Re: the ObL theory of international relations
At 25/11/02 09:16 -0800, you wrote: Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America' We really ought to be able to discuss this without fear of any suspcion we are sympathising with terrorism. But unless there is a culture of discussion around this, each contributor may fear they stand out. Chris Burford
Re: China on world capital flows
At 26/11/02 08:34 +, I wrote: is it wrong in its analysis? presumably not by the silence. Sorry to sound a bit sharp and not to detract from any particular post, but I sense a left wing introspective mood, when momentous things are happening on a world scale. Chris Burford London
FBI Focus on Iraqi Professor Sparks Protest at UMass
a bit of levity re. below, article states that person is economics professor who rarely discusses politics... Published on Sunday, November 24, 2002 by the Boston Globe Academic Alarm FBI Focus on Iraqi Professor Sparks a Protest at UMass by Eric Goldscheider and Jenna Russell AMHERST - When professor M.J. Alhabeeb received a call from police in his office at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst last month, his first thought was that someone in his family had been in an accident. A few minutes later, an FBI agent and a campus police officer were at his door, acting on a tip that the Iraqi-born professor held anti-American views. The joint interview by FBI and UMass officers lasted only a few minutes, and was by all accounts polite. But it has outraged many professors, who say the university's participation in the investigation violated academic freedom and could have a ''chilling effect'' on the free exchange of ideas on campus. Their outrage - which evoked the specter of campus witch hunts - began to draw wider attention as word of UMass's participation in the FBI investigation spread after a meeting last week. About 75 people, mostly faculty, attended the meeting last Monday to plan their response, to include a public forum and a request for a meeting with UMass Chancellor John Lombardi. The UMass police detective, Barry Flanders, has been working on the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force for about a month, since receiving security clearance, university Police Chief Barbara O'Connor said. After learning what had happened, sociology professor Dan Clawson dashed off an e-mail to O'Connor demanding that he also be investigated, since he disagrees with the Bush administration's policies in Iraq. ''Certainly if the FBI receives a credible report about somebody's actions, I would want them to investigate,'' said Clawson, who organized the meeting. ''But if they receive a report about someone's views, it is inappropriate to investigate, and if the university cooperates in that investigation, that's totally inappropriate.'' Alhabeeb, 48, a US citizen who teaches economics and rarely discusses politics even with friends, described the questioning as uncomfortable. He said he felt compelled to prove his loyalty to the United States by explaining that his brother-in-law, a lawyer in Iraq, was executed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime. When he asked about the origin of the tip, he said he was told it came from someone associated with Amherst Community Television, a nonprofit public access cable TV station where Alhabeeb and his high school-age son Osama are active, and where there has been recent internal turmoil. ''I came to this country to get away from that kind of thing,'' said Alhabeeb, who left Iraq with his wife in 1982, during the height of the country's war with Iran, to escape the oppressive regime. An FBI spokeswoman said the bureau's Boston office has had a Joint Terrorism Task Force with local law enforcement agencies since 1995. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she said, the government was criticized for failing to share sensitive information; in response, local law enforcement agencies were invited to place representatives on the task force. About 15 agencies are represented on the task force, she said. They are paid by their home forces, and divide their time between regular duties and antiterrorism work. The spokeswoman, Gail Marcinkiewicz, said the UMass detective ''was interested, so his department volunteered his services.'' O'Connor, the UMass police chief who commands 54 officers, said campus safety comes first, and Flanders reports to the FBI in Springfield only when he is not needed in Amherst. She declined to detail the nature of his work for the FBI. Professors' concerns about the government overstepping its bounds were heightened last week when another man came forward to describe an experience similar to Alhabeeb's. Yaju Dharmarajah, a Sri Lankan union organizer who lives in Hadley, said his American wife was visited at home this summer by law enforcement officials after the couple contacted the state Emergency Management Agency to find out about disaster relief training. It was unclear to Dharmarajah if UMass police were involved in his wife's questioning. The couple wanted the training because they plan to travel overseas to work with refugees. ''I have no problem with the tracking of terror suspects - the role of the government is to protect its citizens - but you never see skinny white men with beards being stopped for questioning,'' Dharmarajah said. Michael O'Reilly, the head of the Springfield FBI office, said his agency is obligated to follow up on any tips that might be credible, and said an ethnic-sounding name could be a factor in evaluating credibility. He said someone with his own name might attract more attention if an allegation referred to the Irish Republican Army. UMass
Death to the S.U.V.!
NY Times, Nov. 26, 2002 BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'HIGH AND MIGHTY' When Is a Car a Truck? If Uncle Sam Says So By JAY ROSEN This is one of the best books on American politics I have read recently, although it's supposed to be about cars. Actually it's about light trucks, one of the many twists in the story of the sport utility vehicle and its dubious rise on the streets. Pass, say, a Ford Explorer on the roadway, and you might say, Wow, that's a big car, but you won't say, That's a neat truck. According to the federal government, however, the Explorer is a truck. It's a truck for purposes of the Clean Air Act of 1990, passed by Congress to update the laws limiting smog-causing emissions. The act has less-stringent limits for trucks (local contractors need them for work, you see), so getting S.U.V.'s classified as trucks is a political feat worth quite a bit to the auto industry. It's also a tricky class maneuver, since the exemption's benefits are passing from working class to more affluent Americans. Thus the Explorer's pricier cousin, the Lincoln Navigator, is considered a truck for purposes of calculating the 10 percent luxury tax the 1990 Congress slapped on cars with price tags of $30,000 or more. That law, like many others, exempted light trucks, in this case those with a gross weight over 6,000 pounds. The Navigator grew to that size as Ford added luxury features but included in the price no luxury tax because it's not a car, stupid, it's a kind of luxury truck. Thus does politics make for strange markets, even though it's true that a market is definitely there among ordinary American car buyers, a huge portion of whom have found S.U.V.'s to their liking. That liking and the way it was coaxed forward, manipulated by the auto industry, is a further theme in Keith Bradsher's marvelously told book. Mr. Bradsher, a correspondent for The New York Times, was the paper's Detroit bureau chief from 1996 to 2001. High and Mighty is his study in Washington politics and the ways of Detroit, but also the politics of our roadways and the social psychology of Americans as drivers. The S.U.V., it turns out, is a vehicle of aggression, a machine to menace other people with. It was understood and marketed that way by an auto industry that itself behaved cynically and aggressively in securing loopholes and exemptions that made the S.U.V. so fantastically profitable. The key product line in the industry during the 1990's, S.U.V.'s helped revive the economy of the upper Midwest, including two states Michigan and Ohio that are heavily contested in presidential elections. Mr. Bradsher describes how a single Ford factory in Michigan produced $11 billion in annual S.U.V. sales (equal to the size of McDonald's global sales) and $3.7 billion in pretax profits from one factory. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/books/26ROSE.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
(no subject)
am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past aboutgov't deficits causing (or resulting in)
am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past about gov't deficits causing (or resulting in) high interest rates because feds crowd out private sector (or something like that), white house people are saying there is no relation between deficit size and interest rates and are pooh-poohing 'fiscally responsible' dem criticisms... michael hoover
Re: Re: the ObL theory of international relations
On Wednesday, November 27, 2002 at 08:35:37 (+) Chris Burford writes: ... Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America' We really ought to be able to discuss this without fear of any suspcion we are sympathising with terrorism. But unless there is a culture of discussion around this, each contributor may fear they stand out. I was going to pen a response to Osama, starting with Osama you ignorant slut, but I decided to post Gabriel Kolko's take on modern problems for comparison. Bill CounterPunch November 26, 2002 Another Century of War? by GABRIEL KOLKO Editors Note: Gabriel Kolko is one of our favorite writers and the foremost historian of modern warfare. Here at CounterPunch we are honored to publish this excerpt from his vitally important new book Another Century of War?. [AC / JSC] A foreign policy that is both immoral and unsuccessful is not simply stupid, it is increasingly dangerous to those who practice or favor it. That is the predicament that the United States now confronts. Communism no longer exists, American military power has never been greater, but the U.S. has never been so insecure and its people more vulnerable. After fifty years of interventions in the affairs of dozens of nations on every continent, interventions that varied from training police and armies to supplying them with lethal equipment and advisers to teach them how to use it, after two major wars involving its own manpower for years, America's sustained, intense, and costly efforts have only culminated in greater risks to itself. There is more instability and violence in the world than ever, and now it has finally reached its own shores--and its political leaders have declared it will continue. By any criterion, above all the security of its own citizens, the U.S.' international policies, whether military or political, have produced consummate failures. It is neither realistic nor ethical. It is a shambles of confusions and contradictions, pious, superficial morality combined with cynical adventurism, all of which has undermined, not strengthened, the safety of the American people and left a world more dangerous than ever. It is not accurate, nor is it consolation, to argue as many do that without an activist foreign policy and military policy the present world situation could have been worse or that communism would have triumphed in many more places. Many of the CIA's analysts always perceived the Soviet Union's actions as essentially defensive, and that it was ready to grasp opportunities that posed no obvious dangers to it but unwilling to take great risks. As Marxists they believed that history was predestined to favor them, and that adventurism was unnecessary--infantile, to use Lenin's description. But communism was a reflection rather than the cause of the severe disorder in international affairs that produced two incredibly destructive world wars, a result of deeper and older problems, and those who led the USSR gradually ceased to have the conviction essential to perpetuate the original Leninist beliefs and systemic legacies. As a ruling system, it has disappeared in Europe and virtually disintegrated in Asia, peacefully and by its own leaders' volition--and not by force of American arms. The fear of communism which justified vast military expenses and mobilized NATO and America's allies is now gone, but the qualitative importance of this fundamental transformation has not led to any equivalent or appropriate changes in Washington's perceptions, much less spending. It can no longer define its enemies clearly, where they live or how they will behave, and it is unwilling to confront the analytic problems that the immense changes in world affairs since 1989 have created. The U.S.' most symbolic sites--Wall Street and the Pentagon--have been devastatingly attacked, and it is now plain, as the government itself has predicted for several years, that the country itself is highly vulnerable. Bin Laden's network replaced rogue states for a time, but essentially American strategy continues to flounder: it prepared for nuclear and mechanized war in Europe but fought only in Asia, where it was stalemated and lost two major conflicts. It encouraged and funded wars by Iraq against Iran and against the Soviets in Afghanistan only to have to fight the very people it once believed were merely its proxies. It has confronted innumerable surprises in Latin America and Africa--to mention but a few of its policy failures--and it has precious little control in both those continents. The U.S.' ambitions in the century that is just beginning far exceed its military, political, and moral resources for attaining them, and if it does not acknowledge the limits of its power--which it should have done much earlier--it will continue to embark on quixotic adventures in every corner of the worldand experience more terrorism on its own shores. The U.S. has more military equipment than ever, and since
Re: Re: Re: the ObL theory of international relations
Communism and fascism were products of the grave errors in the international order and affairs of states that the First World War created, and the Soviet system disintegrated after sixty years because it was the aberrant consequence of a destructive and abnormal war. I am a great admirer of Gabriel Kolko, but this article, and especially the paragraph above, seems fatally flawed in that it would proffer advice to the ruling class of the USA not to make any more mistakes. It is written in the tone of an adult to a Katzenjammer kid, Don't you know that if you poke that hornet's nest, you will get stung? What leads the USA into war after war after war is the need to control a vast empire that furnishes the value (in Marxist terms) that can be used to foster class peace at home. As Cecil Rhodes once said, The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
dems deficits
Title: dems deficits [was: RE: [PEN-L:32593] am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past aboutgov't deficits causing (or resulting in)] you aren't wrong in your memory. However, that torch has been taken up the the Democrats. Some bright person thought that it would be cool to embarrass the GOPsters by pointing out the contradiction of the Reagan Republicans running big deficits when they were supposed to be fiscally conservative. Then this fiscal conservatism became the Democratic Party Line (partly due to the influence of the DLC but mostly under the influence of big donors), so that the DP went whole hog, rejecting their Keynesian heritage (which must not have had deep roots). The GOPsters of course simply pushed their supply-side economics further and deeper (while keeping the Lafferite stuff about tax cuts for the rich paying for themselves under cover) while revelling in the fact that Reagan/Bush/Bush deficits meant that the civilian spending favored by the Dems would have to be cut unless (1) the Dems endorsed higher taxes; (2) the Dems decided that it was okay to cut the military; or (3) the Dems embraced deficits. While all three of these have occurred on occasion, it doesn't seem like the Party Line has been bent. In recent years, the Dems have switched over to endorsing big military budgets, so they're f*cked. The theory is that government deficits -- high demand for funds -- high real interest rates -- low private real investment (what's called crowding out) -- long-term depression of supply-side growth. Government deficits can lead to high rates if the economy is operating at close to capacity. Otherwise deficits can lead to higher income, which lead to higher saving, which dampens the upward movement of rates. High rates can hurt private real investment, but only if the crowding in effect isn't present. The latter refers to government deficits allowing the realization of profits, _stimulating_ private investment. (This is also called the accelerator effect.) Back in the 1960s, when government deficits started rising due to the Vietnam war, private investment did pretty well. Low private investment only hurts supply-side growth if it's not replaced by government investment in education, research, infrastructure, public health, etc. The Reagan/Bush/Bush tradition keeps reducing government investment, so that the last link in the crowding out chain is partly a result of their policy. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Hoover [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 7:44 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:32593] am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past aboutgov't deficits causing (or resulting in) am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past about gov't deficits causing (or resulting in) high interest rates because feds crowd out private sector (or something like that), white house people are saying there is no relation between deficit size and interest rates and are pooh-poohing 'fiscally responsible' dem criticisms... michael hoover
the word from an expert
Title: the word from an expert from SLATE's news summary: The Wall Street Journal's editorial page today features one of America's foremost thinkers pondering the state our country. America isn't at a social or political crossroads as some will try to tell us. Those who believe that would have told you 500 years ago that the earth was flat. Thirty years ago they would have been stoned on LSD, drooling and dancing naked at a Grateful Dead concert, writes Ted Nugent. The op-ed is titled, AMERICA ROCKS. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
re:am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past about gov't deficits causing (or resulting in)
You are not wrong. Before Reagan the Democrats said deficits were okay since the deficit was falling as percent of GNP, and the Republicans cried about crowding out. Government deficits increase the demand for loans, raising interest rates, reducing the amount of borrowing firms can do for their new factories and equipment. It is easiest to show on a supply-and-demand diagram with loans as the quantity and interest rates as the price. Reagan increased the deficity enormously; later analysis showed that at least 2/3 of it was tax cuts and spending increases, not the recession (which was the biggest since the 1930s). Democrats started worrying because the deficit was rising as a percent of GDP, and Republicans were told by the Reagan Administration to stop complaining about the deficit. They did, except for Martin Feldstein, who got into trouble. The fact is that interest rates did not fall. Why not? Because starting in 1982 the Fed was lowering them through its monetary policy. The new partisan attitude toward deficits dates from that time. Hope that helps. Scott Gassler am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from past about gov't deficits causing (or resulting in) high interest rates because feds crowd out private sector (or something like that), white house people are saying there is no relation between deficit size and interest rates and are pooh-poohing 'fiscally responsible' dem criticisms... michael hoover
the Wal-Mart campaign
Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific Workers tell Wal-Mart's darker side By The Associated Press PORTLAND - Testimony in the first of 39 class-action lawsuits to go to trial against Wal-Mart has shown a sharp contrast between actual working conditions and the retailer's heavily advertised image of happy, smiling employees. Carolyn Thiebes, who works at a Wal-Mart store in Salem, testified that when her department failed to meet company expectations, her boss singled out the personnel manager by hanging a red bandanna near her door for a month for co-workers to see. Managers also circulated a trophy, sculpted in the form of a donkey's rear end, called the horse's ass award, Thiebes said. It was humiliating, Thiebes testified in tears last week to open a wage-and-hour lawsuit against the company. That trophy was given so many times... anytime a department failed. She and four other employees testified that reprimands created an environment of fear that compelled them to work off the clock - without pay - to finish assigned tasks. The pressure worked, they said, because Wal-Mart often built stores in communities that offered residents few alternative jobs. But the tactics also have made the store a target of unions and advocacy groups, who picketed stores last week in 100 U.S. cities, including Portland, to call for better wages, health benefits and working conditions. Experts said the management approach arises out of a corporate culture forged by company founder Sam Walton, who, in his drive to keep prices and costs low, put the company's fortunes above all else. While I can't say it's a great way to spread a message, it sends a clear message - if my department's hurting the performance of the store, ultimately I'm hurting the performance of the stock and my retirement, said Hal Koenig, associate professor of marketing at Oregon State University's College of Business. A Wal-Mart spokesman, Bill Wertz, declined to comment, citing last week's order of U.S. District Judge Garr King that all parties to the lawsuit refrain from speaking with the media during the trial. The $218 billion company employs 1.3 million worldwide, operates 3,300 stores in the United States and made $6.7 billion in 2001. Its aggressive expansion plans during the next five years call for hiring 800,000 more workers, giving the company a work force larger than the U.S. military. Thiebes and Betty Alderson filed suit against Wal-Mart in 1998, alleging violation of federal and state wage and hour laws. More than 400 Oregonians from 24 stores have joined the class-action complaint. Thiebes was personnel manager in charge of payroll at Wal-Mart stores in Salem and Dallas. She testified that she routinely docked overtime hours from workers' paychecks, at least once at the direction and in the presence of her managers. One group of customer-service and snack-bar workers in both stores worked without pay beyond the regular 40-hour work week so often, Thiebes and Alderson testified, that they became known as the Over 40 Club. Wal-Mart's attorneys acknowledged in court that employees occasionally worked after clocking out. But they contended workers did so by choice, in violation of company policy. In opening statements last week, Rudy Englund, an attorney for the company, spent several minutes describing an atmosphere at Wal-Mart of trust, sharing, teamwork and integrity. Attorneys for the workers described a different situation, which they called the Wal-Mart dilemma. Top store managers, they said, routinely gave lower managers and workers too much to do while reprimanding them for claiming overtime or leaving work undone. To avoid losing their jobs, the attorneys said, workers clocked out, then returned to complete their tasks. Daniel Corey, a former lawn and garden department manager for Wal-Mart in Pendleton, said he worked off the clock because he had few options. Because it's such a small community, jobs aren't that good there, Corey testified. You held on to your job. I feared losing my job. I feared getting fired.
Re: re:am i wrong in recalling conservative mantra from pastabout gov't deficits causing (or resulting in)
Gassler Robert wrote: The fact is that interest rates did not fall. Why not? Because starting in 1982 the Fed was lowering them through its monetary policy. Typo here? Because the Fed was lowering rates the rates did _not_ lower Carrol
Re: Re: John Rawls
Rawls uses a maximin principle to argue for his difference principle. It does assume that people in the original position are rational self-interested actors an assumption common in game theory and welfare economics. The longer article is available at: http://www.sydgram.nsw.edu.au/College_Street/extension/philosophy/rawls.htm Actually the difference principle is used to justify inequality even though Rawls is portrayed as an eqalitarian. If an unequal distribution benefits the worst off more than if there were an equal distribution then it is justified. This could obviously be used to justify certain aspects of capitalist distribution. It could be argued for example that it is necessary to give the owners of the means of production a greater slice of the economic pie than workers. If the owners are given a larger share than they will invest etc. and the pie will be much larger and the workers will get a larger slice than if the division were equal and there was no motivation to invest. Hence, egalitarianism of the liberal Rawlsian sort could be made into an apologia for capitalism . Cheers, Ken Hanly The argument for the difference principle The argument for the principles of justice is based on what Rawls calls the original position. Imagine a fairly large group of people establishing a community, perhaps in a newly discovered territory - much like the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower and settled on the east coast of North America. This group, we suppose, has to set up a political constitution for their society more or less from nothing. This constitution will establish basic rights, duties and determine how social and economic benefits are to be divided. It is this purely hypothetical situation which Rawls calls the original position. There are two basic assumptions. Firstly, the people in the original position are self interested and rational. They are concerned only with doing the best for themselves and, being rational, will tend to act in such a way which will in fact promote their best interests - they want to further their interests and will act appropriately in the light of this aim. The second assumption concerns what Rawls calls the veil of ignorance. Here's what he says: Among the essential features of this situation is that no-one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conception of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no-one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no-one is able to design principles to favour his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain. (p.12). So the basic idea is this: we imagine a group of rational, self interested people choosing the fundamental principles governing the political, social and economic structure of their society. However, because the original position has been specially designed so that people are forced to choose impartially, the principles thus chosen will be, Rawls claims, principles of justice. In other words, choosing behind a veil of ignorance guarantees that the principles chosen in the original position are in fact basic principles of justice. It is important to understand here that the idea is not that certain principles are chosen because they are just, but rather that they are just because they are chosen. Here's an example: Consider the principle concerning the division of economic benefits Whites should get more than blacks. This couldn't be chosen in the original position but not, as you might think, because it's morally wrong, evil, racist and discriminatory. It couldn't be chosen - and hence is not a principle of justice - because it's irrational. If you are choosing basic principles behind a veil of ignorance it is simply irrational to choose principles which favour whites and discriminate against blacks, because you don't know whether you're white or black. So if you're out to do the best for yourself, and don't know whether you're white or black, then you had better not choose principles which may turn out to discriminate against you. Thus, to repeat, the original position creates a situation where the choosers are forced to choose impartially. Therefore whichever principles it is rational to choose under these circumstances are, as a result, basic principles of justice. According to Rawls, the question What are the basic principles of justice? is answered once we answer the question What principles would be chosen by rational choosers in the original position? As mentioned
Re: Re: Re: John Rawls
Why does it remind you of middle class pieties. In his discussion of background institutions for a just society Rawls envisions extensive government involvement to secure equal opportunity, a basic standard of primary goods for all etc.etc.. I append examples from a lecture on Rawls. Rawls could be faulted for not showing how it is possible within capitalist society to achieve the sort of just society her imagines but he is hardly just expressing middle class pieties. He sketches out the sort of institutions that would be required. Cheers..Ken Hanly. 3) Background Institutions for Distributive Justice Rawls argues that justice as fairness requires many particular things about just societies. The first principle implies that basic civil and political liberties will be protected by a constitution (either written or implicit) that ensures that these rights are respected and makes it impossible for society to override them for social or economic reasons. Moreover, the principle of fair equality of opportunity implies that society should fund education for all (either directly, through public education, or indirectly, by subsidizing private education), and police firms and private associations to ensure that fair equality of opportunity is not violated. Finally, to satisfy the difference principle, society must guarantee an acceptable minimum level of the social primary goods, and police firms and private associations to ensure that their gains are not at the expense of the least fortunate in society. This implies that resources must be transferred from one sector of society to another to provide the acceptable minimum to each person, and that there is some mechanism for redistributing social primary goods to ensure a just society according to the difference principle. Certain taxes (e.g., inheritance taxes) would exist solely for such purposes of redistribution. Rawls (page 277): The purpose of these levies and regulations is not to raise revenue (release resources to government) but gradually and continually to correct the distribution of wealth and to prevent concentrations of power detrimental to the fair value of political liberty and fair equality of opportunity. There would also be a branch of government (the allocation branch) designed to ensure that unreasonable (i.e., unjust) gains in market power are not acquired by certain firms over others, and another branch (the stabilization branch) designed to ensure that employment opportunities are efficiently and justly distributed in society (so that full employment, as far as this is possible, is secured). There would also be an exchange branch so that those segments of society that would benefit from certain goods being made public (e.g., transportation, the arts, public parks) will not create injustice for those who would not. A taxation scheme to support such public goods would have to satisfy the difference principle. Finally, there would also need to be taxation to ensure revenue to the government, rather than just to redistribute social primary goods. Such taxation would have to be justly distributed. (In an ideal society, Rawls argues that consumption taxes would be preferred to progressive income taxes. However, in a society with injustices, progressive income taxes may be permissible to balance other injustices.) - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 7:54 AM Subject: [PEN-L:32564] Re: Re: John Rawls [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: He was not claiming that we should look at actually existing societies as if they were the product of a social contract. Rather, Rawls asked what would society look like IF it was designed from scratch by people who did not know what position they would have in this newly designed society when it came into being. The resulting social contract, Rawls suggests, should be the blueprint of the society we should construct. This society would, arguably, have no classes. This blueprint has NOT guided the construction of the actual societies we see in front of us (with classes, injustice, etc). I don't understand how you can be proposing the abolition of class society while still being a proponent of liberalism. Rawls's whole notion of redistributive justice reminds me of nothing less than Victorian era middle-class pieties, Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol in particular. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Re: John Rawls
Ken Hanley wrote: Why does it remind you of middle class pieties. Because to speak of redistributive justice without addressing who owns and controls the means of production strikes me as 19th century meliorist cant, that's why. All the talk about baskets of goods and blind veils seems to obfuscate the real question, namely how society is organized. Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Sawicky V. Boaz
Wednesday, November 27, 2002 MAXSPEAK V. CATO INSTITUTE SMACKDOWN. I debate Cato president David Boaz. Airing on WBBR (NYC area), 1130 on the AM dial, 3 pm Saturday, 9 am Sunday, and other odd hours. Also simulcast here, and I'm told preserved on the site for all posterity. http://maxspeak.org/gm/index.html
beige book
November 27, 2002 Summary Economic activity grew slowly, on balance, in late October and early November, according to information received by Federal Reserve District Banks. Business conditions were described as soft or sluggish in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Dallas. Cleveland and St. Louis reported mixed conditions. There was marginal improvement in Philadelphia, Kansas City, and New York. Richmond and San Francisco reported continued growth, but at a slower pace than in the previous survey period. Consumer spending varied among Federal Reserve Districts. There was some improvement in general merchandise sales in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Kansas City, and Dallas. Sales were weak in Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Auto sales have fallen in all Districts. Service industry activity was generally sluggish. Manufacturing remained soft in most Districts, but Philadelphia and Minneapolis noted some improvement. Business capital spending in all sectors continued to be limited. Commercial real estate markets continued to be slack in all the Districts reporting on this sector. Residential real estate remained strong, although New York, Chicago, and Dallas saw some signs of easing demand for housing. Agricultural conditions have been adversely affected by heavy rain and cold weather in southern parts of the nation but are good elsewhere. There has been little change in energy production but mining has declined. Bank lending remains strong for residential real estate, but other categories of lending have been lackluster. Labor markets continued to be soft in nearly all Federal Reserve Districts, although demand for health-care workers remained strong. Wage and salary pressures were subdued, but employee health-care costs continued to rise sharply. Most Reserve Banks reported nearly steady prices at both the consumer and producer levels, with the exception of shipping charges, which have risen in the wake of the West Coast port disruptions. Consumer Spending Retail sales of general merchandise varied among Federal Reserve Districts in October and early November. Gains were reported in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Kansas City, and Dallas. However, the increases were generally slight compared with late summer and early fall. Atlanta described retail sales as mixed and about even with a year ago. Chicago and Minneapolis reported weak retail sales, and St. Louis and San Francisco indicated that retail sales had declined from September to early November. The onset of colder weather in most parts of the country boosted sales of outerwear. Sales also increased for food and grocery items and small home furnishings, but several Districts noted flat or declining sales of big-ticket and luxury items. Discount stores posted better sales growth than other types of stores in most Districts, and in New York and Philadelphia retailers reported that consumers were shifting purchases to discount brands. All the Districts reporting on auto sales noted declines in October compared with the same month last year and compared with the sales rate set during most of the year until October. The slower sales rate continued in November, and some further declines were noted in the Kansas City and San Francisco Districts. Dealer inventories have increased. In the Philadelphia and St. Louis Districts, dealers said inventories were too high, but dealers in the Chicago and San Francisco Districts said inventories were not excessive despite the increase. Tourism activity has been mixed. Boston, Richmond, Minneapolis, and Kansas City reported that recent tourist travel, lodging, and spending had increased from last year in most parts of their Districts. Chicago indicated flat tourism. In the Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco Districts, travel and tourism have been weaker this year than last, although Atlanta noted that advance bookings for winter cruises were strong. Services Service industry activity remained weak. In Boston, demand for information technology services has declined. Service companies in the Richmond District have had sluggish revenue growth. Service-sector activity was slow in the Dallas District, and demand for most business services was said to be soft in the San Francisco District. Trucking firms in the St. Louis District still have large backlogs resulting from the West Coast port disruptions. Delays in receiving shipments were reported from Boston and Philadelphia, although deliveries in those Districts appeared to be getting back to normal. Atlanta-area retailers remain concerned about getting all their holiday merchandise delivered before Christmas. Also in the Atlanta District, Asian motor vehicles and parts have been in short supply because of the West Coast shipping interruption and slowdown. Dallas reported that transportation activity in the District was at low levels. In Cleveland and Kansas City, there were few reports of difficulties
Re: Marx and Rawls
One of the finer places for non-experts to begin is Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism by Allen Buchanan, especially chapters 4 The Marxian Critique of Justice and Rights and chapter 6 Marx and Rawls. Academics ought to demand this book be reprinted, it is excellent pedagogy for advanced undergrad as well as grad seminars. Ian
Death to Domino's Pizza!
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 29, 2002 From Baptist to Catholic A Nicaraguan college with Michigan connections makes a difficult transition to another faith By MICHAEL EASTERBROOK San Marcos, Nicaragua Sitting stiffly in his air-conditioned office in this leafy Nicaraguan town, the president of Ave Maria College of the Americas chooses his words carefully -- and for good reason. His ardent speeches were partly to blame for the recent turmoil from which the Roman Catholic college is now emerging. We were telling parents that this was going to be a jewel of Catholicism in Nicaragua, and didn't realize that some could have perceived that as a threat, recalls Humberto Belli, president of the college, which is affiliated with a college and a law school in Michigan that share the Ave Maria name. We should have taken some more time to ease their concerns. That the college had failed to soothe those anxieties was what set the stage for the latest episode in its short, turbulent history. Misgivings over the administration's goals prompted accusations that college officials wanted to remake the English-speaking campus into an outpost of the Vatican. That tempest riled students and led some professors to pick up and leave. The commotion led many people to question whether Ave Maria could survive in San Marcos, but the 430-student college appears calm. Owned by Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Mich., it charges the highest annual tuition in Nicaragua, at $8,690 -- even though, like its related institutions in the United States, it has received substantial donations from Thomas S. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza. Last week, Mr. Monaghan announced yet another addition to his academic empire: The creation of a Catholic college near Naples, Fla., in a new town. Both the town and the college will be called Ave Maria. In Nicaragua, the college seems to be living up to the of the Americas part of its name: Despite the high tuition, it is drawing students from throughout Central America and the United States. Officials hope soon to expand recruiting into Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. I can assure you that in five years, Ave Maria will be very well known, says Azalea S. Llanes, executive director of marketing. An Expatriate Returns The story of the college begins with Roger Gonzalez, a Nicaraguan who fled the country in 1979, when the Sandinista National Liberation Front came to power. Relocating to Alabama, he helped run a shipping company in Mobile with his brother, but returned to Nicaragua in 1990, after the violence had subsided. Finding his town in a state of ruin, and eager to help rebuild it, Mr. Gonzalez contacted Michael Magnoli, who was president of the Baptist-affiliated University of Mobile, about opening an English-language institute in San Marcos. The idea grew into a branch campus of the university itself. Classes began in the fall of 1993, with 93 students. Mr. Magnoli promoted the institution as a Baptist beachhead in largely Catholic Latin America, says Patrick Werner, an assistant professor of business law and humanities who has been with the institution since the beginning. He is a one-time friend of Mr. Gonzalez. The institution was popular locally; Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who was Nicaragua's president at the time, called the campus a miracle at a commencement ceremony. With Mr. Magnoli as president and Mr. Gonzalez as vice president, the college grew to 539 students by the time it graduated its first class, in 1997. But it also amassed a $3.3-million debt to the university, which, in June 1997, opened an investigation into financial irregularities at San Marcos. Both Mr. Magnoli and Mr. Gonzalez resigned in 1997. The same year, police showed up to arrest the college's business manager on charges of embezzlement. Smuggled from the campus in the back of a pickup truck, he hid in a nearby forest for six weeks until a lawyer got the charges dropped, says Mr. Werner. Mr. Magnoli pleaded guilty to felony income-tax fraud in a U.S. District Court in September 1999 for failing to report $15,000 that he received from Mr. Gonzalez and later used to buy property on Alabama's coastline, according to the Mobile Register. Mr. Magnoli apologized at the sentencing; the judge gave him three years' probation and ordered him to perfom 300 hours of community service. Mr. Gonzalez has not been convicted of any charges stemming from his dealings at San Marcos. Pizza Money In late 1998, Mobile announced that it would pull out of the Nicaragua campus on June 30, 2000, says Mr. Werner. Officials of two universities in the United States visited the campus to consider running it, but no plans materialized. At last, with the deadline looming, a financial lifeline was thrown by Mr. Monaghan, who, having made his fortune with Domino's, created the Ave Maria Foundation, a Catholic enterprise. The foundation in 1998 opened
Ford Motor linked to Argentina's Dirty War
NY Times, Nov. 27, 2002 Ford Motor Is Linked to Argentina's 'Dirty War' By LARRY ROHTER BUENOS AIRES Pedro Troiani was at work on the assembly line at the Ford Motor plant here one morning in April 1976 when more than a dozen heavily armed men burst into the factory and made their way toward him, he recalled recently. At gunpoint, he said, he was paraded through the plant and driven in a company truck to a soccer field in the factory complex where, he said, the Argentine Army had set up a barracks and detention center. He described being bound with wire, kicked and held for eight hours on the factory grounds. Mr. Troiani, a labor leader at the time, said he and four other Ford employees were then transferred to a secret prison and eventually to a special detention camp as part of the dirty war against anyone considered a leftist opponent by the military dictatorship that ruled this country from 1976 to 1983. A spokesman for Ford here, Rolo Ceretti, said he could neither confirm nor deny Mr. Troiani's account because these events happened 26 years ago and most of the people who worked at the company no longer do. But, he said, to talk of a detention center within our plant is not correct. This was a very sad and bitter time, he added, and no one can defend what happened. But to attempt to place responsibility on the company for things that happened at the level of government seems to me to be a bit absurd. Based in part on Mr. Troiani's account, a federal prosecutor here filed a criminal complaint against Ford Argentina this month and ordered an investigation into the company's conduct under the junta that ruled this country. It charges that Ford and its senior executives managed, participated in or covered up the illegal detention of Mr. Troiani and nearly two dozen other employees. In an interview, Mr. Troiani said: Jail was pure terror because people were disappearing all the time and you didn't know if you were going to be the next to be killed. A lot of time has passed, but the truth is that Ford and its executives colluded in the kidnapping of its own workers, and I think they should be held responsible for that. Over the next year, he says, he was repeatedly beaten, tortured and deprived of sleep and food. The case is an outgrowth of similar charges made against Mercedes-Benz, today a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler. A total of 16 workers at its plant in a suburb of Buenos Aires were abducted either at home or on the job from 1976 to 1977. All but two are assumed to have been killed. The Mercedes-Benz hearings have been going on for four years, propelled largely by the effort of a German journalist, Gabriele Weber, who has published her findings in a book in German, The Disappeared of Mercedes-Benz. But the inquiry has received relatively little attention here because most Argentines are focused on the country's current economic collapse and are not eager to reopen an even more painful chapter of their history. DaimlerChrysler Argentina did not respond to several phone calls requesting comment on the investigation. But Ursula Mertzig, a spokeswoman for the parent corporation in Germany, said the company was cooperating fully and was confident that no wrongdoing had occurred. We have no hint that our management was involved in the disappearance of the 14 workers, which we regret very much, she said. During the 1980's, an investigation by the National Commission on Disappeared Persons, a government body, found that abductions of workers occurred at Ford, Mercedes-Benz and other factories owned by both Argentine and foreign interests, including shipyards, steel mills and pharmaceutical plants. By some accounts, about half of the estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people who disappeared during the dictatorship were workers or union leaders. The prosecutor who filed the charges against Ford, Félix Crous, said both automakers not only colluded with the military, but also profited as the junta's campaign of kidnappings and killings made targets of workers and union leaders. Each company, he said, had particularly close ties with the military as suppliers. Mercedes-Benz made trucks for the army, while Ford made the greenish-gray Falcons used by death squads in the kidnapping of thousands of people. Ken Zino, executive director of international public affairs at Ford headquarters in Michigan, said: Our situation is not analogous to Mercedes-Benz. We are aware of the allegations, but have yet to see anything and will respond at the appropriate time. Both Ford and Mercedes-Benz were targets of the left-wing Montonero urban guerrilla movement during the chaotic period of political violence that preceded the March 1976 military takeover in Argentina. A Mercedes-Benz executive was kidnapped and released only after the payment of a multimillion-dollar ransom. Ford withdrew its American employees from Argentina after at least two executives were
England
A chancellor still in control of events. But only just Larry Elliott Thursday November 28, 2002 The Guardian Gordon Brown brazened it out. He stood up at the dispatch box and admitted that his growth and borrowing forecasts made in the spring were wildly optimistic, but adopted his normal Commons persona - self-confident bordering on smug. There was, the chancellor insisted, nothing really to worry about. The economy was going through a bit of a sticky patch but it was all Johnny Foreigner's fault. And it was merely a temporary blip. Beneath the surface, however, it is likely that Mr Brown is a lot more worried than he appears. The fact that the rabbit pulled out of the Treasury hat was the announcement that Mervyn King would replace Sir Eddie George as governor of the Bank of England was meant to reassure the financial markets at a time when the chancellor was announcing a doubling of borrowing. Moreover, Mr King has made it abundantly clear in the past couple of weeks what he thinks about the underlying state of the UK - an unsustainable housing market and the weakness of manufacturing reflect an economy that is dangerously unbalanced. Mr Brown's analysis is that the recovery he anticipated in 2003 will now take place in 2004. He has cut 0.5 of a percentage point off his growth forecast for this year and next, but added the same amount to his prediction for 2004. Growth is expected to be between 3% and 3.5% in 2004, and a robust 2.75%-3.25% in 2005, the date pencilled in for the next election. How likely is this? There is one good reason for thinking the chancellor will be right, but two important reservations that need to be aired. On the upside, the chancellor's decision to let borrowing rise during a period of weak growth is absolutely the right thing to do, straight out of the Keynesian textbook. While much of the rest of Europe seems intent on impaling itself on the sort of economic orthodoxy that went out of fashion in the early 1930s, the chancellor is allowing fiscal policy to act as an automatic stabiliser. Previous Labour governments have never had the luxury of relaxing fiscal policy during a global downturn, but have instead been forced to retrench, as in 1931 and 1976, with disastrous political consequences. Mr Brown deserves credit for being able to increase public spending at precisely the right time. Should the global economy pick up next year, there is a chance that Mr Brown's forecasts will come good. But that is the first concern. The chancellor is correct to point out that the global economy is in one heck of a state, even though the strong figures coming out of the US yesterday may be a sign that the Federal Reserve's cut in interest rates is working. To coin a phrase, there has been a global boom-bust of stupendous proportions over the past five years, and most countries are still living through the after-effects of the collapse of the bubble economy. The global economy is awash with spare capacity, which is resulting in a freeze on investment, falling prices and weak profitability. Only the most heroic optimist would assume that this period of adjustment will be over in a year's time. The US stock market still looks hideously over-valued, the German economy is on course to be the new Japan. That is without even mentioning a possible war against Iraq. Since Britain had its last full-blown economic disaster a decade ago, the global economy has had a succession of crises, from Thailand to Argentina and from Russia's debt default to America's dotcom sector. To assume that this era has come to a close and that the process of adjustment to all the previous problems will be over in 12 months is heroic. It is really not much comfort, then, to hear from Mr Brown that while the UK has been doing badly this year, the rest of the world has been doing worse. On that basis, should the rest of the world continue to struggle, so will we. The chancellor is remarkably proud of the fact that Britain has the lowest inflation and interest rates for 40 years, and says so at every opportunity. What he never mentions is that the rest of the world has historically low inflation and low interest rates as well. We are living in a age of disinflation bordering on outright deflation. The second cause for concern is what you see when you scratch below the surface of Mr Brown's much-vaunted stability. A mountain of consumer debt shows that we are all shopping for Britain, but the fall in investment over the past year was the biggest since records began in 1965. Productivity, for all the chancellor's prodding, is growing half as fast as it was when Labour came to power. Mr Brown's belief that the economy can grow rapidly in 2004 and 2005 is based on the assumption that productive capacity has risen; the figures for investment and productivity hardly bear that out. As a result, this statement showed the chancellor still in control of events, but only just. The big increases in public spending have
