Re: Question re basics
It has to do with the connection between the accumulation of capital ascribable to the creation of surplus value on one side, and the cascading mountainous accretion of debt instruments on the other, the whole multi-trillion dollar financial complex. How, basically, do the two connect in a framework consistent with what Marx wrote? I had assumed without being able at my level of comprehension to elaborate, that all credit creation rests ultimately, fantastic as it might seem, on call-ins of indebtedness to the creators of the surplus value, the working class [of course, Sweezy called it 'surplus']. Why exactly is it so necessary to connect in a way consistent with what Marx wrote ? Can we not think for ourselves ? If you start off with a false or dogmatically held premise, then you are driven ineluctably to contradictory thinking at the very least, but that too could be a source of creativity. The issue you raise is very complex, it's a bit like explaining how people can travel to the moon - it can be done, but it takes a lot of time. Ernest Mandel tackled this question (he considered Schumpeter one of the most important 20th century bourgeois economists) because, contrary to Trotskyist expectations, capitalism boomed after world war 2, and then the question arose, whether this was due to human error, to a faulty analysis of bourgeois society, or to something inherent in the capitalist system which had still to be discovered. Technological revolutions are an intrinsic feature of capitalist development, but as you know, capitalism is by - its very structure - intrinsically incompatible with long-term steady growth, it develops spasmodically through booms and busts which we can plot in squiggly graphs. Thus, under specific conditions, new revolutionary technologies can expand the market. But the time factor is crucial. Insofar as the market does expand, the reserve army of labour is depleted, and the economic bargaining position of the working class strengthened. At the same time, however, technological innovation has a labour-saving bias. The long-term effect of technological progress under capitalism is therefore to reduce the labour-time it takes to produce products, and hence ithat increases unemployment (at the moment, there's about a billion people excluded from paid labour in the world). But that is merely to say that the ideal condition for capitalist growth - rising profitability plus expanding markets, beloved of equilibrium theorists, is very difficult to achieve, and if it is achieved, can only be sustained for a limited time - there is no economic force or law in market logic, which can achieve that sustained growth, i.e. an expansionary dynamic occurs due to factors that the economics profession generally fails to deal with, precisely BECAUSE they are obsessed with commercial logic and believe in the inherent goodness, superiority and rationality of private commercial pursuits. If you say that capitalist development always culminates in reducing the total amount of paid labour necessary (with the familiar pattern of a rising OCC and a falling rate of profit), then that has at two important consequences: (1) aggregate demand is reduced, and (2) a competitive struggle breaks out over the allocation of the paid labour that remains. But in this competitive battle of capitalist business, the repercussions of all that can be displaced in space and time, precisely through the instrument of credit - live now, and pay later, and if possible, shift the burden of paying to someone else - and the hope is, that in the meantime, policy changes can be implemented, which provide for more sustainable growth in the future. So, essentially, the resort to credit is an apologetic strategem for capitalist mismanagement, an unfortunately indispensable modus for accomodating the system-immanent contradictions of capitalist economic management, which allows some to prosper while condemning others to live in hell (the bourgeois hope the hell exists at some safe distance, far removed from the pleasantness and comforts of bourgeois life). In reality, of course, equilibrium is not at all created by market logic, you'd have to be a moron to believe that in view of the facts, rather, this equilibrium is based on the ownership of private property, and the ability to defend it. The real question is not who earns what and who pays for what, but who owns what, and who is the boss. And obviously those who already own wealth, have - other things being equal - more power to act in defence of their interests, whereas those who are less strong, who are weaker, seek to resist the increase in the rate of exploitation, and find alternatives. Marx never claimed that economic analysis could resolve the problems of capitalism; you had to overthrow it, get rid of it, replace it with something better, and if not, the best you could hope for would be to reach a modus videndi with it. And for their part, the bourgeois hope that
Jobs and growth
Published on Saturday, December 13, 2003 by CommonDreams In U.S., Jobs Market Blues by Seth Sandronsky Officially, job creation and economic growth are goals of the Bush White House. That might be news for many ordinary Americans of all ages and skin colors. Their daily experiences with the economy are largely absent in mass media full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1213-09.htm Seth _ Browse styles for all ages, from the latest looks to cozy weekend wear at MSN Shopping. And check out the beauty products! http://shopping.msn.com
Bus Tour halted in Davis - Take Action
Dec. 14 Hi PEN-L: In Davis, CA, one side of the Mideast story just got silenced. More info below. Seth Sandronsky From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bus Tour halted in Davis - Take Action Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 00:20:04 -0600 In this alert: Action Alert Events Dec 14-20, 2003 ACTION ALERT The national Wheels of Justice National Bus tour (www.justicewheels.org), which seeks to educate and mobilize people around ending the U.S. supported occupations of Iraq and Palestine, was scheduled to give presentations at Davis High School on Monday, December 15. However, the school principal Mike Cawley received calls charging that the bus was anti-Jewish, a charge refuted (see below) by organizers of and participants on the bus (with whom Cawley did not speak). This appears to be part of a national effort of groups that support the Israeli occupation of Palestine to prevent the bus from getting its message out. The instructor offered to allow the anti-bus group to address students at another time, but this option was rejected and instead the visit cancelled. Please call, write, fax, and/or email Davis High School principal Mike Cawley, the school board, city county and/or county supervisor (all contact information is at the end of this message) and express your concern that students have been deprived of a unique education opportunity, instead receiving a lesson about the repression of freedom of speech. Ask that he reconsider and let the bus come (it is possible the bus could come on Tuesday, 12-16). You can also come and hear the bus participants speak Monday, December 15, 7pm at the Newman Center, 5900 Newman Center, Sacramento. STATEMENT FROM THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE TOUR: Wheels Of Justice Tour Responds To Spurious Charges Of Anti-Semitism In Davis Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003 The Wheels of Justice countrywide bus tour recently has been accused of espousing anti-Semitism for its attempt to educate Californians about the current realities of life in Iraq and Palestine. A Davis High School teacher who had invited people on the tour to speak to six of his and his colleagues' classes was forced to withdraw the invitation due to pressure from some Davis residents. Operating on the dual pillars of universal human rights and nonviolence, the Wheels of Justice tour brings into communities eyewitnesses who have seen the effects of war and occupation on civilian populations in Iraq and Palestine, said John Farrell, a speaker on the tour. Our programs have included multimedia presentations, talks and nonviolence education at public schools, churches, and community centers. The tour began four months ago in Chicago and will ultimately visit the 48 contiguous states. Wheels of Justice is sponsored by Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), Voices in the Wilderness, Al-Awda (The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition) and affiliates of the International Solidarity Movement. Rabbi Greg Wolfe was the principal spokesman for the segment of the Jewish community in Davis that opposed the tour. Don Winters, the U.S. history teacher who had asked Wheels of Justice to visit Davis High School, offered Wolfe a chance to share his perspective with students at a later date. Wolfe declined and instead insisted that Wheels of Justice not come to the school. It is a shame that students at Davis High School have been denied the chance to meet, speak with and learn from activists who have traveled to Iraq and Palestine and witnessed the suffering of the people living under military occupation there, said Lauren Anzaldo, a speaker on the tour who lived for two months this summer in Jenin, occupied Palestine. They have truly lost a great interactive learning opportunity. The Wheels of Justice tour has faced opposition in other California cities. In Palo Alto, two protesters came to a Human Rights Day rally dressed as suicide bombers. An organization called Dafka had urged opponents of the tour to stage such a demonstration. The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a Bay-area group, managed to bar the bus from visiting an after-school program in San Francisco. The spurious allegations of anti-Jewish sentiment seem to arise from the tour's position on the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they were expelled from in 1948 when the state of Israel was created and in 1967 during the Six Day War. Some consider the right of return, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and United Nations resolution 194, a threat to Israel because it would undermine Jewish majority and Jewish control of the state. There is nothing in the bus' message that is anti-Semitic, said Mitchell Plitnick of Jewish Voice for Peace in Oakland. The bus criticizes Israeli government policy but says nothing derogatory about the Jewish people. CONTACT INFORMATION: DAVIS HIGH SCHOOL (315 W 14th St, Davis) Mike Cawley, Principal Tel (530) 757-5400; ext 4;
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question\Fred's comments
Paul, thanks for your comments. My responses below.
On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Paul wrote:
Fred,
Very glad you could make it - you were missed! I want to think more about
your post but have one small and one larger reflection.
1. I think we can all agree on the big focus of profit rates, as Paul
put it - that the rate of profit is the most important variable in
analyzing capitalism. And I agree with Paul that this emphasis on profit
and the rate of profit is what distinguishes classical-Marxian theories
from neo-classical theories.
In addition to Doug's main point ('show me the benefit of all this'), Doug
does make me wonder whether my description of the Classical/Marxian
approach should have been more specific (although the change might prove
more narrow-minded). As you know well, historically, the Classical
tradition focused on profits/profit rate but broke this down into the
changes that emerge from the labor\capital shares AND the changes that
emerge from what I was calling the 'capital side' (with lots of differences
and inconsistencies among Classical authors). Of course, since Sraffa
there has been an intelligent and articulate revival of interest in
Classical presentations of the first issue (wage/profit frontiers, etc)
WITHOUT the capital side. The discussion with Doug illustrates a point:
without the 'capital side' just how useful is such a presentation? Doug
gave good examples of how similar arguments could be made sticking to a
Keyensian\Kaleckian tradition that is more accessible to most. (Of course
Doug is also skeptical of the value of this approach even with the capital
side, but that is a different discussion.)
I agree that the capital side (i.e. the composition of capital) is an
important determinant of the rate of profit. (I prefer to discuss this in
terms of Marx's concept of the composition of capital, rather than the
mainstream concept of the productivity of capital which I think is
misleading.) The increase in the composition of capital in the early
postwar period was an important cause of the decline of the rate of profit
in that period, and the decrease in the composition of capital in recent
decades has been the main cause of the partial recovery of the rate of
profit. So clearly, theory and analysis of the rate of profit should
include the composition of capital.
I also agree that this is an important distinguishing feature of Marx's
theory, in contrast to Ricardo's theory and Sraffa's theory and all other
economic theories, which if they consider the rate of profit at all,
generally consider only the share of profit and ignore the composition of
capital.
...
6. I have suggested another explanation of these important trends, one
based on Marx's distinction between productive labor and unproductive
labor - that an important cause of the declines in the share and the rate
of profit was a very significant increase in the ratio of unproductive
labor to productive labor. I am not sure that this is the correct
explanation of these trends, but I think it may be, and I think that it
worthwhile to at least consider what Marx's theory implies about the
causes of these trends and the likely prospects for the future.
And one important advantage that this theory has over the profit squeeze
explanation is that it provides a consistent explanation of why the share
and rate of profit have only partially recovered in recent decades, in
spite of the loss of workers' power and stagnant real wages - because the
ratio of unproductive to productive labor has continued to increase.
This theory also provides an important prediction about the future - that
if the ratio of unproductive to productive labor continues to increase (as
I expect), then the recovery of the share and rate of profit will continue
to be slow and partial, thus leading to more wage cuts, speed-up,
etc. According to this theory, the US economy is definitely NOT at the
beginning of another long-wave period of growth and prosperity, similar
to the early postwar period (with steady real wage increases). The only
partial recovery of the share and rate of profit makes such a return to
more prosperous conditions very unlikely.
You have made me think about what is the nature of a long wave
upturn. Here are some quick thoughts and concerns.
1. a. Of course these are waves, not cycles (as in Kondratieff,
investment-accelerator, etc). It is not even as if a simple mechanism such
as the falling of the price of capital in a downturn will, in
itself, produce an upturn.
b. The up and the down of these waves are not symmetrical. While
there are forces common and inherent in the accumulation process to
downturns (tendencies to a rising OCC, etc), the upturns require
exceptional events that are not inherently produced by the downturn
process. Mostly these require some combination of major technological
change AND socio-political
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question
Hi Jim, thanks for your good questions. A few responses below. On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Devine, James wrote: Hi, Fred. you write: 6. I have suggested another explanation of these important trends, one based on Marx's distinction between productive labor and unproductive labor - that an important cause of the declines in the share and the rate of profit was a very significant increase in the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor. I am not sure that this is the correct explanation of these trends, but I think it may be, and I think that it worthwhile to at least consider what Marx's theory implies about the causes of these trends and the likely prospects for the future. And one important advantage that this theory has over the profit squeeze explanation is that it provides a consistent explanation of why the share and rate of profit have only partially recovered in recent decades, in spite of the loss of workers' power and stagnant real wages - because the ratio of unproductive to productive labor has continued to increase. A big question: _why_ does the ratio of unproductive to productive labor increase over time? if this ratio is squeezing profits, it seems that profit-seeking capitalists would make an effort to lower it. or is there some sort of technological or social imperative that pushes capitalists to increase the ratio anyway? or is it a matter of it being good for capitalists as individuals to raise the ratio even though it's bad for capital as a whole? This is indeed a big and important question, and I think the answer is a combination of the types of things that you have suggested. I discuss this question at some length in Chapter 5 of my 1992 book (The Falling Rate of Profit in the Postwar US Economy). It is complicated because the category of unproductive labor is a mixed bag of different kinds of labor (circulation labor and supervisory labor and subgroups of each), and the increase of each of these different kinds of unproductive labor may be due to different causes. The main conclusion that I came to in this chapter is that the main cause of the increase of circulation labor (roughly two-thirds of the total) is that during this period the productivity of productive labor increased faster than the productivity of sales labor, thereby requiring a relative increase of the latter in order to sell the more rapidly increasing output of the former. The classic example is the auto industry. The quantity of autos produced per productive worker increases much more rapidly than the quantity of autos sold by salesperson (which remains a largely labor-intensive, person-to-person activity). An interesting corollary of this explanation is that the computer revolution has been one way to increase the productivity of unproductive labor, and therefore slow down the increase in the number of unproductive workers. Indeed, much of the computer revolution has been aimed at reducing unproductive labor (sales, accounting, debt-credit, etc.). Therefore, Marx's theory suggests that the rapid development of computer technology in recent decades has been due in part to the systematic imperative to reduce unproductive labor in order to restore the rate of profit. alternatively, it could be that the geographical unit of analysis is wrong. What if the US-based operations of capital are specializing in what Marxists term unproductive labor, while exporting the productive jobs to other countries? In that case, we should be calculating the world-wide rate of profit, no? Yes, I think the increasing geographical specialization of recent decades (productive labor in the rest of the world, unproductive labor in the US) is part of the explanation of the relative increase of unproductive labor in the US. This theory also provides an important prediction about the future - that if the ratio of unproductive to productive labor continues to increase (as I expect), then the recovery of the share and rate of profit will continue to be slow and partial, thus leading to more wage cuts, speed-up, etc. According to this theory, the US economy is definitely NOT at the beginning of another long-wave period of growth and prosperity, similar to the early postwar period (with steady real wage increases). The only partial recovery of the share and rate of profit makes such a return to more prosperous conditions very unlikely. why can't the ratio of unproductive to productive spending change quickly in the future? didn't something like that happen in the 1990s, lowering the ratio? One indicator of what happened can be seen in Michael Reich's 1998 article Are U.S. Corporations Top-Heavy? Managerial Ratios in Advanced Capitalist Countries (in the REVIEW OF RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMICS, vol. 30, no. 3, 33-45). Reich's data on p. 37 show a rise in the management ratio until 1982 or so -- fitting with David Gordon's fat and
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question
On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, paul phillips wrote: Devine, James wrote: Hi, Fred. you write: spite of the loss of workers' power and stagnant real wages - because the ratio of unproductive to productive labor has continued to increase. A big question: _why_ does the ratio of unproductive to productive labor increase over time? if this ratio is squeezing profits, it seems that profit-seeking capitalists would make an effort to lower it. or is there some sort of technological or social imperative that pushes capitalists to increase the ratio anyway? or is it a matter of it being good for capitalists as individuals to raise the ratio even though it's bad for capital as a whole? why the ratio rises is important. For example, if we posit that demand-side stagnation has been the rule of late, that would push up the ratio (for a few years, at least) in that unproductive labor is typically overhead labor, while productive labor is laid off. However, this explanation doesn't fit the waves of downsizing (thinning out of management, etc.) that hit US business during the 1990s. (see below) Jim, I tried to offer one suggestion in my post a few days ago. In the 1970s, corporations attempted to restore the profit level through price increases (leading to a price-wage spiral) which was cut off by the recession of the 1980s. Since that time, we have been in a period of demand constraint. As a result, increasing productivity has been met by downsizing and wage restraint resulting in stagnant wages which leads, as you point out, to an underconsumption undertow. Major corporations respond to this demand constraint by increasing promotion, marketing and advertising thereby increasing the ratio of unproductive to productive labour. But given globalisation and Asian competition, firms can't raise prices to match the increased cost of unproductive labour. They respond by trying to cut managers, etc. In the 1990s, they were aided by technological change in white collar work (i.e. computerization) which reduced the relative demand for/employment of unproductive labour. (My figures for Canada indicate a significant decline in the employment of certain types of secretarial and clerical labour in the early 1990s.) But given the deflationary effect of global competition using low-wage 3rd world labour, 1st world corporations are unable to raise prices to restore (realized) profitability. Thus, the profit recovery in the 1990s was only partial in the light of continuing need to increase unproductive selling/marketing expenditures despite the rise in productive worker productivity. To the extent that the growth in non-productive worker productivity is on a declining projectory, there is little to give hope for a new long-term, profit-based expansion based on technological change, at least in North America and Europe where the ratio of productive to unproductive labour is already so low. I think my read on this is similar to Fred's. If not, I would be glad to hear, and if so, why? Paul, yes, I think our readings are very similar. Would you please send me any articles that you have written on this subject (or the references)? I look forward to further discussion. Comradely, Fred
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question\Fred's comments
On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Mike Ballard wrote: I'm obviously not an economist. Just a wondering Wobbly, Mike, what a great description! I wish there were more wondering Wobblies! Comradely, Fred
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question
On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Devine, James wrote: Paul,. your story makes sense (though I'd add a lot). My question is for Fred, though. The classical Marxian story stresses the role of the organic composition rising due to some societal or technological imperative. For Fred, the rise of the ratio of productive to unproductive labor costs has replaced -- or now complements -- that's story. I wanted to know his logic. Jim, I argue that the increase of unproductive labor complements the increase of the composition of capital. The rate of profit varies inversely with both of these, and varies positively with the rate of surplus-value. The simple algebra of this Marxian theory of the conventional rate of profit is as follows (as I am sure you know): RP = P / K = S - U / C + Ku = [ S/V - U/V ] / [ C/V + Ku/V ] Comradely, Fred
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question\Fred's comments
On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, Doug Henwood wrote: Fred Mosley wrote: 6. I have suggested another explanation of these important trends, one based on Marx's distinction between productive labor and unproductive labor - that an important cause of the declines in the share and the rate of profit was a very significant increase in the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor. I am not sure that this is the correct explanation of these trends, but I think it may be, and I think that it worthwhile to at least consider what Marx's theory implies about the causes of these trends and the likely prospects for the future. And one important advantage that this theory has over the profit squeeze explanation is that it provides a consistent explanation of why the share and rate of profit have only partially recovered in recent decades, in spite of the loss of workers' power and stagnant real wages - because the ratio of unproductive to productive labor has continued to increase. This theory also provides an important prediction about the future - that if the ratio of unproductive to productive labor continues to increase (as I expect), then the recovery of the share and rate of profit will continue to be slow and partial, thus leading to more wage cuts, speed-up, etc. According to this theory, the US economy is definitely NOT at the beginning of another long-wave period of growth and prosperity, similar to the early postwar period (with steady real wage increases). The only partial recovery of the share and rate of profit makes such a return to more prosperous conditions very unlikely. Why should a national economy be the unit of analysis? Why can't U.S. capitalists and a significant portion of the U.S. population propser by appropriating the SV produced by, say, Chinese workers? Wal-Mart is a profit machine - is it productive or unproductive? Hi Doug, you are right that the appropriate unit of analysis is the world economy, and that surplus-value produced by e.g. Chinese workers is appropriated by US capitalists. But since this surplus-value is appropriated by US capitalists, it is mostly included in the estimates of profits in the US NIPAs. But this international aspect does mean that the estimates of the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor in the US are overestimated. Comradely, Fred
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question
On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, Doug Henwood wrote: Fred B. Moseley wrote: 5. The most popular radical-Marxian explanation of these profit rate trends has been the reserve army profit squeeze theory - that low unemployment rates in the late 1960s and early 1970s increased workers power, and enable them to gain substantial wage increases and to squeeze profits. This theory then explains the increase in the rate of profit on the higher rates of unemployment and the loss of workers' power in recent decades. This seems to be Doug's explanation of these trends. However, this profit squeeze theory does not provide a very good explanation of the only-partial recovery of the rate of profit, and especially the share of profit, in recent decades. One would think that, if greater worker power leading to wage increases in the 1960s and 70s caused the profit share to decline, then surely the last three decades of wage-cuts, speed-up on the job, and the general attack on workers and unions should have fully restored the profit share by now. Why fully restored? The 1950s and 1960s were a Golden Age with few if any historical precedents that followed the worst depression in history. The corporate sector had net losses in 1932 and 1933, something it's never come close to replicating since. But the corporate profit share of GDP rose from the low of 5.2% in 1982 to 8.7% in 1997, a 67% increase. Sure it's below the 10-11% levels of the mid-1960s, but it's a major recovery. And though I haven't gotten a chance to analyze the latest benchmark revision of the NIPAs, they show a very substantial rise in profits in 2001 and 2002 - an amazing performance in a recession and weak recovery. You are comparing a cyclical low (1982) with a cyclical high (1997). And do your estimates include interest? The estimates of the (profit + interest) share show cyclical ups and downs, but very little overall increase since the 1970s. The 1982-97 and 2001-2002 profit recoveries happened despite an increase in what you call unproductive labor. Why? In part because of the cyclical effects of higher capacity utilization rates, but also over the long-term because of a very significant increase in the rate of surplus-value, the ratio of the surplus-value produced by productive workers to the wages of productive workers (S/V in the following equation for the Marxian determination of the conventional rate of profit, included in a prior post): RP = P / K = S - U / C + Ku = [ S/V - U/V ] / [ C/V + Ku/V ] Comradely, Fred
Re: Norway: oil and Kant
This is very interesting. I always regarded Norway as the Gold Standard in rational oil exploitation. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question
Fred B. Moseley wrote: You are comparing a cyclical low (1982) with a cyclical high (1997). And do your estimates include interest? 1997 was four years before the cyclical high, actually. But the 1982 low was in many ways - political as well as economic - a point of structural reversal. Mexico's debt crisis marked the onset of neoliberal restructuring of the world; the stock market took off at almost the same minute as the Mexican quasi-default; and the Reagan boom was about to begin. That was about a lot more than a business cycle - it was about a whole new regime of accumulation. Doug
In my life
I thought we could generate a million dollars for the company and reach a million people with the extraordinary story of Playboy and its impact on the world of literature, design, ideas and art, says Christie Hefner, chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, the founder's daughter. We know we have collectors, so we thought that instead of engaging in private negotiations to sell part of the collection, we would have a public auction, where anyone anywhere can own a piece of Playboy. Source: http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ca-emerling14dec14,1,4718901.st ory?coll=la-home-style During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the consolation of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s1
Extending the Dutch occupying forces
Dutch troops in Iraq will be relieved in January and the replacement troops will start transferring power to the Iraqis in March. The troops will gradually withdraw from cities and villages. They are currently carrying out patrols, engaged in the provision of armed escorts to convoys or manning surveillance posts in the region. Meanwhile, it has been estimated that there are between several hundred to thousands of extremists and Al Qaeda volunteers in Al Muthanna. There are also between 3,000 and 4,000 former soldiers of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard in the province. But the marines will soon be reinforced by 600 Japanese troops after the Asian nation's Cabinet made an historic decision this week to deploy the soldiers. The Japanese will mainly be involved in humanitarian projects. [Copyright Expatica News 2003] Full story: http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1story_id=309 1
Saddam
I am surprised that they caught him so early. I thought that it would come closer to the election. But then, since he has doubles, maybe they could catch a Saddam every few weeks. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Saddam's capture, Bush's victory?
Bush appeared to be unusually cautious in his victory televison broadcast, which seemed to be crafted towards Iraqis rather than US electors. That is at least one achievement of Saddam's resistance and that of the wider Iraqi people. But if the allied invasion of Iraq was illegal, so was the capture of its leader. Behind the repeated degrading images of the prisoner with his mouth being examined and his hair in disarray - worse than images that caused indignation when it was US military who had been captured and paraded in front of the cameras - was the question of whether this means total victory. Bush was wise to say ``The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq, presumably excluding allied troops from ever being the perpetrators or provokers of violence themselves. The trial will have to be on the grounds of crimes against humanity rather than being on the wrong side in geopolitics. Saddam would have much to reveal. And the worse crimes were in the context of conflict and instability - as so often happens in history - in which the US and the west had a major part - the war against Iran, where Iraq was the ally of the US, and the events after Iraq's defeat in which the Saddam regime brutally supressed an uprising. Yes according to the prevailing conventions of international law for Iraq to invade Kuwait was a breach of sovereignty, but in the context of the history of Mesopotamia over thousands of years it was hardly illogical. For Britain and the US to invade in the 21st century required them to show, that unlike the majority of the Security Council they turned out to be right about WMD if you accept the questionable logic on which Blair persuaded Bush to debate with the UN. Presumably in preparation for an authoritative trial the Bush administration will have to hope that second level commanders will reveal many details of WMD more shocking than battlefield chemical weapons. At his news conference Maj Gen Odierno revealed that he thought that it unlikely that Saddam had been personally directing the (increasingly effective) resistance to the allied occupation. That presumably reflects the prevailing view among the top levels of the US military in Iraq and may be very significant. After the inital psychological blow of Saddam's capture to those personally loyal to him, it is even possible that his capture will lead to a more sustained campaign of military resistance against the occupying forces and the imposition of a US led finance capitalist economy. For some Saddam will be a martyr and hero, but his capture may make it in fact easier for all Iraqi nationalists to network on the basis of anti-Americanism rather than support for the old regime. An American rout in Iraq is still possible, however much it will be smoothed over in the polite language of diplomatic exchanges between the leading imperialist powers, who are all positioning themselves carefully today in the way they phrase their enthusiasm for the capture of Saddam. There are no ideal standards of justice that stand above material history, whether identified by Kant or not. Concepts of justice are shaped by the balance of forces and are only partially independent of material interest. But from the point of view of the democratic material interests of the working people of the world although basic bourgeois legal rights are an important defence against naked class oppression, what is even more important in this context is that the US administration aided by its loyal allies such as Britain should not be able to impose their will on a population through shock and awe. Ironically and hopefully the most important result of the capture of Saddam might be that the working people of Iraq can find a basis for uniting their diverse interests in favour of genuine independence and sovereignty. The assassination of Iraqis cooperating with the allied occupation will be a test of whether such a unity can emerge, and unfortunately suggests that even if the invasion ends in a rout for the occupying forces, it will be Iraqis who will pay the biggest price. If we see some equivalent of black on black violence developing, as in the last days of the apartheid regime, we should ask what forces are behind that, and why did it come about in the first place, when the people of the two historic rivers need to be able to live in peace together, and engage in economic activity and rule their own lives without being dominated by superpowers or global finance capitalist corporations. Initial thoughts. Chris Burford London
Re: Wolf on Renminbi Flexibility
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:16:55 -0500, Michael Pollak wrote: [I thought this was a surprising good discussion that covered all the bases.] Interesting though, that the general principle that in a fixed rate system the burden of adjustment falls on the deficit country, is completely ignored; ie the entire problem is framed as a question about what *China* will do ... dd
Foreign policy
Saddam Hussein should be trialed in Iraq, said Minister Bot of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, in response to the arrest of the former dictator. Trialing by an international tribunal would give a wrong signal towards Iraq. Iraqi's had indicated that they want to handle things themselves, said the Minister. By trialing in Iraq we can show that we have confidence in the independent ability of Iraqi's. In Iraq there is now a purge happening, said Bot, creating an opportunity for accounting for the past. A trial in their own land fits with this. The arrest of Saddam would accelerate the political development of Iraq, the Minister expected. It takes away a shadow which surrounded Iraq. So long as he had not been captured, his supporters continued to be preoccupied to clear the path for his return. Bot estimated that the number of attacks will now decrease, but warns that it will not be love and peace in Iraq for a long time. He fears that other groups will continue the terrorist struggle. He thinks that the role of the Dutch military in South Iraq will only become more important now. Now that the country can navigate quieter waters, their contribution to stability would gain more leverage. I am very optimistic about it. Bot heard about the arrest of Saddam via CNN. That the US did not notify him personally was something he considered not such a problem, despite the presence of Dutch troops in Iraq. (...) Parlementarian Van der Laan (Progressive Liberals) thinks that the psychological effect of Saddam's arrest could be very great. The myth of dying rather than surrendering to the Americans is now pricked through. I hope that the images of his arrest will be seen throughout Iraq so that everybody can see that it's just a crazy old man. She expects local leaders who are still afraid for the erstwhile dictator will dare to choose the side of reconstruction. But the Dutch military must remain guarded. It isn't Disneyland over there all of a sudden. It remains a very dangerous area. http://www.volkskrant.nl/denhaag/107135137.html Clark insisted his early release as Supreme NATO Commander of the Allied Forces by Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen was not a firing. I was suddenly called and told I would have to give up command early. I was told at the time I was not being fired. I was told at the time it was just an administrative matter, he said. Clark said Pentagon brass did not like his urgent calls to prevent the ethnic cleansing of 1.5 million Albanians in the province of Kosovo under former President Slobodan Milosovic. Frankly, I was told to mind my own business, that they were too busy in the Pentagon dealing with Congress to hear any commander in the field report there might be problems coming. That's not adequate, Clark said. Source: http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?sub=909
Re: Question re basics
Jurriaan, thank you for your thoughtful response. I dug out a passage of Sweezy's here, one of the occasions when he attempted to formulate the problem that he saw and found no answers to. And as I said yesterday, I haven't seen it yet either, so I'm inquiring. Here he's been discussing Keynes in an interview conducted by E. Ahmet Tonak [MR Apr 1987]: I think that Marxists have a certain defensiveness about Keynes: we mustn't take seriously a bourgeois thinker because it may infect us and we may turn out to be revisionists without wanting to be, you know. I don't think that's such a danger as long as you internalize the basic structure of Marxism, which is, of course, embodied in and summed up in the value theory and the accumulation theory, surplus value theory, all of that. That's absolutely crucial. there is no need to lose these basic insights which are based on a very intimate knowledge of the real business world - which of course, Marx also had in his day. But which Marxists taking their stuff out of Capital, can't have in our day. This whole business of finance which I was talking about last night. The present financial explosion which is unprecedented can't be handled in terms of the hints in Volume III about finance. Although, they are not unuseful, not without considerable value. The whole notion of an abbreviated accumulation formula, M-M', without any production element M-C, is a very fruitful way of thinking about finance, how it is possible for M' to relate only to M without the system of [production in the middle. But that's what's happening all the time now. If we don't think about this, if we assume that finance is only an aspect of the circulation of commodities, we're not going to understand a lot of what goes on in the world today. I must say, my own feeling is that this is an area where nobody has done really very well. I sometimes have the feeling that economics is now in need of a general theory, in the sense that physics seems to be in need of a general theory, i.e., that there are a lot of things going on that don't fit into the standard physical theories. And they are looking for a general field theory which would unify all of it. They don't have it yet. In economics we need a theory which integrates finance and production, the circuits of capital of a financial and a real productive character much more effectively than our traditional theories do. I don't see that anyone is actually producing it, but it's terribly complicated. And I'm sure that I'm too old to be able to think of those things. I can get snatches, insights here and there, but I can't put it together into a comprehensive theoretical framework. I think it will take somebody who starts differently and isn't so totally dominated by M-C-M', the industrial circuit, with the financial circuits always being treated as epiphenomenal, not part of the essential reality. I don't know if you are familiar with the book The Faltering Economy edited by Foster and Szlajfer? Ralph - Original Message - From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 3:53 AM Subject: Re: Question re basics It has to do with the connection between the accumulation of capital ascribable to the creation of surplus value on one side, and the cascading mountainous accretion of debt instruments on the other, the whole multi-trillion dollar financial complex. How, basically, do the two connect in a framework consistent with what Marx wrote? I had assumed without being able at my level of comprehension to elaborate, that all credit creation rests ultimately, fantastic as it might seem, on call-ins of indebtedness to the creators of the surplus value, the working class [of course, Sweezy called it 'surplus']. Why exactly is it so necessary to connect in a way consistent with what Marx wrote ? Can we not think for ourselves ? If you start off with a false or dogmatically held premise, then you are driven ineluctably to contradictory thinking at the very least, but that too could be a source of creativity. The issue you raise is very complex, it's a bit like explaining how people can travel to the moon - it can be done, but it takes a lot of time. Ernest Mandel tackled this question (he considered Schumpeter one of the most important 20th century bourgeois economists) because, contrary to Trotskyist expectations, capitalism boomed after world war 2, and then the question arose, whether this was due to human error, to a faulty analysis of bourgeois society, or to something inherent in the capitalist system which had still to be discovered. Technological revolutions are an intrinsic feature of capitalist development, but as you know, capitalism is by - its very structure - intrinsically incompatible with long-term steady growth, it develops spasmodically through booms and busts which we can plot in squiggly graphs. Thus, under specific conditions, new
academic capitalism redux
[Los Angeles Times] Digging for Oil on Campus ChevronTexaco is giving $5 million to USC to develop new technologies for recovering fossil fuels. Is this the 'corporatization' of academia? By Nancy Rivera Brooks Times Staff Writer December 14, 2003 The hunt for lower-cost oil and natural gas has taken ChevronTexaco Corp. from Alaska to the Middle East. Now the search has brought the San Ramon, Calif., company to a truly exotic location: USC. ChevronTexaco is giving $5 million to USC's School of Engineering to develop advanced technologies that will, the company and USC hope, figure out how to suck fossil fuels from the ground more cheaply and efficiently. We, in effect, are opening a company office at USC, said Donald L. Paul, vice president and chief technology officer for ChevronTexaco. Corporate-college research linkups aren't new. But USC and others have become increasingly aggressive in seeking out company money to replace eroding government funds and offer programs that will attract students who want degrees they figure will lead surely to jobs. Critics call these efforts the corporatization of academia and see the potential for conflicts of interest and other problems, such as companies trying to squelch the release of research they helped underwrite. Corporations, which have long shelled out big bucks to get their names on buildings, now are trying to influence the curriculum, the detractors say. There's a very important and legitimate role for universities to play in working with industry to try to speed the translation of academic research findings into useful products, said former Harvard University President Derek Bok, who has written a book on the subject. But universities need to be encouraged to do it the right way and not get into bad habits. The origin of research funds can affect not just the research subject but also the results, studies show. In a report published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., Yale University investigators said that industry-sponsored biomedical research was 3.6 times more likely to produce results favoring the company footing the bill than research funded in other ways, such as by the federal government and foundations. Sheldon Krimsky, a Tufts University professor of urban and environmental policy and planning, has spent more than two decades probing the relationship between researchers and corporations, including financial connections between faculty and companies. The results are troubling, particularly in the arena of biomedical research but also in other areas, said Krimsky, author of the newly published Science in the Private Interest. In how many of the chemicals that we do not regulate, or regulate poorly, was the research based upon studies that were funded by the chemical companies? Krimsky asked. He argues that a hard line should be drawn, particularly in drug and other research that directly affects consumers. Why are we treating scientists differently from judges or politicians? Krimsky said. In most of those areas, we have prohibited conflicts of interest, but in science it's quite different. Last year, Stanford University was criticized when it announced plans for a $225-million center that would develop technology to combat greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Much of the money for the 10-year Global Climate and Energy Project would come from companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., that produce the oil and gas blamed for generating the emissions. Stanford is moving forward with the project anyway. UC Berkeley was blasted in 1998 for accepting a five-year grant of $25 million to its department of plant and microbial biology from biotechnology corporation Novartis Co. The money represented more than a third of the department's annual funding, and naysayers feared it would give the Swiss company too much leverage over research. But despite fears of conflicts sharp enough to prompt state Senate hearings, that five-year affiliation ended quietly last month with scant evidence of problems. So far, USC has largely avoided controversy, though it has been aggressive in pursuing corporate support. The university says it has controls in place to preserve its academic integrity. In the case of the ChevronTexaco partnership, university officials say both sides clearly will benefit. The grant is bankrolling the establishment of the Center for Interactive Smart Oilfield Technology, where corporate and university scientists are to work side by side to create oil fields that pretty much run themselves. The plan is for ChevronTexaco to contribute production data from its oil fields - normally closely held corporate secrets - and for USC researchers to supply such developments as three-dimensional imaging technologies and expertise in signal transmission. Ownership of any software or gadgets invented by researchers would be subject to negotiation. The effort could lead to a way to remotely drill and operate wells
Re: Question re basics
In a message dated 12/14/03 1:12:16 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The present financial explosion which is unprecedented can't be handled in terms of the hints in Volume III about finance. Although, they are not unuseful, not without considerable value. The whole notion of an abbreviated accumulation formula, M-M', without any production element M-C, is a very fruitful way of thinking about finance, how it is possible for M' to relate only to M without the system of [production in the middle. But that's what's happening all the time now. If we don't think about this, if we assume that finance is only an aspect of the circulation of commodities, we're not going to understand a lot of what goes on in the world today. I must say, my own feeling is that this is an area where nobody has done really very well. . . . In economics we need a theory which integrates finance and production, the circuits of capital of a financial and a real productive character much more effectively than our traditional theories do. I don't see that anyone is actually producing it, but it's terribly complicated. And I'm sure that I'm too old to be able to think of those things. I can get snatches, insights here and there, but I can't put it together into a comprehensive theoretical framework. I think it will take somebody who starts differently and isn't so totally dominated by M-C-M', the industrial circuit, with the financial circuits always being treated as epiphenomenal, not part of the essential reality. I don't know if you are familiar with the book The Faltering Economy edited by Foster and Szlajfer? Ralph Comment This summarizes my life experience as a communist and Marxist who lacks any theoretical depth in the mechanics of financial matters. M-M' is the essence of my life experience or the money form of expanded value being reproduced outside the logic of production of real commodities. Speculation and interest is very old but always had a direct and indirect bearing on the production of tangible assets. As a non-economist the dialogue on productive and nonproductive labor has me baffled in the sense that labor that doesn't directly impact the production process is not unproductive because it is an aspect of circulation - distribution, of the tangible. To realize a profit, a commodity must be sold and the value returned to the owner. Is not unproductive labor - at this juncture of history, as we live out our current reality M-M'? Is not M-M' the proof of a new polarity that detaches price from value? Not simply fictitious capital - paper and bonds that in the last instance were connected to the production of tangibles - commodities, in the past but speculation detached from production in the absolute sense. As I understand matters - probably incorrectly, even a derivative was derived from a tangible asset or a mathematical equation that projected the value relationship - probability, of a tangible. M-M' is the abstraction of a real process that has become abstract. In the realm of real politics is not M-M' expressed in the consolidation of a sector of capital, currently writing the political agenda for the world total social capital as it finds itself increasing detached from the production of commodities? Is this detachment of this sector of capital expressed in its polar opposite that is more than one billion people incapable of entering the cycle of commodity production and the lowering of the wage form of the workers across the board? If an industrial bourgeoisie as capital, expresses its opposite in an industrial proletariat, does not M-M' - expanded value outside the production process, express itself in a proletariat outside the production process? This juncture of the accumulation of capital strikes me as ultra abstract on every level and creates a segment of the population absolutely outside of the production process because capital itself - a sector, is outside the production process. Driving the entire process is the revolution in the mode of production - the material power of the productive forces. My head starts hurting as a non-economist because in a world where M-M' arises as dominator, under conditions where money/capital is not based on species - gold or a tangible assets whose production is a store of value or socially necessary human laboring, the law of value itself has to start unraveling. That is to say fiat money - money whose value is based on what I say it is worth as backed up by force and an internal system of taxation of ones working class, cannot be a store of value when it cannot be distinguished from the money that is derived from the production of tangibles. I pass from a hurting head to disorientation when considering a deficit based on money that has no value - fiat money, and wonder why the government cannot simply print money - which it is doing. I read every entry on Pen-l and cannot find a coherent explanation of this process, which means we are
Re: Question re basics
As a first offering On this question, and indeed the current and recent conditions of US capital-- the economy or rather, the Economy 1. Certainly there has been a defensiveness regarding Keynes, this the reflection of capitalism's ability to more than survive, but recover, recuperate, and counterrevolutionize, despite the fact the Keynesianism itself really has little to do with that recovery, recuperation itself, other than to function as an ideological description and justification for a particular set of circumstances. 2. While it may be useful to consider the role of finance as a direct connection M-M', the actual significance of finance both in function and as a sector finance capital is in its role as the compressed, or condensed, manifestation of all that capital strives to become-- its self-presentation as pure detached, universal value able to overcome all the contradictions in time and place of commodity production-- and never can become, thus all the contradictions compose and manifest themselves as disruptions in finance, in foreign exchange, in currencies, in derivatives. And all of these miracles of non-manufacture begin their existence in the lags of capital's metamorphoses between production and realization, between purchase and sale, between investment and expanded reproduction. 3. Thus, the peaking and stumbling of the rate of profit in the in 1997-1998 reverberates as the currency crises in the NIE's of Asia. In reality the currency crises have their origins inoverproduction. 4. The RATE of return on investment in the US peaked in 1997, declined modestly in 1998, and then plumped itself up, like a pufferfish sucking in air in 2000. The recovery in the US rate of profit in the 90s was prefigured by the previous decade's dramatic short rationing of labor, and reduction in fixed assets. The expansion after 1991 is marked by rising investment, particularly in the means of circulation-- transportation and telecommunications (one example-- the BNSF railroad's capital expenditure program for 1998 exceeded the expenditure for the entire industry in 1990). 5. Now I'm prejudiced on this point, but I really think the answer to the why's and how's of capital are to be found in an analysis of overproduction-- and the starting point is to grasp that overproduction is not underconsumption.
Re: In my life
FWIW, Christie Hefner graduated from my high school when I graduated (and Hugh showed up at our graduation), though she was known as Christie Gunn back then and I didn't know her very well. She changed her last name to her biological father's and then got the big money. Jim I thought we could generate a million dollars for the company and reach a million people with the extraordinary story of Playboy and its impact on the world of literature, design, ideas and art, says Christie Hefner, chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, the founder's daughter. We know we have collectors, so we thought that instead of engaging in private negotiations to sell part of the collection, we would have a public auction, where anyone anywhere can own a piece of Playboy.
Re: Question re basics
Hi Ralph, I think that Marxists have a certain defensiveness about Keynes: we mustn't take seriously a bourgeois thinker because it may infect us and we may turn out to be revisionists without wanting to be, you know. Well, I think the nature of the thing is that many people who read Das Kapital - which is not an easy book - and are persuaded by it, are not economists (I am not either, I am mainly concerned with the human effects of economics and the power of economic ideologies to fool people into believing that non-economic problems are economic problems, and that real economic problems are non-economic problems). And these Marxists feel threatened by references to Keynes, rather than understand the arguments he makes, and make a reply to it (Anwar Shaikh for example does though, and for his part Steve Keen as well). The main thing that Keynes became famous for was the doctrine of effective demand, aggregate demand, which implied that market forces did not automatically ensure that the market would clear, so that the state had to step in to regulate the market, that there were these relationships between income distributions, interest rates, the money supply, investment and so on. And that is all perfectly true in many respects; it implies a rejection of the validity of Say's Law. I could go even further and argue that as regards monetary theory (the theory of the volume, value and circulation of money and its economic effects) there isn't technically very much difference between conventional economic thinking and Marx's thinking. (And Laurence Harris suggested in a book once that technically speaking, Keynesians and monetarists weren't all that different in their understanding of money either, just variations on a theme). But so what - whether or not acknowledging this is actually progressive politically or not, is a moot point. I mean, I could state all sorts of scientific truths that could have all sorts of political implications. The state could intervene in all sorts of ways to boost demand or regulate investment, this is nothing new, and it could kill lots of people too in the process. In the real world, as distinct from an academic office, the interpretation of Keynes has mutated over the years, in line with the changing balance of forces between social classes. The phenomena of stagflation completely contradicted Keynes's theory and then you get neo-Keynesianism. Keynesianism often is interpreted as Leftwing because it seems to support the case for income redistribution by the state against mindless more market fanaticism promoted by people who think that privatising everything will result in a better allocation of resources. But really the economic arguments are merely distant reflections of the moral controversies among the wealthy who, already possessing funds, have this dillemma of what to fund and what not to fund. I think Paul Mattick was quite pertinent in criticising Keynesians as apologists for the mixed economy which wasn't really mixed, but Mattick's understanding of the realisation of value often isn't very good - his own argument, as Ernest Mandel points out, often just assumes the operation of Say's Law, i.e. that the realisation of surplus-value (or value as such) is not a problem on its own. The other thing I don't like about the Matticks is that they slag off at people, and impute view to them which they do not hold. The competitive battle of capitalist business isn't simply about raising the rate of profit or reducing wage-costs, it is also very much about sales, and you can show quite easily through simple maths that if sales increase, but the rate of profit falls, then that fall isn't really such a business problem in the medium term, since incomes will increase anyway. The real problem for capitalist economic growth is the recurrent situation of depressed profits combined with shrinking or saturated markets, that is what must be explained. I personally think that the tendency towards the falling rate of profit, which Marx discusses (he didn't invent the idea himself, Adam Smith and others already refers to it), is real and not imaginary, I could also rustle up at least two dozen good empirical studies for illustration, but from my point of view, this view just doesn't mean very much by itself, because (1) an empirical trend of declining profitability can be explained in many ways, and (2) what you need to know then, is how specifically the the owners of capital attempt to cope with that problem. Outside of an academic office, we deal not with abstract economic laws, but with the observable, experiential effects of those laws, and if you cannot show the experiential implications of the abstract principles regulating market forces, you're not much further ahead. I don't think that's such a danger as long as you internalize the basic structure of Marxism, which is, of course, embodied in and summed up in the value theory and the accumulation theory, surplus value
Re: In my life
FWIW, Christie Hefner graduated from my high school when I graduated (and Hugh showed up at our graduation), though she was known as Christie Gunn back then and I didn't know her very well. She changed her last name to her biological father's and then got the big money. Amazing. I didn't know that. And was she a Gunn ? I have never met her personally, I just pasted up a lot of Playboy pictures in the hallway and toilet of my flat, as a sort of wallpaper, as an 18 year old. A friend of mine had this wallpaper in her loo, that consisted of pages out of an old book glossed over, and then, being a bit drawn to the surreal, because of the way my life had gone, I thought I would do something like that, but with Playboy and Penthouse pictures. But most people didn't appreciate it, either I was being too avant garde or too backward in my thinking or both at the same time, and thus missing out, and I took it off again. I didn't know much about women (still don't in many ways) but I was grateful to Playboy for giving me something to look at in a sensitive state. The first article I ever read about Fidel Castro was a story by Tad Szulc, in Playboy or Penthouse. But I didn't know much at that time about how softporn magazines really function, I was a bit naive like that. J.
Re: illegal money
This article seems to equate money laundering with muslin fundamentalism. I wonder how much is done by corporations for tax avoidance. Eubulides wrote: Smart money Chris Petit is fascinated by the power of illegal capital, revealed in Loretta Napoleoni's Modern Jihad and Jeffrey Robinson's The Sink-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: In my life
J wrote: The first article I ever read about Fidel Castro was a story by Tad Szulc, in Playboy or Penthouse. Playboy deserves a rightful place in Yanqui social liberation history. The interviews were remarkable. As a lad, I was obviously attracted because of beautiful females. And we males can't help that, being hard wired as such. But there were these incredibly intelligent dialogues I would be exposed to. I wonder which was the most subversive: the gals or the guys with typewriters. There is a huge chronology of American social history in there... Ken. -- The only true exploration, the only real Fountain of Youth, will not be in visiting foreign lands, but in having other eyes, in looking at the universe through the eyes of others. -- Marcel Proust
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question\Fred's comments
Fred B. Moseley wrote: Hi Doug, you are right that the appropriate unit of analysis is the world economy, and that surplus-value produced by e.g. Chinese workers is appropriated by US capitalists. But since this surplus-value is appropriated by US capitalists, it is mostly included in the estimates of profits in the US NIPAs. But this international aspect does mean that the estimates of the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor in the US are overestimated. Comradely, Fred I think there has also been a tendency to forget and neglect the expropriation of surplus from independent commodity production that has occured in the past that has been a major factor in profits, including in the 'golden age of capitalism'. Perhaps the most important sector was agriculture where surplus in production was expropriated through monopoly power (agribusiness the railways, banks) and shows up as profits of agribusiness, railways, banks, food processors, etc. The depressed state of primary agricutlture (fisheries, independent forestry operators) has meant that there has been precious little surplus to expropriate through the monopolized price mechanism. I would suggest that this may also be a factor in the failure of the profit rate to recover to the levels of the golden age. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
Re: In my life
Hi Ken, You wrote: Playboy deserves a rightful place in Yanqui social liberation history. The interviews were remarkable. As a lad, I was obviously attracted because of beautiful females. And we males can't help that, being hard wired as such. But there were these incredibly intelligent dialogues I would be exposed to. I wonder which was the most subversive: the gals or the guys with typewriters. There is a huge chronology of American social history in there... That's a good comment. Some of the gals were subversive, others were sucked in or just went for the money. Personally, I was given a classic old Remington portable by my Granddad when I was about 10 years old, I have typed since that time. The way I grew up, I was a bit cagey about girlie magazines as such, and I never had many of them, apart from a bit of humour and a bit of exploration about what I feel or like (as against what somebody else says I ought to feel or like). I just liked specific photo's, that is all, in fact, one day, I am going to track down a specific photo that captivated me. The Royal Dutch Library has a collection that could have it, they collect those mags. Many of the articles were tremendously useful and interesting to me, real eye-openers, and I would read a lot, because otherwise I got bored or feel lonely. The funniest thing though was, that after I moved out of that house in 1978 into another one, I met a woman I became amorous with, and she would actually clip pictures she liked from the mags, and stick them into a personal photo album. I worked as part-time photographer for the suburban papers at that time, and I remember asking her one time how can you reconcile that with your feminist beliefs ? but she just laughed, and replied that of course women were entitled to do that, why shouldn't they be ? I don't really know enough about the real US culture though, I have only been there a couple times so far. There often seems to be a big difference between media projections of America, and what Americans really think. The attraction of the USA used to be that you could take a subject, and take to its full potential, or at least explore the limits of it, in a free way, as long as you did it with integrity. But I'm not sure that culture still exists, other than commercially, in the contemporary mood of rheumy conservatism, where people are often more interested in regulating, limiting, ordering and repressing, rather than think through cultural issues seriously and propose alternatives. We are supposed to know everything already these days anyway. And there are many more financial pressures, there's more mediation in everything you do. But maybe that culture just exists in a different way, maybe I just don't know where it's at these days. When a culture runs out of ideas and lacks a perspective on the future, typically it begins to recycle stuff from the past, a sort of reticular activating system or rumination. It doesn't bother me too much, because I'll just think my own idea anyway, but it isn't very conducive to a creative politics. Well, I go into the past too sometimes, to recover what it was that really excited me or motivated me, or a bit of soulsearching, but I am not pretending to be innovative in doing that, that's all. To be innovative takes a lot of hard work. J.
the evolving exchange value of the human body
A tall order It's painful and slow, but can make you five inches taller. Jonathan Watts on the surgical trend sweeping China - leg-lengthening Monday December 15, 2003 The Guardian Kong Jing-wen has paid £5,700 to have both of her legs broken and stretched on a rack. The pretty college graduate is now lying in bed, clearly still in considerable pain three days after a doctor sawed through the flesh and bone below her knee to insert what looks an awful lot like knitting needles through the length of her tibiae. These giant steel pins are connected by eight screws punched horizontally through her ankle and calf to a steel cage surrounding each leg. Once the bone starts to heal, these cages will act like a medieval torture device - each day over the next few months Kong will turn the screws a fraction and stretch her limbs more and more until she has grown by 8cm. Despite the agony, the cost and the inconvenience, the 23-year-old says she does not regret a thing. It hurts, but it will be worth it to be taller. I'll have more opportunities in life and a better chance of finding a good job and husband. Her parents, who financed the operation and are now at her bedside, agree. It's an investment in our daughter's future. Because she was short, she used to lack confidence, but this should change that. Kong Jing-wen is one of a growing number of perfectly healthy Chinese young men and women who are willing to break a leg for beauty in order to rise up the ladder in height-conscious China. The complex and time-consuming procedure they are willing to endure was initially developed in Russia for people with stunted growth, mismatched legs or disfigurements. But these days the operation is increasingly used for cosmetic purposes. In part, the popularity of such surgery can be explained by the surge of interest in fashion and beauty in a country where the rising middle classes are shaking off a dowdy Maoist cultural legacy and using the rewards of explosive economic growth to explore cosmetic possibilities. Shops and magazines in the cities show endless images of long-legged western models, inevitably putting pressure on young women. Doctors have been able to pioneer new forms of this surgery because height is so socially important in China that it is often the first thing strangers will talk about. It is also listed among the criteria required on job advertisements. To get a post in the foreign ministry, for instance, male applicants need not bother applying unless they are at least 5ft 7in, while women must be at least 5ft 3in. Chinese diplomats are expected to be tall to match the height of their foreign counterparts. For more glamorous positions the conditions are even tougher: air stewardesses have to be over 5ft 5in. But height discrimination is evident even at ground level: in some places, people under 5ft 3in are not even eligible to take a driving test. To get into many law schools, women students need to be over 5ft 1in and men over 5ft 5in. Height requirements are also frequently mentioned in the personal ads of newspapers and magazines. All this has ensured a steady stream of business for osteogenetic surgeons like Dr Xia Hetao, who has pioneered a height-increasing technique in Beijing used by about 150 people every year. More and more people want to be taller, he says. It is so important for the image of an individual or a company that some people come here in tears begging for an operation. With a minimum £4,000 price tag attached to the procedure, the patients are all well-off by Chinese standards. According to employees at Dr Xia's institute of external skeletal fixation technology, it is not just women who are prepared to have their legs lengthened - men are just as keen. The vast majority of patients are job- and spouse-hunters in their 20s, but teenagers are also among the patients and the oldest person to have the operation was a 52-year-old woman. She was very wealthy and had everything else she wanted, so she decided to fix her height which had always been a concern for her, explained one of the staff. In many cases, the clients are not even particularly short to begin with. Dr Xia said one 5ft 8in women asked to grow an inch so that she could reach the standard needed to qualify as an international fashion model. But most of the others are under average height and undergo up to two operations so that they can grow by a maximum of almost five inches. Each procedure has three stages. First comes the operation in which the legs are broken and steel pins - 27cm long and 8mm in diameter - are pushed through the bone. These are fixed to an external frame by eight or so screws, each of which is 4mm in diameter. Next comes the stretching, which is carried out over several months (depending on how much the customer wants to grow) by turning the screws each day and lengthening the bone at the point where it was broken. When the stretching is completed the external frame is removed. In the
Re: illegal money
michael wrote: muslin fundamentalism Nice to see this concern with the fabric of daily life. Doug
Re: the evolving exchange value of the human body
I knew a woman who had a similar operation on one leg, to equalize the length with the other one. As soon as she recovered from her operation, she left her husband. On a more serious note, people like Daniel Hammermesch, for example in Biddle, Jeff E. and Daniel S. Hamermesh. 1998. Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre. Journal of Labor Economics, 16: 1 (January): pp. 172-201, have shown that investing in a cosmetic surgery can pay economic dividends. Similarly, some of the young people whom I play basketball with, have shown sudden body changes that could only be possible through steroids. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
EU/WTO and other dysfunctions of global governance
EU failure sets stage for trade roadshow Larry Elliott Monday December 15, 2003 The Guardian The caravan moves on. At the weekend it was Brussels, today it's Geneva. For wrangling over the European Union's draft constitution read a stand-off in the global trade talks. One international meeting elides into another in an attempt to piece together a workable system of governance for the global age. It is proving a struggle. The past year has been a catalogue of failure for multilateralism, from the schism at the United Nations over Iraq and the disastrous trade talks in Cancun to the less overt but equally serious loss of political will to cooperate on tackling climate change, currency instability and global poverty. Today's meeting of the World Trade Organisation provides the year's last chance to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat, but it is not going to happen. The WTO's 146 members were given three months after Cancun to settle their differences so that the round could be relaunched officially this week. The hope was that this would provide the momentum to complete the negotiations by the January 1 2005 deadline. Instead, the big players have spent the autumn sulking in their tents, blaming each other for the breakdown and showing scant interest in making the modest concessions that would revitalise the talks. America's trade policy is now determined by the impact it will have on George Bush's re-election prospects, France has taken the opportunity provided by the debacle in Cancun to give Europe's trade policy a more protectionist bent, the big developing countries are unwilling to move until they can see the colour of the west's money. But there is more to it than power politics. Global governance is fundamentally dysfunctional because, while the power of markets has expanded rapidly, the international system has atrophied. Politicians find themselves pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, they are urged by big finance and big capital to remove barriers, on the grounds that freer movement of goods and capital will encourage the international division of labour and thereby raise overall global income. Business wants light-touch market states to sit alongside market economies. On the other hand, governments find that pushing through policies consistent with the creed of globalisation - dismantling tariffs, welcoming out sourcing, opening markets to imports from poor countries even in the absence of reciprocation - is hard to sell to the electorate. Voters don't believe it when they are told that while outsourcing costs jobs initially it ultimately means greater prosperity because it leads to lower prices and higher real incomes. They suspect that they will lose the jobs at the call centre while those running the company get the higher incomes. Given the antics of executives in recent years, who can blame them? This pressure from below is unlikely to abate. Voters have become more liberated in many ways over the past few decades; they take for granted emotional freedom and political rights irrespective of gender, race or sexual orientation, so they are unlikely to take kindly to being treated like economic vassals. They also see themselves as consumers of everything - including politics - so if the government says it can't prevent jobs being lost or living standards being eroded voters will stay at home. These mutually antagonistic forces make global governance a nightmare, and inevitably lead to messy compromises. The EU, for example, makes organisational sense as a commonwealth of nation states, agreeing to work together only in areas of common interest such as environmental protection or free trade. It also hangs together conceptually as a single unitary government, with monetary policy, fiscal policy, defence and foreign affairs decided at the centre. A hybrid system, with a power struggle between nation states and the centre, is far more problematical. The same tensions apply at the global level. At the United Nations, the veto for the five permanent members of the security council reflects the power of the nation state (or rather the big nation states in 1945) to influence events in the global forum. Without it, the UN would long ago have gone the way of the League of Nations. At the WTO, all 146 nations have a theoretical veto, although in practice it would be hard to imagine Guyana or Tanzania holding out against everybody else. Self-evidently, this makes decision-making cumbersome and slow, but it is hard to see what the alternative is, because messy compromise is a function of democracy. The only purchase individuals have on the EU, the UN, the IMF, the WTO or the World Bank is through the ballot box and that tends to mean through the nation state. Nation states see their primary task as defending national interests. For development organisations, this is frustrating. They have a sensible agenda for the WTO that would repair the damage caused three months ago; the problem
Correction
The Fidel Castro article I referred to was actually by Fernando Morais, in Penthouse, December 1978 issue (a collector's item these days). Tad Szulc wrote mainly on American subversion of foreign governments as I recall, although he later also published a biography of Castro. Oui magazine also featured an interview with Castro in January 1975. Playboy published an interview with Castro by Lee Lockwood (pseud.) in January 1967 and again in August 1985. Here's an excerpt from the 1985 interview: PLAYBOY: Let's end on a note of imagination. Here is something truly wonderful from your point of view: Suppose the U.S. canceled Latin America's foreign debt, as you propose, and offered substantial aid to boot - in other words, offered to treat the hemisphere with the fairness you think it deserves. What would you do then? Reassess your views? CASTRO: If the United States were to spontaneously do what you say - if such an inherently selfish, neocolonialist system were capable of that generosity - a real miracle would have taken place, and I would have to start meditating on that phenomenon. I might even have to consult some theologians and revise some of my opinions in that field. If that were to happen, I might even enter a monastery. :-) Jurriaan
Re: the evolving exchange value of the human body
What a story... It hurts, but it will be worth it to be taller. I'll have more opportunities in life and a better chance of finding a good job and husband. It isn't even true, in my experience. J.
Re: the evolving exchange value of the human body
From foot-binding to leg-lengthening. Progress of a sort, I suppose Gil A tall order It's painful and slow, but can make you five inches taller. Jonathan Watts on the surgical trend sweeping China - leg-lengthening Monday December 15, 2003 The Guardian Kong Jing-wen has paid £5,700 to have both of her legs broken and stretched on a rack. The pretty college graduate is now lying in bed, clearly still in considerable pain three days after a doctor sawed through the flesh and bone below her knee to insert what looks an awful lot like knitting needles through the length of her tibiae. These giant steel pins are connected by eight screws punched horizontally through her ankle and calf to a steel cage surrounding each leg. Once the bone starts to heal, these cages will act like a medieval torture device - each day over the next few months Kong will turn the screws a fraction and stretch her limbs more and more until she has grown by 8cm. Despite the agony, the cost and the inconvenience, the 23-year-old says she does not regret a thing. It hurts, but it will be worth it to be taller. I'll have more opportunities in life and a better chance of finding a good job and husband. Her parents, who financed the operation and are now at her bedside, agree. It's an investment in our daughter's future. Because she was short, she used to lack confidence, but this should change that. Kong Jing-wen is one of a growing number of perfectly healthy Chinese young men and women who are willing to break a leg for beauty in order to rise up the ladder in height-conscious China. The complex and time-consuming procedure they are willing to endure was initially developed in Russia for people with stunted growth, mismatched legs or disfigurements. But these days the operation is increasingly used for cosmetic purposes. In part, the popularity of such surgery can be explained by the surge of interest in fashion and beauty in a country where the rising middle classes are shaking off a dowdy Maoist cultural legacy and using the rewards of explosive economic growth to explore cosmetic possibilities. Shops and magazines in the cities show endless images of long-legged western models, inevitably putting pressure on young women. Doctors have been able to pioneer new forms of this surgery because height is so socially important in China that it is often the first thing strangers will talk about. It is also listed among the criteria required on job advertisements. To get a post in the foreign ministry, for instance, male applicants need not bother applying unless they are at least 5ft 7in, while women must be at least 5ft 3in. Chinese diplomats are expected to be tall to match the height of their foreign counterparts. For more glamorous positions the conditions are even tougher: air stewardesses have to be over 5ft 5in. But height discrimination is evident even at ground level: in some places, people under 5ft 3in are not even eligible to take a driving test. To get into many law schools, women students need to be over 5ft 1in and men over 5ft 5in. Height requirements are also frequently mentioned in the personal ads of newspapers and magazines. All this has ensured a steady stream of business for osteogenetic surgeons like Dr Xia Hetao, who has pioneered a height-increasing technique in Beijing used by about 150 people every year. More and more people want to be taller, he says. It is so important for the image of an individual or a company that some people come here in tears begging for an operation. With a minimum £4,000 price tag attached to the procedure, the patients are all well-off by Chinese standards. According to employees at Dr Xia's institute of external skeletal fixation technology, it is not just women who are prepared to have their legs lengthened - men are just as keen. The vast majority of patients are job- and spouse-hunters in their 20s, but teenagers are also among the patients and the oldest person to have the operation was a 52-year-old woman. She was very wealthy and had everything else she wanted, so she decided to fix her height which had always been a concern for her, explained one of the staff. In many cases, the clients are not even particularly short to begin with. Dr Xia said one 5ft 8in women asked to grow an inch so that she could reach the standard needed to qualify as an international fashion model. But most of the others are under average height and undergo up to two operations so that they can grow by a maximum of almost five inches. Each procedure has three stages. First comes the operation in which the legs are broken and steel pins - 27cm long and 8mm in diameter - are pushed through the bone. These are fixed to an external frame by eight or so screws, each of which is 4mm in diameter. Next comes the stretching, which is carried out over several months (depending on how much the customer wants to grow) by turning the screws each day and lengthening the bone at the point where it was broken. When
Re: Question re basics
Jurriaan Bendien wrote: Personally, I never stop thinking, although the brain seizes up sometimes. It's one of the most interesting things you can do with your own brain, really. What's tougher than that is to be able to stop thinking while remaining conscious and highly sensitive. (not claiming to have achieved that myself...) Joanna
protection rackets redux; Argentina
[Los Angeles Times] 2000 Argentina Bribe Scandal Reopens After New Confession By Héctor Tobar Times Staff Writer December 14, 2003 BUENOS AIRES - A congressional official's emotional confession in a report published Saturday has reopened one of Argentina's most notorious scandals, shedding light on the behind-the-scenes dealings that doomed a president and set off years of political instability. In an interview with Buenos Aires magazine TXT, former Senate Secretary Mario Pontaquarto described how he personally delivered a $5-million bribe to nine senators at the behest of President Fernando de la Rua in April 2000. The money, Pontaquarto said, was provided from the Argentine intelligence service's secret funds and delivered in two briefcases to senators of the nation's dominant political parties, the Radicals and the Peronists. I asked him why me, why couldn't someone else do this, Pontaquarto told TXT, remembering the moment a senator told him he would be the go-between delivering the money. But I didn't turn him down. They were telling me it had to be done, the government needed it to be done. Pontaquarto spoke to the magazine three weeks ago and repeated his story late Friday to a judge investigating the case. He has been granted immunity from prosecution, and the judge has called his testimony convincing and very precise. Several senators were named as defendants when the scandal first broke in 2000, but over the years all charges in the case had been dropped for lack of evidence. The charges could be reinstated, however, as a result of the new testimony. The bribery allegations split De la Rua's ruling center-left coalition. Frustrated with De la Rua's apparent unwillingness to pursue the case, Vice President Carlos Alvarez resigned and his leftist Frepaso movement left the government. The weakened De la Rua was himself forced from office amid rioting and protest in December 2001. The alleged bribes bought yes votes for a business-backed employment reform law demanded by the International Monetary Fund but which faced strong resistance from organized labor and its allies in the Argentine Congress. Elected president in 1999, De la Rua inherited a country that was burdened with a growing public debt and was increasingly dependent on IMF loans. The IMF insisted that Argentina implement reforms. De la Rua denied Saturday that he authorized bribing anyone, calling the accusations absolutely false. He accused current President Nestor Kirchner's government of planting the story as part of a political operation against him. Kirchner's government announced that it has provided protection to Pontaquarto - who says he fears for his life - and has helped his family seek refuge abroad. Presidential Cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez said Kirchner had been aware of Pontaquarto's confession for several days before its publication. Those who are responsible must fall, Fernandez said. Pontaquarto was the highest-ranking bureaucrat in Congress, a 20-year functionary who had won the trust of the legislature's many factions. Despite media reports naming him as a likely conduit for the suspected bribes, he had always denied involvement. In the TXT interview published Saturday, he describes the bribery episode as a cloak-and-dagger operation that included visits to the president's office and to a vault inside the Argentine intelligence agency, known by its Spanish initials, SIDE. Argentina's powerful labor movement had been pressuring lawmakers for months to vote against the law that, among other things, made it easier for businesses to dismiss employees. Pontaquarto says that at that point, he was summoned to the president's office for a meeting with a small group of key senators. Classical music was playing loudly in the background - apparently, the president feared his office might be bugged, Pontaquarto said. Something more was needed to pass the law, one of the senators said. Arrange it with Santibanes, the president responded, referring to his intelligence chief, Fernando de Santibanes. A few weeks later, Pontaquarto was summoned to a meeting with the intelligence chief. He was told to return later that evening to pick up the money. Inside the vault, he was given two briefcases, Pontaquarto told TXT. After placing them in his car, he drove to Congress, a SIDE security escort trailing behind him. But some complications arose, he said, and he ended up hiding the money in his house for a few days before turning most of it over to Sen. Emilio Cantarero, a Peronist. Pontaquarto said he watched in the senator's apartment as the lawmaker counted the bills. When he was done, Cantarero handed him a list detailing how he and other Peronist senators would divvy up the bribes, Pontaquarto said. He told me to keep it as a receipt, Pontaquarto said, adding that he hid it in a secure place. He said he delivered the second briefcase to Radical Party Sen. Jose Genoud, then provisional president of the Senate.
Re: Correction
Castro has a great sense of humor and gives great interviews. In one of the interviews you mention, he is asked whether there could be a socialist revolution in the U.S. He denies the possibility citing the undermining power of advertising on Americans' ability to desire something (for example, social revolution) and pursue unswervingly. How can they? I remember him asking, When they are being told every five minutes that they want something else, and something else... Joanna Jurriaan Bendien wrote: The Fidel Castro article I referred to was actually by Fernando Morais, in Penthouse, December 1978 issue (a collector's item these days). Tad Szulc wrote mainly on American subversion of foreign governments as I recall, although he later also published a biography of Castro. Oui magazine also featured an interview with Castro in January 1975. Playboy published an interview with Castro by Lee Lockwood (pseud.) in January 1967 and again in August 1985. Here's an excerpt from the 1985 interview: PLAYBOY: Let's end on a note of imagination. Here is something truly wonderful from your point of view: Suppose the U.S. canceled Latin America's foreign debt, as you propose, and offered substantial aid to boot - in other words, offered to treat the hemisphere with the fairness you think it deserves. What would you do then? Reassess your views? CASTRO: If the United States were to spontaneously do what you say - if such an inherently selfish, neocolonialist system were capable of that generosity - a real miracle would have taken place, and I would have to start meditating on that phenomenon. I might even have to consult some theologians and revise some of my opinions in that field. If that were to happen, I might even enter a monastery. :-) Jurriaan
Re: the evolving exchange value of the human body
Gil Skillman wrote: From foot-binding to leg-lengthening. Progress of a sort, I suppose Not at all, I think. The article just made me muse about the medieval horrors raised up in my mind's eye by the description of this procedure ...and how these tortures are now self-imposed. So long as we aspire to nothing more than being perfect objects, how can there be progress? Joanna
Re: Estimating the surplus\Doug's question
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003, Doug Henwood wrote: Fred B. Moseley wrote: You are comparing a cyclical low (1982) with a cyclical high (1997). And do your estimates include interest? 1997 was four years before the cyclical high, actually. But the 1982 low was in many ways - political as well as economic - a point of structural reversal. Mexico's debt crisis marked the onset of neoliberal restructuring of the world; the stock market took off at almost the same minute as the Mexican quasi-default; and the Reagan boom was about to begin. That was about a lot more than a business cycle - it was about a whole new regime of accumulation. And my point is that this new regime of accumulation - whose main purpose was to restore the rate of profit - has been only partially successful. 1997 was the peak for the share and rate of profit, as you must know, after which they declined sharply, so that the share of profit in 2001 was almost as low as in 1982. Doug, do you think that profit has been restored to such an extent that the US economy is entering a new long-wave period of growth and relative prosperity, with signficant increases in average real wages? Comradely, Fred
Re: Correction
In a message dated 12/14/03 7:25:48 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Fidel Castro article I referred to was actually by Fernando Morais, in Penthouse, December 1978 issue (a collector's item these days). Tad Szulc wrote mainly on American subversion of foreign governments as I recall, although he later also published a biography of Castro. Comment Somewhere in the twisted corners of my mind are several articles by Tad Szulc on oil and the politics of oil from the mid and late 1970s. What every happened to this guy? I think his material ran in Penthouse or perhaps Playboy. Melvin P. Melvin P.
