Although I feel like an interloper on this list since I am not a
professional economist or academician, I feel compelled to say a word or
two about the character of the discussion on this list.
In the past I was a project coordinator for Tecnica, an organization
which sent programmers and other skilled professionals to work with the
Sandinista government. I had numerous discussions with Nicaraguans about
economic problems they were facing and their attempt to use technology to
solve some of these problems. The electoral loss of the Sandinista party
as well as the retreat from socialist goals by the Sandinistas, the FMLN
and the African National Congress has forced me and others who have been
involved in solidarity efforts to reconsider what possibilites lie before
the developing world. The collapse of the Soviet Union has enormous
implications for these countries, and ultimately our own.
I joined the PEN-L in order to eavesdrop on your conversation on this and
other urgent matters. While I respect your efforts to sort out
theoretical questions (LTV, etc.), I have found fewer and fewer messages
that relate to real-life economic problems. Many of the contributions
seem to be of the character one would hear at an academic conference.
They remind me to some extent of the type of problems Russell Jacoby was
grappling with in "The Last Intellectuals".
I suppose this leads to the question of what the Internet is for. If the
audience is trained economists, I suppose I have no business being a
member of the list. If, however, the list is intended to educate and
organize the broader mass movement, then I think that we (you?) can
"definitely do better".
