Re: Decaying Capitalist Economy
Greetings, On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Dave Markland wrote: Shawgi wrote: The other major problem caused by the basic internal contradiction is that private ownership of the means of production determines that the motive behind production is the creation of maximum capitalist profit. (snip) As long as there is class society, as long as there is private ownership of the means of production there cannot be efficient use of the productive forces. The lesson of Yugoslavia shows us the problem with such statements (as well as the myopia of "Market Socialism"). They eliminated private ownership but kept the market, resulting in the inefficiencies of that social construct. further, the market deepened class divisions in society. Regards, dave Shawgi wrote: Dave, I don't understand your observation here. I was pointing to the dubiousness of an assertion like "as long as there is private ownership of the means of production there cannot be efficient use of the productive forces". In a system of Market Socialism (which I know you did not mention, but it helps illustrate my point), there is no private ownership but we don't see "efficient use of productive forces". Thus, eliminating private ownership is at best a necessary, but not sufficient cause of efficient use of productive forces. Sorry for the confusion- i was trying to keep it short. Regards, Dave Ok, Dave. Thanks for the clarification. Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The World Economic Crisis and American Capitalism
Let's just take the basics of Marx's theory of the financial and monetary aspects of the cycle. In the face of bankruptcy, Asian producers are trying to honor financial obligations (sales having turned out to be at prices lower than used in preceding obligations); they are ready to sell their products for cash and not against credit instruments, even at a loss. Say's Law is inane: these producers are selling in order to pay; they are pleased if they have simply sold their commodities without immediately thinking of a purchase (ominous of course since Asia accounted for almost 1/3 of the growth of many leading US companies). They are all seeking cover behind hard currency, which is desired as such not to buy goods to be invested in productive activities. As a consequence the rate of interest becomes more onerous because they want money at any cost to meet payments. They must "dump" for ready cash; their exports will only destabilize stagnant Japan, inducing yen devaluations. Net capital inflow to the US was already over 400 billion dollars last year; it should only increase in the wake of the Asian crisis. This will increase the value of the dollar vis-a-vis the yen, compounding the trade imbalance and the threat to domestic production. Why is the US economy not a house of cards? I must say that I am rather surprised that Doug thinks it possible to evaluate the "long-wave" vitality of US capitalism, independently of the situation as a whole. Rakesh
Re: The World Economic Crisis and American Capitalism
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: I must say that I am rather surprised that Doug thinks it possible to evaluate the "long-wave" vitality of US capitalism, independently of the situation as a whole. May I quote myself, from LBO #80? quote Long upswing? Maybe the estimable Anwar Shaikh, a Marxian economist at the New School, is right, and the long crisis that began in 1973 is over, and we're in the early stages of a long upwave of prosperity. Shaikh argues that that crisis was the result of a decline in corporate profitability from the late 1940s into the early 1980s, but thanks to the assault on labor that succeeded in cutting real wages, profitability has been restored, and is now in an upswing -- at least in the U.S. According to the laws of classical Marxism, that should mean higher growth rates, strong stock markets, and maybe even some gains for labor. Maybe Shaikh is right; as Marx himself said, "permanent crises do not exist." Lefties have often lusted after crises so passionately that they've even conjured up a few that turned out to be illusions. Presumably this craving is motivated by a belief that hard times will prompt a leftward turn in politics. But during this quarter-century of semi-hard times we've seen just the opposite -- a sharp right turn in elite political thinking, and resignation and despair among the masses. It may be that rising expectations are better fertilizer for radical politics than falling ones. But outside the U.S., it's hard to make the case for a long upwave. German unemployment is at levels unseen since the days of Weimar, Russia is a wreck, Africa is as well, and Asia, once the world's brightest economic spot, is dimming rapidly. An unidentified U.S. Treasury official worried to the New York Times that there was a potential for a great "train wreck" in Japan, South Korea seems on the verge of imploding, and much of the rest of Asia is sinking into recession. Can the U.S. be in the early phases of a boom while the rest of the world is stuck in the mud? Or is the rest of the world entering the endgame of its crisis in preparation for joining America in an upswing? [...] It seems unlikely, though, that the U.S. stock market could head seriously southwards without Greenspan turning seriously hostile and raising interest rates, something he's unlikely to do as long as world markets remain skittish. But he still must worry about three things simultaneously -- the dangers of the Wall Street bubble reflating; the dangers that persistently tight labor markets will lead to sustained increases in real wages, and with that, a serious squeeze on corporate profits; and the risk of the Asian sickness worsening (and even spreading to Latin America, should investors get nervous and pull capital out of the region). In Greenspan's recent public testimony, he's been professing hope that the Asian slump will slow the U.S. economy enough to take the pressure off our labor markets -- in effect, to do his tightening work for him. But if Southeast Asia is now joining Japan in an extended recession, and if the Japanese slump is deepening rather than climaxing, then the effects on the rest of the world could be a lot less benign. The verge of deflation, or the early phases of a generation-long boom? Who knows? There's nothing more frustrating to a pundit than to confess to confusion and uncertainty, but honesty demands just that right now. endquote So it seems to me that I reported Shaikh's analysis as something to be taken seriously - he's no dummy - but that there were reasons to be skeptical too. I don't think anyone can say with any kind of confidence what the hell is going on. As I've argued here before, you could read the S Korean bailout as a U.S. takeover of that country, turning a rival into a subordinate. From the U.S. point of view, that could be very bullish news. Given their track record over the last 20-25 years, you have to give U.S. crisis managers the benefit of the doubt in their ability to turn potential disaster to their advantage. That's not to say they can do it forever, but I hope I'm not betraying any confidences, but in a private email to me yesterday, Rakesh said that Marxism isn't a theory of upswings, but one of crisis. I can't agree. For one, Marx was a theorist of the expansiveness of capital, of its ability to break beyond apparent barriers to its expansion, as much as he was a theorist of contradiction and disaster. And for two, since capitalism spends most of its time in expansion, you're condeming Marxism to marginality. And for three, if you believe in crisis, you'll see one everywhere all the time. So you end up looking really silly when the crisis passes. So for all these reasons, I think we have to take seriously the possibility that Shaikh is right, and the long crisis is over in the U.S. at least. Doug
re: dialectics, etc.
Date sent: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 12:06:37 -0800 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:re: dialectics, etc. Ricardo writes: ..."the production of subjects" is nothing new; it was tried, with very grievous consequences, by the Soviets. Che's "New Man" was a similar attempt. A more extreme example is Pol Pot's experiment, which should end all such talk about "producing" humans, "total innovations". While I generally agree with what Louis said about this, I want to add an additional addendum: What did Louis, that indispensable reporter of pen-l, say? Except for his usual invectives, there was nothing to his remark. The idea of creating a "New Man" is very old. For example, Plato (pretending to be Socrates) wrote in his REPUBLIC about structuring a society that creates what he considers to be the very best men (and women) to be the Guardians of his ideal society. Since then, the idea of educating people to be better than they currently are (educating in the broadest sense of the word) has shown up on all spots of the ideological spectrum from Robert Owen's utopian socialism to the conservatives efforts to push "family values" (i.e. patriarchy and anti-abortion) in the schools. Marx's idea of the creation of the "New Man" is quite different. Whereas Plato asked the question about "who watches the watchers (Guardians)?" and came up with the idea that they should be educated, Marx asks "who educates the educators?" (in the THESES ON FEUERBACH). He rejects Owen and the like: their "doctrine necessarily arrives at dividing society into two parts, one of which is [seen as] superior to society" (thesis 3). Plato, Owen, and the like lord themselves over the masses, becoming the "condescending saviors" referred to in the Internationale. Certainly, in saying "pretending" you don't mean he was trying to deceive his readers? In Marx, as Hal Draper documents in KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (4 volumes), it is the workers who educate themselves. Capitalism propels them into situations where they have little choice but to self-organize and self-educate, creating themselves as potential replacements for the bourgeois rulers. That's just what Marx hoped for, but the fact is that workers have shown little inclination to "create themselves" into Marxists. That's why Lenin wrote What is to be done? BTW, Pol Pot made no effort to create a "New Man." He just forced people to obey his crazy ideas. Rather than being an effort at education, it's more like Sukarno's slaughter of a million suspected communists in 1965 and his slaughter in East Timor since 1973 or so. (These dates seem wrong. I am sorry if my memory is fading.) The difference is the US never treated Pol Pot as an official ally so we heard about all his sins in the official "free press." (Pol Pot was an unofficial ally of the US after he was ousted from power, but that's a different issue.) My short remark above in no way says that Pol Pot and Che were the same, as Louis concluded. One would expect such a conclusion from someone who has a purely emotional understanding of marxism, or someone who is emotionally angry at me because they were proven wrong in a previous debate. ricardo in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
immanent ingenuousness
After I tried to end this silly debate, Ricardo says that: I agree, but there are too many disingenuous remarks on your part to let then go. Hmm... I must have hit a raw nerve, for Ricardo is stooping to insults. Look it up: "disingenuous" is a close cousin of "dishonest." I initially thought that I'd compromise and skip all the merely technical or trivial points, to keep this missive to the absolute shortest, but after doing so, all I found were more insults. There's little or no content to Ricardo's comment, so instead of responding to it, I'll ask him to simply restate his position, starting from the beginning. Crucially, Ricardo says I don't understand the notion of an "immanent critique," but since doesn't explain what _he_ means by that phrase, I don't know if I understand it or not. Since a similar point came up in a discussion with Ajit, I will respond to one relatively mild insult in order to clarify matters: Ricardo writes... pilling [i.e., piling] one idea (or thinker) on top of another is your trademark. My method is one of reading all of the contributions I can concerning any specific issue and trying to synthesize them. I find folks who stick to one school's interpretation (e.g., Althusserian Structuralism or the Frankfurt school) to be overly narrow. In fact, I think this fits with the so-called "Germanic" method that I think old Karlos used. I reread what spurred Ricardo to insult me here and discovered that he didn't respond to the content at all, except that I use the word "add" (as in adding "'crisis theory' and the critique of political economy" to Marx's persistent anti-alienation theme). I never claimed that this one word summed up Marx's method. Rather, it's shorthand. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
Re: The World Economic Crisis and American Capitalism
Doug Henwood wrote, Given their track record over the last 20-25 years, you have to give U.S. crisis managers the benefit of the doubt in their ability to turn potential disaster to their advantage. That's not to say they can do it forever, but This is the one fact that would tend to dim the prospects of a new long upswing. In light of these crisis management successes, has there been enough of a destruction of capital assets that would establish a foundation for a long upswing? My impression is that there has been a lot of "reorganization" and "rolling readjustment", but that the net result has been to prop up the value of capital assets. Is such a thing as a rentier long upswing even possible? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: immanent ingenuousness
Date sent: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:55:48 -0800 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:immanent ingenuousness Devine, don't try to sound so innocent now. Anyone who read your last missive on "immanent critique" will know it is you who decided to take this slipshod-personal road. Then when someone turns around and responds, you cry like a baby. ricardo After I tried to end this silly debate, Ricardo says that: I agree, but there are too many disingenuous remarks on your part to let then go. Hmm... I must have hit a raw nerve, for Ricardo is stooping to insults. Look it up: "disingenuous" is a close cousin of "dishonest." I initially thought that I'd compromise and skip all the merely technical or trivial points, to keep this missive to the absolute shortest, but after doing so, all I found were more insults. There's little or no content to Ricardo's comment, so instead of responding to it, I'll ask him to simply restate his position, starting from the beginning. Crucially, Ricardo says I don't understand the notion of an "immanent critique," but since doesn't explain what _he_ means by that phrase, I don't know if I understand it or not. Since a similar point came up in a discussion with Ajit, I will respond to one relatively mild insult in order to clarify matters: Ricardo writes... pilling [i.e., piling] one idea (or thinker) on top of another is your trademark. My method is one of reading all of the contributions I can concerning any specific issue and trying to synthesize them. I find folks who stick to one school's interpretation (e.g., Althusserian Structuralism or the Frankfurt school) to be overly narrow. In fact, I think this fits with the so-called "Germanic" method that I think old Karlos used. I reread what spurred Ricardo to insult me here and discovered that he didn't respond to the content at all, except that I use the word "add" (as in adding "'crisis theory' and the critique of political economy" to Marx's persistent anti-alienation theme). I never claimed that this one word summed up Marx's method. Rather, it's shorthand. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1997: The country's purchasing executives are optimistic about the economy for 1998, with expectations of higher revenues compared with 1997 and record bullishness on manufacturing employment for the coming year, the National Association of Purchasing Management says as it releases its semiannual economic forecast. Purchasers also expect a better Christmas retail season this year, compared with 1996, but not as good as 1994, NAPM reported. They are also looking to invest heavily in capital expenditures in 1998. NAPM members named labor and benefit costs their number one concern (13.9 percent) for next year, but only a small group - about 4 percent - had any real worries about skilled labor shortages. The head of the association's business survey panel says among manufacturers, most of the job shortfalls are expected to be in unskilled positions (Daily Labor Report, page A-5; The New York Times, page D4; The Wall Street Journal, page A6; USA Today, page 3B). The economy will create only half the new low-skilled jobs needed for the nearly 1.3 million welfare recipients expected to enter the labor market during 1997-98, an advocacy organization said in a report "Welfare Reform: The Jobs Aren't There" prepared by the Preamble Center for Public Policy, a Washington, D.C. group that says it looks for "progressive sustainable solutions" to serious economic and social issues". Union, environmental, and advocacy groups are among the center's board members. The Asian financial crisis has diminished the Fed's worries about incipient inflation, Fed Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin said in a speech in Zurich, Switzerland. "Inflation has been remarkably well contain," Mrs. Rivlin said, despite "very tight labor markets" as reflected in the November unemployment rate of 4.6 percent (The Wall Street Journal, page A24). Business Week (December 15, page 6) lists companies that have announced plans to downsize, with the number of jobs to be laid off and the percent of the workforce that involves. The list is lead by Eastman Kodak, with 10,000 (10 percent of all its workers) to be laid off, and concludes with Apple Computer, with 4,100 to be laid off, 31 percent of its workforce. The data is attributed to Challenger, Gray Christmas, Chicago. That firm says that marked gyrations and Asian troubles have made some companies nervous. Another factor: Many waited until year end to be sure they could get along with fewer bodies. application/ms-tnef
France May Go to 35-Hour Work Week -Forw
Forwarded mail received from: CENTER1:City:City.smtp:"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" x-posted from publabor list. An interesting little follow-up from the recent utopia discussion on pen-l. 12/10/1997 10:22 EST France May Go to 35-Hour Work Week PARIS (AP) -- France's leftist Cabinet adopted a measure calling for the work week to be reduced to 35 hours from 39 hours by the year 2000, despite protests by business leaders. A reduced work week, aimed at spreading jobs around to fight 12.5 percent unemployment, was a main plank in the Socialists' electoral platform in the legislative elections that brought them to power in June. A new poll released Wednesday indicated that 67 percent of the French would accept a 35-hour week with slightly lower pay if it would help create jobs in their company and industry. The survey, from the IFOP institute and published in the left-leaning daily Liberation, was taken over the phone Dec. 4-5 with 1,082 people aged 15 and older. No margin of error was given, but French polls of this size usually carry a margin of up to 3 percent. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has stressed there should be negotiations between employers and workers on implementing the reduced work week. The government has already begun a publicity campaign to convince business leaders the shorter hours won't hurt French competitiveness. That campaign is being countered by the national business federation CNPF which vociferously opposed the change, contending it would simply raise labor costs. They demand instead that the government loosen up rigid labor laws and cut employment taxes. Under the plan, companies with over 20 employees would be required to reduce non-overtime hours to 35 by Jan. 1, 2000, while smaller companies would have until Jan. 1, 2002 to make the switch. Leading the conservative's opposition to the bill, President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday told the Cabinet: ``I don't think that this bill, taking into account its mandatory nature, is good for employment.'' The 35-hour work week bill will now be debated in parliament.
Re: Dilbert
Sid Shniad wrote: I heard the author of Dilbert interviewed on national CBC radio a while back. The guy's a reactionary individualist whose perspective is a kind of with it cynicism about anything social (i.e. unions, politics, etc.) I think that too many people embrace his stuff without reading between the (fairly prominent) lines. Sid Shniad From: valis [EMAIL PROTECTED] === Norman Solomon, reachable at [EMAIL PROTECTED], is a writer dedicated to alerting us about the perverse relationship between politics and public language, a realm now almost wholly taken up by the covert combat of spin doctors. . . . I like Solomon's work and haven't read his book, but from your post it sounds like much ado about nothing. I follow Dilbert religiously and never got the impression that it was in great part supposed to be about corporate downsizing. Dilbert is funny because it's about the idiocy of bureaucratic culture in general and the natural follies people who happen to be in a corporate/technical environment. Note that most Dilbert strips could be about workers in a public agency, a non-profit, or, for that matter, a progressive think tank. What a colossal waste of time to get diverted by this. Next we'll have, 'why television cop shows aren't revolutionary art.' Oh wait. We already did that. MBS === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer. === There is a small book that gives a left critique of Dilbert and Adams. I have looked through it but do not remember the author. I know that Dollars and Sense gives it away to people who donate, I think, more than $60 to DS.
Son of Dilbert
Well, do I rate some sort of prize for initiating the sleeper thread of the year? Given the weather today here in Wisconsin, a one-way ticket to Cuba would suit me fine. I'll explain the virtues of Net access to skeptical Fidel Co, show them how many friends they already have in cyberspace, and be Your Lurker In Havana forever more. valis
Re: Dilbert
It's never a waste of time to discuss the foibles of mass-culture, because that's where the politics of transnational capital get fought out. Heiner Mueller, the great German playwright, once wrote that "Der Text weist mehr als der Autor", or, "The author's text knows more than the author him/herself." Dilbert is about the discontents of the informatic workplace, and is actually more revealing about the true costs and stresses and strains of the Silicon Valley lifestyle -- its essential idiocy, its cruelty, racism and sexism, and the terrible competitive grind of the 24-hour workdays put in by the cyberwizards chasing stock options to the next galaxy -- than many an allegedly Leftwing sociology textbook. The comic strip knows more than the cartoonist. -- Dennis
Big Brother: Bill 160 (fwd)
Kitchener Waterloo Record 15 November 1997 Privacy fear raised over education bill By Luisa D'Amato The Ontario government is poised to give itself the power to collect and disclose private information about students - including medical problems, sexual orientation and religious beliefs -without requiring the students' permission . And a Kitchener high school teacher, who is trying to mobilize protest against the provisions, calls them scary and much more harmful than the government's other controversial plans to cut teachers' preparation time and control class sizes. The government is "giving themselves absolute power to intrude into areas where they don't belong," said Rick Jones, who teaches electronics at Cameron Heights Collegiate in Kitchener. He discovered the provisions while studying Bill 160, the controversial legislation which centralizes control over education in Ontario and provoked a recent two-week teachers' strike. At the heart of the issue is Bill 160's plan to establish an Ontario education number for each student, which would be constant from kindergarten to post secondary education. Bill 160 which is awaiting third reading in the Ontario legislature, says the minister of education or educational and training institutions "are authorized to collect, directly or indirectly, personal information" that could be accessed through the student numbers. "Personal information" is declared to be the same kind of information that is protected by Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Bill 160 says. That includes a person's name, address and telephone number, but also blood type, psychiatric history, political opinions, race, religion, financial transactions, fingerprint information and other types of information widely considered to be private. Bill 160 also gives the power to the education minister, or educational institutions, to "use or disclose" personal information in assigning an Ontario education number. It does not clarify to whom the disclosure may be made. Deborah Goldberg, legal counsel with the education ministry, acknowledged Friday that the proposed legislation gives government the power to delve into private information. But she said the power isn't intended to be used in a sinister way. The government's intention "is probably limited to things like name, address, phone number and marks," although she agreed that "the legislation doesn't say that". Goldberg said she's not an expert on the proposals for student numbers. Ministry officials who have been closely involved were not available for comment Friday. Provisions for collecting information are in the bill because, in order for schools to gather even such seemingly innocuous information as a student's address and phone number, Goldberg said, a statute has to be passed. Jones is bothered that there are no prescribed limits on what information could be collected or disclosed. Nor does the bill give recourse to a student who doesn't want the information collected or given out. In fact, nothing in the legislation says the student needs to be told personal information about them is being gathered. Jones, a former business owner who says he voted for the Conservatives in the last election, says collecting some information might be a good thing. For example, if one knows which students don't have English as a first language, one could track them and test the effectiveness of different language-instruction methods, Jones said. But he can also see the potential for "unbelievable abuse. And there is nothing (in the legislation) to stop the abuse."
Re: Dilbert
That's kind of expensive for a sub to DS, isn't it, Robin? ;-) There is a small book that gives a left critique of Dilbert and Adams. I have looked through it but do not remember the author. I know that Dollars and Sense gives it away to people who donate, I think, more than $60 to DS.
Re: U.S. productivity
How exactly are these productivity figures arrived at? jd --- There was a question the other day about productivity performance in the U.S. Here are some numbers, current through last week's downward revision of the 1997Q3 stats. Though there was a bounce in the 1997Q2 Q3 figures, performance over the whole cycle is underwhelming.
Re: Dilbert
In my view, Dilbert is the embodiment of cynicism. His message is that action to modify one's situation is inherently doomed to failure because people are all idiots. Perhaps Dilbert is the quintessential post modern cartoon. Sid Shniad At 08:15 PM 12/9/97 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: in a socially harmless way. The author's politics are a perfect fit for the way the cartoon is consumed. Don't rebel, don't unionize - laugh at the stupid boss! But Doug, laughing and rebelling or unionizing do not have to be mutually exclusive. I w ould go even further by saying that laughter might be a good antidote for burnout and cynicism that often results from taking the struggle to seriously. Regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233
Pssst! Get a load of this one...
Copyright (c) 1997 by The Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com Date: 12/05/97 Section: The Faculty Page: A16 December 5, 1997 Yale's Labor Strife Leads Some of Its Ph.D.'s to Abandon Academe for Union Organizing Does trend say more about divisions at the university, or the naivete of its teaching assistants? By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN If she hadn't gone to Yale University for graduate school, Ivana Krajcinovic figures she'd be an economics professor right now. "Thank God I went," she says. Ms. Krajcinovic, who earned her Ph.D. in economics in 1993, is instead a union activist. She organizes dishwashers in Monterey, Cal., for Local 483 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. She credits Yale for her change of heart. Ms. Krajcinovic started graduate school there in 1987, intent on becoming an academic, like her father, an engineering professor at Arizona State University. But during her six years in New Haven, Conn., she grew increasingly turned off by the academic enterprise and turned on by the labor movement. She got a feel for organizing as a leader in the continuing drive by teaching assistants to gain recognition from Yale for GESO, the Graduate Employees and Students Organization. Yale is "like boot camp for organizing," she says. "They run a real good program there." Ms. Krajcinovic is not the only recruit labor has won from Yale in the past few years. While the university has a long tradition of launching the careers of corporate chiefs, Supreme Court Justices, even U.S. Presidents, more recently it has proved to be a starting point for a wholly different kind of leader: a union leader. Over the past five years, nearly a dozen graduate students and twice as many undergraduates have pursued jobs in labor after leaving Yale. Many of them had worked for GESO or two affiliated unions, which represent maintenance and clerical workers. All three unions make up a federation affiliated with the hotel and restaurant employees' union. And all three have had bitter, protracted disputes with Yale that have led to strikes and arrests. Critics of GESO say the idea that graduate students can be compared with janitors is a delusion. "People with the most advantages have the need to go out and identify with the huddled masses," says Donald Kagan, a Yale historian and classicist. Of the students who have abandoned academe for the labor movement, some earned their Ph.D.'s, and others quit. Some are now organizing bartenders and garment workers; some are working with graduate students on other campuses. "One of the things the Yale administration has unintentionally done is make Yale into a breeding ground for experienced, tested union activists," says Gordon Lafer, who was a GESO leader and earned his Ph.D. in political science in 1995. Dr. Lafer is now an assistant professor at the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center. He works with nurses, loggers, and construction workers, teaching them the ropes of collective bargaining. To be sure, Ph.D.'s from other institutions, like the Universities of California, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, also have joined the labor movement. Under the new, more-aggressive leadership of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., labor and academe have been trying to make stronger connections -- many of the teaching assistants' unions are affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers -- and many graduate students have responded. Those at Yale who have answered labor's call account for only a tiny fraction of the roughly 300 Ph.D.'s that the university produces every year. Still, the academics-turned-activists are noteworthy, for what their career moves mean for labor and say about Yale. Many of these students were drawn to Yale precisely because of its prestige and their desire to teach at such an institution. Along the way, however, many graduate
Re: Dilbert
At 08:15 PM 12/9/97 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: in a socially harmless way. The author's politics are a perfect fit for the way the cartoon is consumed. Don't rebel, don't unionize - laugh at the stupid boss! But Doug, laughing and rebelling or unionizing do not have to be mutually exclusive. I w ould go even further by saying that laughter might be a good antidote for burnout and cynicism that often results from taking the struggle to seriously. Regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233
Re: The World Economic Crisis and American Capitalism
Date sent: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 10:37:42 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copies to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Re: The World Economic Crisis and American Capitalism Doug Henwood wrote: Rakesh said that Marxism isn't a theory of upswings, but one of crisis. I can't agree. For one, Marx was a theorist of the expansiveness of capital, of its ability to break beyond apparent barriers to its expansion, as much as he was a theorist of contradiction and disaster. And for two, since capitalism spends most of its time in expansion, you're condeming Marxism to marginality. And for three, if you believe in crisis, you'll see one everywhere all the time. So you end up looking really silly when the crisis passes. So for all these reasons, I think we have to take seriously the possibility that Shaikh is right, and the long crisis is over in the U.S. at least. Doug This may be true only in light of our historical understanding of capitalism. That is why is so difficult to speak about the "original" meaning of Capital, because there is always a mediation between the past of the text and the present of the reader. You can't deny there was a time Marx was seeing crises everywhere. But history has proven capitalism to be a lot more resilient and versatile than even he ever anticipated. Moreover, is it really possible to divorce Marx's theory of crisis from his theory of accumulation? Certainly, in Marx's analyis, crisis emerge directly from the valorization process of capital. ricardo
re: dialectics, etc.
Ricardo: That's just what Marx hoped for, but the fact is that workers have shown little inclination to "create themselves" into Marxists. That's why Lenin wrote What is to be done? This is silly. Lenin wrote this in order to help construct a socialist party in Russia based on the German model. He and Plekhanov struggled with the Economist tendency which resisted a national organization. There is nothing really new in this article, as scholars such as Neil Harding have pointed out. All of the ideas are imported from Western Europe and adapted to Russian conditions. For example, Lenin's concept of a vanguard represented orthodox social democratic thought.. George Plekhanov, eighteen years before the publication of "What is to be Done?" stated that "the socialist intelligentsia...must become the leader of the working class in the impending emancipation movement, explain to it its political and economic interests and also the interdependence of those interests and must prepare them to play an independent role in the social life of Russia." In 1898, Pavel Axelrod wrote that "the proletariat, according to the consciousness of the Social Democrats, does not possess a ready-made, historically elaborated social ideal," and "it goes without saying that these conditions, without the energetic participation of the Social Democrats, may cause our proletariat to remain in its condition as a listless and somnolent force in respect of its political development." The Austrian Hainfeld program of the Social Democrats said that "Socialist consciousness is something that is brought into the proletarian class struggle from the outside, not something that organically develops out of the class struggle." Kautsky, the world's leading Marxist during this period, stated that "socialism and the class struggle arise side by side and not one out of the other; each arises under different conditions. Modern socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge." Lenin was responsible for many positive innovations in Marxist thought such as his understanding of the national question, but "What is To Be Done" contains no new ideas. Louis Proyect
re: immanent critique
Date sent: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 20:09:20 -0800 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: James Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:re: immanent critique The following continuation of my discussion with Ricardo is becoming extremely boring and repetitive -- not to mention long. Feel free to hit "delete" at this point. It is my last contribution on pen-l -- unless people really want it. If Ricardo wants to continue off-list, that's fine with me. I agree, but there are too many disingenuous remarks on your part to let then go. The problem with this whole debate, I have gradually come to realize, is that you have very little understanding of what "immanent critique" means. Marx's early immanent critique was that the world had not become rational in the way Hegel had argued. He saw no reconciliation between reality and the idealist assumptions of hegelian philosophy. Devine: Right. But his early writings were still mechanical in many ways. His 1844 manuscripts are very much in the same league as Feuerbach, who he criticized in his 11 Theses and in the GERMAN IDEOLOGY (with Engels). Feuerbach's materialism was pretty mechanical (at least as I understand it) and Marx was right to reject it. Mechanical?? The young Marx used Feuerbach to critize Hegel but was never a follower of his mechanical materialism. As I've said before, I don't see him as "drop[ping] the philosophical critique." Rather, he drops the _purely_ philosophical critique. As Karl Korsch notes, Marx tried to abolish the artificial _division_ between philosophy and political economy. I've already noted how Marx's anti-alienation theme continues in CAPITAL. But he _adds_ "crisis theory" and the critique of political economy. The latter is an extension of his analysis of alienation, since the political economists of his day by and large suffered from commodity fetishism, which is one kind of alienation. Since he never repudiated the content of his early work on alienation, the new emphasis on crisis does not involve an subtraction of the old themes. (Similarly, he never repudiated his early editorials defending press freedom, as Hal Draper argues.) Reading this, one would think the evolution of Marx's ideas were merely a question of adding one concept on top of another without any regard for systematic thinking. Marx always remained a "Germanic" thinker in that, for him, knowledge, if it is to be knowledge at all, must be systematic. I know this is difficult for you to understand, since pilling one idea (or thinker) on top of another is your trademark. Concerning economic crises, Ricardo had writtten: The problem with crisis-theory is that it cannot set the boundaries of capitalism beyond which it will no longer be able to function. Why couldn't capitalism function with 40% unemployment? Now he clarifies what he meant: My point is that a purely objective critique of capitalism, based on its tendencies for crises, is impossible: a critique of unemployment presupposes certain normative standards. Can anyone specify the objective boundaries of the capitalist system beyond which it will collapse? Your point is that you keep on changing the terms of the discussion. But no matter. Look who's talking about changing?! I merely added to my initial point. First, Marx's critique was NOT "purely objective," since he was talking about human beings who are inherently subjective. Part of "crisis theory" is that people's subjective aims are _alienated_, taking the form of an "Invisible Hand" independent of any individual's conscious aims. Unlike Adam Smith's conception, Marx argues that the IH causes people to get bad results (crises, etc.), contrary to their intentions. Never said Marx had a "purely objective" theory of crises; I said that any attempt at a purely objective theory is impossible, THEREFORE, a subjective element will come in, as it does in Marx. The point is, as I keep repeating, Marx does not have ethical theory in Capital. Second, though Marx had his own normative standards for criticizing unemployment, he also pointed to the objective results of that unemployment. How revealing. Third, Marx never purported to posit a theory of collapse, though he sometimes uses the word "collapse" to refer to what we now call a "recession" (e.g., in the GRUNDRISSE). A full-scale theory of collapse cannot be based solely on the objective tendencies of capitalism's laws of motion -- and I don't think Marx _ever_ said that "crisis tendencies" were the whole story of capitalism's abolition, even though it is part of the folklore of crude Marxism and crude anti-Marxism that he did so. Read my response to your first point again. But you'll notice that even in the MANIFESTO, one of the books often denounced as crude Marxism, Marx and Engels mention an alternative to the "inevitable" victory of
re: dilbert
1. Max's magisterial deconstruction of Dilbert ignored a crucial character:
Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, armed with a large spoon. The world
waits for Max's analysis.
2. Libertarians like Scott Adams often have very good senses of humor --
like their cousins the anarchists, but unlike true conservatives. On the
latter, can you imagine one of those kinder-küche-kirche konservatives
(e.g., Jerry Falwell) intentionally evoking a laugh? or a Stalinist doing
so? ("Comrade Beria, that was a rib-tickler!" (stormy applause.))
3. There are a lot of cases of labor revolt -- including in the Russian
Revolution -- in which relatively skilled workers justified their revolt by
saying that they could do the job better than their bosses.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1997 Labor relations officials participating in the Bureau of National Affairs' annual survey of employer bargaining objectives express confidence that they will achieve their goals in contract talks with union representative in 1998. The survey's findings are described in a special report accompanying the Daily Labor Report. Almost half of the firms that bargain next year say they will propose annual wage increases of 2 to 2.9 percent, while most others say they expect wage settlements of 3 to 3.9 percent per year. Twenty-six percent of responding employers say they intend to seek further health-care cost savings by raising employees' premiums, deductions, or copayments The financial turmoil in Asia weighed on some U.S. companies. Among those most affected: Software maker Oracle announced disappointing second quarter earnings, due partly to slowing sales in Asia. Aircraft maker Boeing said the crisis may delay the delivery of as many as 60 of its jetliners over the next three years, due to slower growth in airline traffic. Mirage Resorts said its revenue could dip this year as fewer high rolling Asia gamblers sit at its baccarat tables. Coca-Cola, which derives 70 percent of revenue from international operations, had its earnings estimates pared by several analysts who say the strengthening dollar in Asia - which makes American exports more expensive - will drag down earnings (New York Times, page D2). USA Today's "Economic Indicators" feature (page 7B) predicts that the producer price index for November, due out Dec. 12, will be up 0.1 percent, the same as the previous month.. The consumer price index for November, due out Dec. 16, is also predicted to go up the same percent as during the previous month, 0.2 percent. An article in Barrons (Dec. 8) discussed the effect of the number of weekdays in a given month on average hourly earnings from the payroll series. Patricia Getz of BLS is quoted. application/ms-tnef
