Hi again Julien et al,
An unfairly brusque reply, of necessity ...
>I don't like much politicians either. But I like technocrats even less. I'd
never
>leave legislation or implementation to professionals. The more direct the
>democracy, the better.
Amen.
>OK. Let's sidestep this one. And the issue of the circulartity of using the
TRPF
>to make a law who says that capitalism has to grow.
Well, one could employ an inductive approach and look out the window - at
the very world the young M&E describe in the first dozen pages of the
Manifesto (there's an idea for those crashees hitherto unaffected by Marxian
ideas - check out the first dozen pages of the Manifesto - it's a
rip-roaring romp of a read and it's beaut description of today - and Marx
wrote it well before he developed the theory we're talking about) - and try
to theorise the persistence of the motions they perceived in 1847/8. That
manouvre ain't circular, at least.
>Yeah, there's evidence for a tendency. But there's no evidence I know of
which
>says it's a product of the system itself rather than a product of the
prevailing
>conditions.
Well, I've often allowed periods can happen, and have happened, where the
tendencies have been distorted by what M&E would have (rather
problematically) called 'superstructural' (like for the thirty years that
followed the spectacular orgy of capital destruction that was WW2). There's
hope in such a reading of history. Perhaps events are unfolding such that
we can do some such thing again, perhaps by way of a new institutional
setting in the face of new, more recognisably global, challenges.
>I don't get it. Nation states have dared to do wage wars, build nuclear
>arsenals, etc. What would they not dare to do? (What an anthropomorphism!)
Well, I don't think 'delinking' from the world economy, a step often
recommended by the early dependency theorists of the seventies, is
politically likely or strategically advisable on the part of any single
small to medium-sized nation states, for a start. Sorry about the
anthropomorphism ...
>And what are the past institutions we lack?
The Soviet ogre (as far as the western boojies were concerned), strong
politically-self-defining union movements, social democrat parties with
revolution-through-reform platforms, nation-building bureaucracies, an
incomplete international finance sector, which allowed national social
policy autonomy - stuff like that - hardly the institutional setting that
would warm the heart of the internationalist socialist ... but efficaceous
nonetheless.
>Is that really a risk?
We don't know yet - but the PR campaign to defuse this surprising expression
of ingratitude on the part of the world's Unwashed is finally in train ...
>All? Then try to explain how Earth can sustainlably host 8 or 10 billions
of us?
>Not for 25 or 100 years but for a long time.
I'm of the suspicion we could sustain bigger populations than that, actually
- I'm too downright unwell to make that case right now, but it's something I
shall try to put to screen over the next few months (when work commitments
allow). But not, as I said, under prevailing regimes of accumulation and
allocation. And not if we hit, for instance, fuel depletion crises very
soon, and dawdle in our response.
>which essay?
This old box (or, rather, the archaic wires that link rustic little Sutton
to Canberra's network) does not readily allow access to the Web - I'll see
if I can find it when I'm in Das Kapital tomorrow. Trayner extrapolates a
couple of stats into the future and comes up with a compelling bed-wetting
scenario.
>Well, well... IF you think in terms of national populations or ethnic
populations. I
>blame ALL those people who have kids (now I've angried 99% of the list :-).
>The ones with the most kinds and the richest (because they waste more while
>they don't need familial solidarity as badly as the poors) get most of the
blame
>as far as I'm concerned. So this is NOT necessairly a way of blaming people
>of different colours, ya see?
Not necessarily, no. Reckon that's what a lot of today's discourse amounts
to, though.
>I wouldn't mind abolishing subsidies for families, or even a chinese-style
>population control. I wouldn't even oppose "post-birth abortion", or
>widespread euthanasia for that matter. See how much a "misanthrope" I am?
Well, China is running into a real gender imbalance problem, precisely
because issues is sexism were not broached before population control
measures were imposed. And, yeah, we rather differ on 'post-birth
abortions', Julien. On account of I call that murder. And euthanasia is
problematic, too - far too many power imbalances in society for such a
programme to resist approximating the sort of thing they had in mind at
Auschwitz. And then we're back to murder.
>As to caring for the elderly, I don't mind radicalism, but why must this
guarantee
>rely on socialism?
I was alluding to the fact that society would have to offer the guarantees a
pair of dutiful sons would in many parts of the 'third' world. That's a
socialist direction, I reckon.
>And I don't get the point on feminism. I wouldn't call the
>prevailing feminism in our western societies radical and yet daughters do
also
>finance the elderly.
Agreed, but it wasn't western society I had in mind - a couple of billion
women don't have the sort of prospects/economic agency a western woman has.
Just the prospect of paying a dowry, for instance, can induce some desperate
parents to off their little girls, or so I'm given to believe. Getting from
that to where western women are is pretty radical stuff, I submit.
>You got the source for these stats or know how they were constructed by
>chance?
The Weekend Australian Financial Review of this last weekend. And, no, not
a word on how the numbers are formulated.
> I doubt very much that these reflect actual surplus value!
There's plenty of room for such doubt, of course. 'Money of the mind'
confuses everything ...
>And the big currency conversions are not made by shareholders. It's more
>M&A, money markets, currency speculation, etc. isn't it? Plus, the markets
still
>react to official GDP, unemployment, and productivity numbers aparently.
And
>these are fishy to an extent unseen for quite some time.
GDP and unemployment are fishy in ways people have learned to understand. I
reckon the productivity number, the fundamental category for US finance
circles (their dread of inflation is ever salved by the firm conviction
productivity - which they see as entirely a technology dividend - is
outpacing demand), stinks mightily in a service-rich economy; especially one
which counts 400MHz worth of chip as precisely half the product that an
800MHz chip is ...
>Why by defintion? It would be as you say if the non-US economies were
>already running at full capacity before US demand. They weren't and still
>aren't as far as I can see. The US demand provides dollars to countries
>hungry for hard currency and diminishes unemployment worldwide.
>Remember we're not far from the deflationary hole. Look at raw material
>prices. Many of them have risen year to date but the problem is hardly
behind
>us. How are you so certain that all this does not offset the negative
effects?
I didn't mean US rapaciousness wasn't off-setting a global depression - just
that if we're to avoid a depression tomorrow, the world needs to keep giving
it up for daddy at self-depleting rates. The consequent 'uneven
development' then puts the world at risk the day after tomorrow. Perhaps
through a mounting international underconsumption problem ... I'm no
economist, but that's a tenable scenario to me at the moment.
>Plus the effects of capital flows you talk about are mainly a concern for
other
>industrial countries. Yet the industrialists in these countries seem to be
happy
>with weaker currencies. Don't forget that higher nominal rates on a
weakening
>currency usually mean lower real rates. And, anyway, there is a bottom to
such
>a process. Look at Japan! The dollar is not worth 250 yens yet. Capital
flows
>can only move a currency that much. Maybe you should read Krugman on this.
A more specific reference would be much appreciated - wouldn't want to read
more Krugman than is strictly necessary - he may not be as unbearably smug
as David Hale, but he's a real chance for the silver medal ...
>Maybe they recognize that the media corps were all behaving like a giant
>cartel to begin with. And feared the disruption of the spectacle by
competition
>like between that cable company and Disney earlier this year. :-)
>Seriously, this merger is not Kautsky-esque stuff yet. And the regulators
>actually forced them to sell and/or spinoff stuff, if I remember well.
EMI, I think it was. Big deal. Record companies are an unknown entity in
this day and age - the problems information-as-commodity presents for
mainstream economics these days seems to have hit their industry first.
>The cold wave is hitting. I liked that "global-warmed" september. But I'm
not
>high on codein yet.
Codeine is lovely - and so is the antipodean spring - everything has
veritably bounced back to life, I don't have to deploy the credit card to
scrape the night's ice off my windshield any more (the only use of said card
I can afford), and the cricket is under way. In a place like Sutton, you
need the Net to remind you there are problems in the world. Or a seeping
bloody left ear ...
Night all,
Rob.
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