[PEN-L:10220] Talks Continue On NATO-Russian Pact
Representatives of NATO and the Russian Federation ended talks on Tuesday, May 6 with an agreement "to intensify negotiations in order to reach agreement at the earliest possible date." NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Secretary Yevgeny Primakov did not issue a joint statement. Before the meeting Primakov told reporters that the Russian Federation was hoping to remove obstacles to a Russia-NATO pact related to the military bloc's eastward expansion. NATO wants a charter or "document," which gives Moscow a permanent consultative role with the military alliance. The eastward expansion of NATO and Russia's cooperation with it is being described by NATO officials as "the centerpiece of a new security order in Europe for the 21st century." Moscow strongly opposes likely NATO membership for Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and wants strong commitments from NATO setting clear limits on military activities in the new members. NATO, which has faced broad international opposition because it is seen as a military instrument for the big powers, especially the U.S. to exercise domination over the world, says the Russian Federation's demands are out of the question "because such issues are a matter of sovereignty." Primakov told reporters in Strasbourg Monday he hoped to complete a draft agreement at the Luxembourg talks. "I want this meeting to be the last one and to enable us to sign on May 27. The possibility of signing the document will be totally cleared up tomorrow," he said. President Boris Yeltsin has said he wants to sign the new deal at a special summit May 27 in Paris. Primakov reiterated Russia's stand that NATO expansion into the east is "the most serious error since the end of the Cold War." But he added that a Russia-NATO document should minimize the repercussions on Russian security. NATO officials say that the expansion will begin regardless of the position adopted by Russia at a summit in Madrid in July. It is offering Moscow a permanent "Russia-NATO consultative council" and pledged not to station troops or weapons on the territory of the new members. Russia has demanded the new members not be permitted to overhaul existing military establishments, such as airfields, to bring them in line with NATO standards and wants NATO to pledge "never" to extend its military umbrella eastward. "Such assurances would impinge on the sovereignty of new members and create a second-class membership. That is unacceptable," said one NATO official. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10221] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855
I think Jim Craven is just wrong on this. I have given specific references where this matter has been discussed. The one reference in particular is to an environmentalist who certainly would be happy if the quoted "letter" were valid. The original translation of the Seattle speech is available in the book I referred to from the University of Oklahoma press. There may be some question as to how accurate the translation into English is though. You can compare for yourself: i) THe original speech ii) the "letter" from the movie HOME by Perry. Perry himself never pretended that the speech was original. The hoax, such as it was, was perpretrated by the movie producers to make the speech seem more authentic and no doubt because it contained pop ecology concepts missing from the model. Perry expected credits to be given for his own writing. THe statement about the white person's God not loving his red children seems much more appropriate given the experience of the aboriginals than Perry's sentimental pap and no less articulate. Cheers, Ken Hanly P.S. If you need further references there is a long article by a German who discovered the real situation at the same time as or before Baird Caldicott but published his findings later.
[PEN-L:10219] War and Primitive Accumulation
In his section on primitive accumulation in volume one of Capital, Marx writes: "The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of pof primitive accumulation The destructive influence that it exercises on the condition of the wage-labourer concerns us less however, here, than the forcible expropriation, resulting from it, of peasants, artisans, and in a word, all elements of the lower middle-class." Somewhere, I have the recollection, that Marx linked the growth of public debt with wars (there is a passing reference in the above quoted section to "maritime trade and commercial wars" but nothing very substantive.) Does anyone recall if, and where, Marx links war with debt, with taxes transfering wealth from the workers and the middle-class to capital - i.e. as part of the process of primitive accumulation? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10217] planning and democracy
Bill Lear writes: Perhaps Jim Devine, who seems to have a cool head about this, can intercede and tell me if I am being unreasonable. I feel the flames rumbling---but that's how I respond when I feel that democracy is being swept aside as some romantic fantasy, and that engaging in queries about the forms of institutions which may be constraining it is labeled as some sort of semantic game. ... I can't intercede, though I'm flattered that you ask. Not only have I been frying my brains in Palm Springs on a inlaw-financed family outing (so that my head isn't very cool), but I think its unfair to Wojtek for me to come in. After all, I think that you are basically right, as should be clear from my recent missives. I think that you and Wojtek are talking past each other. He seems to be making more of a sociological (social-scientific) point (i.e., that formal organizations are not the same as what really is happening) rather than a political point. However, I'm not sure. In another missive, Max S. wrote: A "democratic central plan" sounds like a pizza/ice cream diet. Appealing in theory but hard to imagine in reality. It reminds me of some things you [i.e., me, Jim] said about a legion of autonomous grass-roots groups pursuing a single national agenda. Bill Lear writes: As long as you define "central" to mean "conceived at the center or top", then you will be guaranteed to find it difficult to imagine. A democratically organized economy which is run with a central plan is simply one which could be run with a *single* plan (varying in the degree of control embedded within it) and conceived democratically. The locus of conception need not coincide with the locus of scope of the plan. Furthermore, a democracy may also decide that a "central" plan could very well include segments of the economy that would run on market-style supply/demand logic (say restaurants?), perhaps retaining public financing, etc., and with much of the authority for setting various details of the plan retained locally. It need not be the horror of minute planning you seem to envision. I think that this was well put, so I reproduced it verbatim (though obviously more could be said). I want to add that the "legion of autonomous grass-roots groups pursuing a single national agenda" (that Max seems to be sneering at) is nothing but a misrepresentation of what I was talking about. It may be a misrepresentation based on my own incomplete or muddled presentation, but it is wrong nonetheless. First, I never assumed that the grass-roots groups would all be pursuing the same agenda. A common agenda can _only_ arise from debate and discussion and compromise amongst the various groups, which will often agree to disagree. That agenda will change over time, according to the democratic will. (BTW, in order to get socialism in the first place, rather than some elitist coup d'etat, the grass-roots movements would have to have a certain unity of agendas.) There will be a lot of the "logrolling, etc." that Max fears. However, since the capitalist class will (hopefully) out of the picture, logrolling and the like will not be a necessary part of the story. The fact is that the inside-the-beltway special-interest "politics" that Max is so familiar with is a necessary component to a democracy totally corrupted by capitalism. Absent capitalism, the various grassroots groups can learn to work together rather than buying each other's votes. I am not saying that capitalism _always_ gets the kind of depoliticized "politics" that allows it to thrive. However, a socialist democracy would lack the various forces that exist under capitalism that encourage depoliticization of politics. Second, the groups will not be autonomous from each other, just as currently one can work for EPI and belong to GreenPeace (or for that matter, the gun lobby) simultaneously. They will be autonomous _from state control_, in the sense of having civil liberties, etc. They will be different from, say, corporate PACs or the two main US political parties, which are under corporate thumbs. Third, without vibrant democracy outside of the state sector, democratic planning cannot work. The government needs to be kept honest. Further, without the kind of flow of honest information from the grass-roots to the center that is encouraged by the people's sense that the planners are planning in the people's interest (rather than, say, the planners' career interests), planning fails. I had said: That's because you're probably thinking of a "plan" as being the USSR-type. Max replied: Yes, but only in the general sense that it embodies goals that are conceived at the center or top. I want to reiterate that the planners might (and should) be elected democratically and face an independent press that keeps them honest and, more importantly, a vibrant and politicized mass movement (consisting of a lot of different grass-roots groups) outside of the state sector. If the economy is one thing
[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:10213] Meeting the Enemy
Thanks to Art Shostak for passing this along. It may be useful for those of us who have been unable to participate due to being rhetorically challenged or linguisticly disabled. "Symbolic analysts of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your obscurantism." Michael Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 17:16:28 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Soc Humor: HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN ++ HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN by Stephen Katz, Associate Professor, Sociology Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada THE RULES 1. First, you need to remember that plainly expressed language is out of the question. It is too realist, modernist and obvious. Postmodern language requires that one uses play, parody and indeterminacy as critical techniques to point this out. Often this is quite a difficult requirement, so obscurity is a well-acknowledged substitute. For example, let's imagine you want to say something like, "We should listen to the views of people outside of Western society in order to learn about the cultural biases that affect us". This is honest but dull. Take the word "views." Postmodernspeak would change that to "voices," or better, "vocalities." or even better, "multivocalities." Add an adjective like "intertextual," and you're covered. "People outside" is also too plain. How about "postcolonial others"? To speak postmodern properly one must master a bevy of biases besides the familiar racism, sexism, ageism, etc. For example, phallogocentricism (male-centredness combined with rationalistic forms of binary logic). Finally "affect us" sounds like plaid pajamas. Use more obscure verbs and phrases, like "mediate our identities." So, the final statement should say, "We should listen to the intertextual, multivocalities of postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to learn about the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities." Now you're talking postmodern! 2. Sometimes you might be in a hurry and won't have the time to muster even the minimum number of postmodern synonyms and neologisms needed to avoid public disgrace. Remember, saying the wrong thing is acceptable if you say it the right way. This brings me to a second important strategy in speaking postmodern -- which is to use as many suffixes, prefixes, hyphens, slashes, underlinings and anything else your computer (an absolute must to write postmodern) can dish out. You can make a quick reference chart to avoid time delays. Make three columns. In column A put your prefixes: post-, hyper-, pre-, de-, dis-, re-, ex-, and counter-. In column B go your suffixes and related endings: -ism, -itis, -iality, -ation, -itivity, and -tricity. In column C add a series of well-respected names that make for impressive adjectives or schools of thought, for example, Barthes (Barthesian), Foucault (Foucauldian, Foucauldianism), Derrida (Derridean, Derrideanism). Now for the test. You want to say or write something like, "Contemporary buildings are alienating." This is a good thought, but, of course, a non-starter. You wouldn't even get offered a second round of crackers and cheese at a conference reception with such a line. In fact, after saying this, you might get asked to stay and clean up the crackers and cheese after the reception. Go to your three columns. First, the prefix. Pre- is useful, as is post-, or several prefixes at once is terrific. Rather than "contemporary buildings," be creative. "The Pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity" is promising. You would have to drop the weak and dated term "alienating" with some well suffixed words from column B. How about "antisociality", or be more postmodern and introduce ambiguity with the linked phrase, "antisociality/seductivity." Now, go to column C and grab a few names whose work everyone will agree is important and hardly anyone has had the time or the inclination to read. Continental European theorists are best, when in doubt. I recommend the sociologist Jean
[PEN-L:10214] jobless growth
As far as I can tell, the term "jobless growth" makes sense in two different ways. (1) in a recovery period like circa 1992 in the US, businesses respond to increased demand for their products by using "overhead workers" (long-term employees) more intensively and extensively (longer hours) rather than taking on new employees fast enough to keep up with the normal growth of the labor force. So the unemployment rate doesn't fall and may even rise a bit even though real GDP is rising. This effect is temporary, as long as the recovery continues. (2) if the long-term growth rate of labor productivity accelerates, then a constant growth rate of real GDP can be associated with a falling growth rate of employment (labor-power demand). The growth rate of employment may fall below that of the labor force, causing unemployment to rise; more likely, unemployment won't fall. The possibility of the latter type of "jobless growth" might be happening now in the US as, to paraphrase the hype, "the information revolution is finally paying off as companies are finally figuring out how to use those PCs." However, the solution to this kind of "jg" would simply be to have faster growth of real GDP (ignoring the environmental effects of such acceleration). At the same time, the inflationary potential of the economy would be reduced. This is what happened in the 1960s in the US. The above seems very mundane, hardly the kind of stuff that Rifkin talks about (if I understand him correctly). BTW, Rifkin and Reich have very different views. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
[PEN-L:10215] Re: locality -- loyalty?
As I see it, the disagreement between Bill and myself boils down to one point: what is the actual effect, if any, of formal structures, institutions and people who hide behing them on the everyday behaviour of the so-called "ordinary" people? Beside that one point, I do not think that anyone can in a good faith construe my postings as a rejection of the principle of particiaptory democracy self-management or a defence of Stalinism. So addressing the point of disagreement, it is my impression that Bill thinks that institutions and institutional constraints have a quite deterministic influence over individual behaviour -- as his metaphor of DOS and multitasking seems to suggest. At the same time, Bill strongly argues for self-management and participatory democracy. The combination of those two arguments strikes me as rather odd, because it is not at all clear to me how the so-called people are going to exercise their self-management and participatory democracy if they are not handed down the right set of social-political institutions on a silver platter. Are we to assume that particpatory democracy and self-management is only possible when the elites consent to the "proper" sets of instituions? My own position is that in reality people have much more power and much more options to pursue than it may appear from the formal institutional arrangemnts. For various reasons, they may or may not exercise those options -- but that is a quite different matter that requires an explanation. For the same token, institutions and people who hide behind them have in reality much less power and influence over "ordinary" people than it may appear on the surface. The only instance when the powers that be can actually compel people to do something against their own will is to use a direct violence or a directr threat thereof. But that does not happen very often for a very simple reason - it is not possible to stay in power for very long by the means of violence alone. As Napoleon aptly observed "one can do many things with bayonets, except to sit on them." In most instances, oppressive regimes and their institutions are able to survive only because people consent to their authority. They may do it for different reasons and their choices may be limited -- which I will address momentatrily -- but they nonetheless consent. That poitn cal be illustrated quite clearly by comparing Latin America to Eastern Europe. While Eeastern European regimes were quite authoritarian, they were seldom terrorist in the way the US sponsored "democracies" in Latin America were -- leaving tens of thousands of tortured and disappeared behind. While the Eastern European police was quite brutal, more people have been killed by the NYPD alone (as noted by the Amnesty International report) than by their Eastern European colleagues combined. But despite those much different levels of repression, the opposition in Latin America was much stronger -- taking the form of a prolonged guerilla warfare -- than in Eastern Europe -- where it was limited to general dissatisfaction with the system and occassional riots -- pretty much the same way dissatisfaction is expressed in the US, isn't it? Clearly, people in Eastern Europe went along with the undemocratic system much better than people of Latin America, even thous the cost of non-complinace was substantially lower for the former than it was for the latter. That clearly demonstrates that even facing the most murderous regimes, such as US client dictatorships in Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala or El Salvador -- people do have some choices, and can pursue action that are independent of what the people who hide behind the formal institutions want. It also seems to me that the conviction that there are no alternatives other than those inscribed in the existing institutions is precisely what the elites want everyone to believe. So form that standpoint, the study of the process whereby people come to believe that they have no alternatives other than those insctibed in the existing institutions and they cease to perceive certain courses of action as viable options -- so the study of that process can tell us quite a bit how particiaptory democracy is destroyed by those who call themselves "the representatives of the people", "the markets" or what not, and how the very people who are being robbed of self-management go along with that process. A few final comments: RE: being suppressed. Also, as I point out, this is not always a simple task---democracy is a sensitive instrument, highly dependent on laws, information, economic conditions, and, many other things. Suppose I were to point out to you that the framers of the U.S. Constitution explicitly attempted to shackle democracy in the U.S., and that this project has been going on, more or less, for 200+ years by those for whom manipulation of the law is essentially (but not entirely) reduced to how much money needs to be invested for properly
[PEN-L:10212] Re: profits, part 2
Doug Henwood wrote about the synchronization of profit rates. Might this indicate globalization, in contrast to the Feldstein-Horioka data? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10211] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855
Received: from MAILQUEUE by OOI (Mercury 1.21); 18 May 97 20:24:35 +800 Return-path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 18 May 97 20:24:26 +800 Received: from anthrax (localhost [127.0.0.1]) Sun, 18 May 1997 20:22:50 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 20:22:50 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:10203] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855 X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Progressive Economics X-PMFLAGS: 33554560 The Chief Seattle speech is a hoax. Chief Seattle never wrote a letter to Pierce at all. He did make a speech on the Port Elliot Treaty of 1855, entitled "The Indian's Night Promises to be Dark". It was tranlated by Dr. Henry Smith and is to be found in " INDIAN ORATORY: FAMOUS SPEECHES BY NOTED INDIAN CHIEFTAINS( Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1971 Ppp. 118-122). The famous environmental speech was written by Ted Perry, a screen writer, for a film called HOME. The words were written in 1971-72. Perry used the name of CHief Seattle in the body of the text, and he did use the original speech as a model. Perry expected to be given credit for the text but he wasn't as the producers thought it would sound more authentic if credit were not given. The film was shown on national tv in the seventies and the speech became a favorite for quotation among environmentalists. A short discussion of the matter can be found in an article by the well-known environmentalist J. Baird Callicot "American Indian Land Wisdom? Sorting Out the Issues, JOURNAL OF FOREST HISTORY 33 no 1 (January 1989: pp. 35-42) Some examples of differences between Perry and Chief Seattle: Perry inserts into the speech mid twentieth century pop ecology statements entirely lacking in Seattle's speech.Also, Seattle said: "Your God loves your people and hates mine... The white man's God cannot love his red children.." Perry said: "Our God is the same God... He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. " Perry by the way was not aboriginal. Cheers, Ken Hanly Response: Actually there are several versions of the above. The usual assertion is that the speech by Chief Sealth was a hoax and/or embellished translation by Henry Smith. The "evidence" for the speech being a hoax or embellished translation mostly comes down to something like "how could any savage be so articulate?"; accounts by various settlers who dealt with Chief Sealth--and who spoke fluent Dwamish, one of the languages spoken by Chief Sealth--said that he often expressed such sentiments in language quite similar to the above. I posted it for various reasons: 1) the sentiments--embellished or otherwise; 2) as an illustration of quotations that have filtered into popular sub-cultures often without verification of the pedigree of the quote (a common problem on the internet). Jim Craven *--* * James Craven * " For those who have fought for it, * * Dept of Economics* freedom has a taste the protected * * Clark College* will never know." * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. *Otto von Bismark * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * * * (360) 992-2283 * * * [EMAIL PROTECTED]* * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
[PEN-L:10210] profits, part 2
A footnote to my posting on US profitability. In its Economic Outlook, the OECD publishes data on "rates of return on capital in the business sector," which they don't define in the volume (but which may be described in the documentation available on their web site). Most countries exhibit a pattern similar to that of the U.S., with a steady recovery from long-term lows in profitability in the early 1980s. German profit rates bottomed at 9.9% in 1982, after averaging 11.8% in the 1970s, and have since risen to 14.1% in 1996; the UK, from 10.1% in the 1970s to 8.1% in 1981 to 12.5% in 1996; the EU as a whole, from 12.6% in the 1970s to 10.7% in 1981 to 14.7% in 1996. The U.S., on this measure, went from 14.0% in the 1970s to 12.6% in 1982 to 18.4% last year. An exception to this pattern is Japan, which had an averaage profit rate of 17.9% in the 1970s, stayed fairly steady in the 14-16% range through the 1980s, and settled back to 13.9% in 1996. There's no note warning against cross-national comparisons, so I take that as a license to be reckless. The country with the highest return in the OECD in 1996 was Greece, at 22.7%; next came Canada, at 19.2%; Spain was next, 18.9%; and in fourth place, the US, at 18.4%. Switzerland came in the lowest, at 3.4%; Finland, second from the bottom, at 8.9%. Also clustering in the bottom were Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:10207] FW: BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1997 RELEASED TODAY: CPI -- On a seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI-U rose 0.1 percent in April, the same as in March. The food index, which was unchanged in March, declined 0.2 percent in April The energy index declined for the second consecutive month, down 1.5 percent in April Excluding food and energy, the CPI-U rose 0.3 percent, following increases of 0.2 percent in each of the two preceding months. The larger advance in April reflects an upturn in the index for apparel and upkeep REAL EARNINGS -- Real average weekly earnings decreased by 0.9 percent from March to April after seasonal adjustment. This loss was due to a 0.9 percent drop in average weekly hours and a 0.1 percent decrease in average hourly earnings. The CPI-W was unchanged Over the year, real average weekly earnings grew by 2.2 percent __Producer prices for finished goods dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent in April, the largest decline since a 0.8 percent decrease in August 1993, the BLS reports. Core prices -- excluding volatile food and energy components -- dropped 0.1 percent in April, after rising 0.4 percent in the previous month. Core finished goods have risen 0.6 percent in the year ended in April. April marked the fourth-consecutive decline in the Producer Price Index for Finished Goods and the first time the index has fallen for four months in a row since the period end August 1993 BLS economist Bill Thomas is quoted as saying that, in the year ended in April, the finished goods PPI has risen just 0.8 percent, the lowest year-over-year advance since a 0.6 percent rise in the 12 months ended in July 1994 "Usually April is a strong month for gasoline prices," Thomas said. "However, because of the high crude oil inventories, gasoline put downward pressure on energy prices" (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). __U.S. producer prices are falling, despite robust national economic growth and the lowest jobless rate in a quarter century Declining food and energy costs helped push down the index (Washington Post, page E1). __Prices paid to producers fell unexpectedly in April. The data showed that inflation continued to be restrained (New York Times, page D1). __Economists were particularly surprised by the lack of inflationary pressure since the economy just completed its most robust quarter in a decade (Wall Street Journal, page A2)___On page C1, the Journal carries an article by Roger Lowenstein, "Smoking Out the Inflation Genie." Lowenstein says that the "truism isn't that runaway inflation ever lurks around the corner, but that inflation at whatever rate changes only slowly absent truly unusual shocks " Business inventories rose 0.3 percent in March, while sales fell 0.3 percent, the Commerce Department reported (Daily Labor Report, page A-11).
[PEN-L:10206] Globalisation, socialist utopias, EU
Some thoughts on the last few days' discussion: 1. I see no contradiction between nationalism and internationalism - though I do between chauvinism and internationalism, and between nationalism and "transnationalism" in the sense of international capitalism. I call myself an internationalist nationalist without blushing. I take nationalist to mean "if we don't look after ourselves, no-one else will", rather than "bugger the rest of the world". The most important way to support other people's causes is to fight for your own cause. The reality of "internationalism" is not some vague monolithic international revolution: it is that local struggles around the world support each other. 2. Isn't the conclusion of my free trade and investment analogy the crux of the argument between Max and Sid regarding the nature of the EU? That is, the EU can be socially progressive only if its "federal" government has the power and will to redistribute incomes and resources between EU regions. Does it do so significantly now? If not, is that for structural reasons (as the "Ecologist" article and I think Sid would suggest) or for short-term political reasons (as I think Max would suggest)? 3. What has changed in capitalism? Bill Burgess gives the answer that it used to be able to afford some concessions but can't now because of falling profitability etc. I can't accept that: it is some of the most profitable companies that are laying off the most staff. And it was during the 50s and 60s when those concessions were being made that we had some of the most vicious industrial attacks and socially reactionary governments. An alternative explanation is that the *interests* of capitalism have changed. Keynes pointed out a congruence of interests between worker and employer in a closed economy: that workers were also the employer's only customers. (There remained plenty of differences in interests of course!) That gave capitalists (as a class) a vested interest in the welfare state, higher wages etc. To the extent the closed economy has opened up (the beginning of this whole debate!), their interest in these "concessions" has declined. That will only change again if they saturate the labour resources of the world economy - and haven't found another planet full of labour to exploit by then! Or if we find some way to limit the openness of national economies - which incidentally applies whether they are capitalist or socialist. 4. I found the debate between Terry and Ken on how to create a (New Zealand sized!) Socialist Utopia in the world economy interesting. I'd interpret the outcome of the discussion to be that it would be very difficult for a socialist (let alone communist) economy to retain its nature while remaining at least partly open to trade and investment in the current world economy. I'd broaden that to make a similar statement about relatively progressive capitalist economies. Such economies were at least thinkable in the 1950s and 60s, but apparently aren't now. What's changed? Bill Rosenberg /-\ | Bill Rosenberg, Acting Director, Centre for Computing and Biometrics, | |P. O. Box 84, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand. | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone:(64)(03)3252-811 Fax:(64)(03)3253-865 | \-/
[PEN-L:10205] Re: influence?
Doug Henwood asked Can anyone tell me how much influence the End of Work/Jobless Future thesis has within organized labor - U.S. and the rest of the world? Note sure about this specifically, but the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) here, which is the main central TU body, seems to take a lot of the Reich-like stuff to heart. One of its main arguments against the likes of the anti-union, anti-collective Employment Contracts Act, and government policies in general is that they are aimed at forcing low wages. Instead, it says, they should be aiming for a high-wage high-skill economy. All sounds nice and plausible to the public but tends to be an excuse for inaction and leave the unions representing the lower-skilled in the lurch. Several of them have left the CTU to their own Trade Union Federation (TUF) which has a more activist, protectionist - though very internationalist - view. Bill /-\ | Bill Rosenberg, Acting Director, Centre for Computing and Biometrics, | |P. O. Box 84, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand. | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone:(64)(03)3252-811 Fax:(64)(03)3253-865 | \-/
[PEN-L:10204] influence? -Reply
Doug, from Johannesburg, Rifkin was on the radio here a few months ago, but ironically notwithstanding SA's present jobless growth situation (3.1% GDP increase in 1996, and tens of thousands of net jobs lost in the private sector) there's been no effort to draw the End of Work arguments in either as justification by status quo forces or as the basis for third sector subsidies (community development etc). Much of the employment discourse from Cosatu still centres around old-style public works programmes, mass housing construction, etc, along with current efforts to shore up wages, worker safety and health, maternity leave and the like. National general strike planned for June 2 along these lines. Old-style labour economism plus a dash of usually very good social policy advocacy; perfectly appropriate mix in a society and economy like South Africa.
[PEN-L:10209] Re: influence? -Reply
Patrick Bond wrote: SA's present jobless growth situation (3.1% GDP increase in 1996, and tens of thousands of net jobs lost in the private sector) How does this compare with the past, and with population growth? I worked up the employment-GDP numbers for the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe last week and confirmed the ILO's assertion that the main problem in countries with high unemplyment rates is slow growth, not a change in the employment intensity of growth. (I'm bracketing, as they say, the question of whether growth in itself is a good or sustainable thing.) You want jobless growth, try Japan in the 1950s, when annual GDP growth was around 10% and employment, 1%. Western Europe saw a large, though not that large, gap between employment and GDP growth throughout the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html
[PEN-L:10228] follow-up on Carson text
Dear Pen-lers, In case anyone else is interested, I wanted to share the results of my search for a current edition of Robert Carson's _Economic Issues Today_. First, thanks to Michael Hoover for sending me the title and other useful information about the book. This book, at the moment, is stuck in an unfortunate limbo. The 6th edition is "forthcoming" but with absolutely no notion of when it may be out. Meanwhile the 5th edition is dated (1991) and out of print in any case. Bummer. If any knows of other intro-level "issues" books that do a comparably good job of radical/liberal/conservative views on micro and macro issues, I -- and perhaps others -- would be grateful to know. Thanks. Rob Garnett
[PEN-L:10232] Re: Holy Binary Males
In a message dated 97-05-15 19:22:13 EDT, you write: Holy Binary Males, Doug. So, there are only two approaches to network discourse, excessive violence and excessive length (you boastful fellow) or silence. Now, how do we know he IS
[PEN-L:10233] Re: Holy Binary Males
In a message dated 97-05-15 19:22:13 EDT, you write: Holy Binary Males, Doug. So, there are only two approaches to network discourse, excessive violence and excessive length (you boastful fellow) or silence. Now, how do we know he IS boastful? maggie
[PEN-L:10234] Re: Re EU
So, Trevor, are you saying that international trade groups like eu and nafta have the potential to be 'turned' or used to progressive purposes where nationalistic movements might fail? While I don't dispute the attractiveness of such an idea, I would think that union or popular movements in opposition to such official groups have a greater chance of being formed. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 97-05-15 19:56:07 EDT, you write: Unlike NAFTA, the EU is a project to create a new type of state structure - which is why Thatcher was so opposed to it. Many questions about the form of that structure have not yet been determined. Certainly the right has made much of the running up til now - as they have at a national level. The big question is how the left might change that. Take the demand for shorter working hours. I think it is a key issue, in terms of combatting unemployment, in terms of creating the basis for a more egalitarian division of domestic labour, and of moving towards a society where most peoples lives are not dominated by paid and unpaid labour. Of course, progess is only likely if pressure can be brought to bear by a mass movement. But given the mobility of capital within Europe, there are real limits to what can be achieved in any one country - as German workers are discovering - and pressure is only like to be effective if it is applied across the whole of the EU, so that the EU establishes similar standards for all its member countries. Trevor Evans Berlin --- Headers Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu (anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu [132.241.9.84]) by emin37.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-1.0.1) Thu, 15 May 1997 17:57:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from anthrax (localhost [127.0.0.1]) Thu, 15 May 1997 14:57:05 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 14:57:05 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk From: Trevor Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:10154] Re EU X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Progressive Economics Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 MIME-Version: 1.0
[PEN-L:10237] that says it all
"The point is that we and our friends control the keys to the clubs and the treasuries that Kabila will need to tap if he is going to rebuild the country -- the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, our development funds, and those of the Europeans." -- Chester Crocker, former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa from 1981 to 1989 and now a professor at Georgetown University, explaining why the US would still have "a tremendous amount of influence" over the new government in Zaire, despite having installed and helped to maintain one of the most corrupt dictatorships on earth in that country for the last 32 years. (NYT, Saturday, May 17,1997, p.A6) ---End of Original Message- - Name: Mark Weisbrot E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Preamble Center for Public Policy 1737 21st Street NW Washington DC 20009 (202) 265-3263 (offc) (202) 333-6141 (home) fax: (202)265-3647
[PEN-L:10238] Re: that says it all
It is so nice to see that Chet Crocker is still "constructively engaged." Steven Zahniser [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, 19 May 1997, Mark Weisbrot wrote: "The point is that we and our friends control the keys to the clubs and the treasuries that Kabila will need to tap if he is going to rebuild the country -- the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, our development funds, and those of the Europeans." -- Chester Crocker, former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa from 1981 to 1989 and now a professor at Georgetown University, explaining why the US would still have "a tremendous amount of influence" over the new government in Zaire, despite having installed and helped to maintain one of the most corrupt dictatorships on earth in that country for the last 32 years. (NYT, Saturday, May 17,1997, p.A6)
[PEN-L:10236] Re: Is there any silver lining in NAFTA?
I think this is an interesting idea--unfortunately, the groups in a position to set up international pressure on nafta, mainly unions, do not seem to be doing a great job of international communication. This is too bad, because there are strong union structures in all three countries which could probably go a long way to stop some of the most excessive ecological abuses. This is one case where the narrow economist mission of most established industrial unions the the USA is really holding up the long run interests of labor. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 97-05-16 03:48:22 EDT, you write: Granting Maggie Coleman's important point that the EU is somewhat "grounded" democratically and that NAFTA essentially is not, how many PEN-Lers think it is a worthwhile political project to push for the creation of some democratic, trinational institution in North America? Some of us (including me) would like at the very least that the world trading system be modified to allow countries to pursue alternative environmental and social policies without fear of having them classified as non-tariff barriers and dismantled. This type of objective does not seem to fit neatly within an agenda of creating a continental government. Steven Zahniser [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10235] Re: Time Out for Cyber Art
superb. maggie
[PEN-L:10231] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking
In a message dated 97-05-15 17:49:44 EDT, you write: If I get any more self-conscious, I might end up some sort of Hegelian pretzel. Can we get pictures? :-) :-) But no matter. I've been on several feminist lists where men have been rebuked for their style of debate. After a brief exchange, the men shut up. And then...nothing. There is no discussion. Actually, I have seen several long winded, and relatively boring, male female exchanges on femecon. The results were that one man did leave, after emailing abusive/sexist/nasty/drunken--you name it messages (he even called me at home--a scary item and a little too close to stalking for my taste). And the other man simply changed genders and became a she. However, to my knowledge, no one ever resolved a good solution to male female debate patterns. I want to point out that email is only one place where these patterns exist. In fact, both men and women bring to email the discussion patterns they use in the world at large. I think one reason left groups tend to be either very male or very female is that no one, to my knowledge, has come up with a solution agreed to by both sides. Last time I visied FEMECON, and I admit it's been a while, there was plenty of networking and syllabus exchange, but very little discussion of ideas or politics. On email as in real life, women deal with the practical, men deal with fantasies (er, oops, ummm) oh yes, men deal with theories. Well, anyhow, debate on femecon, as with all long lasting lists ebbs and flows. There are many months of little or no idea bashing, and then there will be short, vigorous back and forth, and then months of practicalities. One reason I stay tuned to pen-l is to watch the theories (ha) flow. When I've pointed these things out, I've been told that it's macho to debate; women prefer to create nurturing safe spaces. So maybe we phallus-bearers do carry on with excessive violence and at excessive length. The truth is, I've been told I debate too vigorously too. (who me?) One of the most interesting longer debates held on femecon was what was more important--safe space or ideas. eventually, there was no resolution. Oh yes, this is a MAJOR gender difference. Women talk, men look for solutions, women deal in practicalities, men battle over ideas. Is this a contradiction? damn straight it is. But isn't this gendered interpretation of discourse one of those troubling binaries that we should all be suspicious of? Isn't one of the forms of women's oppression their expected reticence, which is internalized as the urge to be "good" (or at least not to be "bad"), not to give offense, not to cause trouble? Doug Good point, one (I SAID ONE) of the feminist responses to this would be that loud debating is a male value and why should that take precedence over female values which are gentler and allow for more grey areas? Personally, I think women are just as stubborn and just as theoretical in their debates, it's just that the frame work on which they hang their arguments are so different that men (hide bound cretures that they tend, I SAID TEND, to be) don't recognize the theories in a different frame work. The other problem is that so few men are really versed in the feminist debates that they don't recognize a theoretical disagreement when they see it. In fact, within the feminist community there are huge disagreements, we just don't call each other "protoplasmic menshvites." (welll, that's not really true either, one of iaffe's founding members sets up a round table discussion at every conference set up so she can duke it out with the marxist feminists over what ever issue). maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10230] Re: Tavis, you're *still* wrong
In a message dated 97-05-15 17:42:10 EDT, you write: Marshall Feldman wrote: Now there's a resurgence of local breweries, but their market share is small and production does not have to be local. The "local" content is the recipe. For instance, I think Boston's Sam Adams is brewed under license in PA. Sam Adam's is, I believe, part of a major brewery. The majors are buying up the local breweries. Our most successful local brewery [tiny Chico has maybe 4] turned down Budweiser's offer, so Bud is creating an imitation, copying their label, taste, etc., and using a similar name. --- Michael Perelman I just taught beer as one of the industries in a history of american business course, so, full of arcane beer knowledge, I sally forth Anheuser Busch still controls 80% of the beer market nationwide. Most of the rest of the 20% is controlled by a few large breweries. Micro breweries account for less the 2% of the market. The industry has a typical oligopoly structure at a national level, and is locally competetive in a few areas where there are local beers. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] p.s. I don't drink beer.
[PEN-L:10229] MAI Mexico (fwd)
Forwarded message: Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 01:18:41 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Bob Olsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MAI Mexico Message forwarded by Bob Olsen.. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Hendrik) Subject: Poor Journalism From Mexico From: Norman Solomon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Via: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Givel) Via: Emilie Nichols [EMAIL PROTECTED] Via: Caspar Davis [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ Hendrik's comment: although not explicitly linked to the MAI (Multilateral Ageement on Investment-OECD) issue, this report is valuable background information when discussing the implications of MAI and "globalisation" in the style of transnational corporations - agribusiness is, after all, part of the problem.] POOR JOURNALISM SOUTH OF THE BORDER By Norman Solomon Filled with speeches and photo ops, President Clinton's visit to Mexico produced a lot of good press back home. Most journalists sang the official tunes about immigration, drugs and corruption. The few off-key notes didn't last long, as when ABC's Peter Jennings reported: "This is where the U.S. gets cheap labor and makes enormous manufacturing profits." Perhaps you saw TV footage of Mexican people living in dire poverty. But it's unlikely that you heard much about *why* so many are so poor. If the network's roving correspondents knew why, they avoided spilling the beans. But not all the U.S. reporters arrived and left with Clinton. One of the few who actually lives in Mexico is John Ross, a freelance journalist who has been covering Latin America for 16 years. He's committed to probing beyond the conventional media wisdom. When I reached him in Mexico City during Clinton's trip, Ross began by pointing out that "Mexico is a country where 158,000 babies annually do not survive their fifth year due to nutritionally related disease. Two million more infants are seriously harmed by underfeeding." The crisis, he stressed, is growing more severe. "As many as 40 percent of all Mexicans suffer from some degree of under-nutrition. And a report by Banamex, the nation's top private bank, indicates that half of Mexico's 92 million citizens are eating less than the minimum daily requirement of 1,300 calories as a result of the deepest recession since 1932." Imagine the human realities behind the dry statistics: "Mexico's basic grain consumption dropped by 29 percent in 1995," Ross says, "and meat and milk consumption has slipped by an alarming 60 percent and 40 percent respectively during the last three years. The price of tortillas, the staple of poor people's diets, has doubled in the past 18 months." President Clinton's upbeat visit to Mexico is now history. And so is the superficial sheen put on that event by U.S. mass media. Ross -- who wrote the award-winning 1995 book "Rebellion From the Roots: Indian Uprising in Chiapas" -- refuses to polish the sheen. Instead, he tells about places like the town of San Agustin Loxicha in southern Mexico, "where poverty is so extreme that babies die in the priest's arms during baptism." The town is in a region that supplies coffee beans to cafes in my neighborhood and yours. Those who challenge the conditions in Loxicha face an iron fist, Ross explains: "Fifty of Loxicha's most upstanding citizens, including most of the town government and seven of its teachers, are penned up just outside the Oaxaca state capital, at the riot-scarred Santa Maria Ixcotel penitentiary, behind thick black steel doors in two cramped cells." The pending charge is armed rebellion. Ross adds that "the prisoners tell of classic torture by authorities -- their heads were wrapped in rags and dirty water poured into their mouths; electric wires were attached to their genitals; they were threatened with being hurled from helicopters into the ocean." Far from media spotlights, the Mexican military -- wielding U.S. equipment -- is on the march to bolster the status quo, Ross reports. In Oaxaca, the routine includes "forced interrogations, widespread use of torture, secret prisons and kidnappings of prominent citizens, according to a report filed in February by the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights, the state's most active independent human rights group." Today, at least 60,000 troops are deployed across broad terrain to crush resistance. In Ross's words: "From the Huasteca mountains, an impoverished, coffee-growing range that stretches through five states in eastern Mexico, all the way to the Lacandon jungle on the Guatemalan border, the Mexican army moves through indigenous zones, setting up road blocks, conducting house-to-house searches, arbitrarily beating and incarcerating Indians." Meanwhile, Ross says, 27 million Mexican people still labor -- against worsening odds -- to scratch the soil for a living. They do so "despite a decade of decapitalizing the agrarian
[PEN-L:10227] Re: Ricardo on efficiency wages?
Here is what i posted: Ricardo, Principles, Works, vol. 1 395: "Machinery and labour are in constant competition, and the former can frequently not be employed until labour rises." 395: "In America and many other countries, where the food of man is easily provided, there is not surely such great temptation to employ machinery as in England, where food is high, and costs much labour for its production. The same cause that raises labour, does not raise the value of machines, and, therefore with every augmentation of capital, a greater proportion is employed on machinery." But of course, labor was still more expensive in the U.S. despite cheap food. Gil Skillman wrote: PEN'rs: A long time ago someone on the list, maybe Michael Perelman, cited a passage in Ricardo's _Principles of Political Economy and Taxation_ which seemed to anticipate modern "efficiency wage" theory, to the effect that higher wages can induce higher levels of worker effort or quality. If that citation exists, could anyone direct me to it? Michael? Thanks in advance, Gil Skillman -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10226] Ricardo on efficiency wages?
PEN'rs: A long time ago someone on the list, maybe Michael Perelman, cited a passage in Ricardo's _Principles of Political Economy and Taxation_ which seemed to anticipate modern "efficiency wage" theory, to the effect that higher wages can induce higher levels of worker effort or quality. If that citation exists, could anyone direct me to it? Michael? Thanks in advance, Gil Skillman
[PEN-L:10225] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855
Received: from MAILQUEUE by OOI (Mercury 1.21); 19 May 97 11:00:55 +800 Return-path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 19 May 97 11:00:52 +800 Received: from anthrax (localhost [127.0.0.1]) Mon, 19 May 1997 10:59:12 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 10:59:12 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:10221] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855 X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: Progressive Economics X-PMFLAGS: 33554560 I think Jim Craven is just wrong on this. I have given specific references where this matter has been discussed. The one reference in particular is to an environmentalist who certainly would be happy if the quoted "letter" were valid. The original translation of the Seattle speech is available in the book I referred to from the University of Oklahoma press. There may be some question as to how accurate the translation into English is though. You can compare for yourself: i) THe original speech ii) the "letter" from the movie HOME by Perry. Perry himself never pretended that the speech was original. The hoax, such as it was, was perpretrated by the movie producers to make the speech seem more authentic and no doubt because it contained pop ecology concepts missing from the model. Perry expected credits to be given for his own writing. THe statement about the white person's God not loving his red children seems much more appropriate given the experience of the aboriginals than Perry's sentimental pap and no less articulate. Cheers, Ken Hanly P.S. If you need further references there is a long article by a German who discovered the real situation at the same time as or before Baird Caldicott but published his findings later. Ken, I would be wrong or right if I had a definitive position on this. As I am not a specialist in this area I simply do not know. A friend of mine who is a specialist in this area and did his PhD Dissertation on the Dwamish and the role of Chief Sealth is of the opinion that the matter is not completely settled. There have been repeated assertions that the journalist Smith who translated some of the words of Chief Sealth embellished them and/or mistranslated; there are further assertions about the letter. The well-known attitudes of Chief Sealth and behavior towards the settlers suggest that Chief SEalth would have never differentiated between a "White Man's God" and a "Red Man's God" and that he clearly understood the problem of plunder of Indians was not due to all Whites or due to "White Man's God" Further, the fact that an "environmentalist" asserts a proposition that an "environmentalist" probably would not want to be true, does not establish the truth of the proposition; it was published in a journal of forestry management and certainly the forestry interests here have gone after some of the purported sayings of Chief SEalth as a backdoor way of attacking the environmentalists (which does not establish that their(the forestry management folks) claims are false of course). When I put out that purported letter I was opf course aware of the controversy surrounding Chief Sealth (I am a Native Washingtonian) but I personally am not in a position to have an opinion as to its accuracy as I am not a specialist in this area and have not surveyed the contending opinions on this subject to any great extent. *--* * James Craven * " For those who have fought for it, * * Dept of Economics* freedom has a taste the protected * * Clark College* will never know." * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. *Otto von Bismark * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * * * (360) 992-2283 * * * [EMAIL PROTECTED]* * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
[PEN-L:10224] EU - Reply to Sid
I am grateful to Sid for posting the ecologist article, which I thought was an unusually well-researched statement of the anti-EU postion. However, I think that Sid - and the Ecologist - fail to distinguish sufficiently between the EU and the Maastricht Treaty. I agree with the criticism that Sid and the Ecologist make of the Treaty. It is an extremely reactionary document. Its proposals for monetary union are undemocratic, monetarist and deflationary. But while the Maastricht treaty marks a significant right-ward shift in the way that the EU is being developed, the EU is a wider project. Sid says that the underlying purpose of the EU and the Maastricht Treaty is to strengthen the ability of transnational capital to impose anti-social standards. This is true as far as the Maastricht treaty is concerned. But the EU has more contradictary roots. For example, many of the bourgeois politicians who were involved in promoting the European Community in the 1950s were concerned to ensure that the national divisions which had given rise to two world wars should be overcome. Since then, as Sid notes, major business figures have played a key part in shaping the form of the EU. Just as business organises and pushes for its interests at a national level, so the heads of the big multinationals have met regularly under the auspices of the secretive Business Round Table on Europe, and, helped by the lack of democratic accountability of EU institutions, have been very succesful in promoting their agenda in Europe. But the fact that the right - or at least big capital - have been more successful than the left and the working class movement in shaping the EU is no reason to abandon the struggle at that level. The lack of democratic accountability of the new European Monetary Institute, and the deflationary bias in the way it is consituted are a serious cause for concern. But, with the exception of Britain, whose monetary policy is more directly affected by US policy, the other members of the EU have for some time found that there monetary policy is effectively determined by what the Bundesbank does. For the governments of these countries, a structure which allows them to share in shaping European monetary policy is seen as a step forward. I think it is mistaken, and also dangerous, to argue that powers are being transferred from national governments to the EU, and that this is reducing democratic accountability. Britain in particular has a semi-feudal system of government, and many important issues - like Brown's decision to give operational independence to the Bank of England - are not subject to parliamentary control. Certainly, its important to push for greater democratic control at the national level, and also for that matter, at a regional level within nation states, particularly in the case of the old centralised states like Britain and France. But, given the degree of integration of the European economy, I think that there are many areas where it is more appropriate to push for democratic control at the level of the EU. Trevor Evans Berlin.
[PEN-L:10222] Re: locality -- loyalty?
On Mon, May 19, 1997 at 09:41:20 (-0700) Wojtek Sokolowski writes: As I see it, the disagreement between Bill and myself boils down to one point: what is the actual effect, if any, of formal structures, institutions and people who hide behing them on the everyday behaviour of the so-called "ordinary" people? Beside that one point, I do not think that anyone can in a good faith construe my postings as a rejection of the principle of particiaptory democracy self-management or a defence of Stalinism. I did not intend in any way to imply that you rejected principles of participatory democracy or were defending Stalinism. I am also beginning to think that our approaches are not necessarily exclusive. We seem to be emphasizing different aspects of what is perhaps the same goal---to promote a more democratic and just order, etc. So addressing the point of disagreement, it is my impression that Bill thinks that institutions and institutional constraints have a quite deterministic influence over individual behaviour -- as his metaphor of DOS and multitasking seems to suggest. At the same time, Bill strongly argues for self-management and participatory democracy. The combination of those two arguments strikes me as rather odd, because it is not at all clear to me how the so-called people are going to exercise their self-management and participatory democracy if they are not handed down the right set of social-political institutions on a silver platter. Are we to assume that particpatory democracy and self-management is only possible when the elites consent to the "proper" sets of instituions? I strongly reject the contention that I believe in a "deterministic influence" of institutions. Rather I believe that institutions can often be very powerful shapers of behavior. My DOS example was (I think obviously) a simplistic example of constraints, while my example of the Fed was a much more realistic one. The Fed is one of the institutions best-insulated from popular participation in our country. Ask yourself how people can affect its decisions. The answer is that it is well-nigh impossible to do so. The question, in this case, is not how we work within the framework set down by the Fed (which excludes democratic action in principle), but how we replace the Fed with something better. The conclusions drawn from this deformation of my argument differ wildly from my own. I argue, simply, that powerful institutional constraints on action must be removed if we are to have a *flourishing* democracy. How to go about that? Do we need these institutions handed down from above? No, we simply have to struggle in familiar ways (from education, organizing outside "approved" institutions, nonviolent resistance, strikes, etc. to revolutionary action, the latter of which I would essentially reject today) to replace these institutions. Today, I emphasize, this *must* take place, by definition, largely outside of the formal arrangements which are handed down from above. So, first we identify/destroy/replace the current repressive institutions (how we do this is, naturally, not a simple task), then we build new ones democratically, perhaps "bootstrapping" ourselves with primitive institutions until more satisfactory ones can evolve. My own position is that in reality people have much more power and much more options to pursue than it may appear from the formal institutional arrangemnts. My position is that this is true, though the opposite is often the case as well. I believe that people often have much less power and much fewer options to pursue than may appear from the formal institutional arrangements (we vote, but for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, as Helen Keller said), and this is more true in advanced systems of government which rely on propaganda than those that rely on direct violence. I'll pursue this below, but it will be interesting to see if we can actually come to some agreement, given our seemingly divergent viewpoints (but, I think this is actually more apparent than real). For various reasons, they may or may not exercise those options -- but that is a quite different matter that requires an explanation. For the same token, institutions and people who hide behind them have in reality much less power and influence over "ordinary" people than it may appear on the surface. The only instance when the powers that be can actually compel people to do something against their own will is to use a direct violence or a directr threat thereof. But that does not happen very often for a very simple reason - it is not possible to stay in power for very long by the means of violence alone. As Napoleon aptly observed "one can do many things with bayonets, except to sit on them." Yes, this is an excellent point, and I agree that direct violence is quite crude and ultimately less effective than what David Hume referred to as "opinion". He wrote the following, which though ignoring the fact that
[PEN-L:10223] Re: jobless growth
Jim D writes: (2) if the long-term growth rate of labor productivity accelerates, then a constant growth rate of real GDP can be associated with a falling growth rate of employment (labor-power demand). The growth rate of employment may fall below that of the labor force, causing unemployment to rise; more likely, unemployment won't fall. The possibility of the latter type of "jobless growth" might be happening now in the US as, to paraphrase the hype, "the information revolution is finally paying off as companies are finally figuring out how to use those PCs." However, the solution to this kind of "jg" would simply be to have faster growth of real GDP (ignoring the environmental effects of such acceleration). COMMENT: This explains why productivity growth which was faster than employment growth didn't produce unemployment in Doug H's historical examples. Consumption increased correspondingly. I'm surprised that Tom W. hasn't pointed out that the alternative to the increase in consumption is the contraction in the work week (the alternative pursued at the turn of the century in response to rising productivity). The implication here is that in the absence of a declining work week or rising standards of material consumption ANY productivity growth, accelerating or not, (even decelerating), will be jobless growth. Terry McDonough
