Re: Re: Re: Schweickart
At 23:04 16/07/00 -0400, you wrote: In a message dated 7/16/00 7:04:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There is a streak of naivety in Schweickart but I do not think the issue of Yugoslavia is central to deciding the merits of his model. His naivety is that he writes with scrupulous logic and goodwill about various economic and political scenarios. I cannot help feeling his location in the Loyola University, Chicago, is significant. You don't know Chicago political geography, companero. The market geeks are at the big famous school on the south side. Dave works at a working-class Catholic commuter school up on the north side. The people at the two institutions literally never see each other, and the U of C crowd is much too snooty to talk to anyone at Loyola. That is in fact what I rather assumed. I almost said I understood he came from the "good" university of Chicago. In more recent decades the Jesuits have had links with liberation theology, no? His book has a flavour of Jesuitical logic about it at its best. That is he examines the ethics of different economic systems from all sides. eg Chapter 3 "Capitalism or socialism? efficiency" Chapter 4 "Capitalism or socialism? growth" Chapter 5 "Capitalism or socialism? liberty, equality, democracy, autonomy" Chapter 7 is on "transitions" to his "Economic Democracy" and is divided into "From advanced capitalism "From command socialism "From neocolonial underdevelopment" This is one of the most practical chapters in the book. In it, among other things, he lists structural flaws in the Yugoslav model, and its dependence on loans from western banks, to compensate for these. Chris Burford London
Re: We are condemned to grow
Justin says: Sure. Mondragon is just good evidence that the thing might work. It is not market socialism. It is worker self-management in a capitalist context. Right, but unless you are arguing that we can somehow manage to create the world of market socialism at once, a country that adopts market socialism will have to live "in a capitalist context." Even if we, for the sake of an argument, assume away the likely hostility from the capitalist world, market socialism in one country will have to live with pressures from the outside: "the cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls." Also, as it happened in the former Yugoslavia, richer firms and regions whose products are competitive in the world market are likely to grow discontented about having to expend their profits (especially forex) to subsidize poorer firms and regions. Hey, if we were independent, we'd be better off, or so thought many Slovenes and Croatians in the ex-Yugoslavia. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
In that case, the argument is meaningless. We can only know if alternatives to markets can work if we try. Even then we can only know that that particular experiment did not work, not that no institutional arrangement can work. If the proposition is not general, it is merely an empirical hypothesis. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hayek had a deep insight, and, like many peop;le with such an insight, went overboard with it. We might take it for what it is worth, while correcting for its overstatement. However, his main point was not that _nothing_ could be planned, but that _not everything_ could be planned. He was in fact a lot less ferocious about markets than a lot of his followers, A big U of Chicago Law School libertarian, Richard Epstein, recently took him to task for that in a piece in the U Md. L. Rev. My poiint too is that planning cannot tiotally or largely displace markets, not that it cannot be used where experience shows it works. --jks -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
The problem is that it is all well and good to say we should be "socializing markets," but the real world has been moving exactly in the opposite direction of privatizing the public domain (DNA, water, information, social programs, state-owned enterprises -- you name it, they have or are trying to privatize it). Yoshie Certain degree of interest in market socialism parallels period noted above. Good bit of MS literature is traceable to 1980s although some folks were looking at Yugoslavia (and to lesser extent Hungary's post-68 'New Economic Mechanism') prior to that time. Suspicion of the state is such common currency right now that market socialists have become skeptical about democratic control of macro- economy. They stake their claim on decentralized economic decision- making in which supposed benefits of market activity - efficiency, competition, responsiveness, liberty - are decoupled from capitalism. But market emphasis leads even Schweickart, an advocate of worker self- management who appears to be one of the most socialist MS-types, to a generally favorable impression of present-day Chinese 'reforms.' fwiw: David Miller - "Marx, Communism, and Markets", _Political Theory_, vol. 15, no. 2, 1987) finds examples of MS in Marx, M's criticisms of approach in _Critique of the Gotha Program_ (and, earlier, in _Poverty of Philosophy_) notwithstanding. If memory serves, Nove makes similar claim in _Economics of Feasible Socialism_.Michael Hoover
Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
Elson makes point about demands for state activity absent self-activity (of various kinds, seems like she refers to citizens more than workers) being non-starter. She calls for using state resources to facilitate networks (worker-consumer-activist) to educate folks to develop what she calls 'social audit' for assessing economic accountability/ responsibility, and to formulate ideas for new technologies economic restructuring. Such networks would become part of regulatory process and that process could be used to require private property owners and private firms to be more socially responsible. At some point critical mass could be reached in which social accountability would supersede private profitability. DE's premise rests upon emergence of participatory rather than 'parasitic' state (as Marx called it _Civil War in France_) with socialism being conceptualized in terms democratic accountability of resource use. There is 'pulling down from shelf' quality to Elson's pragmatism given likelihood of increasing tensions associated with possibility of any kind of socialism. Michael Hoover Interesting. I think that an element of much of the market socialist current has to do with building up what amounts to counter-institutions in capitalist society--like cooperatives. Although Justin tried to disassociate himself from the Mondragon cooperatives, it is a fact that some of the key MS ideologues like Betsy Bowman stress that Mondragon type cooperatives are key to the transition to socialism. They see the spread of cooperatives until reaching critical mass as a precondition to a new society. Once that critical mass has been reached, a new government will be declared to defend the class interests of the cooperative producers. Bowman and a fellow philosophy professor defended these ideas at a Brecht Forum about 7 years ago when MS and postmodernism were all the rage. Her co-thinker started his talk by calling attention to the widespread existence of ESOP's and employee-owned firms like Avis or United Airlines. It all seemed rather surrealistic to me. In point of fact if there is to a socialist transformation in the US, I am positive that it will involve nothing like this at all. A review of American history will back that up. During the 1930s you had pitched battles between workers and bosses over the right to form unions and to win a living wage. If the idea of socialism came into play, it was the result of many workers reaching the conclusion that an alternative to the current system was necessary. They didn't think about how they could run Ford Motor themselves within the context of the capitalist system, but how to get rid of the system itself. Most workers have about much interest in becoming joint entrepreneurs as they do in starting their own business. One of the interesting observations made in Andrew Hacker's "Money" is that immigrants tend to be over-represented in small business startups because American workers lack the desire to take risks or compete in that fashion, especially African-American workers. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Pen-l behavior
What did that bad girl do? I have asked Mine to take a vacation from pen-l for a week. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: 'market socialism
This snipe is unfair. i have been (alsmost single handedly) giving detailed, lengthy, precise, and extensive arguments. I do now and then make a suggestion for reading an original source, but if you wanted an account of the calculation debate, you have a moderately good introduction to the main argument solely from my posts. As for Neil, why bother responding. Nothing you say can make any difference to someone who has got religion. He knows all the answers. --jks In a message dated Mon, 17 Jul 2000 1:25:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: To use Justin's technique. Go read the Regina Manifesto. Cheers, Ken Hanly neil wrote: . Capitals rule cannot be mended, it must be ended! Neil .
Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
So the argument is meaningless if it does not estabalish a priori that markets are better than any kind of planning anywhere? Rubbish. Nonsense. That is a fast way of not having to try to answer a very strong, empirically supported, theoretically deep critique of a nonmarket economy. To see this, consider the answer: you say, the only way to see if nonmarket alternatives will work is to try. But try what? You say, planning. I say, look at the USSR. You say, but our planning will be democratic! I say, that wpn't help (see what I have argued above). At this point you say, that's meaningless, because otherwise planning would never work. No, say I, and Hayek: the problem is that planning won't work outside a market framework, to give us the information we need. An starting to feel like a proken record. I really do appreciate Jim Divine's contribution, whicha t least comes to grips with real issues and offers real arguments. --jks In a message dated Mon, 17 Jul 2000 8:15:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In that case, the argument is meaningless. We can only know if alternatives to markets can work if we try. Even then we can only know that that particular experiment did not work, not that no institutional arrangement can work. If the proposition is not general, it is merely an empirical hypothesis. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hayek had a deep insight, and, like many peop;le with such an insight, went overboard with it. We might take it for what it is worth, while correcting for its overstatement. However, his main point was not that _nothing_ could be planned, but that _not everything_ could be planned. He was in fact a lot less ferocious about markets than a lot of his followers, A big U of Chicago Law School libertarian, Richard Epstein, recently took him to task for that in a piece in the U Md. L. Rev. My poiint too is that planning cannot tiotally or largely displace markets, not that it cannot be used where experience shows it works. --jks -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2000: TODAY'S RELEASE: "Producer Price Indexes - June 2000" indicates that the Producer Price Index for Finished Goods advanced 0.6 percent in June, seasonally adjusted. This index showed no change in May and declined 0.3 percent in April. The index for finished goods other than foods and energy fell 0.1 percent in June, after registering a 0.2 percent gain in the prior month. Prices received by producers of intermediate goods increased 0.9 percent, following a 0.1 percent decrease a month earlier. The crude goods index rose 5.8 percent, after posting a 3.2 percent advance in the previous month. A spike in oil prices drove up the cost of goods imported into the United States 0.8 percent in June, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Oil prices jumped 7 percent in June, after a revised 4.8 percent gain in May. In the year ending in June, oil prices have soared 80.2 percent. A decision by the government of Saudi Arabia to boost output should cause prices to fall in coming months. Prior to the strong June gain, overall import prices rose 0.3 percent in May after falling 1.4 percent in April (Daily Labor Report, page D-3). __The price of goods imported to the United States rose last month at the fastest pace since February, driven by a jump in oil costs, government figures showed today. "Outside of oil, the pressures from imports on inflation are tame," said the president of Naroff Economic Advisors, Inc. in Holland, Pa. Still, "petroleum costs are clearly an issue, and they're beginning to show up in other sectors," he said. A separate Labor Department report showed that the number of Americans filing new applications for state unemployment benefits rose last week to its highest level in more than a year as temporary shutdowns at auto plants idled thousands (Bloomberg News, in The New York Times, page C17). A survey of business economists showed that more companies are raising prices than at any time during the past 5 years, while a separate report shows import costs continue to rise on spiking petroleum prices. The National Association for Business Economics said one-third of the businesses it surveyed had increased prices in the second quarter, and half expected to do so later this year. The National Association of Business Economics said one-third of the businesses it surveyed had increased prices in the second quarter and half expected to do so later this year. In a separate report, the Labor Department said new claims for unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 319,000 last week. It marks the largest single increase since the start of the year. the Labor Department said this period typically shows layoffs in the auto industry for retooling. That view is supported by a jump in claims in Michigan, which had the largest increase of any state (The Wall Street Journal, page A2). __A new survey by the National Association for Business Economics shows that businesses increasingly can make price increases stick in the marketplace as global demand strengthens and deflationary forces subside. In the second quarter of 2000, about one-third of NABE members surveyed said their firms were able to pass along price hikes, the highest percentage in 5 years, according to the organization's president. Almost 50 percent of the firms represented in the second quarter survey said they expected their companies to raise prices this year. Some 27 percent said they expected increases to be more than 2 percent, while another 21 percent expected hikes of less than 2 percent (Daily Labor Report New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment for unemployment insurance benefits increased by 27,000 to a total of 319,000 after seasonal adjustment, according to figures released by the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration. New UI claims reached 292,000 in the previous week, according to revised data (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). __The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surged unexpectedly last week to its highest point in more than a year, partly reflecting auto industry layoffs as plants prepare to build new models (The Washington Post, page E2). A new survey by the National Association for Business Economics shows that businesses increasingly can make price increases stick in the marketplace as global demand strengthens and deflationary forces subside. In the second quarter of 2000, about one-third of NABE members survey said their firms were able to pass along price hikes, the highest percentage in 5 years, according to the organization's president. Almost 50 percent of the firms represented in the second quarter survey said they expected their companies to raise prices this year. Some 27 percent said they expected increases to be more than 2 percent, while another 21 percent expected hikes of less
Re: Re: Pen-l behavior
That's not funny. Ricardo Duchesne wrote: What did that bad girl do? I have asked Mine to take a vacation from pen-l for a week. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: market socialism
Calm down Justin. Hayek's critique is not theoretically deep. It is simply an empirical claim. But he has done not one empirical study to back it up. It may be correct or it may not. Only experience will show. Pointing to past incidents of failure proves very little. As Michael and many others have pointed out it is easy to detail many occasions when markets have failed to work any where near their theoretical ideal. Shall we infer from that that markets never work? In fact, most of us are socialist because markets do such a miserable job at some very basic tasks. It is pointless to keep referring to the Soviet Union. I have at no time suggested, implied or meant that the Soviet Union should be a model for anything. And we would be poor socialists if that was the best we could dream up. All of my examples have been much more mundane and closer to home. I have admitted several times that you are right about incentives. But you have given no evidence (other than applying superlative adjectives to Hayek) for your claim that only markets can provide that incentive. When I give an example of a non market institution that works better than the market, you grant it. All right, now you say that non market institutions will work in individual industries, but not in all at once. Any critical percentage? A theoretically deep critique should have something to say about that. I propose that we design alternative institutions one good at time, and when we can't find something better than a market organization we will leave the market? On a practical level in the U.S. that would involve a vigourous protection of public education and the advocacy of a public health programme. In Canada, it would involve protection of those non market institutions and the creation of new ones in other areas. My favourites at the moment are housing, food and transportation. Until now I have tried to ignore your implications that disagreeing with you proves my stupidity. I will grant that without you having to shout it continually. Lets stick to the debate. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So the argument is meaningless if it does not estabalish a priori that markets are better than any kind of planning anywhere? Rubbish. Nonsense. That is a fast way of not having to try to answer a very strong, empirically supported, theoretically deep critique of a nonmarket economy. To see this, consider the answer: you say, the only way to see if nonmarket alternatives will work is to try. But try what? You say, planning. I say, look at the USSR. You say, but our planning will be democratic! I say, that wpn't help (see what I have argued above). At this point you say, that's meaningless, because otherwise planning would never work. No, say I, and Hayek: the problem is that planning won't work outside a market framework, to give us the information we need. An starting to feel like a proken record. I really do appreciate Jim Divine's contribution, whicha t least comes to grips with real issues and offers real arguments. --jks In a message dated Mon, 17 Jul 2000 8:15:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In that case, the argument is meaningless. We can only know if alternatives to markets can work if we try. Even then we can only know that that particular experiment did not work, not that no institutional arrangement can work. If the proposition is not general, it is merely an empirical hypothesis. Rod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hayek had a deep insight, and, like many peop;le with such an insight, went overboard with it. We might take it for what it is worth, while correcting for its overstatement. However, his main point was not that _nothing_ could be planned, but that _not everything_ could be planned. He was in fact a lot less ferocious about markets than a lot of his followers, A big U of Chicago Law School libertarian, Richard Epstein, recently took him to task for that in a piece in the U Md. L. Rev. My poiint too is that planning cannot tiotally or largely displace markets, not that it cannot be used where experience shows it works. --jks -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Schweickart
At 07:32 AM 7/17/00 +0100, you wrote: That is in fact what I rather assumed. I almost said I understood he came from the "good" university of Chicago. In more recent decades the Jesuits have had links with liberation theology, no? as someone who works at a Jesuit-dominated school (one of Loyola University's "sister" schools), I wouldn't overdo the Jesuit connection. The Jesuits have gone from being "the Pope's army" to being "the Pope's think-tank" (for the older generation) to being more interested in education outside of universities (the younger generation). Here I see the older generation, who have a variety of opinions, from ultra-conservatism to "liberation theology," as befitting their role of providing a lot of different viewpoints to the Pope and the hierarchy. (The older generation shares a lot of perspectives, however, such as a lack of understanding of family life or a woman's perspective. Thus, there is no day-care on campus.) The younger generation of more lib-theo-oriented Jesuits don't show up here much. (Some people complain that this younger generation is becoming like the Franciscans. Horrors!) This is one reason why the Jesuit universities in the US are slowly becoming unjesuitical. The other is that young men don't want to take a vow of chastity these days. Loyola Marymount is also run by a bunch of nuns (as junior partners), but they're becoming scarce too. (You'd think that this would drive up the price and encourage people to become nuns and priests, but no...) So the place is slowly becoming unCatholic, too. This happened to a lot of Protestant evangelical places years ago. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
At 10:33 AM 7/17/00 -0400, you wrote: I really do appreciate Jim Divine's contribution, whicha t least comes to grips with real issues and offers real arguments. thanks, but check your spell-checker. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Market socialism -- summing up?
I think that we have reached an impasse here. We all agree that both Soviet-style central planning and the market are both flawed. Neither market socialism nor (what we might call, for want of a better word) real socialism have ever been tried. Market socialism is susceptible to outside pressures, just as European style social democracy is acquiesced in becoming more like U.S. style raw capitalism. As Jim Devine noted, market socialism would have a hard time avoiding many of the problems associated with markets. The debate here seem to imply that the important objective was settling upon a recipe -- market socialism or real socialism -- and then the work was complete. In fact, I suspect that once we began to struggle against the system is now stands and build counter institutions, these counter institutions would be more likely to form the basis of any future socialist state that some recipe that we would cook up here on a male list. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
new frontiers for markets...
from SLATE magazine (7/17/00): The NYT leads with a trend story about how some utility companies are now trying to use pricing to manage energy demand. The main examples: 1) a power company paying--at a rate considerably lower than the cost of buying electricity on the open market--a coal mine to shut down during a day of high demand, and 2) paying customers a bonus for accepting into their homes thermostats controlled (via the internet) by the utility. of course, the thermostat would be run using Windows 98, so that it would crash at least twice a day... strictly speaking the above isn't about the "market" as much as about the utility's "planning" of our lives. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Spivak Marxism-Feminism (was Re: And another thing)
Katha Pollitt wrote: and a way for imported academics like Gayatri Spivak to score points from guilty liberals. What has Spivak said about the Taliban? Last time I heard her speak she was talking about Kant. Doug Spivak doesn't say that sexist practices in poor nations should be excused because they are part of their "culture" or anything like that. The main point she is making is basically that oppressed women in the Third World become a kind of political football between nationalist men and liberal Western imperialists (including liberal feminists). At the risk of oversimplification, I say that Third-World nationalism often mobilizes the idea of the nation that masks class gender oppressions (with a partial exception of revolutionary nationalism inflected by Marxism); Western liberalism smugly presents itself as "enlightened" in contrast to "backward cultures" and uses this contrast as an excuse for denying self-government to poor nations (in the process Western liberalism also turns a blind eye to the fact that its own imperialism has helped to perpetuate and often to intensify the very backwardness that it pretends to deplore [e.g., Western liberal support for fundamentalist "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan]). Neither nationalism nor Western liberalism serves poor women's interests (first of all, because neither abolishes material conditions that give rise to the oppression of poor women). So far, so good. Spivak, however, used to argue that trapped between the rock and hard places "the subaltern [e.g. poor women in poor nations] cannot speak" (I don't know if she's still committed to this statement). I'd say that Marxism-Feminism (coupled with fight against imperialism, it goes without saying) is necessary to avoid the problem that Spivak points out. Yoshie
market socialism
Well, Big Bill Haywood's work is for the most part quite inspiring. But his era (approx 1895-1925) was on the cusp of capitals advance to world economy , imperialism , WW1 ,etc as this changed a lot of things for dominant capital and workers movements in antagonism-class combats . Todays IWW's and others still have yet to get a (pol-econ) handle on these changes. The ruling classes are usually slicker than deerguts on a doorknob and have stolen more than one march on most of us. Today we have Globalization of the productive forces as well. Direct colonialism has long been replaced by other forms of domination in most all the peripheral capitals. The USSR en bloc model (state caps rule) has collapsed. Socialists today need to advance ( I don't say never pause and re-cap-plan, etc!) in theory-- and active practice . The spirit/heroism of the masses struggles in Haywood's historical era can still serve as inspriation for todays actions , and future movements . Neil
Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Michael Perelman wrote: In fact, I suspect that once we began to struggle against the system is now stands and build counter institutions, these counter institutions would be more likely to form the basis of any future socialist state that some recipe that we would cook up here on a male list. I didn't realize Pen-l was gender exclusive. ;-) Seriously though, I think that the impasse reflects an underlying agreement that production and consumption are somehow just two sides of "the same coin" and that if we can somehow get one or the other operating properly, the other will follow along in train. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism
I don't have a spell-checker on my systerm, which should be obvious. Sorry. Also don't have time to write this stuff and copyedit. Sorry. --jks In a message dated Mon, 17 Jul 2000 12:06:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 10:33 AM 7/17/00 -0400, you wrote: I really do appreciate Jim Divine's contribution, whicha t least comes to grips with real issues and offers real arguments. thanks, but check your spell-checker. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
query
does anyone know of a source for a consistently-calculated measure of the rate of profit (rate of return) of the US non-financial corporate business sector going all the way back to 1947 or so? I need some measure comparable to that published by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis every year. (one way to solve this problem is to use the market mechanism: I'll pay $1 to get this information. No takers? how about $2? no takers? how about $10? ;-)) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Well, the impasse was something we reached while ago. Much of the shapre of it involves misunderstanding. There is a deep, underlying aspect to--many socialists thinks that markets and competition areevil, and would think they were evil even if they could do everything I say, and plans couldn't. There is a deep ascetic ideal running among the support many people who still support socialism have for the ideal: the basic motivation is not that socialism will make us rich or happy or free, but that it will transform us and make us good. In short, this is a sort of Rousseauean socialism--something with a legitimate root in Marx, who answered to some of Rousseau's call in various ways. On this worry, the concrn with markets is that they do not ake us good, but set us against one another. I think the Rousseauean impulse is attractive but quite futile. As a liberal, I would be satisfied if socialism made us rich, happy, and free, and I think market socialism can do that, but planned! ! socialism cannot. I quite disagree that it has been shown that market socialism would suffer from the problems of capitalist markets, at least setting aside whether they would not make us better. Virtually every claim to that effect that has be raised in this discussion is based on a misunderstanding. The basic reason I have been urging is the calculation problem, which Rob dismisses as "not theoretically deep" because it is "merely empirical." I guess this shows a divide so great between our conceptions of theoretical explanation that I do not think it can be bridged. I am a pragmatist, and think all our theories are empirical and revisable, provisional and practically tested. Rob complains that Hayek didn't back up his theory with empirical studies. Well, he wasn't that sort of economist. But thetheory is powerfully confirmed empirically: the Soviet Union is now 'former" and it failed on its own terms for more or less the reasons Hayek said it would. So far, Hayek 1, Marx O--not that the fSU embodied Marx's ideals, but (as a number of people here have said), nothing has so far. Hayek might suggest that there is an explantion for that. Btw, someone carped at my reference to Marx's ideals of planning. Of course Marx though that the socialist society would have a planned, nonmarket economy. He says so repeatedly, for eaxmple, in the section on the fetishim of commodities in Capital I, in the Critique of the Gotha Program, and elsewhere. He does not explain how it would work, but he sketches its outline and makes claims about it. And his reluctance to get more specific is not one of his strong points. This leads me to say, in response to Michael's claim here, that I do not envisage the project to building models here and now to be part of a project of laying down a blueprint for future generations of socialists to follow. thst is not the point of the exercise. If it were, it would be futile, because we could not bind them if we wanted to. The point is rather to have an answer, here and now, to the question we must encounter in our practical organizing work every day, So what have you got that's better? If we cannot answer that question even in theory, in the face of hard, deep, important, and theoretically deep and empirically supported objections, we have no business asking othersto take the risks we would have to asks them to take. Moreover, we would be crazy to waste on our time on the project ourselves, instead of (merely) working for reforms that we know will improve people's lives. I do not understand how any rational person can seriously justify to himself or others the claim that we need to overturn the whole structure of society, but we have nothing better to say about what will replace it that (a) it won't be markets, and beyond that (b) people will work it out somehow. No wonder we have such a pathetic following. I would be sorry if the discussion ended just as Jim made his important substantive contribution in which he actually comes to grips ina really constructive way with how nonmarket institutions might address the calculation problem. This is very close to the first time I have encountered that sort of behavior from a critic of markets, at least least in a way carried out with the thoughtfulness and seriousness the project deserves. However, if people want to retreat back into their shells, I certainly have other things to do. --jks In a message dated Mon, 17 Jul 2000 12:41:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I think that we have reached an impasse here. We all agree that both Soviet-style central planning and the market are both flawed. Neither market socialism nor (what we might call, for want of a better word) real socialism have ever been tried. Market socialism is susceptible to outside pressures, just as European style social democracy is acquiesced in becoming more like U.S. style raw capitalism. As Jim
Re: new frontiers for markets...
Well, Slate got part of it wrong -- the Times story featured an iron ore mine. Peak load pricing, though it has some merit, has much less than it appears at first glance. The reporter, Matthew Wald, has a very short rolodex, mainly featuring NRDC, to his loss. The peak pricing freaks are a subset of the Amory Lovins crowd, with techno-fixes substituting for political action. Gene Coyle Jim Devine wrote: from SLATE magazine (7/17/00): The NYT leads with a trend story about how some utility companies are now trying to use pricing to manage energy demand. The main examples: 1) a power company paying--at a rate considerably lower than the cost of buying electricity on the open market--a coal mine to shut down during a day of high demand, and 2) paying customers a bonus for accepting into their homes thermostats controlled (via the internet) by the utility. of course, the thermostat would be run using Windows 98, so that it would crash at least twice a day... strictly speaking the above isn't about the "market" as much as about the utility's "planning" of our lives. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Since as far as I can tell, the "impasse" that Michael sees was attained between Justin and myself, I guess that the attribution of motives and/or emotions seen below is aimed at me. Since I try as hard as I can to avoid attributing motives and/or emotions to Justin, so I don't appreciate this effort. Even if this remark is not aimed at me, I think that this mode of argumentation violates the rules of "analytical philosophy" as I understand them. Attacking someone's motives as a way of furthering an argument is a basic logical fallacy. Justin wrote: Well, the impasse was something we reached while ago. Much of the shapre of it involves misunderstanding. There is a deep, underlying aspect to--many socialists thinks that markets and competition areevil, and would think they were evil even if they could do everything I say, and plans couldn't. There is a deep ascetic ideal running among the support many people who still support socialism have for the ideal: the basic motivation is not that socialism will make us rich or happy or free, but that it will transform us and make us good. In short, this is a sort of Rousseauean socialism--something with a legitimate root in Marx, who answered to some of Rousseau's call in various ways. On this worry, the concrn with markets is that they do not ake us good, but set us against one another. I think the Rousseauean impulse is attractive but quite futile. As a liberal, I would be satisfied if socialism made us rich, happy, and free, and I think market socialism can do that, but planned socialism cannot. This "market socialism" vs. "planned socialism" dichotomy simply ignores what I spent so much time writing over the weekend. Justin also writes: the Soviet Union is now 'former" and it failed on its own terms for more or less the reasons Hayek said it would. So far, Hayek 1, Marx O--not that the fSU embodied Marx's ideals, but (as a number of people here have said), nothing has so far. Hayek might suggest that there is an explantion for that. I don't think the Hayekian theory of the collapse of the Soviet Union has been proved. There are other theories of the fall of the old USSR that seem more valid to me, including Marxian ones. People have already made this argument -- following Dave Kotz's excellent work -- so I won't repeat it, except to note that by jumping to the pro-Hayek conclusion, Justin is simply ignoring the valid points that people made. Btw, someone carped at my reference to Marx's ideals of planning. Of course Marx though that the socialist society would have a planned, nonmarket economy. He says so repeatedly, for eaxmple, in the section on the fetishim of commodities in Capital I, in the Critique of the Gotha Program, and elsewhere. He does not explain how it would work, but he sketches its outline and makes claims about it. And his reluctance to get more specific is not one of his strong points. I think I was the one who "carped" about this. The key point that anyone who reads Marx should know is that he was a student of capitalism, not of socialism. Also, I don't think anyone on pen-l believes that any one person -- including Marx -- should be seen as the Font of all Truth. Thus, we shouldn't expect him to provide us with recipes for the cook-shops of the future (especially since he explicitly eschewed that job). Why can't we learn from Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Robin Hahnel Michael Albert, etc., etc.? ... I do not understand how any rational person can seriously justify to himself or others the claim that we need to overturn the whole structure of society, but we have nothing better to say about what will replace it that (a) it won't be markets, and beyond that (b) people will work it out somehow. No wonder we have such a pathetic following. this is an overly simplistic explanation of why the left is so small. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff on marketsocialism)
It also shows how a reasonably just health care system that distributes
care on the basis of need can exist in a country with extremely limited
resources whereas the US, one of the richest countries in the world,
leaves many without insurance and unable to afford health care
while cosmetic surgery for the affluent flourishes. To me this shows the
clear superiority of planned versus market delivery of health care.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
I entirely agree with you. A Mieses-Hayekian opposition to our
position, however, would be something like this: "all needs desires
of all individuals are unknown unknowable to any single mind; we as
individuals only possess very partial knowledge; it can't be properly
said that we 'know' even our own needs desires unless real, not
hypothetical, alternatives are presented opportunity costs
(tacitly) calculated through our participation in the market; we
can't explicitly go through all the relations between ends and means,
so we need prices that help us (tacitly) make use of a relative value
of each alternative." (This radical privileging of tacit partial
knowledge dispersed among individuals over explicit collective
knowledge, as well as opposition to conscious planning, is a theme
that later gets carried by postmodernists to its anti-scientific
extreme.)
Whereas we think of the market, for instance, as a mechanism of
rationing ("A shortage of water supply? Raise the price!
Unemployment? Lower the wage!") in the system of production for
profits, not for human needs, Hayek thinks of the market as a
mechanism of discovery of human needs desires we cannot know
otherwise. For us the market is a question of social relations; for
Hayek, it is a matter of epistemology.
* If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start
out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete
knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one
of logic. That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use
of the available means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions
which the solution of this optimum problem must satisfy have been
fully worked out and can be stated best in mathematical form: put at
their briefest, they are that the marginal rates of substitution
between any two commodities or factors must be the same in all their
different uses.
This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society
faces. And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve
this logical problem, though an important step toward the solution of
the economic problem of society, does not yet provide an answer to
it. The reason for this is that the "data" from which the economic
calculus starts are never for the whole society "given" to a single
mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given.
(Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," at
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/HayekUseOfKnowledge.html
*
I agree with Hayek that no single mind can command the complete
knowledge of all our needs desires + all available means. Why
should we, however, strive to work out planned economy with such
assumptions of divine perfection? Why set the bar of successful
planning so impossibly high? There seems no reason to assume what
Hayek has us assume. We need only know enough to meet existing needs
better than capitalism does (= we don't have to be perfect) leave
room for improvement (say, invention of greener technology) through
the process of trial and error (here we can even, if we so desire,
leave a little room for the "market" as long as the "market" doesn't
assume the character of compulsion). In other words, I object to
Hayek's assumption about what degree of knowledge is necessary to get
socialist planning going.
Yoshie
Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Since I try as hard as I can to avoid attributing motives and/or emotions to Justin, so I don't appreciate this effort. Even if this remark is not aimed at me, I think that this mode of argumentation violates the rules of "analytical philosophy" as I understand them. Attacking someone's motives as a way of furthering an argument is a basic logical fallacy. You must mean ulterior psycho-personal motives, since a basic premise of AM is that humans are rational beings capable of understanding their situation and making maximizing choices. They have always insisted on the neeed to understand rational motivations behind actions.
Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism)
For what it's worth, I agree with you totally on this. BTW, when my
10-year-old son saw your name, he excitedly said "Yoshie!" in reference
Nintendo.
Yoshie wrote:
... A Mieses-Hayekian opposition to our position, however, would be
something like this: "all needs desires of all individuals are unknown
unknowable to any single mind; we as individuals only possess very partial
knowledge; it can't be properly said that we 'know' even our own needs
desires unless real, not hypothetical, alternatives are presented
opportunity costs (tacitly) calculated through our participation in the
market; we can't explicitly go through all the relations between ends and
means, so we need prices that help us (tacitly) make use of a relative
value of each alternative." (This radical privileging of tacit partial
knowledge dispersed among individuals over explicit collective
knowledge, as well as opposition to conscious planning, is a theme that
later gets carried by postmodernists to its anti-scientific extreme.)
Whereas we think of the market, for instance, as a mechanism of rationing
("A shortage of water supply? Raise the price! Unemployment? Lower the
wage!") in the system of production for profits, not for human needs,
Hayek thinks of the market as a mechanism of discovery of human needs
desires we cannot know otherwise. For us the market is a question of
social relations; for Hayek, it is a matter of epistemology.
* If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out
from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge
of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic. That
is, the answer to the question of what is the best use of the available
means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions which the solution of
this optimum problem must satisfy have been fully worked out and can be
stated best in mathematical form: put at their briefest, they are that the
marginal rates of substitution between any two commodities or factors must
be the same in all their different uses.
This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society
faces. And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve this
logical problem, though an important step toward the solution of the
economic problem of society, does not yet provide an answer to it. The
reason for this is that the "data" from which the economic calculus starts
are never for the whole society "given" to a single mind which could work
out the implications and can never be so given. (Hayek, "The Use of
Knowledge in Society," at
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/HayekUseOfKnowledge.html *
I agree with Hayek that no single mind can command the complete knowledge
of all our needs desires + all available means. Why should we, however,
strive to work out planned economy with such assumptions of divine
perfection? Why set the bar of successful planning so impossibly
high? There seems no reason to assume what Hayek has us assume. We need
only know enough to meet existing needs better than capitalism does (= we
don't have to be perfect) leave room for improvement (say, invention of
greener technology) through the process of trial and error (here we can
even, if we so desire, leave a little room for the "market" as long as the
"market" doesn't assume the character of compulsion). In other words, I
object to Hayek's assumption about what degree of knowledge is necessary
to get socialist planning going.
Hayek's position -- so ably put forth by Justin -- seems to be (a) in order
to avoid market rule, there needs to be a God; but (b) God does not exist;
so (c) market rule is inevitable. But then he assumes that God exists in
the form of the Invisible Hand.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Justin wrote: Well, the impasse was something we reached while ago. Much of the shapre of it involves misunderstanding. There is a deep, underlying aspect to--many socialists thinks that markets and competition areevil, and would think they were evil even if they could do everything I say, and plans couldn't. There is a deep ascetic ideal running among the support many people who still support socialism have for the ideal: the basic motivation is not that socialism will make us rich or happy or free, but that it will transform us and make us good. In short, this is a sort of Rousseauean socialism--something with a legitimate root in Marx, who answered to some of Rousseau's call in various ways. On this worry, the concrn with markets is that they do not ake us good, but set us against one another. I think the Rousseauean impulse is attractive but quite futile. As a liberal, I would be satisfied if socialism made us rich, happy, and free, and I think market socialism can do that, but planned socialism cannot. I don't think that folks here are critical of the idea of market socialism because they are "ascetic." In fact, one might say that an obsession with "efficiency" (as defined by the market) is a kind of asceticism. The competitive market, when it becomes _the_ mode of production gains power of compulsion over us, makes human beings work harder than otherwise -- an unpleasing prospect unless you are a fan of "work ethic"! Yoshie
Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
I guess I am a fan of the work ethic, but I thought that was actually a Marxist ideal, self-realization through productive labor. But the reason I push markets in their place is not that I think they will promote such self-realization, but because they help us avoid waste. Even a LaFargian advocate of laziness ought to be against waste, if only beacuse it means we would have to work harder and longer for less. --jks In a message dated Mon, 17 Jul 2000 3:55:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Justin wrote: Well, the impasse was something we reached while ago. Much of the shapre of it involves misunderstanding. There is a deep, underlying aspect to--many socialists thinks that markets and competition areevil, and would think they were evil even if they could do everything I say, and plans couldn't. There is a deep ascetic ideal running among the support many people who still support socialism have for the ideal: the basic motivation is not that socialism will make us rich or happy or free, but that it will transform us and make us good. In short, this is a sort of Rousseauean socialism--something with a legitimate root in Marx, who answered to some of Rousseau's call in various ways. On this worry, the concrn with markets is that they do not ake us good, but set us against one another. I think the Rousseauean impulse is attractive but quite futile. As a liberal, I would be satisfied if socialism made us rich, happy, and free, and I think market socialism can do that, but planned socialism cannot. I don't think that folks here are critical of the idea of market socialism because they are "ascetic." In fact, one might say that an obsession with "efficiency" (as defined by the market) is a kind of asceticism. The competitive market, when it becomes _the_ mode of production gains power of compulsion over us, makes human beings work harder than otherwise -- an unpleasing prospect unless you are a fan of "work ethic"! Yoshie
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism)
Nice, can I use this? I'll credit you with it. Of course i don't think the IH is God. The IH obviates the need for God. You don't need one entity that smart who knows everything if you have a lot of little entities not so smart who know a little bit and a means of coordinating their knowledge. --jks I meantto say in a message that got scrambled that it was not you but others whom I meant in my swipe at Rousseaeanism. I don't think attcaking an ideal that may actually motivate people is an ad homimem. I didn't say, You only say that because you are jealous or bitter. I said, the idea to which you aspire is superficially attractive but flawed. And if you don't stop sniping at me for being an analytical philosopher, or trained as one, I'll start snipinga t you for being an economist, which,a s far as I can tell, is an even lower form if life than my current incarnation as a lawyer. --jks * * * Hayek's position -- so ably put forth by Justin -- seems to be (a) in order to avoid market rule, there needs to be a God; but (b) God does not exist; so (c) market rule is inevitable. But then he assumes that God exists in the form of the Invisible Hand. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism)
JKS wrote: Nice, can I use this? I'll credit you with it. Of course i don't think the IH is God. The IH obviates the need for God. You don't need one entity that smart who knows everything if you have a lot of little entities not so smart who know a little bit and a means of coordinating their knowledge. --jks you may use my quote, if you insert the sentence "There Is No Alternative" after "(c) market rule is inevitable." The fact that you think that the Invisible Hand isn't a secular version of God suggests that you haven't studied economics (and economists) very much. I meant to say in a message that got scrambled that it was not you but others whom I meant in my swipe at Rousseaeanism. I don't think attcaking an ideal that may actually motivate people is an ad homimem. ... Apology accepted. Look at the current issue of POLITICS SOCIETY for my take on Rousseau. Hayek's position -- so ably put forth by Justin -- seems to be (a) in order to avoid market rule, there needs to be a God; but (b) God does not exist; so (c) market rule is inevitable. But then he assumes that God exists in the form of the Invisible Hand. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
I guess I am a fan of the work ethic, but I thought that was actually a Marxist ideal, self-realization through productive labor. But the reason I push markets in their place is not that I think they will promote such self-realization, but because they help us avoid waste. Even a LaFargian advocate of laziness ought to be against waste, if only beacuse it means we would have to work harder and longer for less. --jks Work = self-realization isn't necessarily an unattractive ideal; work ceases to be alienating, however, only when it is performed without unwanted sources of determination that exercise power over us as if they were "forces of nature," as the competitive market as compulsion does. This is indeed a question of freedom pleasure abundance, as you note. It's just that the market (when it assumes the character of compulsion) takes away a crucial dimension of freedom pleasure from human life: freedom pleasure to govern our own lives as we see fit, not as the market sees fit. I do agree with you that it is only in the context of abundance (though this concept is hard to define) such freedom pleasure of self-government become truly possible. A perpetual shortage of consumer goods (hence the rule of insecurity unpleasant surprises) obviously wouldn't do. The disagreement is that I think the Hayekian critique doesn't prove -- except by fiat of Hayek's assumption that divinely perfect knowledge is necessary for successful planning -- that planned economy can never make us enjoy freedom pleasure abundance. Yoshie
Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff on marketsocialism)
The critique makes no sense to me at all. Would von Mises or Hayek really
claim that we do not know our needs and desires without participating in a
market? I know that I want to have fresh mashed potatoes out of my garden
without participating in a market. I know when I want sex without going to a
red light district. When I participate in markets I learn what I can afford
not what I need or desire. Indeed needs
as effective demands are what establish markets.
HOw could we start out with a given system of preferences if our needs
and desires are not known until we get the price information? Also, most of
our preferences will not be endogenous but a function of culture including
the culture of consumption, conspicuous consumption and so on. So the market
will most efficiently provide rich sobs with suvs.
Planners will screw up because of lack of information. Consumers will
scream bloody murder. Poor supply, poor quality, poor choice. So the planners
modify the plan and production. So that is wasteful. But how do you determine
if that is any more wasteful then having entrepreneurs guess what might sell,
competing and going bankrupt, or advertisers spending milliions trying to
ensure there is a preference
for pet rocks?
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
I entirely agree with you. A Mieses-Hayekian opposition to our
position, however, would be something like this: "all needs desires
of all individuals are unknown unknowable to any single mind; we as
individuals only possess very partial knowledge; it can't be properly
said that we 'know' even our own needs desires unless real, not
hypothetical, alternatives are presented opportunity costs
(tacitly) calculated through our participation in the market; we
can't explicitly go through all the relations between ends and means,
so we need prices that help us (tacitly) make use of a relative value
of each alternative." (This radical privileging of tacit partial
knowledge dispersed among individuals over explicit collective
knowledge, as well as opposition to conscious planning, is a theme
that later gets carried by postmodernists to its anti-scientific
extreme.)
Whereas we think of the market, for instance, as a mechanism of
rationing ("A shortage of water supply? Raise the price!
Unemployment? Lower the wage!") in the system of production for
profits, not for human needs, Hayek thinks of the market as a
mechanism of discovery of human needs desires we cannot know
otherwise. For us the market is a question of social relations; for
Hayek, it is a matter of epistemology.
* If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start
out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete
knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one
of logic. That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use
of the available means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions
which the solution of this optimum problem must satisfy have been
fully worked out and can be stated best in mathematical form: put at
their briefest, they are that the marginal rates of substitution
between any two commodities or factors must be the same in all their
different uses.
This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society
faces. And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve
this logical problem, though an important step toward the solution of
the economic problem of society, does not yet provide an answer to
it. The reason for this is that the "data" from which the economic
calculus starts are never for the whole society "given" to a single
mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given.
(Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," at
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Economics/HayekUseOfKnowledge.html
*
I agree with Hayek that no single mind can command the complete
knowledge of all our needs desires + all available means. Why
should we, however, strive to work out planned economy with such
assumptions of divine perfection? Why set the bar of successful
planning so impossibly high? There seems no reason to assume what
Hayek has us assume. We need only know enough to meet existing needs
better than capitalism does (= we don't have to be perfect) leave
room for improvement (say, invention of greener technology) through
the process of trial and error (here we can even, if we so desire,
leave a little room for the "market" as long as the "market" doesn't
assume the character of compulsion). In other words, I object to
Hayek's assumption about what degree of knowledge is necessary to get
socialist planning going.
Yoshie
Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
At 04:59 PM 7/17/00 -0400, you wrote: A perpetual shortage of consumer goods (hence the rule of insecurity unpleasant surprises) obviously wouldn't do. The disagreement is that I think the Hayekian critique doesn't prove -- except by fiat of Hayek's assumption that divinely perfect knowledge is necessary for successful planning -- that planned economy can never make us enjoy freedom pleasure abundance. hey, I thought that Hayek assumed that _Devinely_ perfect knowledge is necessary for successful planning. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Yugoslavia
Whew! Some people on this list must have a lot of free time or be awfully fast typists given the amount of posting that has been going on re this and related streams. Let me try to answer some of the queries and respond to some of the issues raised. The first is easy: Justin, you can order a copy of our book (it is quite short btw) from Society for Socialist Studies, University College, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2M8. The cost, including shipping and handling, is $14 Canadian, or $10 USD. The book is published by Fernwood Press of Halifax, NS. Yoshie’s question about inequality breaks down to two issues: regional and gender though to some extent they are related. The first general point is that, according to studies by an economist at York University (I can’t remember his name at the moment and my copies of his paper on the subject are hidden in the mounds of shredded trees that line my office), Yugoslavia had one of the most equal distribution of incomes in the world, particularly intra-enterprise. However, between enterprises the income distribution was much more unequal though I believe (if I remember correctly) it was still less unequal than in the USSR and other eastern bloc countries. The real inequalities were between regions (i.e. republics) where the ratio of GDPs between top and bottom (Slovenia vs Kosovo) ranged up to 15 times. However, this is somewhat misleading in that the areas such as Kosovo, Macedonia, southern Serbia including Montenegro and Bosnia had a much higher percentage of virtually peasant agriculture and a huge grey economy plus Kosovo in particular (“Albanians”) had a high percentage of “guest workers” in the more developed republics and in the north generally who remitted monies to their home ‘families’. I.e. there was a structure not unlike the Sicilian families. Almost all the fruit and vegetable stands, pastry shops, and many of the bars in Slovenia, for instance, were owned and run by young Albanians who remitted profits to their “families”, mainly located in Kosovo. Thus, measured GDP considerably understated the income and wealth in these areas and over estimated the disparities between republics. In any case, these disparities all predated the market socialist period and narrowed during that period only to increase again when contractual socialism replaced market socialism. However, the major problem with regional disparities was the move to “wither away the state” through decentralization to the republic level leaving the central government with little or no power to redistribute income or investment or indeed to implement any macroeconomic development policy. The one remaining method was the Fund for the Faster Growth of the Less Developed Republics and Autonomous Provinces which was, essentially, a tax on Slovenia and Croatia, to make payments to the governments of the poorer republics and provinces. What irked the Slovene’s most was that the money was not being used for economic development but for conspicuous spending on cultural monuments. For example, just before I first went there, Kosovo had used the money to build and enourmous, (and beautiful) library in Pristina largely devoted, I am told, to Albanian culture and literature. At the same time, Kosovo was unable to invest in industrial capacity because it lacked skilled engineers, tradespeople, economists, technical skills – i.e. it could not absorb the available capital. Yet at the same time, I was told by an economist at the University of Skopje that 80 % of the students at the University in Pristina were studying Albanian language, history and culture. As a result, the level of unemployment of university grads was staggering. These unemployed youths, mainly men of course, became the recruits for the independence movement. Generally speaking again, the status of women also had a regional and rural/urban dimension. In the cities in the developed republics, women’s status was generally quite high and there was a high degree of gender equality in wages and employment opportunities. The situation was very “European” although the participation rate of women, particularly in full-time work, was very high by European standards (I think it was around 80% in Slovenia in the late ‘80s). The situation in the south and, in particular in the Albanian Muslim areas, however, was very different. I was repeatedly told the story of a female Albanian factory worker who was elected to the workers’ council in her factory. The next day she came to work badly bruised and resigned from the council. When pressed for an explanation, she said that her husband had beaten her when he heard of her election since it was unthinkable in that culture for women to have authority over men. Now I don’t know whether this is an apocryphal story or not but what makes it ring true is the existing treatment of women in the region. If you
Re: Re: Yugoslavia
Paul, thanks for the very informative post. At 04:10 PM 7/17/00 -0500, you wrote: Jim, in the case of Slovenia at least, unemployment did not rise during the crisis as it remained around 2 per cent though this was in part due to overemployment by enterprises. right. Also, wasn't a lot of the unemployment "exported" to the north? Contrary to the prevailing neoclassical orthodoxy (Ward-Vanek) workers were overly protective of fellow workers leading to considerable hidden redundancy which didn't come to the surface until after austerity and abandonment of socialist self- management at the end of the 80's. I think it was Domar who pointed out the obvious -- that a co-op wouldn't fire its own members. That's why I use phrases like "fraternity-like exclusivity." Frats don't expel their members (except for really extreme behavior) while being reluctant to increase membership by a fixed amount each year. In the case of a co-op, there's much less turnover (no "graduation") so that the problem of exclusivity can easily become intensified. As a result unemployment increased markedly in the early 90s after the breakup and the loss of the domestic market. However, in Slovenia it only rose to just over 9 per cent (9.1% in 1993-94) which was the peak. (It has since fallen to around 7.5%) In general, I would argue that self-management put a damper on regional tensions as opposed to the political, cultural and religious ationalisms that took advantage of the economic crisis arising out of other factors. Don't you think that self-managed firms tended to be monolithically Serbian, Croatian, or whatever? That's very common with self-selecting organizations. This can prevent communication between ethnic groups that could counteract the nationalistic demagogues... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
It appears Justin that you don't have time to read as well as to check your spelling. You claimed that Hayek had proven that only markets could provide incentives to obtain information. He hasn't proved anything of the kind, he claimed it. It was an empirical statement. An empirical statement requires proof. A theoretical statement requires a logical argument. If he was making a logical argument, then what was it. If he was making an empirical statement his prove is inadequate, and one sided. He was making claims about something that he could not know. Which you or I could not know. Perhaps it wasn't a theoretical statement or an empirical claim, but simply a article of faith. You provided a lot of bluster about the Soviet Union. I am talking about something much simpler and more in my limited grasp. Real existing non market institutions, that seem to work perfectly well. And it wasn't Rob. He has said very little on this. It was me. Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Yugoslavia
Jim, in the case of Slovenia at least, unemployment did not rise during the crisis as it remained around 2 per cent though this was in part due to overemployment by enterprises. Contrary to the prevailing neoclassical orthodoxy (Ward-Vanek) workers were overly protective of fellow workers leading to considerable hidden redundancy which didnÂ’t come to the surface until after austerity and abandonment of socialist self- management at the end of the 80's. As a result unemployment increased markedly in the early 90s after the breakup and the loss of the domestic market. However, in Slovenia it only rose to just over 9 per cent (9.1% in 1993-94) which was the peak. (It has since fallen to around 7.5%) In general, I would argue that self-management put a damper on regional tensions as opposed to the political, cultural and religious nationalisms that took advantage of the economic crisis arising out of other factors. That will have to be all for now. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba I read an interesting paper today by Saul Estrin titled "Yugoslavia: The case of self-managing Market Socialism" that appeared originally in the Autumn, 1991 Journal of Economic Perspectives. Basically he tells the tale of a society impaled on the horns of a dilemma. It was committed to egalitarian goals, but its market based economy and insertion into the global economy based on export of manufactured goods militated against those goals. After 1974 there was a retreat from the more pronounced market experiments of the 1960s. Estrin leaves no doubt that this was driven by the need for the government to retain some credibility with the working class which was beginning to resent growing unemployment and wage differentials. Estrin, no leftist, feels that this undermined the success of a true market socialism, with the emphasis on market. He is correct. Like Brus, the Polish economist, he understands that without a free market in labor and capital investment, it is difficult to achieve the "efficiency" of the West. One of the curious consequences of the 1974-1988 turn was the institution of further divisions within a workplace in order to make self-management even more rigorous than was the case on a plant level. Each plant was broken down into workshops which were run as mini-firms, with their own goals and incentives. Needless to say, this was not the answer to Yugoslavia's problems. Even though the economy continued to perform well through the late 1970s, growth effectively stopped after 1979 when Western banks made lending requirements more stringent. Estrin feels that the solution to this impasse was making the economy leaner and meaner so that an export-oriented model could succeed on conventional terms. Of course, manyYugoslavian workers did not fight against Nazism in order to create such a society. Those in a more favorable position oriented toward the west and hastening of capitalist "reforms" while the less well-off stuck to some kind of socialist program. These were the people who voted for Milosevic and got the shit kicked out of them by Nato's bombers. Estrin points out that even from the beginning Yugoslavia failed to create an effective capital market. Funds were invested by state banks not on the basis of expected profit, but perceived social need. Obviously this explains the decision to invest in Kosovo early on. Even in the case where there were large wage-differentials, Yugoslavia was never able to facilitate the creation of new firms with a new work force. All new enterprises of any size had to be socially owned. Hence those funky old Yugos rather than dot.coms. As Estrin states, "In practice, the Yugoslavs subsidized loss-makers to maintain jobs. This was usually done at the local level by the commerical banks which were controlled by enterprises and local authorities. The scale of subsidies was therefore reflected more in balance sheets of the banks than the public sector deficit. Even in the 1970s, some ten percent of the labor force was employed in loss-making firms; this profitability was calculated on the basis of low or zero capital costs and the proportion has risen dramatically in the 1980s." Of course, Estrin's article was written before the implosion of Yugoslavia which was caused by the "white flight" retreat of the more prosperous republics away from this kind of paternalistic but economically unfeasible setup. Market socialism didn't work. Market capitalism does, for what its worth. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff on marketsocialism)
Correction. I don't really want to have fresh mashed potatoes out of my garden. They would be much too muddy and it would be too difficult to prepare them. Just a few additional points for Justin to address: 1) In describing Schweicart's market socialism you included markets as one of the socialist parts. Markets per se are not socialist. The system is socialist because of the other features you picked out. No? 2) Unlike idolators of the free market you are very much in favor of regulation of markets and having public goods produced via planning and distributed on the basis of need. As I understand it, market defenders would claim that regulation would skew the supposed signals that are to provide the information that is to make the system work efficiently. No? 3) To ensure that markets take into account environmental costs prices must reflect those costs. How do you ensure this? Do you use the typical nc how much people would be willing to pay technique? But won't this be wholly unjust? Rich are typically willing to pay more for unpolluted air etc. than the poor. How do you avoid what might be called the Summers' effect! If you don't do this then won't you resort to some political technique. Public hearings etc. when prices are to be changed? But then this is a non-market methodology. Ken Hanly wrote: The critique makes no sense to me at all. Would von Mises or Hayek really claim that we do not know our needs and desires without participating in a market? I know that I want to have fresh mashed potatoes out of my garden without participating in a market. I know when I want sex without going to a red light district. When I participate in markets I learn what I can afford not what I need or desire.
Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff onmarket socialism)
Hi Jim Ken: Jim wrote: For what it's worth, I agree with you totally on this. BTW, when my 10-year-old son saw your name, he excitedly said "Yoshie!" in reference Nintendo. I'm happy that you agree with me. But I don't get the reference to Nintendo (in fact, I've never played any video game -- perhaps I shouldn't mention this here, in case Justin thinks I'm a Rousseau-like fan of Sparta). Hayek's position -- so ably put forth by Justin -- seems to be (a) in order to avoid market rule, there needs to be a God; but (b) God does not exist; so (c) market rule is inevitable. But then he assumes that God exists in the form of the Invisible Hand. In this regard, we can think of Hayek's position as a reworking of Hume's objection to the Levellers: * In a perfect theocracy, where a being, infinitely intelligent, governs by particular volitions, this rule would certainly have place, and might serve to the wisest purposes: But were mankind to execute such a law; so great is the uncertainty of merit, both from its natural obscurity, and from the self-conceit of each individual, that no determinate rule of conduct would ever result from it; and the total dissolution of society must be the immediate consequence. (Hume, "Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals") * No God, no alternative to the market for Hume, as you summed up! Ken wrote: But how do you determine if that is any more wasteful then having entrepreneurs guess what might sell, competing and going bankrupt, or advertisers spending milliions trying to ensure there is a preference for pet rocks? Hayek doesn't have an answer, and as many noted he was uninterested in empirical work of actually comparing the cost of information gathering for a planned economy with transaction costs externalities in a market economy. A Ronald Coase he wasn't. Would von Mises or Hayek really claim that we do not know our needs and desires without participating in a market? What Hayek claims is that the price system brings about "the taking into account of conflicts of desires which would have been overlooked otherwise [i.e. under planned economy]," chiefly through "the accounting of costs." Prices are for Hayek "signs which enable him [a producer] to contribute to the satisfaction of needs of which he does not know, and to do so by taking advantage of conditions of which he also learns only indirectly" (Hayek, _Law, Legislation and Liberty_). In a move that anticipates postmodernism, Hayek basically says that we can't have direct knowledge of what we really need want of how we should satisfy our needs wants, unless we are mediated by the "sign system" of prices. Prices as "signs" function for Hayek as the symbolic order functions for Lacan. Failures are not anomalous but essential in Hayek's economy of a "sign system": "It is one of the chief tasks of competition to show which plans are false." In other words, Hayek implies that truths are only differentially revealed to us when set against market failures (false plans), just as those who are influenced by Saussurian linguistics have us conceive of the dichotomy of true/false in language as chiefly differential, de-emphasizing or bracketing altogether the role of reference in our language use. Further, just as the Saussurian linguistics is synchronic, unlike the diachronic conception of language in philology, in the Hayekian ecnonomy, "The current prices, it must be specially noted, serve in this process as indicators of what ought to be done in the present circumstances and have no necessary relation to what has been done in the past" (Hayek, _Law, Legislation and Liberty_). If Hayek had adopted psychoanalysis (some version of which says an individual's unconscious can never be made fully transparent to himself), he would have been _the_ forefather of postmodernism before the letter! Economy is a discourse of desires in perpetual conflict of which we are only dimly aware, not a historically determined ensemble of social relations which we may consciously collectively transform! Needless to say, I think that Hayek's textualization of economy is highly misleading (since it directs our attention away from the role of the competitive market as *compulsion* of prices as *alien power* that heteronomously determines our lives, severing our means from ends), and I add once again that Hayek doesn't explain why we can't use planning as a democratic procedure of discovery through trial and error, figuring out how to meet existing needs and to even find out develop new needs desires. Yoshie
Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
The male list is either A) a problem in proofing my voice recognition program or B) a brilliant insight into the nature of this and other lists. Timework Web wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: In fact, I suspect that once we began to struggle against the system is now stands and build counter institutions, these counter institutions would be more likely to form the basis of any future socialist state that some recipe that we would cook up here on a male list. I didn't realize Pen-l was gender exclusive. ;-) Seriously though, I think that the impasse reflects an underlying agreement that production and consumption are somehow just two sides of "the same coin" and that if we can somehow get one or the other operating properly, the other will follow along in train. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: market socialism
Am I the only one who finds this post mostly consist of slogans? neil wrote: Well, Big Bill Haywood's work is for the most part quite inspiring. But his era (approx 1895-1925) was on the cusp of capitals advance to world economy , imperialism , WW1 ,etc as this changed a lot of things for dominant capital and workers movements in antagonism-class combats . Todays IWW's and others still have yet to get a (pol-econ) handle on these changes. The ruling classes are usually slicker than deerguts on a doorknob and have stolen more than one march on most of us. Today we have Globalization of the productive forces as well. Direct colonialism has long been replaced by other forms of domination in most all the peripheral capitals. The USSR en bloc model (state caps rule) has collapsed. Socialists today need to advance ( I don't say never pause and re-cap-plan, etc!) in theory-- and active practice . The spirit/heroism of the masses struggles in Haywood's historical era can still serve as inspriation for todays actions , and future movements . Neil -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Work Ethic
The work ethic, as it is typically used, applies to alientated/alienating work -- I work hard to get Marx's self-realization was something else. I just played basketball for 2 hours. I am exhausted. Was my effort a reflection of my work ethic? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess I am a fan of the work ethic, but I thought that was actually a Marxist ideal, self-realization through productive labor. But the reason I push markets in their place is not that I think they will promote such self-realization, but because they help us avoid waste. Even a LaFargian advocate of laziness ought to be against waste, if only beacuse it means we would have to work harder and longer for less. --jks -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: market socialism
you are correct. steve On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Michael Perelman wrote: Am I the only one who finds this post mostly consist of slogans? neil wrote: Well, Big Bill Haywood's work is for the most part quite inspiring. But his era (approx 1895-1925) was on the cusp of capitals advance to world economy , imperialism , WW1 ,etc as this changed a lot of things for dominant capital and workers movements in antagonism-class combats . Todays IWW's and others still have yet to get a (pol-econ) handle on these changes. The ruling classes are usually slicker than deerguts on a doorknob and have stolen more than one march on most of us. Today we have Globalization of the productive forces as well. Direct colonialism has long been replaced by other forms of domination in most all the peripheral capitals. The USSR en bloc model (state caps rule) has collapsed. Socialists today need to advance ( I don't say never pause and re-cap-plan, etc!) in theory-- and active practice . The spirit/heroism of the masses struggles in Haywood's historical era can still serve as inspriation for todays actions , and future movements . Neil -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: market socialism
Michael Perelman wrote: Am I the only one who finds this post mostly consist of slogans? I am less irritated by the slogans than I am by the zig-zag line formatting in neil's post, which usually occurs when you copy from a web page and paste it into an email program but somehow neil managed to do this from scratch. He must have been reading e.e. cummings. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: HarryMagdoff on marketsocialism)
Yoshie's post led me to Brad's article on the New Economy. I found it most enjoyable. It is a capitalist calculation debate. http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Comments/Kaching.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Calm down plase. Rod Hay wrote: You provided a lot of bluster about the Soviet Union. I am talking about something much simpler and more in my limited grasp. Real existing non market institutions, that seem to work perfectly well. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff onmarket socialism)
Ken says: I know when I want sex without going to a red light district. If Doug weren't in one of those bouts of despair over the "State of the Left," he might post say that's because (a) you've retired in a depopulated corner of Canadian countryside or (b) you haven't read Zizek. :) Yoshie
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: HarryMagdoff on market socialism)
Yoshie, I'm not inclined to read Doug's posts as 'bouts of despair over the state of the left.' For example, his posts from Seattle and Washington were not filled with any sense of despair. He employs Marxist categories of political economic analysis with the same level of sophistication and enthusiasm as he did in his book *Wall Street* (and I expect in his forthcoming book on the "new" economy. Doug is upfront about what he is skeptical or optimistic about, to paint him as 'despairing' doesn't seem accurate really. I can say all that and not necessarily agree with everything he's written...eg. on this market socialism debate, I'm much closer to your or Michael Perelman's arguments...but that wouldn't move me to see Henwood as a despairing writer. Just my two cents...whatever that exchanges for in market socialism... Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Ken says: I know when I want sex without going to a red light district. If Doug weren't in one of those bouts of despair over the "State of the Left," he might post say that's because (a) you've retired in a depopulated corner of Canadian countryside or (b) you haven't read Zizek. :) Yoshie
Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff onmarket socialism)
Hi Steve: I'm not inclined to read Doug's posts as 'bouts of despair over the state of the left.' For example, his posts from Seattle and Washington were not filled with any sense of despair. He employs Marxist categories of political economic analysis with the same level of sophistication and enthusiasm as he did in his book *Wall Street* (and I expect in his forthcoming book on the "new" economy. Doug is upfront about what he is skeptical or optimistic about, to paint him as 'despairing' doesn't seem accurate really. I can say all that and not necessarily agree with everything he's written...eg. on this market socialism debate, I'm much closer to your or Michael Perelman's arguments...but that wouldn't move me to see Henwood as a despairing writer. Just my two cents...whatever that exchanges for in market socialism... I look forward to Doug's book on the "new" economy, and _Wall Street_ (especially the part about Keynes and the postmodern) is one of my favorite books. And yes, about Seattle, A16, etc. Doug's far more enthusiastic than I am, in fact. I was just poking fun at him for sulking off: At 3:23 PM -0400 7/15/00, Doug Henwood wrote: Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 15:23:54 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21807] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Harry Magdoff on market socialism Carrol Cox wrote: I think you should seriously consider that there may in fact be good reasons for leftists to be a bit more concerned about "heretics" than are rightists (if that is indeed the case). I'm not talking about the need to ferret out spies and agents provocateurs. I'm talking about an intellectual impulse to scrutinize every statement for unorthodox sentiments or missing pledges of fealty. It's happened here about 10 times in the last week. Jim Devine tells me he's tired of my learning experiences. Fine. I'm going to step under a cone of silence on PEN-L for a while. If it weren't for all my sunk costs, I'd be tempted to give up on the left, whatever that is, entirely. Since I don't like that feeling, maybe the best thing to do is to avert my eyes for a few days. Doug BTW, I don't think of my posts (the ones that disagree with other leftists' conceptions of this or that) as "heretic hunting" at all, in that I don't consider others' views (least of all Doug's) as "heretical" and my view as "orthodox." Disagreement is just that -- disagreement; and without vigorous disagreement now and then, left-wing cyberspace would be tedious indeed. I don't think we are quite like a herd of cats, but we ain't no dittoheads either. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Okay, Michael. I will, but a blatant misrepresentation of what I had said, added to several posts attacking my intelligence finally got to me. I'm calm, really I am. Real calm. Maybe a good game of basketball would help me. And my next softball game isn't until thursday. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: Calm down plase. Rod Hay wrote: You provided a lot of bluster about the Soviet Union. I am talking about something much simpler and more in my limited grasp. Real existing non market institutions, that seem to work perfectly well. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
Thanks. Okay, Michael. I will, but a blatant misrepresentation of what I had said, added to several posts attacking my intelligence finally got to me. I'm calm, really I am. Real calm. Maybe a good game of basketball would help me. And my next softball game isn't until thursday. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: Calm down plase. Rod Hay wrote: You provided a lot of bluster about the Soviet Union. I am talking about something much simpler and more in my limited grasp. Real existing non market institutions, that seem to work perfectly well. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Work Ethic
"alientated" work? Is that digging up foreign potatoes for the boss? Cheers, Ken Hanly Michael Perelman wrote: The work ethic, as it is typically used, applies to alientated/alienating work -- I work hard to get Marx's self-realization was something else. I just played basketball for 2 hours. I am exhausted. Was my effort a reflection of my work ethic? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess I am a fan of the work ethic, but I thought that was actually a Marxist ideal, self-realization through productive labor. But the reason I push markets in their place is not that I think they will promote such self-realization, but because they help us avoid waste. Even a LaFargian advocate of laziness ought to be against waste, if only beacuse it means we would have to work harder and longer for less. --jks -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff onmarket socialism)
So what is this rule or law to which Hume refers? Cheers, kr hanly Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Hi Jim Ken: Jim wrote: For what it's worth, I agree with you totally on this. BTW, when my 10-year-old son saw your name, he excitedly said "Yoshie!" in reference Nintendo. I'm happy that you agree with me. But I don't get the reference to Nintendo (in fact, I've never played any video game -- perhaps I shouldn't mention this here, in case Justin thinks I'm a Rousseau-like fan of Sparta). Hayek's position -- so ably put forth by Justin -- seems to be (a) in order to avoid market rule, there needs to be a God; but (b) God does not exist; so (c) market rule is inevitable. But then he assumes that God exists in the form of the Invisible Hand. In this regard, we can think of Hayek's position as a reworking of Hume's objection to the Levellers: * In a perfect theocracy, where a being, infinitely intelligent, governs by particular volitions, this rule would certainly have place, and might serve to the wisest purposes: But were mankind to execute such a law; so great is the uncertainty of merit, both from its natural obscurity, and from the self-conceit of each individual, that no determinate rule of conduct would ever result from it; and the total dissolution of society must be the immediate consequence. (Hume, "Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals") * No God, no alternative to the market for Hume, as you summed up! Ken wrote: But how do you determine if that is any more wasteful then having entrepreneurs guess what might sell, competing and going bankrupt, or advertisers spending milliions trying to ensure there is a preference for pet rocks? Hayek doesn't have an answer, and as many noted he was uninterested in empirical work of actually comparing the cost of information gathering for a planned economy with transaction costs externalities in a market economy. A Ronald Coase he wasn't. Would von Mises or Hayek really claim that we do not know our needs and desires without participating in a market? What Hayek claims is that the price system brings about "the taking into account of conflicts of desires which would have been overlooked otherwise [i.e. under planned economy]," chiefly through "the accounting of costs." Prices are for Hayek "signs which enable him [a producer] to contribute to the satisfaction of needs of which he does not know, and to do so by taking advantage of conditions of which he also learns only indirectly" (Hayek, _Law, Legislation and Liberty_). In a move that anticipates postmodernism, Hayek basically says that we can't have direct knowledge of what we really need want of how we should satisfy our needs wants, unless we are mediated by the "sign system" of prices. Prices as "signs" function for Hayek as the symbolic order functions for Lacan. Failures are not anomalous but essential in Hayek's economy of a "sign system": "It is one of the chief tasks of competition to show which plans are false." In other words, Hayek implies that truths are only differentially revealed to us when set against market failures (false plans), just as those who are influenced by Saussurian linguistics have us conceive of the dichotomy of true/false in language as chiefly differential, de-emphasizing or bracketing altogether the role of reference in our language use. Further, just as the Saussurian linguistics is synchronic, unlike the diachronic conception of language in philology, in the Hayekian ecnonomy, "The current prices, it must be specially noted, serve in this process as indicators of what ought to be done in the present circumstances and have no necessary relation to what has been done in the past" (Hayek, _Law, Legislation and Liberty_). If Hayek had adopted psychoanalysis (some version of which says an individual's unconscious can never be made fully transparent to himself), he would have been _the_ forefather of postmodernism before the letter! Economy is a discourse of desires in perpetual conflict of which we are only dimly aware, not a historically determined ensemble of social relations which we may consciously collectively transform! Needless to say, I think that Hayek's textualization of economy is highly misleading (since it directs our attention away from the role of the competitive market as *compulsion* of prices as *alien power* that heteronomously determines our lives, severing our means from ends), and I add once again that Hayek doesn't explain why we can't use planning as a democratic procedure of discovery through trial and error, figuring out how to meet existing needs and to even find out develop new needs desires. Yoshie
Regarding deflation/inflation
Dave's report today had two indications that deflationary pressures are weakening. Is that true? Other reports suggest that the economy might be slowing down. What is happening??? Richardson_D wrote: A survey of business economists showed that more companies are raising prices than at any time during the past 5 years, while a separate report shows import costs continue to rise on spiking petroleum prices. The National Association for Business Economics said one-third of the businesses it surveyed had increased prices in the second quarter, and half expected to do so later this year. The National Association of Business Economics said one-third of the businesses it surveyed had increased prices in the second quarter and half expected to do so later this year. __A new survey by the National Association for Business Economics shows that businesses increasingly can make price increases stick in the marketplace as global demand strengthens and deflationary forces subside. In the second quarter of 2000, about one-third of NABE members surveyed said their firms were able to pass along price hikes, the highest percentage in 5 years, according to the organization's president. Almost 50 percent of the firms represented in the second quarter survey said they expected their companies to raise prices this year. Some 27 percent said they expected increases to be more than 2 percent, while another 21 percent expected hikes of less than 2 percent (Daily Labor Report -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff onmarket socialism)
Sorry. I didn't realise that the stuff about Hume was part of this longer post or I would have deleted the extraneous material. I can see that prices are for the consumer a sign of what can be afforded, and for the hypothetical rational consumer would lead him or her to allocate funds "efficiently" in some sense to satisfy desires and would lead persons to evaluate "what they really want". That goods have prices makes one realize that one cannot have everything one might desire but any system of rationing or that requires qualifications to receive goods or services will make one realize this. But Bill Gates hardly will take into account conflicts of desires which he might have overlooked through accounting of costs.On the other hand such accounting of costs might lead a person with few marketable skills to decide what they really want is to be a drug dealer, or bank robber as the most likely career path to be able to afford the price of a reasonable material standard of living. Or the conflict of desires that might be involved for the less well off might be whether to satisfy the desire to pay the rent or to feed the family or pay for medicine. Better a system where person do not need to worry about whether they can afford basic shelter, food, or health care. On the producer side I can see a certain point to Hayek's claim that prices may be a sign that profits could be made given the cost of productive inputs. But the matter is extremely complicated too, especially when production start-up may take some time and the start up costs go up and the product price go down. The entrepreneur would need to look not so much at prices but at conditions that might influence prices to go up or down. A good example is hog production. A little more than a year ago prices were so low producers lost about 50 dollars per hog. This would surely be a sign not to go into hog production. The results. Many producers, particularly small producers went bankrupt, and some did decide that it was time to leave the business. But a number of entrepreneurs decided that it was a good time to build even larger hog barns and that is what is still happening now. As commentators put it. There was blood all over the floor as producers lost their life savings from following market deamnds for pork in Asia just as the Asian economy went sour. The signs that the big hog barn entrepreneurs were following were not the low prices but the conditions in the future in which many producers had been wiped out and the market would recover. But there are no prices that they are using as signs just the hope that because of developing conditions prices will be high enough for profits. They were right but what did prices as a sign have to do with it? If prices were a sign would they not have invested elsewhere where prices indicated profits? I think you mean "failures in the marketplace" that is producers who do not make a go of it, not "market failures". However, that a producer fails to make a profit may show that there is not sufficient effective demand to make the production profitable but it says nothing about whether the production plan was true in the sense that the production might be socially useful or even efficient in a wider sense. For example someone might invest heavily in production of solar heat equipment that would be quite profitable if fossil fuels were priced at their true costs including costs to the environment. Under Hayek's model the plan was false as it fails to bring a profit but this is just a quirky use of "false" perhaps part of the emotive spin Hayek puts on the whole idea of free markets. Cheers, Ken Hanly Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: What Hayek claims is that the price system brings about "the taking into account of conflicts of desires which would have been overlooked otherwise [i.e. under planned economy]," chiefly through "the accounting of costs." Prices are for Hayek "signs which enable him [a producer] to contribute to the satisfaction of needs of which he does not know, and to do so by taking advantage of conditions of which he also learns only indirectly" (Hayek, _Law, Legislation and Liberty_). In a move that anticipates postmodernism, Hayek basically says that we can't have direct knowledge of what we really need want of how we should satisfy our needs wants, unless we are mediated by the "sign system" of prices. Prices as "signs" function for Hayek as the symbolic order functions for Lacan. Failures are not anomalous but essential in Hayek's economy of a "sign system": "It is one of the chief tasks of competition to show which plans are false." In other words, Hayek implies that truths are only differentially revealed to us when set against market failures (false plans), just as those who are influenced by Saussurian linguistics have us conceive of the dichotomy of true/false in language as chiefly differential, de-emphasizing or bracketing altogether
[Fwd: New book about political economy (brief note)]
Charles Andrews wrote: From Capitalism to Equality: An Inquiry into the Laws of Economic Change by Charles Andrews The book begins with the facts showing that work and life have gotten worse since 1973 for 80% of the people in the United States. The problem is to explain this persistent decline. After an exposition of the labor theory of value, the book uses it to give a unified analysis of why there is an accumulation cycle, what actually happens to the rate of profit, and what the powers and limits of monopoly capital are. The decades-long decline of conditions for working people turns out to be a sign of the approaching demise of capitalism. The last two chapters suggest the basic features of a socialist economy that takes over from advanced capitalism. I believe this book makes a contribution to disucssions of relations and forces of production, like the one in June on PEN-L when you responded to Proyect. You can also recommend it when someone asks you to suggest a solid, accessible introduction to Marxist economics. Please see http://www.laborrepublic.org for the table of contents and more information. Regards, Charles Andrews -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff ...
In a message dated 7/17/00 5:00:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The critique makes no sense to me at all. Would von Mises or Hayek really claim that we do not know our needs and desires without participating in a market? I know that I want to have fresh mashed potatoes out of my garden without participating in a market. Of course we know our own needs--right now, though not necessarily very far in the future. That is, each of us knows his or her own needs. But we don't know others', or what resources are available to meet them, or what production techniques are the best way to use those resources to satisfy those needs. Thise we have to find out. Planners will screw up because of lack of information. Consumers will scream bloody murder. Poor supply, poor quality, poor choice. So the planners modify the plan and production. So that is wasteful. But how do you determine if that is any more wasteful then having entrepreneurs guess what might sell, competing and going bankrupt, or advertisers spending milliions trying to ensure there is a preference This "ratcheting" was Lange's solution back in the 30s, his reply to Hayek. But Lange assumed that accurate info was available costlessly--he had a neoclassical planned socialism. In fact, it's not costless. And, as I have been arguing, a nonmarket system gives people an incentive to lie, to exaggerate needs or understate capacities. Moreover, it does not give anone in particualr the incentive to investigate what needs there are or might be--it has managers, but noyt entrepreneurs. ANd it stilfes innovation, because innovation disrupts the plan. Lange never addressed these in his early reply to Hayek, and when hje did, after practical experience in the Polish Central Planning Agency, he became a market socialist. --jks
Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
In a message dated 7/17/00 5:01:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The disagreement is that I think the Hayekian critique doesn't prove -- except by fiat of Hayek's assumption that divinely perfect knowledge is necessary for successful planning -- that planned economy can never make us enjoy freedom pleasure abundance. Hayekl doesn't really demand God's knowledge, except for God's plan. But he does argue that the knowledge that is available in a nonmarket system is so inferior to what the market provides as to be unacceptably wasteful and inefficient in a modern society. The Soviet experience bears this out. Maybe id there was no contrast class, if all life was at that level, people would be less discontent because they wouldn't know what they were missing. But surely that can't be your point. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Market socialism -- summing up?
In a message dated 7/17/00 6:02:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It appears Justin that you don't have time to read as well as to check your spelling. Sorry if I offended you. I have no idea what you want out of an argument. Hayek presents an argument about the incentive structure of planning and its likely effedts. In his early formulations, it is an abstract economic model, like many, although without the burden of formalization: hayek is a political economist, like Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and Keynes, not a mathematical economist. The model has testible implications. The FSU provided a crucial test case, and bore out the predictions quite well. Virtually everyone who has written about Soviet planning, including the people who tried to do it and solve its problems, fiound the problems that Hayek predicted: lack of accurate information, systemativ lying, waste, bottlenecks and shortages. The list isn't the place to discuss that evidence: this medium isn't conducive to it. You might look at Michael Ellman's Socialist Planning, 2d ed., for a useful summary. --jks
Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (was Re: Harry Magdoff ...
In a message dated 7/17/00 6:58:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I add once again that Hayek doesn't explain why we can't use planning as a democratic procedure of discovery through trial and error, figuring out how to meet existing needs and to even find out develop new needs desires. This is the history of the Hayek-Lange debate, which I take Hayek to have won. Others will be irritated, but you have time and inclination to read: look at David Ramsey Steele's From Marx to Mises, a pro-Hayek-Mises review of the debate. Lange implicitly conceded in his later work that ratcheting wouldn't work because gathering information is costly and requires incentives, which he simply assumed existed in his 1938 paper. That is why he ended up amarket socialist--based on his practical experience of planning. --jks
Hayek. Why???
I don't see the point in repeating that Hayek won the debate. Who is the judge or the referee? The Austrian method is to predicate that markets are efficient and then to show how any deviation from the market creates a screwup. Just how well do markets handle information? I differ with Justin. Maybe classic Coke and the Edsel are to be judged a success. I don't think so. I have read Hayek. I even taught a seminar on his capital theory book. Hayek is important for couple of reasons. First, he gained a great deal of influence because he said what powerful people wanted to hear. Second, his method is not nearly as abstract as the perfect competition model of neoclassical economics. But history of information merely postulates that markets are good at creating information. The idea that Hayek's theory represents a model of how markets work sounds absurd to me. In fact, markets are very poor at handling information. They can generate prices, but prices are very poor indicators of information except in static model. In my Natural Instability book I have a section of the price of passenger pigeons. The price remained steady as the pigeon approached extinction. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hayekian triangles
Can someone give me a short summary of Hayek's triangles. I gather the triangles illustrate the problem of capital being transformed from forms in which it could be used for numerous purposes to forms in which its use is limited. In my hog barn example, finance capital is turned into materials that can only be used in the hog industry. But to transform this into a complete hog barn operation takes some time during which consumer preferences might change. The triangles are somehow an explication or exploration of how one might arrange the allocation of capital so as to coincide with consumer preferences and not get out of sync. CHeers, Ken Hanly
Re: Hayekian triangles
Are you thinking about Harberger triangles? I have a discussion of that subject in my Natural Instability book. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Spivak Marxism-Feminism (was Re: And another thing)
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Third-World nationalism often mobilizes the idea of the nation that masks class gender oppressions Isn't this a bit circular? I don't mean to be frivolous. And nationalist discourse that hopes to succeed must sublimate class etc oppressions by means of/via narratives of solidarity which actually do serve to make 'the nation' more successful in competition with other nations. That living standards are actually raised (in some cases) within national contects and through the mobilising power of nationalist rhetoric, is a true fact and not just another mystification. Mark I don't dispute the fact that "living standards are actually raised (in some cases) within national contects and through the mobilising power of nationalist rhetoric" at all. What I'm saying is that in the course of mobilization the nationalist rhetoric has often limited the role of women to patriotic mothers or mothers-to-be (women who didn't fit into this role, as well as gay men, often have had a hard time claiming the rhetoric of nation-building inflecting it so as to meet their needs desires). The politics of reproduction that subordinates women's interest to the perceived interest of the nation and the need to build unity (e.g. the Sandinistas' inability to enshrine reproductive freedom in the Nicaraguan constitution), the politics of sexuality that casts gay men as "subversive" (as it happened, for instance, in the early stage of the Cuban Revolution, ironically mirroring sexual discrimination in the early Cold War America), etc. are the kind of problem that I am concerned about. My criticism, however, does not imply the rejection of the nationalist rhetoric as such. It has to be judged case by case as it is used by different movements. Yoshie
Work and life have gotten worse since 1973 for 80% of the people in the US
From Capitalism to Equality: An Inquiry into the Laws of Economic Change by Charles Andrews The book begins with the facts showing that work and life have gotten worse since 1973 for 80% of the people in the United States. The problem is to explain this persistent decline. After an exposition of the labor theory of value, the book uses it to give a unified analysis of why there is an accumulation cycle, what actually happens to the rate of profit, and what the powers and limits of monopoly capital are. The decades-long decline of conditions for working people turns out to be a sign of the approaching demise of capitalism. The last two chapters suggest the basic features of a socialist economy that takes over from advanced capitalism. I think you'll have political or theoretical reason to take a look at From Capitalism to Equality. You can also recommend it when someone asks you to suggest a solid, accessible introduction to Marxist economics. Please see http://www.laborrepublic.org for the table of contents and more information. Regards, Charles Andrews Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
