (Henwood)
O.K., Doug, you win, U.S. workers have never had it so good ;-) It's just us deluded, apocalytic ignoramuses who are imagining a fundamental and frightening change for the worse. But there it is, clear as day, in the selective statistics you present: everything is under control; nothing can go wrong... go wrong... go wrong... Doug Henwood wrote, Well since the business cycle goes up about 3/4 of the time, and down about 1/4, what happens in the business cycle counts in the long run, no? Is this also a bureau of labour statistics fact or is it a basic law of nature? (...like sun spots ;-)?) Please explain because this strategic little piece of cracker barrel wisdom provides the _frame_ within which the bls statistics tell the story you want them to (speaking of social constructionism). Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7595] Re: The Long Term
Doug Henwood misquotes my post and then asks, And what's so new about this? For another view, see http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Work.html Doug, With all due respect, if you're going to react to a message, read it first. I didn't write the words you quoted, B.C. Premier Glen Clark said them. I reported that Glen Clark said it. The only thing that's new about it is that the premier of a Canadian province is talking about work time reduction and redistribution as part of the long term solution to unemployment. I don't agree with everything that Glen Clark says, Glen Clark doesn't endorse everything that Rifkin says, and I don't endorse Rifkin's apocalypticism. And, besides, what's so new about your April 1996 critique of Rifkin? For an earlier -- albeit post-modern -- view see http://mindlink.net/knowware/strega.htm Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7578] Re: The Decline of Economics
Honestly, the "two most significant developments in the American economy" are not "economic phenomena". An honest economist would have to admit simply that there is no adequate *economic* explanation for either. This should be no more difficult than an honest mathematician admitting that there is no adequate mathematical explanation for Dante's _Divine Comedy_. That it is difficult for an economist to admit the importance of non-economic phenomena points directly to the source of the "decline of economics": hubris. There's an article with this title in the current New Yorker, by John Cassidy. One quote: "A number of important economic phenomena remain beyond our comprehension. The two most significant developments in the American economy over the past twenty years are the slowdown in productivity growth and the increase in wage inequality, and honest economists admit that they don't have an adequate explanation for either." Any honest economists care to comment? Walter Daum Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7905] deja vu: a trip in the (over)time machine
At a little past noon on October 7, 1978, Frank Schiff of the Committee for Economic Development addressed a conference on Work Time and Employment convened by the U.S. National Commission for Manpower Policy. Assembled at the Capitol Hill Quality Inn in Washington, D.C., the conference attendees were indeed a quality collection of noted academics, high level civil servants, and influential spokespersons for business and labor. Schiff was responding to a paper on "Policies to Reduce Fixed Costs of Employment" that had just been presented by Robert Eisner. Speaking of the goal of accomodating individual preferences for worktime and leisure, Schiff remarked, "To achieve this goal, Professor Eisner places major stress on employment subsidies and tax credits, essentially to offset the effect of public policy and institutional work arrangements that create a bias against flexible work arrangements. This is clearly one possible approach, but it should be emphasized that it is by no means the only way to deal with the problem. Other possible options include direct efforts to reduce the existing institutional biases against flexible work time patterns -- for example, by relating the cost of particular fringes more to hours worked than to the number or employees, or by relevant changes in the computation of experience ratings." Schiff's remarks were, admittedly, not delivered in scintillating prose and the topic may seem somewhat obscure and technical. One slight amendment would clarify what Schiff was saying: instead of referring to the "biases against flexible work time patterns", Schiff could have better identified the problem as "public policy and institutional biases *in favour of* overtime and unemployment." In spite of that small point of obfuscation, Schiff's comment stands out from the 445 page conference report as such profound good sense that it no doubt was quickly and profoundly forgotten by all and sundry in attendence. Perhaps even by Schiff. In the 18 years since that prestigious Washington, D.C. conference, much has changed but the institutional bias in favour of overtime has remained. Perhaps the best known effort to redress the imbalance was a bill to increase the overtime penalty of the FLSA from time and a half to double time, introduced by Democratic congressman John Conyers in the late 1970s. The logic against Conyers bill, however, was impeccable: it was countered that the measure would increase labour costs and therefore wouldn't achieve its intended job creation effects. Conyers' bill went nowhere. But to give a bit more context on the timing of the Work Time and Employment conference, it should be remembered that in July 1978, the Bonn Summit of the G-7 had taken place at which President Jimmy Carter affirmed the U.S government's top priority of fighting inflation. The next year, 1979, Paul Volcker was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The fight against inflation uber alles had begun in earnest. Because unemployment was seen as an indispensible tool for fighting inflation (NAIRU), the idea of removing institutional biases in favour of unemployment never caught on. Let us return for a moment to that October day in 1978 and indulge in a bit of economic science fiction. Imagine that Frank Schiff's comment about *removing the institutional biases* had seized the imagination of the conferees. Imagine that reporters from the major news media were in attendance at the conference and Schiff's offhand suggestion became the subject of front page feature stories and soul-searching editorials. Imagine that a national debate broke out in the United States about the nature of work and the illegitimacy of government regulations that prolonged work beyond the desires of individuals. Imagine the emergence of a mass labor/civil rights movement demanding the freedom to work for as many or few hours as one desired and insisting on the repeal of all legislation that enforced excessive work. Imagine the victory of this labor/civil rights movement. What would our social, economic and political landscape be like today -- 18 years later -- if Frank Schiff's spark of common sense had fallen on the dry tinder of citizenship rather than on the damp soil of econometocracy? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7768] Absolute surplus value
Or, putting my earlier message (the ninth hour) into a theoretical context, I suppose I'm also suggesting an "epochal" shift in capitalism (may I call it "ironic post-keynesianism") wherein the drive for the production of _absolute surplus value_ becomes more prominent, in part as a response to the specific structural barriers to reproduction of capital imposed by the welfare state. I repeat my earlier message below: The ninth hour. According to my rough calculations, using the B.C. pulp and paper industry as a case in point, the "ninth hour" of a hypothetical "annual working day" costs employers about 7.6% less than the "first hour", in spite of the legal requirement for overtime pay at time and a half. At an industry standard hourly rate of $23.50, the total cost to employers (including payroll taxes, benefit premiums and allowance for paid time off) is $36.60 for the ninth hour compared with $39.40 for the first hour. This is because most of the non-wage labour costs are loaded on the standard eight hour day and some are loaded on the first six or so hours of the day. The obvious implication of such a relationship is that employers will favour overtime over creating new employment because it is cheaper -- even at time and a half. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, U.S. Rep. John Conyers had a proposal to increase the overtime premium to double time as a way of offsetting the effects of non-wage labour costs. The argument against such a proposal was that it would actually lower total employment because the higher labour costs will result in loss of demand and the substitution of capital for labour. Similarly, proposals for shortening the workweek run into a cost wall. And this is not simply a question of "shorter hours at no loss in pay". When I recalculate the employer costs assuming a 32 hour week instead of a 40 hour week and assuming the same structure and level of benefits and payroll taxes, and keeping the hourly base rate constant, the cost of the first hour jumps to $42.25, while the cost of the first overtime hour (the "seventh hour" of a hypothetical annual working day) remains at about $36.70. In other words, the employer cost of the first overtime hour would become 15% less than the cost for the first reuglar hour (again because of loading of fixed and quasi-fixed non-wage labour costs on the regular hours). The perverse result of a legislated reduction in the standard workweek thus could be that average weekly hours worked would remain about the same and the average amount of overtime would increase by around 8 hours a week -- although scale and substitution effects should again lead to a _total_ reduction in hours worked, thus increasing, rather than decreasing, unemployment. The relationship between overtime costs and straight time costs is counter-intuitive and clearly contradicts the intent of employment standards legislation. The solution to the problem is, in theory, extremely simple: distribute non-wage labour cost proportionately over the working day. In practice, however, this would require that many well-established assumptions of social security finance, employment standards regulation and collective bargaining strategy would have to be reviewed for their effects on working hours, total employment and employment equity. It would be reckless to underestimate the intensity of political resistance to pro-rating non-wage labour costs over the entire working day, including all overtime hours. I suspect that many people would refuse to even look at the calculation that clearly shows that "one and one half" is less than "one". But I think this approach solves the dilemma of why the momentum for the reduction of the working time has been stalled since the end of world war two and, for many people, *reversed* in recent decades. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7593] The Long Term
work week helped us reduce costs and free up resources for front-line services... and averted layoffs to as many as 600 full-time positions. "I want to be clear: these aren't easy problems to solve. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there are no quick fixes. there are no simple answers. There's no magic wand to wave. "This will require business, government and labour to work together. There is common ground to be found here, creativity to be applied, and partnerships to be forged. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7666] Re: The Long Term (Henwood)
Doug Henwood wrote, The rigor of the definition is irrelevant to judging the trend, as is the level of aggregation, since this has been a discussion about the nature of "work" in general. Aronowitz DiFazio said, for example, that "most" of the jobs created in the early 1990s have been part-time, when in fact they're not... The rigour of definition and level of aggregation is relevant. The BLS data Doug cited showed "non-economic" part-time work nearly doubling in 36 years and "economic" part-time work staying flat. If the definition of economic part-time work is so narrow that it excludes all but the most indefatigable full-time job seekers, then that might itself explain a good part of the divergence between the two trends. Looking for work is hard enough as it is. Actively seeking full-time work when you already have a job (albeit part-time), when you know there are few decent jobs available, and perhaps are a single parent to boot might not qualify as a rational activity. Perhaps a lot of those "non-economics" are just waiting it out at their part-time place of employment hoping to acquire enough seniority to get on full-time when a position opens up. As for level of aggregation, we are precisely talking about adding apples and oranges. How does the BLS count someone who works at three part-time jobs for a total averaging 30-35 hours a week? As one full-time worker? That would be my guess. How are "self-employed" contract workers treated? And what are the relationships between hours of labour and hourly rates? What are the demographic characteristics of the part-time and full-time employees? and what are the labour force participation rates by age/gender/race? What are the occupational break-downs? What are the sectoral differences? The list goes on and on. A good statistical analysis of labour market trends requires several dozen tables and multiple multiple regression analyses to reach the most tentative of conclusions about what is actually happening. Even then the results are subject to conflicting interpretations. I've always been under the impression that the ultimate meaning of survey data is incredibly elusive, particularly when you try to answer questions with the results that the original survey wasn't designed to answer. I'm surprised to learn that the BLS has devised a few simple aggregate reports that accurately and enduringly reflect the diversity of a boisterously changing labour market. Doug concluded his comment by saying, "For all too many people, overwork is the story of the labor market." I agree whole heartly. I think I'll give this thread a rest unless Doug says something outrageous in rebuttal. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7628] Re: The Long Term
Margarita Cerrato wrote, I agree with D Henwood's comments that this [redistributing work time] is nothing new, however I would suggest that this is already happening. Corporations operating in growth industries in Australia for example services and hospitality are increasingly providing part-time, casual and short term contract type employment and other industries are set to follow suit with the further de-regulation of the labour market... The 'this' that's already happening is not the same 'this' that's nothing new. Part-time, casual and short term contract work are most definitely not the 'same thing' as a generalized reduction and redistribution of work time. Are you seriously suggesting that insecure, part-time work with few or no benefits amounts to the 'same thing' as, say, a ban on compulsory overtime, extensive paid leave provisions for education and parenting, or the establishment of a standard 32 hour work week? You're right about one thing, the struggle for the reduction of work time is nothing new. It's the foundation upon which the labour movement was built. The abandonment of that struggle [to perennial token convention resolutions] signaled the decline of labour as a movement. The resumption of that struggle heralds the rebirth of the labour movement. I respectfully suggest that those who fancy themselves "debunkers" of shorter work time take the time to read some of the history, analysis and strategy. There's a lot more to it than deserves to be dismissed with an arrogant and shallow 'nothing new here'. But do allow me to indulge a slight digression on the 'nothing new here' theme. In October of last year, the Atlantic Monthly carried a cover story criticizing the use of the Gross Domestic Product as a surrogate measure of national prosperity. Conventional economists arose with such a uniform chorus of 'nothing new here' that it would have been easy to imagine they were all activated by a single master switch. Of course there was 'nothing new here', reasoned critiques of GDP have been advanced -- and dutifully ignored -- for decades. What, pray tell, is so 'new' [or even interesting] about this 'nothing new here' argument? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7661] Re: The Long Term (Henwood)
Doug Henwood wrote, In its latest Employment Outlook, the OECD found no secular increase in part-time employment... - snip, snip - ...Here are the part-time stats for the U.S., also one of the least regulated labor markets in the First World. The label "econ" means part-time for economic reasons (i.e., involuntary); nonecon is what used to be called voluntary part-time. Is there a secular trend here? PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT, % OF TOTAL total econnonecon 196011.1% 3.5%7.6% 197013.7% 2.5%12.0% 198016.4% 3.5%12.9% 199016.5% 3.9%12.6% 199616.6% 3.2%13.3% The Canadian studies I referred to in my previous post were carried out by Statistics Canada researchers (Garnett Picot, Rene Morisette and John Myles). They analyzed disaggregated data. I don't know about the OECD Employment Outlook, but the BLS data Doug presents is definitely aggregated. So in part we're comparing apples and oranges. But perhaps Doug could comment a bit on the rigour of the BLS's definitions of "economic" and "non-economic" part-time employment. For example, in computing official unemployment statistics, "discouraged workers" who are not engaged in an active job search are not counted as participating in the labour force. Do part-timers have to be engaged in an active search for full-time employment to count as "economic part-timers?" Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7629] Re: How to win strikes in the 90s
Introductory remarks: Strike breaking and union busting in the 1990s: What can we learn from the past to combat it? Ask yourself, "what is a strike?" If your answer is something like "a tactical withdrawal of labour", ask yourself, "how effective is a tactical withdrawal of labour likely to be in a situation in which there is a substantial surplus of labour (reserve army of unemployed)?" If your answer is "not very effective", ask yourself, "what strategies might the labour movement adopt to try to eliminate that substantial surplus of labour?" (note that I said "what strategies might the labour movement adopt", not "what policies might labour call on government to implement") What I'm getting at is the need to move from a series of isolated *tactical* withdrawals of labour to a generalized *strategic* withdrawal of labour. After all, labour can perform one potentially decisive act -- the withdrawal of labour. But there are several forms in which the withdrawal of labour can occur: - the tactical strike - on the job resistance, ranging from the formal work-to-rule to the informal 'pacing' to the insurrectionary occupation - the general strike - the reduction of work time A labour movement that systematically abstains from any one of the possible forms for the withdrawal of labour ceases to be effective as a labour movement. There is nothing new here. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7612] Re: The Long Term
Doug Henwood wrote, Metanarratives are evil, man. Just ask Lyotard. Sorry for the deviation from the strict Lyotard usage, but I use metanarrative to refer to a analytical result that somehow makes sense of the disparate policy stories and counter-stories. Lyotard uses metanarrative to refer to the grand legitimizing narratives of capital "S" Science, Capital "P" Progress, and capital "H" History. They're both still metanarratives, in the sense of each being a "narratives of narratives". However, one is legitimizing, the other is analytical. Lyotard's "incredulity toward metanarratives" (the defining post modern condition) is itself a _critical_ metanarrative. And strictly speaking, Lyotard isn't saying "metanarratives are evil, man," he is saying that the master narratives of modernism have imploded in a kind of self-destructive self-reflection, the famous mise-en-abyme. Postmodern? Nothing postmodern about this conclusion: - snip - ...the coincident plausibility of conflicting, even contradictory, stories." Well, I guess the only way to be consistent in replying to Doug's certainty that my conclusion isn't postmodern is to say that there may well be a metanarrative in which both of our claims are plausible -- that is to say a metanarrative in which my conclusion both is and isn't "postmodern". Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7530] $1 billion found in rubbish heap!
"Perhaps a rubbish heap is, after all, the best image for the rough jumble of jurisdictions, laws, budgets, regulations, evasions, habits, agencies and officials that together make up the policy apparatus of the state. Certainly, nothing could be more fanciful than those austere, pyramidal 'organization charts' that purport to describe the official structures, priorities or procedures of government. The state is not a hierarchical, hieroglyphic tree; it is a stinking, rotting, seething heap. And this description is not meant to be derogatory..." "...the treasure I have found in the rubbish heap is a tiny, perfect policy proposal for creating an estimated 30,000 new full-time, well-paying jobs in Canada at no cost to the government, to employers, to the environment -- at no cost to anybody. Thirty thousand jobs at an average salary of $35,000 a year would be worth a total of over a billion dollars." For the full text of this presentation to the discussion session on "Coping with Daily Life in an Era of Unrelenting Technical Change" at the Southern California Conference on Technology, Employment and Community, go directly to: http://mindlink.net/knowware/dustbin.htm The session will take place at the conference in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 23, 1996 at 10:15 a.m. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7634] Re: The Long Term
Doug Henwood wrote, I just get irritated when Rifkin's stale idiocies are presented as fresh advances in human thought. I can sympathize with Doug's irritation. Rifkin adds nothing to the discussion other than a popularizing zeal and a slick presentation. Rifkin is especially good at mining the painstaking work of scholars and taking -- or at least getting -- credit for the ideas. If you haven't seen Rifkin perform in the flesh, I suggest you rent the video, "The Road to Wellsville" starring Anthony Hopkins as Dr. John Kellogg -- it's about as close a portrayal as you can get. But there is a danger in attacking Rifkin and his "stale idiocies" because Rifkin mixes those stale idiocies with some of the most important strategic issues of the day. The popular expression is "throwing out the baby with the bath water." It's important to learn to separate the baby from the bath water. Rifkin's best selling book is the only contact that many people have with arguments about the effects of technology on labour markets, the shallowness of the "high-tech, high-skills future" fantasy, the increasing polarization of the work force, etc. To simply dismiss all of Rifkin as stale idiocy is to risk re-inforcing the claims of the neo-liberals that the capitalist free market is sorting things out just fine and dandy, thank you very much. The point is that Rifkin has found a way to appeal to a broad audience that the more analytically sound left has been unable to find. I would like to ask, "what makes Rifkin's argument seem plausible to so many people?" rather than denounce his arguments wholesale as stale idiocy. While we're on the topic of stale idiocy, I'd like to bring up two other phrases that lead us around in circles, "bourgeois ideology" and "false consciousness". It has been the everlasting conceit of leftists that one could build a mass audience through the polemical trick of demonstrating that anyone who cared to listen was deluded in thinking what they did think and the truth -- or at least the correct analysis -- was elsewhere. This has been extremely effective, yes, in attracting a smattering of intellectual masochists. Is it really more important to be aloof than to be effective? Or is it possible to combine political integrity with rhetorical appeal? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7705] Re: Rifkin
Max Sawicky wrote, I guess the most galling thing is the contrast between the media attention he soaks up and the lack of tangible political impact. This isn't simply a matter of 'just' writing books. If I see someone like Noam Chomsky get quoted on some issue, I get the feeling a political statement has been made. To try to be a little more specific, a political statement entails attaching some kind of analysis to an identification of friends, enemies, and some type of appropriate response, even vaguely described... Is this to suggest, then, that lack of tangible political impact is O.K., as long as one doesn't attract media attention? A kind of media asceticism? The _political_ success of the Christian Right has been attributed by at least one commentator (Phil Agre, a communications prof at UCSD) to their success at addressing deeply felt _cultural_ issues that shape the terrain upon which political statements can be made. Whether or not you like what the Christian Right has to say, it's hard to argue with their success. And it's a cop out to say "It's easy for them. They have all the money and they pander to prejudice and ignorance." I'm not sure that "making a political statement" is the same thing as preparing the ground within which a political statement can take root and grow. Therefore, I'm not eager to dismiss the political efficacy of "non-political" statements. I've got better things to do than to try to figure out whether Rifkin, as a case in point, specifically contributes to, or detracts from, the ground upon which _others_ can make political statements. I have heard -- from the horse's mouth (if I may call poor Jeremy a horse) -- that he is more interested in opening up the discussion about work than in being proven "right" in the final analysis. That's what he says, anyway. It seems to me (IMHO) that a discussion about work can be an inherently more political discussion than, say, a discussion about hairstyles or fly fishing. And maybe -- just maybe -- that discussion can be more successfully launched with a bit of gosh and golly techno-determinism than with an intellectually and politically rigourous discussion of the modes and relations of production in this or that historically specific regulatory regime of accumulation, or whatever (if you see what I mean). All I'm trying to say is: political efficacy = factual accuracy + analytical rigour, NOT. Ah, maybe I've watched _Music Man_ too many times and am starting to believe that line about "You got trouble, right here in River City..." Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7879] Who is Robert Clark?
I've just read a monograph titled _Adjusting Hours to Increase Jobs_, by Robert Clark, published in September 1977 by the (US) National Commission for Manpower Policy. Clark's central analysis was that US government tax policy over the preceeding 50 years created a significant bias toward overtime and against employment and he made some recommendations for ameliorating that bias, namely tax credits to be applied against payroll taxes for new hires and reassessment of the tax exempt status of employer payed fringe benefits. I need two pieces of information: Who is Robert Clark? and whatever became of his policy recommendations? I suspect that Robert Clark may be Robert L. Clark, an economist at North Carolina State University. In 1975, Robert Clark co-authored a book with Juanita Kreps, who subsequently went on to become Commerce Secretary in the Carter Administration. Any leads will be appreciated. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7804] Re: Krugman
Rakesh Bhandari wrote, Confronted with the problem of wages not keeping up with productivity, Lawrence attempts to reconceptualize the data. First, he says we should look at real hourly compensation in the business sector, instead of real average hourly earnings; the former has increased by almost 9%, while the latter has decreased by 15% between 1973 and 1994. Why? This category "real compensation" includes supervisory workers and it includes "fringe benefits" which are doubtless enjoyed disproportionately by supervisory workers. Isn't Lawrence merely using data which will mask the exploitation and oppression of the proletariat? If Lawrence says we should look at real hourly compensation *instead of* real average hourly earnings, then the data may indeed mask exploitation (I'm not sure that either data series says much about oppression). But if he says that we can better understand what is happening to hourly earnings if we _also_ look at hourly compensation, then I agree with him (I'll have to read his book to find out). My research suggests that "benefits" have a rather perverse and pernicious effect on employment and on earnings inequality. In other words, there seems to be a causal relationship between the 9% increase in real compensation and the 15% decrease in wages -- and not just in terms of skyrocketing executive salaries. This is because most benefits are paid by employers as fixed or quasi-fixed costs, which makes high-priced labour relatively less expensive than low-priced labour. I raised an aspect of this issue a few days ago on Pen-l in my message on "the ninth hour" and have only received one, off-list, reply. So I'm wondering whether progressive economists are particularly interested in the dynamics of labour income inequality -- and how those dynamics *in turn* affect the relationship between labour and capital -- or if the assumption is that labour and capital are hermetically sealed compartments. I'm with Bacon on the spider, ant and bee question. Or, to paraphrase Larry Summers (and thus put at risk my appointment to the CEA;-): "I think the economic logic of paying even lower wages to low wage earners is impeccable and we should face up to that... Poor people are vastly over compensated." (do I really have to put in a disclaimer for irony?) Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:7767] The ninth hour
I am writing a research funding proposal (due Dec. 16) and would welcome any suggestions on the analysis presented below. I'm particularly interested in hearing of any work that has been or is being done along similar lines. According to my rough calculations, using the B.C. pulp and paper industry as a case in point, the "ninth hour" of a hypothetical "annual working day" costs employers about 7.6% less than the "first hour", in spite of the legal requirement for overtime pay at time and a half. At an industry standard hourly rate of $23.50, the total cost to employers (including payroll taxes, benefit premiums and allowance for paid time off) is $36.60 for the ninth hour compared with $39.40 for the first hour. This is because most of the non-wage labour costs are loaded on the standard eight hour day and some are loaded on the first six or so hours of the day. The obvious implication of such a relationship is that employers will favour overtime over creating new employment because it is cheaper -- even at time and a half. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, U.S. Rep. John Conyers had a proposal to increase the overtime premium to double time as a way of offsetting the effects of non-wage labour costs. The argument against such a proposal was that it would actually lower total employment because the higher labour costs will result in loss of demand and the substitution of capital for labour. Similarly, proposals for shortening the workweek run into a cost wall. And this is not simply a question of "shorter hours at no loss in pay". When I recalculate the employer costs assuming a 32 hour week instead of a 40 hour week and assuming the same structure and level of benefits and payroll taxes, and keeping the hourly base rate constant, the cost of the first hour jumps to $42.25, while the cost of the first overtime hour (the "seventh hour" of a hypothetical annual working day) remains at about $36.70. In other words, the employer cost of the first overtime hour would become 15% less than the cost for the first reuglar hour (again because of loading of fixed and quasi-fixed non-wage labour costs on the regular hours). The perverse result of a legislated reduction in the standard workweek thus could be that average weekly hours worked would remain about the same and the average amount of overtime would increase by around 8 hours a week -- although scale and substitution effects should again lead to a _total_ reduction in hours worked, thus increasing, rather than decreasing, unemployment. The relationship between overtime costs and straight time costs is counter-intuitive and clearly contradicts the intent of employment standards legislation. The solution to the problem is, in theory, extremely simple: distribute non-wage labour cost proportionately over the working day. In practice, however, this would require that many well-established assumptions of social security finance, employment standards regulation and collective bargaining strategy would have to be reviewed for their effects on working hours, total employment and employment equity. It would be reckless to underestimate the intensity of political resistance to pro-rating non-wage labour costs over the entire working day, including all overtime hours. I suspect that many people would refuse to even look at the calculation that clearly shows that "one and one half" is less than "one". But I think this approach solves the dilemma of why the momentum for the reduction of the working time has been stalled since the end of world war two and, for many people, *reversed* in recent decades. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8188] The Undertime Tax (2/2)
In my previous message I explained what I mean by the "undertime tax". In this second message, I will explore the effects that removing the undertime tax could have on unemployment in Canada. In an article titled "Working Less and Enjoying it More" (Family Security in Insecure Times, Canadian Council on Social Development, 1996), Frank Reid discusses the job creation potential of voluntary work time reductions. His estimates are based on a survey of employee attitudes toward work reductions conducted by Statistics Canada in 1985. How closely those 12 year old attitudes reflect current realities is a moot point, since what Reid is highlighting is a possible direction, not a precise calculation. Leaping past all the calculations and qualifications, Reid suggests that voluntary work time reduction alone could reduce unemployment in Canada by 3-4%. This figure refers to voluntary reductions of REGULAR work times. A further reduction in unemployment could be accomplished by reducing the amount of regularly scheduled overtime, that is by reducing overtime that is not a response to production disequilibria or to emergencies. The Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work estimated in 1994 that if one-half of the _paid_ overtime were converted to new jobs, it could mean an additional 80,000 full time jobs, (or a reduction in unemployment of about half a percent). Adding the two figures gives an estimate of a three and a half to four and a half percent reduction in unemployment. The estimate of three and a half to four and a half percent included quite a few conservative adjustments and it doesn't include any estimate of multipliers based on the increased employment. Some might argue that multipliers would be inappropriate because we are talking about the redistribution of existing work rather than new economic activity. Let's not quibble about the fine points -- using only the base estimates, we're looking at potential full-time job creation of 560,000 to 720,000 people in Canada. Finance Minister Paul Martin boasts about an employment increase of 671,000 jobs (not all of which are full time) since the end of 1993. Being an Aristotlean, I am well aware of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. I won't claim that removing the undertime tax (and in the process restoring the effectiveness of overtime premiums) is sufficient to realize the full potential of the 560,000 to 720,000 estimated full-time jobs that could be converted from overtime and voluntary work time reductions. But it IS a necessary condition. Those 560,000 to 720,000 jobs are dead in the water as long as the government insists on nurturing the long hours bias of public policy. It would seem that the government would need a very compelling reason to turn away from the job creation potential outlined above. On the contrary, correspondence I have from senior government officials suggests an eagerness to clutch at pretext, no matter how feeble, to avoid considering the above analysis. As an example, I have correspondence from an assistant deputy minister making the outrageous statement that the structure of employment insurance contributions could not act as an incentive to employers to use overtime "until late in the year, after the employee had exceeded the $39,000 annual maximum insurable earnings". As the instructor of an introductory course in project management, I have news for the assistant deputy minister: business people are routinely advised to ANTICIPATE costs and plan for ways to avoid them. In the case where a permanent, full-time employee earns over $18.75 an hour, ANY additional earnings will raise the employee's total annual income above the $39,000 ceiling and thus can be viewed either as being exempt from employment insurance contributions or as advancing the date after which subsequent income will be exempt. From the employer's perspective, the only difference would be uncertainty about unexpected terminations (quits, deathes, layoffs). But since the employer is concerned a calculation of the total payroll -- not each individual employee -- even such uncertainties can be accounted for with relative ease. To review my argument: There is a substantial public policy bias against reducing work time and that bias can be shown by the calculation of the undertime tax, which is often larger than its opposite, the overtime premium. Removal of the policy bias against reducing work time _could_ result in the creation of an estimated 560,000 to 720,000 full-time jobs. But at any rate, failure to remove the policy bias ensures that those jobs won't be created. Government officials seem willing to clutch the feeblest pretext to avoid even considering the job creation potential of a serious policy to enable the voluntary reduction of work time (or, the job killing record of current policy). Regards, Tom Walker ^^
[PEN-L:8187] The Undertime Tax (1/2)
In this first of two messages, I will explain what I mean by the "undertime
tax". In the second message, I will explore the effects that removing the
undertime tax could have on unemployment in Canada.
Everyone's heard of "overtime premiums" -- such as the widespread provisions
for time and a half payment for work in excess of eight hours a day or forty
hours a week. How many people are aware of the undertime taxes, which are in
some cases higher than "time and a half"?
Overtime premiums are considered by economists to be a kind of tax, the
proceeds of which go to the employer rather than to the government. The
rationale for overtime premiums goes as follows: overtime work has external
social costs in that it contributes to higher unemployment; and the marginal
utility of an extra hour of work (at regular pay) to a full time employee is
frequently less than the value of an hour of leisure but workers often have
little power to refuse overtime work; therefore an overtime premium works
both to discourage socially undesirable overtime and to compensate the
employee in the event that overtime is necessary.
Using a standard collective agreement from the B.C. forest industry for an
example, I calculate the _effective_ overtime rate to be around 16%, not the
nominal 50% of employment standards legislation and collective agreements.
This is because of the effect of fixed labour costs such as payroll taxes,
many fringe benefits and certain kinds of paid time off (i.e., statutory
holidays but not annual vacation pay).
Using the same contract as a reference point, I calculate _UNDERTIME
PREMIUMS_ as ranging from 18% an hour for a one hour reduction in the
standard work week, to 21% an hour for a ten hour reduction in the work
week. Admittedly, however, this is a bit of a phantom calculation because it
spreads the added labour costs of a higher per hour average over a span of
"hours not worked". A more concrete calculation would spread the additional
cost over hours actually worked, but would be less intuitively comparable
with the more familiar overtime premium.
To do a calculation that is both concrete and intuitively comparable, I
calculate the cost of 480 hours of a 48 hour "overtime week"(10 employees);
a 32 hour, 5 day "undertime week"(15 employees); and compare the "overtime
week" and the "undertime week" with the standard week (12 employees):
Standard week =$17603.34
Overtime week =$18057.69
Undertime week = $18347.18 (the cost for the undertime week would be
$18283.23 if we assumed a four-day week)
To be mathematically scrupulous in our calculations, we should note that in
our example, an eight hour _reduction_ in the work week creates 120 hours of
"undertime" (that then have to be made up by the hiring of three new
workers) compared with the 80 hours of overtime created by an eight hour
increase in the work week. This makes the per hour undertime premium just
slightly higher than the per hour overtime premium, or, in the case of a
four day week, the undertime and overtime premiums are almost identical. But
it should be remembered that the undertime premium applies to 50% more hours.
In short, it is cheaper to increase the length of the work week than to
decrease it. The above calculation doesn't include the extra hiring and
training costs of enlarging a company's work force. It also assumes a
constant demand for labour at the varying hourly costs.
But here is the important point: the overtime and undertime premiums shown
above include only those elements of labour cost that are the direct or
indirect result of government tax policy or employment standards regulation.
The undertime premium does not express any feature of labour market supply
or demand -- it is entirely a creature of public policy.
Despite any claims to the contrary that Finance Minister Paul Martin may
make ("Neither the Bank of Canada nor the government has 'chosen' to keep
the unemployment rate at a high level."), official government policy in
Canada is to maintain high rates of unemployment by restricting the
shortening of work time.
I have written the prototype for a computer program that clearly and vividly
shows the effects of the undertime premium and I am in the process of
revising it so that it will be flexible enough to do the calculations for
any given combination of payroll taxes, fringe benefits and work schedules.
Expressions of interest are welcome.
In my next message, I will discuss estimates of the job creation potential
of voluntarily reducing work time.
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^
knoW Ware Communications |
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate."
(604) 669-3286|
^^
The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8267] Multiple Choice Quiz
1. Jack works 40 hours a week at a union job, where he earns a wage of $25 an hour and receives a package of fringe benefits (including paid time off) worth a total of $12 an hour. If Jack works two hour a week overtime, at time and a half, what is the approximate *ratio* of his net (after tax) pay and benefits per hour of overtime to his regular hourly net pay and benefits? a.) $37.50 b.) 150% c.) 75% d.) 100% Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8414] Re: more insecurity
Jim Devine wrote, BTW, Tom's point about how Doug's trends work when disaggregate is a good one. If I had the stats, I'd like to know the how the experience with unemployment spells has changed holding age, gender, race, industry mix, etc. constant. What do the Canadian stats say, Tom? The following doesn't directly answer Jim's question, but is suggestive in that at the bottom end of the earnings distribution, the decline of annual hours reflects mostly an increase in the incidence and duration of unemployment and only a modest shift to part-time and temporary work. At the top end of the earnings distribution the increase in annual hours reflects a dramatic increase in the weekly hours of more highly paid workers. I cite the Morisette article because it is available on the internet from the statscan site: http://www.statcan.ca/Documents/English/Vlib/Research/ana80.htm Why Has Inequality in Weekly Earnings Increased in Canada? by René Morissette No. 80: "Inequality in weekly earnings increased in the eighties in Canada. The growth in inequality occurred in conjunction with three facts. First, real hourly wages of young workers dropped more than 10%. Second, the percentage of employees working 35-40 hours per week in their main job fell and the fraction of employees working 50 hours or more per week rose. Third, there was a growing tendency for highly paid workers to work long workweeks. We argue that any set of explanations of the increase in weekly earnings inequality must reconcile these three facts. Sectoral changes in the distribution of employment by industry and union status explain roughly 30% of the rise in inequality. The reduction in real minimum wages and the decline of average firm size explain very little of the growth in age-earnings differentials. Skill-biased technological change could have increased both the dispersion of hourly wages and the dispersion of weekly hours of work and thus, is consistent a priori with the movements observed. Yet other factors may have played an equally important - if not more important -role. The growth in competitive pressures, possible shifts in the bargaining power (between firms and labour) towards firms, the greater locational mobility of firms, the increase in Canada’s openness to international trade, the rise in fixed costs of labour and possibly in training costs may be major factors behind the growth in weekly earnings inequality in Canada." Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8472] Re: Is this a consensus?
Max Sawicky asked (about NAIRU), That's seems like a pretty bold prediction. What makes you say it? I don't want to quarrel with Jim Devine's useful discussion of the distinction between NAIRU and NRU. Somewhere, buried in this mountain of scraps of paper with notes on them I've got a reference to an article that catalogued the various species of NAIRU. As I recall there is not a single NAIRU theory but six vague and incomplete versions, each borrowing haphazardly parts from some of the others to fill in its own gaps and inconsistencies. Maybe there's as many versions of NRU. I think it was Nietszche who used the expression, "mobile army of metaphors". As a metaphysical concept, I've got no more problem with NAIRU than I do with angels dancing on the heads of pins. It's as a guide to policy that I predict the rats will soon desert the NAIRU ship -- and it won't be for technical or theoretical reasons. I've got a deadline that I'm working to on another issue, so I can't go into a detailed analysis of my speculation on NAIRU, other than to say that NAIRU ruled only so long as it seemed to underpin a pragmatic policy direction (TINA) that business and governments were already inclined to follow for political, not economic, reasons. It wasn't the theory (theories) that drove the policies, but the policies that sought out the theory for self-justification. Jerry Levy will no doubt be amazed at how quickly the ideologues will start singing another tune when the bandwagon starts rolling in the other direction. Remember what happened in the so-called East Bloc a decade ago? Repeat over and over to yourself: "It can't happen here. It can't happen here." Feel better? BUT, don't ask what direction the bandwagon is going to start rolling in or what the new tune is going to be. All I know is the old one's come to it's last refrain. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8455] Re: Is this a consensus?
Sid Shniad quoted, "Karl Marx argued that capitalism needs a 'reserve army' of unemployed labor to restrain wage demands and safeguard profits. Most economic policy makers still think the same way, but recent experience in the U.S. and Britain suggests the army might need fewer troops than it used to." And Doug Henwood replied, Yes, I'd say this is the ruling class consensus now. Yeah, but. Stay tuned for "The End of NAIRU," coming soon to a listserv near you. Two years from now you won't be able to find an economist anywhere who will admit to having believed in the 'natural rate of unemployment'. Print this prediction and paste it on your monitor, if it doesn't come true, send me the paper and I'll eat it. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9471] Weird
While sifting through some of the rumours swirling around the Bre-X fiasco, I came across some fascinating muckraking regarding Freeport McMoRan, the Louisiana-based company brought in to develop the Bre-x find. There now appear to be two equally bizarre possibilities: 1. the Bre-x discovery was a fraud or 2. the collapse of the Bre-x bubble was a brazen armed robbery of gargantuan proportions. Of course, it could all just be a big misunderstanding ;-) Check out this web site: http://www.webcom.com/lpease/pr596-fp.html if you're not completely allergic to conspiracy theorists. The page contains the second part of a two part story about Freeport McMoRan, the CIA, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the JFK assassination, the 1965 coup and bloodbath in Indonesia, Henry Kissinger, the invasion of East Timor, etc. etc. To put it mildly, the article suggests that Freeport McMoRan has been at the centre of some very, very nasty business. See also a message from Pratap Chatterjee to NATIVE-L (December 1995): INDONESIA: US mining giant implicated in Indonesian atrocities: http://bioc09.uthscsa.edu/natnet/archive/nl/9512/0135.html And here's a few more web pages that offer a taste of how this "corporate citizen" operates. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/boyer/fp/official-fcm-minutes.html http://www.auschron.com/issues/vol14/issue40/slusher.40.html http://www.auschron.com/issues/vol15/issue11/pols.cunningham.html http://www.cedar.univie.ac.at/arch/infoterra/96mar/msg5.html Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9482] Re: Weird and weirder
Further on the Bre-X saga, apparently CBC newsworld is producing a show on conspiracy theories related to Bre-X (see fwd message, below). A few facts emerge: 1. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Suharto regime has replaced a top mining official but denies that it has anything to do with the Busang gold controversy 2. Bobby Hasan, Suharto's point man in the Busang gold deal is reported by the Calgary Sun to have arranged a half billion dollar loan with a Hong Kong Bank to purchase Bre-X stock. 3. "The Helms-Burton law has provisions under which Sherritt can be sued in the U.S. by the company that once owned the Moa nickel mine, Freeport McMoRan Inc. "The U.S. company is the same firm that has a 15 per cent stake in the Busang gold deposit in Borneo staked out by Bre-X Minerals Ltd." Hi .. My name is Steve Knifton .. producer of the CBC newsworld network program Benmergui Live .. this is short notice, but here goes: I'm producing a program tomorrow, Tuesday april 15th on the conspiracy theory industry. I'm interested in hearing, by phone or email, from people with an interest in this area ... i'm particularly interested in trying to reach people with theories about the Bre-X imbroglio .. conspiratorial or not .. . plse email or call me ASAP .. 416 205-2220 ... leave a message with voice mail if i don't answer .. thanks ... steve k. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9413] Where's the beef?
Max Sawicky summed up the basic argument, qua social democracy as, The issue isn't whether I or anyone else "likes" social democracy... The issue is how good stuff happens and how shit happens. And Jim Devine replied, The basic argument here is whether [A] positive social change happens because grassroots agitation ... or [B] whether such agitation bolsters or fuels the political initiatives of ... social-democrats who hold public office, staff the public sector, work in the media, or do advocacy. I'm afraid both sides beg the question of what is "good stuff" and/or "positive social change" and focus on the secondary issue of how it happens. In some ways, this relates back to the discussion of utopianism and the aphorism (Yogi Berra?) that if you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter how fast you're travelling. I'm reminded of Betty Friedan's chapter title hook, "the problem that has no name". Do we really, really all know more or less what we mean when we say progressive social change? Is it more or less our present lives with a few of the discomforts and dangers eliminated? Or is it something completely different? BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1997 Job pressure is driving many workers to perform unethical or illegal activities in the workplace, according to a survey released by the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters Chartered Financial Consultants. Nearly half (48 percent) of the 1,324 responding workers said they had committed one or more unethical or illegal acts in the past year because of job pressure, according to the survey ...Balancing work and family was the leading cause of pressure cited by respondents (52 percent), followed by poor internal communication, work hours/work load, and poor leadership. Unethical actions employees admitted to included "cutting corners on quality control" (cited by 16 percent of respondents, covering up incidents, abusing or lying about sick days, lying to or deceiving customers, etc. ...(Daily Labor Report, page A-4). Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9399] Re: The discussion about social democracy
Elaine Bernard wrote, But we need to ROAR in the streets too! "Let's boogie!" (a private joke for BCers) Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9384] Re: help on readings on socio-economics?
I second Max Sawicky's suggestion, Or you could ask some progressive sociologists with knowledge of economics for directions, such as Fred Block. Block discusses his approach to "economic sociology" in the intro to his _Postindustrial Possibilities: a Critique of Economic Discourse_ (1990, University of California Press) Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8963] Re: Canada and Cuba
Bill, Congratulations on completing your comprehensives! Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8943] Re: Marilyn Waring
It's ironic that Bill Cochrane should answer my charge of sarcasm with an antipodean satire. Never again will I make the mistake of taking anything 'New Yawk' Doug Henwood says at face value, dwelling as he does at the epicenter of dissimulation (according to the verita-geography of sheep-pasture Bill's reliable sources). But, getting back to Marilyn Waring's canonization, there are two issues here. One is Waring's critique of the GDP as glorification of exchange transactions. The other is Waring's personal and political character. I haven't seen the video (produced by the National Film Board of Canada), but I've heard that it leans heavily on fabricating a persona for Ms. Waring, at the expense of her critique. In that context, I agree that Bill's debunking is appropriate, or *would be* appropriate if only Bill would supply for instances instead of the kind of broad brush allusions to 'tory scum', 'her ilk' and 'fucking over the people'. I have read the book (several years ago) and it seems to me that it presented a well-reasoned and accessible critique of the glorification of GDP. It's fair to say that a critique of GDP should be nothing new to marxists, since it was embedded in marxian categories nearly a century before the GDP was even invented. But even marxists may be tempted into playing 'we can beat you at your own GDP' game, or as Nikita Kruschev once put it, "we will bury you." We all know what happened to the USSR. And there are many paths to wisdom, some of which don't set out from chapter one of Das Kapital. Perhaps a more useful way of looking at Waring's reception as a 'progressive', would be to think about the very narrow space that exists for any political/economic analysis or dissent in North America. Into such a vacuum, even a fart may come as a breath of fresh air (if you'll pardon my crudity). Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8933] Re: Marilyn Waring
Perhaps Bill Cochrane was just being sarcastic, but I don't recall seeing anyone nominate Marilyn Waring for sainthood or minor deity status. In my view, being a tory is no disqualification for having something sensible to say. Nor is being "no friend of unions or . . . other traditional left progressive organizations (OTLPOs)" an unforgivable sin. Unions and OTLPOs have often been hostile to environmental issues, 'women's' issues, and racial equality issues. Unions have often been hostile to the 'left'. For that matter, TLPOs are often hostile to OTLPOs. Unions and OTLPOs have traditionally gone along with a capitalist GDP growth model, disputing only the ultimate division of the spoils. Sometimes it takes a tory to say something sensible that 'even' the left refuses to acknowledge. In the 1970s North American left there was a lot of anxiety about 'ideological purity'. Sectlet competed with sectlet for mastery of a 'correct analysis.' Of course, some of the big wigs of some of the most rigourously pure sectlets went on to academic careers and had 'second thoughts' about their youthful radicalism, joining the already considerable ranks of ex-marxist neo-cons. This alone should serve as sufficient warning against the tenuousness of using ancestoral *ad hominem* as a criteria for dismissing or embracing ideas. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8903] New SSA in place?
Blair Sandler wrote, . . . the WSJ today opined that a new global social structure of accumulation (they don't use that term, of course) is in place for a sustained period of high growth rates it several times refers to as a "new golden age." snip So,... aren't you all just *thrilled* by the good news...? Personally, I plan to put my life savings into mutual funds so I can take advantage of the coming good times. As far as I can tell, there's only one fly in the WSJ golden age ointment: like Heartfield's Hitler, the new, super capitalism "schluckt Gold und redet Blech". Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8845] Overworked and Underemployed
Barry Bluestone and Stephen Rose's article, "Unraveling an Economic Enigma: Overworked and Underemployed", in the March-April issue of American Prospect, is available online at: http://epn.org/prospect/31/31bluefs.html The copyright notice permits re-transmission of the article in its entirety. But because the file is about 45k, I won't send it out to the list. Just a teaser paragraph: "Based on a new analysis of the data, we have found that Americans are indeed working longer than they once did, if not quite as much as Schor would have us believe. But, more importantly, we have also found that many Americans are both overworked and underemployed. Because of growing job instability, workers face a "feast and famine" cycle: They work as much as they can when work is available to compensate for short workweeks, temporary layoffs, or permanent job loss that may follow. What's more, while American families as a whole are putting in more time, that work isn't producing significant increases in living standards. For the typical two-breadwinner household, having both parents work longer hours may not mean an extra trip to Disney World or nicer clothes for school; more likely, it means keeping up car payments or just covering the costs of food and housing." Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8561] Re: Nairu,etc.
Paul Phillips wrote,
...[NAIRU, vertical phillips curve...] means you can not reduce
unemployment through macro policy without first changing the
institutions (destroying unions, capping wages, reducing minimum
wages, UI payments, deregulating labour markets, etc., all the
elements of the neo-con agenda.)
...
... the rate of inflation acceptable to the capos which
is also compable with the minimum rate of profits acceptable to the
capos...
At the risk of blowing the discussion wide open, I have to challenge Paul's
one-sided listing of anti-working class institutional changes ("destroying
unions, capping wages," etc.) as if change were all bad. Strategically, the
heaviest burden for the left for the last 25 years has been the defence of
welfare state institutions, which, at best, were poorly designed and
unresponsive or, at worst, were actually intended to contain social unrest
and channel it away from political action (in which case they were not so
poorly designed, after all).
I've been called everything from a laissez-faire libertarian to a frothing
at the mouth right-winger for suggesting that some of those welfare state
institutions may not be worth defending at all. In fact, I maintain that it
is in the best interest of working people to dismantle some aspects of the
welfare state that are downright regressive. My advocacy is not based on a
hare-brained strategy to "make things worse so the masses will revolt" but
on an analysis of the political trade-offs contained in specific welfare
state policies.
Similarly, I think we miss a lot of the complexity if we insist that ruling
class policy goals are concerned _solely_ or even predominantly with
ensuring profits. Maintaining political hegemony is also high on the agenda
for the "capos" and that isn't always compatible with the most direct route
to profitability. Contra Mao and Chomsky, I'd have to argue (with Gramsci
Aristotle) that political power comes neither from the barrel of a gun nor
from the ownership of the media. Persuasion still has something to do with it.
What the neo-liberals (I prefer this term to neo-con) have succeeded in
doing with their NAIRUs and their 'deregulation' is seize the platform as
proponents of a _possible_ future. They have only been able to monopolize
this stance because the left(s) have vacillated between being defenders of a
(illusory) comfortable recent past and advocates of an unlikely, apocalytic
vision.
Frankly, all of us, right and left, are a lot more bureaucratic and
conformist than any of us would care to admit. Thrust into political power,
we invariably peek into the file cabinets to see "how it's always been done."
To get back to Paul's comment about not being able to exercise "macro policy
without first changing the institutions" -- it's true in the most
fundamental sense. There is no macro policy exogenous to the institutions
that exercise it and on which it is exercised. The dispute between right and
left should not be about WHETHER to change institutions but about HOW to
change institutions.
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^
knoW Ware Communications |
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate."
(604) 669-3286|
^^
The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8609] Re:World Banquet
doug henwood wrote, I see my dear friend David Korten is keeping up with the latest developments. Conable, not Constable, left the WB presidency something like five years ago. He was succeeded by Lewis Preston, who has since died, and then by James Wolfensohn, who is very much alive, and a walking example of the bourgeoisie at its cleverest. I wouldn't jump to blame Korten for the anachronism and the name error. The message after all was a citation of a citation. The source may well have referred to an event over five years old. That's a problem with the "immediacy of the internet" -- old news can get recycled for ever. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8637] Re: market socialism, planned socialism
Max Sawicky replied to my comments, and asked several questions (rhetorically, perhaps?), Perhaps because your erudition shields you from the ordinary concerns, values, and habits of most people? Maybe you need to phone home. Many apologies for my erudition. But I am already _at home_ in the "ordinary concerns, values, and habits of most people". No need to phone. What I am questioning is the way those ordinary concerns, values and habits are articulated. I won't argue with Max's "one in twenty" estimate of the proportion of people who would see "the quest for income" as odd. Far less than one in twenty would see commodity production as odd. Probably no more than one in twenty "marxian economists" would see commodity production as odd. That doesn't mean it's _not_ odd. All's I'm saying is that we need to look beyond the taken for granted view. And what's your time horizon for "new-fangled"? Since the death of Christ? Mid 19th century for capitalist work discipline (see E.P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism"). 1920s for consumer orientation (See Benjamin Hunnicutt, _Work without End_). But I guess from the perspective of a timeless present, a hundred years or two might as well be eternity. Are we talking rice-and-bean communes here? Is that the plan for economic renewal? I've got nothing against rice or beans. My guess is more people subsist on those two staples than do on brie-and-chardonnay. "The plan for economic renewal" may be a little over ambitious for this one small guy. I'll settle for elements of a strategy, and I outline some of these at: http://mindlink.net/knowware/timework.htm But Jeez, a guy could get whiplash being thrown back and forth between "excess erudition" and "rice-and-beans communes." Then we should all renounce economics and take up anthropology. Maybe the world would be a better place. Maybe the world would be a better place if *economists* would stop renouncing the insights of other disciplines, such as anthropology. Perhaps "renounce" is too strong a word for a refusal to even acknowledge that other ways of knowing may bear on the issues that economics seeks to treat. What would it matter if we weren't [descended from Robinson Crusoe]? For one thing, maybe Friday could get a day off every now and then. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8672] Re: market socialism, planned socialism
Michael Perelman wrote, Funny that Doug and Harry both remarked on the strangeness of capitalism. I am discussing that subject just now in my latest project. I am off to the library to look at Polanyi's "Aristotle disovers the economy" again. BUT, lest we get carried away with only the _strangeness_ of capitalism, there is the infamous other side: it works. It doesn't achieve a just distribution of wealth, but it does sustain a remarkable generation and accumulation of wealth, technological innovation etc., etc.. And it works only up to a point (crisis tendencies). My point in mentioning potlatch (besides a bit of local B.C. boosterism) was that it is another example of a cultural institution that was apparently very successful in underpinning a remarkable generation and accumulation of wealth, although the "rationality" of the potlatch isn't obvious to a Euro-centric view. In fact, the potlatch was outlawed by the British colonists. It would be easy to think of this prohibition as a mean-spirited repressive thing done just for the sake of crushing a people's culture. But the Brits probably thought they were "protecting" the aboriginals from their destructive and wasteful ways -- "saving them from themselves." If we think of markets as cultural institutions, then there are issues at stake other than rationalizing the production and distribution of use values. I'll just mention the issue of motivation as one that regularly stumps the advocates of central planning -- and, no, the answer isn't "indoctrination." It may be useful, here, to think again about Max Sawicky's "quest for income" remark with the qualification that we needn't see such a quest as rational behaviour, nor see the outcome of the quest as having much to do with innate ability, application or even luck. In many cases, the "outcome" may be predetermined and the "quest" an entirely ritual activity carried out to legitimize the predetermined order of things. Still bothering me in the "market socialism/planned socialism" dichotomy is a little demon I'll call by the code name of the teleology of reason. Isn't Hegel standing on his head _still_ Hegel? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8700] Re: market socialism, socialist fun
Michael wrote, Besides, markets are not a lot of fun. and Blair wrote, Am I just wrong, perhaps overly romanticizing, if I suggest that markets can be fun when they are highly contextualized, a small part of an extensive network of non-market relations? As Doug Henwood might say, "fun" is hardly a transparent category.;-) Seriously, though, this is important. Given the choice between a guaranteed subsistence on the sole condition that I be bored stiff for the rest of my life and a precarious existence with the potential for excitement, fun, variety, and the unexpected, I know I'd choose the latter. Maybe that makes me a petty bourgeois hedonist. The problem is: late, late capitalism offers a precarious, boring existence for some and guaranteed, simulated fun for others. The task for socialists is not to work everything out so that the economy runs as a perfectly functional machine. The task for socialists is to show that autonomy is more fun than wage slavery. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8996] Re: EPI Issue Brief, PDF Format (31K)
Max Sawicky wrote, If there is any objection to my posting this to this list, please let me know and I will of course comply with the rules of the group. Max, I look forward to reading the EPI issue brief, but I would suggest that large files such as this be made available -on request- from the EPI web site. Two reasons - 1. some subscribers have to pay by volume, have slow download times and may not be able to run the software to read the brief once they get it; 2. although many of us may be interested in an EPI brief on work and welfare, few of us would be interested in receiving a large file documenting, say, 'the history of polemical struggles on the marxism list.' I suggest we should have a standing rule of "no attachments" for posts to pen-l. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9027] Re: Socialist Scholars Conference
Karl Carlile wrote, KARL: The kind of circus event is just one more of a multiplicity of events on the circus circuit. Basically they constitute no more than a means by which many of these lefty media stars promote themselves and thereby their pocket, their status and fame. Despite the thousands of books published by the marxology industry these marxilogists they are still unable to outline the character of the modern world and the correct political course to be followed. We all know that Karl is right, but most of us probably shrug and console ourselves with a resigned "but, there is no alternative!" There is an alternative. The alternative involves exposing our personal lives and 'careers' to unacceptable risk. Like mystics, we are all able to assess the riskiness of certain utterances or actions (quite apart from their legality or physical danger) without admitting that we are even making such an assessment. "Scholarship" has been defined in North America as otherworldly, so socialism is acceptable as a legitimate topic for scholars. But compare the market for socialist scholarship with, say, the market for socialist _policy analysis_. (And, yes, this is an oblique reference to discussions of "market socialism" -- what about "markets _for_ socialism?"). One of the major, unspoken problems of the left is that when lefties succeed they do so by carving out an accommodating niche in the dominant ideology. The accommodation goes both ways. How many of us could deny that we or our colleagues routinely dismiss our own best ideas as 'unworkable'? The greatest fear? That we'll be dismissed as cranks. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9136] Re: four minor points
Max Sawicky asked, If students who pay for some type of education are not customers, what are they? Suckers? Apprentices in the process of coming to know what they know. It may sound pretentious (not to mention paradoxical), but people can't be taught anything they don't already know. In agreement with Paulo Freire and Myles Horton, I see the teacher's role as helping students to discover the value and meaning of what they already know from practical experience and to learn to reflect and build on those insights instead of feeling subservient to the pronouncements of experts. Often students do see themselves as "customers" who are paying for the commodity that they have been told is education. This so-called education requires no ethical commitment from the customer and it involves no personal transformation. A better word for it would be a "franchise in a package of cliches". The cliches are worthless but in the perverse world of inflated credentials and disdain for genuine learning they may, by sheer chance, realize a greater exchange value than any quantity of knowledge or wisdom. Usually, though, the cliches are totally depreciated by the time the student drives them out of the showroom. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9230] Gravity's Gold Mine
No, it's not a parody of the Thomas Pynchon novel . . . I'd love to hear Doug Henwood's random thoughts about the possible fall out from the Bre-X fiasco. My own guess is that there will be a massive intervention in financial markets next week by central banks and institutions in an attempt to prevent a collapse. The intervention may or may not be successful in the short run, but the medium term consequences of a successful rescue will be to create a huge overhang of unwanted paper that will continue to depress the market for the rest of the century. I want to be clear that I'm not saying that the Bre-X collapse will be the _cause_ of the panic, only the trigger. Bre-X is tiny, insignificant -- but it is emblematic of the "Dow 7000" mob hysteria. The rise and demise of Bre-X couldn't have been more "fictional" in its scripting: *bankrupt* promoter spends last $10,000 to fly to *Indonesia* (exoticism, repression, corruption) to stake his claim . . . first assay results claim the gold find of the century; political intrique and machinations (Bush, Mulruney, Suharto) in the bidding to develop the mine . . . then, when the plot turns, the chief geologist leaps out of a helicopter above the Borneo rainforest . . . trading in Bre-X is halted . . . the share price continues to plunge on the "gray market" . . . the due diligence assay results show insignificant amounts of gold . . . Can the dimensions of such a "morality tale" possibly be lost on the mutual fund mob? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9229] Bre-X-files
Virtual Juxtaposition Helicopter bungee jumping into the borneo rainforest meets "extraterrestrial biological entity" cult suicide in San Diego: coincidence or sign? Next week on the Bre-X-files: Albania annexes Wall Street Bre-X Minerals: In a news release, Bre-X Minerals Ltd. (BXMNF) said: 'It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Mike de Guzman, Bre-X's chief geologist at the Busang gold deposit, fell approximately 800 feet from a helicopter as he was returning to the mine site in East Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia. This is a tragic development, and our hearts and prayers are with Mike's family.' The company said a search and rescue team is conducting an extensive search of the area. Heaven's Gate: "In the early 1970's, two members of the Kingdom of Heaven (or what some might call two aliens from space) incarnated into two unsuspecting humans in Houston, a registered nurse and a college music professor who were in their forties. The nurse and the professor hadn't previously known each other and had completely separate lives. The registered nurse was happily married with four children, worked in the nursery of a local hospital, and enjoyed a small astrology practice. The music professor, a divorcee who had lived with a male friend for some years, was contentedly involved in cultural and academic activities. "For about a year before they met, their lives seemed to encounter severe upheaval and personal confusion, later recognized as the human body's response to the entry of the minds from what "the two" referred to as the "Next Level," or the physical level above human. About nine months after they first met, they left Houston because their lives, which were crumbling around them, made it impossible to concentrate on what was actually happening to them. .. . . (snip, snip, snip, snip) "In spite of their repeated effort to refute this explanation, all things continue to lead them to believe the following (Hold onto your hats!): "They were briefed as a crew aboard a spacecraft about how they would incarnate into human vehicles in order to do a task. They left their Kingdom "world" and came into this "world" beginning in the late 1940's. They feel that some left their Next Level bodies via so-called UFO "crashes." However, they believe that the crashes were not accidental, as they appeared to be to the humans who witnessed the remains and recovered some of the bodies. These are now in the possession of governments (one of our Government's scientists coined the term "EBE" -- extraterrestrial biological entities -- to identify these beings, also frequently referred to as "greys"). Some left their bodies behind in "cold storage," or the Next Level's wardrobe, for the duration of this task. Others were in "spirit," having not yet earned Next Level bodies since having left the human kingdom. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9141] Re: customers or suckers?
Max wrote, I always thought of education as much more impersonal than all this, as well as more substantive. Maybe I'm the misanthropic exception, but I don't think so (in this context, at least). Once again, I smell those beans simmering on the stove . . . I hope Max isn't just trying to be funny here. Because there ARE beans simmering on the stove! Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9125] Re: four minor points
Jim Devine wrote, 1. If you haven't read Jane Smiley's comic novel MOO, do so. It's got great descriptions of the economist, Dr. Guest, who thinks of students as "customers" and trains them (with evangelistic glee) to be individualistic free-riders. He loves the fact that the results fit with his a priori vision of human nature. (This fits perfectly with the studies that indicate that economics courses have this effect.) It's about a university that's suffering from massive cut-backs. Life imitates art department -- speaking of students as "customers", here's part of a memo I received from the director of a night schoool program where I teach a course: "But it must be emphasized that we work within a full cost recoverable operation and as such the needs of our customers must come first. This need to be answerable to the marketplace, as mentioned earlier, is very important to our survival. Let me reiterate that while [name of institution deleted] credit programs do receive public monies, Continuing Studies non-credit operations do not. This department is not mandated by the province and we exist only to the extent that we are able to fully recover our costs." Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:9006] Re: speaking of Hayek
Jim Devine wrote, The laws of quantum mechanics imply that Hayek couldn't have been wrong _all the time_. But I think it's bad karma to bring up Hayek on pen-l, because there are Hayekian lurkers about who will bombard us with the Truth about Hayek. Now hold on just a moment! Am I the only one in the world who thinks that Hayekianism *rigourously applied* would produce a devastating critique of the Thatcherite masquerade? Of course, no self-respecting Hayekian (least of all Hayek, himself) would *dream* of rigourously applying the critique to themselves and no one else would really *need* Hayek to unmask the transparently self-serving inconsistencies of 'neo-liberalism'. Oh well. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8729] Re: market socialism, planned socialism, ut
Max Sawicky wrote, Of course, when an asteroid exceeding about 2 mi. in diameter hits the earth, it will have paid to borrow after all, since much of the consequent interest payments will be avoided. However, if the money was borrowed to finance speculation on real estate, the capital gains will also have been wiped out! Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8670] Re: the oddities and logic of capitalism
Jerry Levy quoted everyone else and then wrote,
To say that capitalism is "odd", by itself, is not a very meaningful
statement. For Marx, the object was to discover the _logic_ of capitalism
("the economic law of motion of modern society"), rather than mere
oddities. It is easy enough to talk about "oddities" -- more difficult is
developing a systematic analysis of why what appears only to be odd
represents a necessary form of appearance of capital inherent in the
value-form.
While discussion of "oddities" is a (sometimes) amusing and interesting
pastime, the task of political economy is to penetrate beyond the veil
of both the "odd" and the "normal."
I agree entirely with Jerry's first paragraph and can only laugh at his
second. What ever could have "aroused" Jerry to such "seminal" thought?
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^
knoW Ware Communications |
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate."
(604) 669-3286|
^^
The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8633] Re: market socialism, planned socialism
Max B. Sawicky wrote: ... If we all began the quest for income from the same starting point, and the determining factors were luck, innate abilities, and industriousness, I wonder how many would favor altering the results of such a process, beyond the mundane ones of moderating the extremes or ensuring some minimum standard of living to all. Why is it that after reading just a few classics of sociology and anthropology in my wild youth (not to mention a smattering of literature), I feel like a visitor from outer space when I read Max's words or some of the other contributions to this thread. THE QUEST FOR INCOME . . . God, I hope they don't make it into a movie. (I can almost hear the sound track, now: dum-dum DUM dum, dum-dum DUM dum...;-)) Forget about luck, innate abilities and industriousness on the one hand and equality on the other hand. What about the idea that the cash nexus is a new-fangled will-o'-the-wisp, anyway? I couldn't resist dipping into a little Marcel Mauss (The Gift) before writing this to reassure myself that I hadn't dreamed it. Yes, there were (are?) people living in (shall we say) "non-capitalist" arrangements. We even may be some of them, ourselves -- simply not keeping as diligent records of our non-market exchanges as of our market exchanges. What about the suggestion that even much of what *passes* for market exchanges are ritual activities that are then given the respectible cover of market exchanges? What, then, does luck (innate abilities, industriousness, equality of opportunity or equality of outcome) have to do with it? And how much is just totem and taboo wearing a bowler hat? How come this thread doesn't address the question of "potlatch capitalism" or some other hybrid variety, instead of insisting on a false dichotomy between two versions of idealistic rationalism, market exchange and central planning? Or did the anthropologists and sociologists just make it all up and we're all really descended from Robinson Crusoe? (I left the truncated "ut" off the end of the subject line. Maybe the truncation of utopia was apt.) Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8611] Hours of Work Policy Brief
ANNOUNCEMENT: POLICY BRIEF AND PUBLIC FORUM
"Not only is the overtime premium ('time and a half') ineffective in
discouraging regularly scheduled overtime, it's now producing an effect
opposite to its intent."
The full argument is at HTTP://MINDLINK.NET/KNOWWARE/TIMEWORK.HTM
How can the 'punishment' be blamed for the 'crime'? There are two aspects to
the argument. One is that hours of work legislation containing premium pay
provisions give a false sense that hours of work *are* regulated when, in
fact, the premium pay provisions provide a blanket exception to the law and
amount to little more than a bookkeeping complication. The second is that,
over a long period, employers have moved to offset any actual cost impact
from the overtime premium by incorporating a larger component of fixed-cost
benefits into employee compensation (salaries are the limit case of
fixed-cost compensation). The long term effect of such an avoidance strategy
is to make the overtime payroll no more costly to employers than
straight-time and *often cheaper*.
The policy brief at http://mindlink.net/knowware/timework.htm contains the
full text of a paper to be presented to the Vancouver Labour Research Forum
on February 24. It also contains a 650 word executive summary that has been
submitted as an opinion piece to the weekly paper, _Business in Vancouver_.
The analysis will form part of Tom Walker's presentation to a public forum,
with author/activist Bruce O'Hara, on "Better Times: Exploring the Idea of a
Shorter Work Week" at the University of British Columbia, March 8, 1997, 10
am - 2 pm. Call UBC Continuing Studies at 822-1450 for information and
registration.
IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, PLEASE
FORWARD!
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^
knoW Ware Communications |
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate."
(604) 669-3286|
^^
The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8588] Re: child of NAIRU!
Jim Devine writes, It's better to have some idea than to have no idea at all about these questions. Do we just throw up our hands (or simply throw up?) and say that one can't say _definitely_ that unemployment in the US is lower now than it was in 1933? I agree with much of what Jim says. And I'm all for having "some idea rather than no idea at all." But, having some idea is not the same as being able to say _definitely_ that unemployment in the US is lower now than it was in 1933. My own "definite" sense that unemployment was higher in 1933 comes from the mass of anecdotal evidence, not from comparison of the U rates (and I'll bet Jim's does, too). I frankly wouldn't know where to begin to compare the differences in data collection methods, definitions of unemployment, level of participation in market vs. subsistence economy etc. No, I have to correct myself, I *would* know where to begin -- by listing all of the substantive social-historical differences I could find and then trying to find anecdotal evidence that might allow me to interpret the data in such a way that I could make a reasonably confident comparison. At the end of such a process, I might well want to present the results in a table comparing the (now highly qualified and possibly 'adjusted') "rates" of unemployment. For me, that would be more of a rhetorical practice (presenting information in a way that might be intelligible to my audience) than a scientific one. The scientific practice would involve making the distinctions between methods of data collection, etc., etc. I don't object at all to comparing "rates of unemployment" provided the numbers are embedded in a discussion of how the measurement has been arrived at and what it does and doesn't reveal. What I object to is the comparison of rates in the abstract. And, IN ABSTRACTION, there is no comparing the 1933 rate of unemployment and the 1997 one. Nor is there any comparing the 1943 labour force participation rate and that of 1997. Such comparisons are no more meaningful than would be a "literary" evaluation that simply counts the number of words in a book. As H.L. Menckin said, "Which words? In what order?" Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8569] Re: wrongful dismissals
The point of the connection with the wrongful dismissal suits and the hiring of welfare recipients was that the firms wanted to dump some existing workers for no cause, so that they could chip in an contribute to the social good by hiring welfare recipients. I kinda thought the firms wanted to hire the welfare recipients so they could turn around and fire them at the first opportunity, thus using them as an example to keep their existing work force on their toes -- sort of an employee morale boosting program. Call it "Operation Phoenix". Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8566] Re: Nairu, etc.
I agree with Paul Phillips that NAIRU/NRU makes favourable institutional change seem unacceptable. I just don't happen to believe that the ascendancy of NAIRU/NRU was inevitable and I don't believe it's now invulnerable. None of this is at all unfortunate for my position. My position is that the left hasn't really challenged NAIRU/NRU with something fundamentally different and effective. Here comes the broken record part: all this talk about inflation and wages and social wages and social safety nets goes around in circles. It is way of talking founded on the false claim that exchange relations are central to economic life. It's not necessary to accept such a dogma, nor is it particularly unheard of to explicitly reject the dogma. Marx did a credible job of rejecting it in Chapter 1 of Capital -- you know, the bit about the commodity fetish making relations between people appear as if they are relations between things. But if you want to insist that economic relations are relations between things and not people (and I'm not saying that you, Paul, are insisting any such thing), then NAIRU/NRU is probably as good a way as any to explain such a fetishized economy. (I wouldn't say for certain because I don't want to get bogged down in metaphysics). How do you move away from talking fetish about inflation, wages, supply, demand, etc.? Well, you can look at the relations of production (I'm not coining a phrase here, y'know) and the production of surplus value. Here we find, or Marx finds, an astonishing peculiarity of capitalism: that labour power is the only commodity whose use value produces value. No matter how you slice it, at this point in the analysis the focus has to shift from VALUE (which, at any rate, is always relative) to TIME which is the stuff in which life is lived OR NOT LIVED. In other words, the "class struggle" can only ever be about control over the disposal of the workers' TIME. I beg to differ with Tom Walker but not with the basic point he makes -- that there is a need to modify, change, update etc. our institutions to keep up with social and technological change. If he looks carefully at what I said,however, it was to emphasize that the verticle Phillips curve acceptance (and the causes for it) clears the way for the neo-lib agenda which, in the absenc e of alternative institutional change only serves to hurt labour for the benefit of capital. Unfortunately for Tom's position, the Nairu/NRU analysis is based on neo-lib assumptions which makes favourable institutional change outside the pall of acceptable policy solutions. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:8567] What is UNEMPLOYMENT?
Let's not be fooled by the contentiousness of the prefixes. Who can argue with the neo-liberals' "natural rate" or "non-accelerating inflation rate" of unemployment after conceding the self-evidence of the term "unemployment". And in case Doug Henwood thinks this is an attack on the stinking hyena bourgeois statistics from the BLS, it's not. It's just to say there is no way to get from those stinking hyena statistics to the qualitative differences between, say, varieties of employment and unemployment. To use a very U.S. example, is it a "good thing" that the unemployment rate is lower than it would be if so many black men were not imprisoned? Or, lets take two societies, each with 20 people in their labour forces. In one of the societies, 18 people are at work 35-40 hours a week at trades and professions and two people are receiving full pay while on temporary layoff: unemployment rate 10%. In the other society, three people are working 50-60 hours a week in trades and professions, another two are working that many hours in sweatshops, five people are working 35-40 hours a week in trades and profession, another three 35-40 hours in sweatshops, four are working 10-20 hours in convenience stores, three people work on call and their hours vary from week to week and two people have been out of work for the past two years and no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, some of the people working long hours would like to work less and some of the people working short hours would like to work more, there are also one or two people who used to be unemployed but have given up looking for work: unemployment rate 10%. "Obviously" the unemployment rate of the two societies is the "same" with or without theories relating unemployment to inflation. Of course, anyone can readily see that my second example greatly simplifies the picture of occupations and hours of work. So, what could a *RATE* of unemployment *possibly* mean, "natural" or otherwise? Compared with "the unemployment rate", measuring I.Q. is about as straight-forward as weighing a pound of butter. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10457] Re: more planning and democracy
Max Sawicky wrote, A "residue of ambiguity" would not qualify in my book as an Achilles heel for planning. Such problems proliferate under capitalism with no apparent disabling results. Agreed. That is, with "no apparent disabling results" aside from the corruptibility of institutions. Ellsberg described why this might be so -- although not in such perjorative terms. In his analysis, the heightened ambiguity of any departure from current strategy leads to an inherent conservativism of decision making even when current strategies are known to have a high risk of failure. Proverbially, this effect is referred to as "better the devil we know than the devil we don't know" or the bureaucratic (social democratic?) maxim that it is better to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally. People could mediate in a planning structure. You're driving me to the other side of this argument. I agree that people could mediate in a planning structure. It's quite possible I might be trying to drive you to the other side of this argument -- first by agreeing with you, then by pointing out an aspect of "our" mutual position that you find uncomfortable. It's my contention that neither "side" can take comfort in the mechanics of their own arguments. As I keep repeating and repeating "Only in mediocre art does life unfold as fate." I take it that you reject both comprehensive plans and free markets as idealizations and in this regard I agree with you. What's not clear is whether you then consider some mix of regulation and market allocation as adequate. I don't. I come back to the premise that the problem is not precision in information but the diverse individual motives underlying the transmission, processing of information, as well as the construction and implementation of instructions from third parties (e.g., the planners). So it's definitely the egg then that comes first? Or are you saying it's the chicken? Look, Max, individuals don't drop from the sky; their diverse motives are as much an outcome of the characteristics of language (including information) as they are an input to the system. This is an idea so trite that even that famous pomo-tista, Sir Winston Churchill, used it: "We make our buildings, then our buildings make us." We also make our utopias and our utopias make us. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10451] Re: bio-determinism
Terry McDonough wrote: No matter how long you try you cannot deduce evolutionary biology from the principles of chemistry, even if it is evident that biology cannot be inconsistent with chemistry. Wojtek Sokolowski replied, I do not want to be a contrarian, but I do not buy the ireducability argument. That argument would hold only if the universe we study was neatly divided into compartments corresponding to the respective discipline. I don't want to contradict a non-contrarian, BUT . . . the reason the irreducibility argument does hold is precisely because the _disciplines_ (and not the universe) are "neatly divided into compartments correponding to the respective disciplines". Perhaps "in theory" a unified natural science would be possible but such a unified science would have to start from a different place than our sciences have started from. Whether or not our sciences could ever discover such a starting point for a unified science is completely a matter for speculation. See Heisenberg, "uncertainty" and Archimedes, "point". Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10423] Re: more planning and democracy
Max wrote, Really, is this post some kind of Sokal-type snare for POMO-tistas? They should thank me for alerting them. The snare's there, but not in the post. Just because there's a radical separation between language and reality doesn't mean there's no reality or even that reality is "unknowable". The snare is in the presumed dichotomy that *either* our ideas and language can perfectly correspond with reality or the relationship must be entirely arbitrary. But there's a third possibility, which just happens to be a fairly classical position -- in any *meaningful* information, there is an irreducible residue of ambiguity. If anything, I'd call that Cartesian rather than POMO-tista. If what you said made any sense, no organization could function. Clearly they do, so you didn't. Not at all. No organization could function with an imperative for completely accurate information. I taught a course in project management in which the greatest anxiety among students is about having to "make up" some of the information they report. Same thing when I was collecting statistics from school principals: "How do I fill this in?" You just have to guess. "How do I know what to guess?" You just have to guess and so on. I'll grant that if what I said made any sense, no organization could function "all by itself" that is *without people to mediate the ambiguity*. So, yes, "artificial intelligence" is a crock. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10415] Re: more planning and democracy
Max wrote, The problem is getting accurate information and having the plan's instructions carried out without the eye and hand of God behind every economic agent. May I add that this is a problem for which there _cannot_ be a solution because it is rooted in the contingent relationship between language and reality. In order to be of any use whatsoever, language has to abstract, generalize, metaphorize and dissemble in myriad other ways. Without its dissembling features, language adds nothing to pointing. "Accurate information" is a sly oxymoron. By contrast, reality is ruthlessly particular. There are NO categories or averages in reality -- just precisely THIS and precisely THAT. God is an ancient attempt to conceptualize the tension between word and world -- an attempt that remains unsurpassed, although I suspect that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a worthy candidate for updating it. Consider the two following propositions: "In the beginning was the word . . ." "Reflection on the forms of human life, hence also scientific analysis of those forms, takes a course directly opposite to their real development." Superficially these two statements are "opposites" because they place word and world in a different order of priority. But their opposition arises from a deeper agreement about the radical separation of word and world. Viewed phenomenologically, rather than ontologically, the propositions are also in agreement. It's one thing to recognize the radical separation of word and world and another to try to "overcome" it. The latter leads to magic, alchemy, allegory, literalism, solipsism, scientism and fundamentalism -- exactly what the Faust tale is all about. To paraphrase Goethe's last words, "More Goethe!" Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10406] Re: (Fwd) ROBERTS' RULES: Brigham City Hoax (fwd)
FUROR ERUPTS IN BRIGHAM CITY SCHOOLS .. . . IT'S A HOAX. Ye! and I figgered it out all by myself. Now watch for the story to crop up on PEN-L every six months or so for the next seven years. By the way, did you hear the one about the kidney thieves operating in New Orleans . . . Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10395] Re: The Farmer in the Dell
Either, 1. This is an urban legend; 2. This is a parody of homophobic hysteria; or 3. The parents *real* objection is that the farmer takes *only one* wife. The issue arose after scores of parents complained that children in the kindergarten class at Brigham Elementary were being led in a game which mimicked same-sex marriages. At issue was the game "The Farmer in the Dell." Renee Mott, the accused kindergarten teacher, explained: "The class is way over-balanced with girls. I mean, we have lots more girls than boys. Sometimes it just happens that way, it's just chance. So when we play Farmer in the Dell, sometimes I let a girl go first, so that everybody gets a turn." The problem arises with the next line of the children's song: "the farmer takes a wife." The girl-farmer would often choose another little girl to join her in the circle as the "farmer's wife." Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10390] Re: Umbrage
Paul Phillips and I could go back and forth to no avail -- "yes it is", "no
it isn't" -- about whether the Alexa quote I submitted is "good social
democratic stuff". Or we could just agree to disagree. On a positive note,
I'm pleased to see the NDP's statement on the MAI (as far as it goes) even
though there's nothing in it that's particularly "social democratic". One
doesn't have to be a socialist or even a social democrat to be against
secret deals and special privileges.
I don't object to the NDP for "not being a socialist". If anything, I object
to the NDP not being sufficiently confident in their social democratic
principles to run on them and not being sufficiently coherent to get them
across to a broader public than their die-hard constituency. But I should be
clear that "not being confident enough" is a dilemma that I see as endemic
to social democracy. Give me a social democratic party that will campaign
and govern on social democratic principles and I'd be happy. In my view
that's like saying "give me a steak that will cut itself off the steer and
barbeque itself."
When I listen to the NDP (or anyone for that matter, self excluded), I
listen with two ears. With one ear I hear what I think they're saying in the
context of what I know about their philosophy, history, platform etc., etc.
With the other ear I try to hear what the "non-literati" hear -- just the
words spoken against a much hazier backdrop of mainstream framing of issues.
In p.r. jargon it's called a "communication audit".
Noam Chomsky can gripe all he wants about the New York Times, he still gets
his message across. Whether through repetition, careful exposition of his
argument, exhaustive documentation or sheer doggedness, Chomsky gets his
message across.
I know that you (Paul) know what the NDP message is. I think I know what it
is. But when I listen to the NDP, I don't hear their message. I hear
excuses, I hear indignation, sometimes I even hear a kind of
self-congratulatory tone as if being marginalized was vindication enough of
moral superiority ("the meek shall inherit the earth.") BUT I DON'T HEAR
THEIR MESSAGE.
Paul asked,
What I asked of you was what would you campaign credibly
on that you think wouldbring about a socialist society?
I'll stick to what I know -- even though it might sound like I have an ax to
grind -- reducing work time and redistributing work. It's an issue that
wouldn't necessarily bring about a socialist society, but without it I see
little prospects for significant progressive social change of any kind. It's
an issue people are passionate about, that the NDP has a clearly defined
position on but that the NDP seems reluctant to raise forcefully -- perhaps
for fear that people "aren't ready" for it?
Saturday I was doing a "community day" table for shorter work time at the
public library. All day long we had people coming up to us saying how glad
they were somebody was raising the issue of the need to redistribute work.
In the afternoon, several people who had just come from an all-candidates
meeting remarked on how frustrated they were that no one seemed to be
addressing the issue of unemployment creatively, "_this_ is what they should
be talking about" they told us (including one delightful 80-year old
grandmother wearing a HUGE Dawn Black (NDP) button).
Redistributing work is in the NDP platform. I've also heard several NDP
candidates address the issue. For example, Svend Robinson, appearing on
Cross-country Checkup responded to a very articulate question on the issue
by saying "It's in our platform and we support it." End of answer. During
the leader's debates, Alexa McDonough made an allusion to redistributing
work that was so vague and indirect that, unless you already knew it was in
the platform and already knew all the code words, you would've had to read
her mind to have any idea at all what she was talking about.
I suspect that what makes the NDP nervous about pushing this issue is not
that it is a socialist issue but that it is a nascent "movement issue".
Movement issues can upset the internal balance of an organization -- bring
in all sorts of "outsiders" who aren't house-broken to the party culture.
Let's be honest, there are heeps of needy, alienated people rattling around
hungering for a cause to attach themselves to (and receive validation from)
and it can be safer in these perilous times to maintain a certain veneer of
institutional imperviousness. The litmus test of this outsider anxiety is
the question "who are you with?" On a political scale the equivalent
question is "how can the party appeal to a larger number of people who are
just like us."
It seems to me that's the question the NDP keeps asking itself.
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^^
[PEN-L:10216] Re: influence? -Reply
Doug Henwood wrote that his reading of employment-GDP numbers confirmed the ILO's assertion that "the main problem in countries with high unemployment is slow growth, not a change in the employment intensity of growth." Doug's brackets -- whether growth in itself is good or sustainable -- could be expanded to include the issue of whether higher rates of growth would themselves necessarily contribute _correspondingly_ to employment growth. This is the tacit assumption behind the ILO argument. Isn't the ILO position, then, basically the mirror image of the central banker's dogma that too fast a rate of growth will set off an inflationary spiral? The problem is that "extrapolating from trends" is fraught with difficulties, especially when those trends are used to describe phenomena that far more complex than the trends. "Growth" -- as Doug's brackets indicate -- is an enigma. But so is "employment". At the very least, employment needs to be thought of in terms of a dual labour market -- core and periphery. And even that is a brutal simplification. The danger of an ILO type argument is that while disputing the banker's prescription, it concedes a metaphor of the economy as some sort of hydraulic pump outside and above the lives of those whose livelihoods circulate through its valves. It reminds me of the joke about a man propositioning a woman by asking her if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. The "slow growth" argument accepts the proposition and is only haggling about the price. Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10198] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking
In reply to my comments, Bill Burgess wrote, If we agree that nation states are still important, isn't it important to also identify exactly who has power in them, and specifically whether domestic or foreign capital predominates? Yes, it's important to identify who has power but, since the exercise of power will have different consequences in different situations, I don't see the need -- or even in many cases the feasibility -- for exact calculation of the domesticity or otherwise of capital. At any rate, I'd be hard pressed to see Conrad Black as somehow more benign that, say, the Body Shop just because he's Canadian, eh? Not long waves, but the notion that there are longish periods of growth and then stagnation, and that the shift from one to the other is the backdrop for increased capitalist "aggression" (rather than growth in foreign penetration, globalized production, etc.) I do accept the notion of longish periods of growth and stagnation -- even long waves -- with the qualification that the factors contributing to any particular period of growth or decline are unique to that period and only identifiable after the fact. In other words, I think long waves or periods have enormous descriptive and heuristic value and are virtually worthless for prediction. What follows should not be construed as an argument against anything Bill said, but as more general thoughts on the issue of productivity raised by Bill's comments and earlier by Dean Baker's article. More important than whether productivity growth and/or real profits have stagnated or boomed is the fact that "productivity" has come to mean something different. Instead of being seen as an index of performance, productivity growth has come to be seen as a litmus test for policy prescription -- perhaps the ultimate litmus test. It may seem like a subtle difference, but it's the difference between keeping score and gatekeeping. (A parallel is the controversy over the CPI, or for that matter the GDP). What gets especially lost in this shift from index to litmus test is any acknowledgement that "productivity growth" is a somewhat arbitrary measurement of relationships that ultimately can't be measured (because the changes are qualitative as well as quantitative). The fact that the measurement may show stable trends over a long period of time is no guarantee that "the same thing" is being measured over the course of that period. Still on the topic of productivity growth, I'm looking at two documents: one a 1962 pamphlet from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the other a newspaper column written last month by Fraser Institute economist Michael Walker (the Fraser is the local "free enterprise" think tank). The notion of "productivity" plays a central role in both documents. And the view of productivity hasn't changed one iota in 35 years. So much for the "neo" in neo-liberalism. For both authors, increases in productivity result from actions by capitalists (investment in new technology) and passivity by workers (not resisting the new technology, refraining from demanding too great a share of the proceeds). At most, raising productivity requires an "active passivity" from workers: adapting to the new technology, retraining to acquire the appropriate skills. Such a view of productivity would be laughable, if it wasn't for the fact that it goes largely uncontested by the left. The left generally shares a reified view of productivity in which measures of output per worker hour can be taken as an index of productivity and in which "class struggle" at the point of production is reflected in worker resistance to automation and speed-up. I'm afraid that factoring in a "whole whack of unproductive labour" does nothing to challenge the ideological equation of capital=active, worker=passive. And I'm guessing that by unproductive, Mosely is referring to the production of surplus value. Under such a distinction, a teacher would be unproductive if employed in the public education system yet productive if employed by a profit-oriented private academy. I suspect that what is at the heart of the reification of productivity, is a unexamined belief that "science and technology" is some kind of eternal, self-perpetuating realm that acts on production processes without itself being acted upon. 'Belief' is probably too strong a word for what might better be described as avoidance of an issue that's exceedingly ambiguous. The importance of passivity and of an unmoved mover in the reified notion of productivity should be a more than sufficient clue that we're dealing with theological positions and not empirical analysis. Not only is it theology, it's _bad_ theology. Perhaps it would be more useful to counter bad theology with better theology than to try to answer it with more refined empirical analysis. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^
[PEN-L:10191] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking
Bill Burgess wrote,
. . . I don't see the *significant*
difference implied by a position that replaces a traditional
committment to internationalism with a position where nationalist measures
are now seen as central to protecting working class interests (which I
understand to be your opinion).
I won't speak for Sid, but the above isn't how I understand Sid's position.
At any rate, I think it's too easy to confuse terms like "internationalism"
and "nationalism" as if they were opposites or alternatives. I don't see any
inconsistency in strategically pursuing a "commitment to internationalism"
by acting within the context of national policies and national
organizations. Specifically, on the issue of the regulating trade and
investment, I don't see any alternative at the present time. This is how it
was under "good old capitalism" and it's really no different now.
What I see Sid as arguing against is the kind of doomsday/pollyanna scenario
that tells everyone to abandon hope of seeking more progressive (or less
regressive) policies from national governments because, after all, "their
hands are tied, all the power is now global". The complement is a kind of
wishful thinking that the emerging supra-national institutions of capitalism
can somehow be made more responsive to working class needs, if only we'd
stop diddling around at the national level. And that's such an abstract
position, I can't even imagine what it could mean practically -- meditation?
levitation?
I'm not saying the supra-national institutions are impervious to pressure,
just that the _main_ way to put pressure on them is to put pressure on the
national governments that accede to them. By the way, remember the good old
days when we could use the word "imperialism" and even "U.S. imperialism"
with impunity?" I remember tortured debates on the left about what the
nature of the Canadian state was -- whether Canada was a "sub-imperialist
power" or a "colonized nation", whether or not to lend comfort to "petit
bourgeois nationalism", etc. As an American draft dodger, the arguments
seemed sort of academic to me, mainly because I couldn't see any point to
answering such questions "decisively". Even the "nation-state" is to some
degree an abstraction.
Bill Burgess also asked,
What do you see as the main difference? Is it not that in the golden age
Capital could afford some concessions whereas since about the mid 1970s
labour productivity growth and real profitability have been stagnant, and
so Capital has had to become more aggressive ("brutal", as Bill R. put
it)?
This is a provocative way of putting the question -- that capital can no
longer "afford" keynesian welfare state concessions. I suspect that long
waves are lurking somewhere in the background of this question and that the
stagnant labour productivity growth and real profitability have as much to
do with Ernest Mandel as they do with time series data (Doug Henwood are you
there?).
On Monday, May 12, Jim Devine posted an analysis from Dean Baker of the
Economic Policy Institute talking about the profit boom and I quote the
first two paragraphs:
Corporate profit rates reached a new peak in 1996 and are now at their
highest level since these data were first collected in 1959. The Bureau of
Economic Analysis reports that the before-tax profit rate rose to 11.39%
last year, up from 10.78% in 1995, and the after-tax rate rose to 7.57%, up
from 7.01%. The previous peak rate for before-tax profits was 11.29% in
1966, and the previous peak for after-tax profits was 7.03% in 1994.
The rise in profit rates is even more dramatic when compared to the
profit peak of the last business cycle in 1988. In that year, the
before-tax profit rate was just 7.29% and the after-tax rate 4.96%. Thus,
the 1996 numbers imply increases of more than 50% in both rates in just an
eight-year period. In no previous period in U.S. history have profit rates
experienced such a rapid sustained rise, although other countries in the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have
experienced a similar increase in profit rates over this period.
Granted, a swallow does not a summer make. But capital does seem to be on a
bit of a roll these days. Does that mean the aggression is working? And if
so, does its success imply that some day capital will again be able to
"afford" concessions? I think not. Does it mean that we have entered the
upswing of a long wave -- a new "golden age"? I doubt it.
My skepticism arises from the fact that "productivity" has become as
politicized and manipulated a term as "economic growth" already was in the
1960s. As for capital's "aggression", it seems to me that in North America,
at least, the aggression has been of a singularly flaccid variety. If a
strong movement of working class resistance to neo-liberalism were to
emerge, neo-liberalism would flee like Mobutu from Kinshasa.
