Re: Sowell
The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html David Shemano
Re: Sowell
David Shemano said: The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html David Shemano From that interview: So you were a lefty once. Through the decade of my 20s, I was a Marxist. What made you turn around? What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels, which they did at that time industry by industry, the employment levels were falling. I was studying the sugar industry. There were two explanations of what was happening. One was the conventional economic explanation: that as you pushed up the minimum-wage level, you were pricing people out of their jobs. The other one was that there were a series of hurricanes that had come through Puerto Rico, destroying sugar cane in the field, and therefore employment was lower. The unions preferred that explanation, and some of the liberals did, too. I never thought that by posting that original article (Low Taxes Do What?!), I would stir up a lengthy debate on Sowell! But I've learnt a lot. Whatever his strengths or weaknesses as an economist, it seems he is under the impression that there is not much difference between the _political_ viewpoints and objectives of Marxists, Puerto Rican union officials and some of the liberals. Sowell can hardly be blamed for this, considering that so much of what has passed for Marxism --- at least since the late 1960s --- would more accurately be described as varieties of radical liberalism, labourism, (Bernsteinian) social democracy, etc. This is shown in his emphasis on the objective of preserving jobs in the sugar industry --- on objective which is both modest in terms of political change, and (IMHO) damn nigh impossible in terms of either a local/national capitalist economy, or an overarching global capitalist economy. regards, Grant.
When dissidents change their minds (Zinoviev)
If people don't know, Zinoviev was author of the Yawning Heights and Homo Sovieticus, a former Cold War dissident exiled from the Soviet Union and went gonzo anti-Communist. pravda.ruJune 30, 2004Triumphant vengeancePhilosopher Alexander Zinoviev considers that the West regained its powerthanks to Russia's defeatEverything has been calculated in today's modern world. It isn"t difficultto picture our country as a firm. Who's going to calculate our country'sdamages today? This will be the topic of our discussion with Doctor ofPhilosophy Alexander Zinoviev who is also an expert of the West.-Alexander Alexandrovich, neither one of modern dictionaries has such termas "Russophobia". Does it mean that the subject does not exist?-The subject does exist, and it is quite important these days. It"s gotdeep historic roots. But I am a sociologist; I have always been interestedin purely sociological aspects. I became interested in the subject after myvisit to the West I 1978. There, I could spot such phenomenon practicallyeverywhere. Russophobia was everywhere: in mass media, in scientificcircles, on a day-to-day basis. I posed myself a reasonable question: Whyis this happening?-And?-And now I am aware of the answer. It's all in the fight, the fight that"sbeen going on for the entire XX century. Western world was fighting againstCommunism. Historically it so happened that Russians became very muchconnected with communist ideas and their practices. Western world in turn,views all Russians as hereditary communists. They even began to falsify ourpast, especially Soviet reality. The way it was interpreted was pathetic. Iused to write a lot about it. Interestingly, but even after the collapse ofthe soviet empire, those falsifications of historic data of Russianpeoples, of Russian character did not cease to exist.The West treated me as though I was a anti-Communist and an anti-Soviet(even though I regarded myself as neither one). That is why I had access toeverything that was done in sovietological centers and secret servicesthere. It was then that I discovered that the governing western elite (bothpolitical and ideological) had developed a long-term program, whichincluded the collapse of the soviet socialist regime and liquidation ofcommunism in the first place. That wasn"t all however. One of their majortasks was also aimed at bringing Russia down so that the country will neverbe able to recover fully and rise to its initial position of the greatsuperpower.-I see. But what exactly do you mean by "Program"? Perhaps, you presumethat everything has already been predestined for us?-As far as the program is concerned, even if we were to treat my statementsabout this program as merely hypothetical, there exist facts to support it.In fact, you can see them everywhere. Another program-maximum entailscomplete liquidation of the Russian peoples from world history.-What do you mean? How?-What makes you so surprised? After all, it has been revealed that someplans entailed reduction of the Russian population to 50 millions. And M.Thatcher, by the way, used to note that even 15 million people will beenough to develop Russia for the sake of the West.Today, based on contemporary social laws, a country needs to have a minimumof 300 million residents in order to maintain its sovereignty. Why do youthink Europeans suddenly began to unite? It is important to consider thefollowing circumstance. The West facilitates politics of genocide inregards to Russians. Unfortunately, many of our fellow countrymen are ontheir side.Western world has already developed strategic plans to establish itsdomination, to westernize the whole world. Obviously, we remain enemies forthe western world today because Russians differ significantly fromWesterners in terms of their characters and their historical fate. Westernway of life will never be fully adopted in Russia. In the West, they notonly have bad attitude towards our "hereditary inclination" towardscommunism, but towards the Russian-factor as is/ what does it mean? Thingis, Russians are extremely gifted people in a variety of subjects. In just70 years, we were able to contribute so much to the world"s culture that noother nation ever did. And in such difficult times! During my stay in theWest, I noticed that the country was fearful of the fact that the SovietUnion will continue to develop and strengthen.Russians are very talented people, let me repeat myself. However, one oftheir major disadvantages is that they cannot use the fruits of theircreativity. As a result, their "fruits" are being purposely stolen fromthem. Not long before my return back home from America, I had a meetingwith an old friend of mine, an American who was a specialist of Russianculture. We had a long conversation. Among other things he mentioned thatAmerica does not have a need to study sciences. He said they could easilyuse Russian knowledge, which they can easily acquire for little or no money.As a sociologist, I immediately
Re: Enron
Gerry Cohen wrote a lot about this. I can't remember which side he came down on, but he certainly agreed with David that you have to be very careful in using the language of theft when talking about capitalist surplus-value or you end up basically legitimating a whole lot of property rights-talk and missing a much more fundamentally egalitarian position. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of k hanly Sent: 01 July 2004 05:25 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Enron Why does the statement assume the justness of private property? Surely it assumes the opposite. Of course the thesis is common Proudhon in fact wrote a book on property that coined the expression property as theft. In spite of the great bitterness Marx shows towards his views, Proudhon ,as Marx, thinks of the theft as basically appropriation of value of labor without the exchange being equivalent--- very much like Marx's appropriation of surplus value through ownership of means of production etc. by capitalists. What is assumed as just is that a person should be able to appropriate the value of what they produce through their labor and that private property in the means of production makes this impossible and so is inherently unjust. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: David B. Shemano [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 8:48 PM Subject: Re: Enron In defense of David Shemano, Michael Perelman writes: David is a conservative. He speaks English with a right wing dialect, but he does so with humor (not snottiness). We can disagree with him. I usually do, but we can still be polite. I don't see him as a red meat class warrior, but as a sincere [albeit misguided] conservative]. As a I said when I first participated on this list so many years ago, I am here to learn, and believe learning results from dialectic argument. The argument that capitalism is legalized fraud and theft is a very interesting thesis which I would love to explore. (For instance, doesn't that statement, as a normative statement, assume the justness of private property, because if not, what is wrong with theft?). However, as Prof. Craven does not appear to suffer from any doubt, I doubt he would enjoy such an exchange with me. You can't please everybody. David Shemano
Re: Enron
Ken Hanly wrote: What is assumed as just is that a person should be able to appropriate the value of what they produce through their labor and that private property in the means of production makes this impossible and so is inherently unjust. The ultimate idea of right that Marx defends is from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. The claim is that reason can show that my interest is the same as David Shemano's, namely to live a good life, and that this, for me as for him, is a life creating and appropriating beauty and truth within relations of mutual recognition. Such a life generates instrumental needs which include both its material prerequisites and the all-round development of the individual living it requires. That he and all others should have these needs met is in my interest as well as his and theirs because it's a requirement of my being able myself to live a good life in this sense. What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another. Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form. Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case. In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor. But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal. But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby. In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor,
Corporate Kerry
LA Weekly, July 2-8, 2004 Corporate Kerry The senator comes to California for the rich persons vote and dollars by Howard Blume The battle for the White House looks a lot like class war when union leaders call Bush an SOB, and the Bush administration lets corporate lobbyists rewrite the laws governing U.S.-style capitalism. But in an infrequent swing through California last week, impending Democratic nominee John F. Kerry called a truce not with Bush, but with the business class. In San Jose, Kerry literally embraced Lee Iacocca, that old warhorse of capitalism, while also insisting to Silicon Valley execs that hes their candidate, too. The goal was partly to use California as a campaign ATM. Kerry succeeded richly in that a Disney Hall concert by Barbra Streisand and friends contributed to a haul of more than $8 million. But then, President Bush also hits pay dirt, with a different crowd, when he goes California prospecting. Between check-writing events, Kerry made a different pitch, namely that hed be good for business better than Bush. And that he shouldnt be confused with the Senator John F. Kerry who thundered anti-corporate themes to unions both before and after the Silicon Valley appearances. But what about that other John Kerry, the anti-business replicant? Later in the day, that Senator Kerry told amped-up union-eers in Anaheim that hed make it easier to form unions and that hed fight the corporate greed of Big Pharma by allowing Americans to import drugs from Canada. And I will fight for a prescription-drug benefit that puts seniors ahead of big drug companies in America, Kerry thundered to national delegates of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). He also pledged to end corporate tax breaks for the likes of Enron, Exxon and Halliburton. But apparently not all magnates are created evil. In their joint appearance at San Jose State, Kerry called former Chrysler CEO Iacocca an American icon, one of the great business leaders of the United States, one of the great innovators. It isnt clear which sobriquets would apply had Iacocca endorsed Bush instead. Iacocca had endorsed Bush in the 2000 campaign, even cutting commercials on his behalf. And Iacocca campaigned for Ronald Reagan in both 1980 and 1984. Iacocca never said in his speech why he soured on Bush, who, give the man credit, has been all about giving the wealthy and mega-corporations what they want. Bush cut taxes for the richest Americans. He eased clean-air restrictions that could have cost factory owners billions. He advocated expanded drilling for oil companies. And dont forget that the Iraq war has moved billions of taxpayer dollars into corporate coffers through government contracts a boon for defense contractors, and security services as well as other private contractors and individual entrepreneurs, if they have no fear of death. More new jobs there, too. Iacocca explained his disenchantment in a brief one-on-one after the Kerry event. I was so against the Iraq war, so mad about the war, I couldnt see straight, said Iacocca. And I dont need a tax cut. Im a wealthy man. And budget deficits do matter. I wrote a book on that. I dont see how Bush can cut taxes like that without the revenue coming in. I mean, whats he going to cut? I mean, you could decide not to go to Mars, but other than that . . . Im also concerned about health care. Iacocca looked convincing as elder statesman. I have two great causes left in my life, he said in his public remarks. One is to find a cure for diabetes. Ive been working on it for about 21 years now, and believe it or not, weve had a couple of breakthroughs. Were getting closer, really. The other is to change the direction of my country. Which meant, he said, endorsing Kerry. full: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/32/news-blume.php -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Iraq's indentured servants
Underclass of Workers Created in Iraq Many Foreign Laborers Receive Inferior Pay, Food and Shelter By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 1, 2004; Page A01 KOLLAM, India -- The war in Iraq has been a windfall for Kellogg Brown Root Inc., the company that has a multibillion-dollar contract to provide support services for U.S. troops. Its profits have come thanks to the hard work of people like Dharmapalan Ajayakumar, who until last month served as a kitchen helper at a military base. But Ajayakumar, 29, a former carpenter's assistant from this coastal town, was not there by choice. He said he was tricked into going to Iraq by a recruiting agent who told him the job was in Kuwait. Moreover, he said, the company skimped on expenses by not providing him and other workers with adequate drinking water, food, health care or security for part of their time in the war zone. I cursed my fate -- not having a feeling my life was secure, knowing I could not go back, and being treated like a kind of animal, said Ajayakumar, who worked for less than $7 a day. Working alongside Americans trying to rebuild Iraq are an estimated tens of thousands of foreign contractors without whom the reconstruction could not function. Many toil for wages that are one-tenth -- or less -- of what U.S. workers might demand, saving millions of taxpayer dollars. The employees were hired through a maze of recruiters and subcontractors on several continents, making oversight and accountability of the workforce difficult. Pakistan is looking into reports that recruiters were illegally trying to hire security personnel to go to Iraq. The Philippines is assessing protection measures for its nationals after attacks killed two military support workers. And India is conducting an investigation into the dining service workers' allegations. The State Department said it received a request from India for assistance and has passed it along to the Defense Department. A spokeswoman for the Army, which manages the KBR contract, said the responsibility for the investigation rests with the company. KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., came to employ Ajayakumar and other Indian workers through five levels of subcontractors and employment agents. The company, which employs 30,000 workers from 38 countries in support of the U.S. military, said it had been unaware of the workers' concerns until recently full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19228-2004Jun30.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
The crusade against Ralph Nader continues...
(The liberal crusade against Ralph Nader continues unabated despite the victory of David Kerry Cobb. This is from salon.com, a wretched online publication that serves as a tag-team partner for the Nation Magazine in policing the left.) The dark side of Ralph Nader He's made a career of railing against corporate misdeeds. Yet he himself has abused his underlings, betrayed close friends and ruled his public-interest empire like a dictator. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Lisa Chamberlain July 1, 2004 | Ralph Nader spent his 70th birthday with Bill Maher on his HBO show Real Time, where Maher pressed him on exactly what his controversial fourth presidential campaign will contribute to the national debate. Nader repeated once again that he's the only candidate not beholden to corporate America. While Nader's legacy as a consumer advocate is unparalleled, it is worth noting that the onetime national hero wasn't celebrating his landmark birthday surrounded by the hundreds of people he has worked with and influenced over four decades. Indeed, virtually no one who worked with him since the heady days of Nader's Raiders is supporting him politically or personally today. He has inspired almost no loyalty and instead has alienated many of his closest associates. Yet this is not a new phenomenon, the result of his ruinous campaign for president in 2000, but a long-festering and little-known antipathy that dates back to his earliest days as a public figure. full: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/01/nader_jacobs/index_np.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
An announcement from Brad DeLong's favorite historian
Aloha, [see PS below] I thought you would be interested in my latest attempt to communicate as broadly as possible that promoting democratic freedom is our best solution to eliminating war, democide, and famine. I have written an alternative history series that will ultimately involve six novels and a non-fiction supplement. All but the sixth is written, and the first two in the series have just been published. A third also will be out in a few weeks. The overall plots revolve around these questions: What if there were a solution to war and genocide? What if a secret society sent back to 1906 two lovers, one a gorgeous but headstrong warrior, the other a pacifistic professor of history, and gave them the incredible wealth and weapons necessary to create a peaceful alternate universe--one that never experienced the horrors of World War, the Holocaust, and the other atrocities of the twentieth century? Would these mismatched lovers succeed, or would they be destroyed by their conflicts, the vast armies and secret police opposing them, and the assassins also sent back in time to kill them? If you are interested in further information about Book 1 (War Democide Never Again), Book 2, (Nuclear Holocaust Never Again), Book 3 (Reset Never Again), and Book 4 (Red Terror Never Again) you will find a synopsis of the series and the first three chapters of Books 1-3, and the first chapter of Book 4 at: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NH.HTM Best Wishes. Rudy Rummel Professor Emeritus -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: gabriel kolko
On Wednesday, June 30, 2004 at 20:16:01 (-0700) Michael Perelman writes: Does anybody on the list know how to contact him? kolko [at] counterpunch.org? He's at York University (yorku.ca) so you could also try kolko or gkolko [at] yorku.ca. Bill
Re: Sowell
The wonders of the Internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.htmlDavid Shemano Comment Mr. Sowell is of course no one fool or "boy" . . . and most certainly not an Uncle Tom . . . a characterization that can mean virtually anything depending on usage. In Michigan one of the very first African Americans and Marxist to declare themselves for the Republican Party was a gentlemen named William Brown Jr. Bill and I were leaders in the "student movement" and member of the old League of Revolutionary Black Workers and later the Communist League. There was always "something conservative" about Bill and here is the dilemma. There was always "something conservative" about African Americans and a very large segment of them. What was trying to be conserved was the right to enter American society as equal and "have my own thing" or to "make my way in life" using all that is available in society. Bill's political evolution amazed none of us because we lived the polarization and shifting economic relations amongst the African American people as they sought to take their place in American society as equals to their respective counterparts. I became a union leader, whichis an economic category several steps above the most poverty stricken. This reality of the African American as a people has not been properly understood . . . or rather, interpreted very different. If one suspends the color factor and their subjective understanding of color for a moment the path of theAfrican American has not been unlike that of variousethnic groups in theireconomic and political strivings. The force that has held the African American people together as a people was not language, religion or other "ethnic" factors present as the quest of the Italian or Irish or Slavic workers in American history, but rather the violence of the whites, legal and extra legal measures and pressures in the context of about 90 years of segregation. Mr. Sowell understands this dynamic but he apparently understands as an outsider or one who has not studied the issue in its concreteness. For instance, in the interview pointed out above that is a radically incorrect notion of the meaning and origins of Jim Crow and segregation. For instance, segregation and what would become the Jim Crow laws have their origins in the North and not the South. There is a reason that Detroit exploded violently in 1967 . . . and the catalyst was in fact a crap game. The source material for this specific evolution is "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" by C. Vann Woodward. Dr. Claude Anderson - formerly of the Carter administration, traces the peculiar evolution of what became the black community in the North in his "Black Labor/White Wealth," and he uses as a line of delineation the freeing of 30,000 black slaves in the North in 1790 and their subsequent social and economic evolution. Mr. Sowell's evolution out of Marxism is neither surprising and questionable as an assertion. There are as many different brands of Marxism as their are Republicans, Democrats and General Motors divisions and make of automobiles. One can argue the meaning of "Marxism" and end up with a definition that proceeds from ones "brand identity." I most certainly did not and do not espouse what has been "brand Marxism" between the period of the 1960s and 1990s. Mr. Sowell is correct in my opinion concerning vouchers and most blacks I have lived with and represented in various organizations and the Union would immediately opt for the chance to send their children to better schools. This would not of course alleviate or radically alter the intractable social position of the most poverty stricken and destitute in our society and I refer to this segment of society as the "real proletariat" - the bottom stratum of society. I do not question the sincerity of Mr. Sowell's vision but rather all the assumptions about American society implicit in his vision. Blacks or rather African Americans or the descendants of slaves of the old plantation system manifest the intractable social position of not being slaves but rather being on the bottom of the social ladder. This is a different conceptual framework from Mr. Sowell. The bottom of the social ladder means the bottom of all the classes and class fragments that correspond with their counterpart amongst the Anglo American people . . . although cities like Atlanta Georgia continue to amaze me. The rebellion in Detroit - 1967, and why the catalyst was literally a crap game or "blind pig" or what we simply call "an after-hours joint" is not understood. This is actually an economic question and involves money. Who has money to frequent an after hours joint in the first place? Higher paid industrial workers, street entrepreneurs and hustlers . . . number men or those who booked the illegal numbers. The
Re: Chechnya and capitalism
Louis wrote: You may be a great economist, but sometimes you suck as a moderator. Respectfully, I have to disagree. Michael is an excellent moderator. Michael does something akin to actual life: keep differing ideas in contact, because there is something that comes out of it that's better than the sectarianism Jim mentioned in a separate thread. I am sure you put me in the same sniper category as Doug. I have accepted that horrible fate. But those two chaps are both better moderators than you. (That is just my opinion, since you have opened up that line of comment.) This is an utter disgrace that so few people on pen-l would take a stand against this. Utter... these are the kinds of purple prose flourishes that I have privately noted to you that you should lose... Ken. -- All politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Men's Understanding. -- Anthony Ashley Cooper Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Re: Chechnya and capitalism
This is an utter disgrace that so few peopleon pen-l would take a stand against this. -- It's much more of an utter disgrace that some people on pen-l would repond to ethnographic data, links to entire books, and references to scholarly articles with vague and totally unsubstantiated analogies, quotes from dead people that have no relation to the present, and slanderous fabrications that haven't even been fact-checked. In other words, it's an utter disgrace that some people are such utter frauds. Michael, when are you going to unsub me? Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
Re: Chechnya and capitalism
Kenneth Campbell wrote: Respectfully, I have to disagree. Michael is an excellent moderator. Michael does something akin to actual life: keep differing ideas in contact, because there is something that comes out of it that's better than the sectarianism Jim mentioned in a separate thread. Yes, that's true. I apologize to Michael for this characterization. In fact, I try to moderate Marxmail with the same wisdom that he applies here. I lost my temper unfortunately after a day of being baited on pen-l. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Announcement
From now on, I will refrain from commenting on Chris Doss's posts. I respect the fact that not everybody on pen-l is a socialist or a radical. Furthermore, I believe that I said everything I have had to say on Putin and Chechnya at this point. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
California Labor vs. AFL on Venezuela
If folks in California want to act on this, reply to me I will send along contact info for the folks in California who are organizing it. Worth reading. They appear to have a smoking gun on AFL/ACILS collusion in preparatory events for the coup and AFL lying about it to their members in California. -Robert Naiman, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This Resolution has been passed by the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, the San Francisco Labor Council, the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council and several unions. It will be on the agenda at the California State Federation of Labor Convention in San Diego July 13-14. The resolution will need the support of a majority of unions and delegates to carry. If you are a delegate to the Convention, your support is vital. The issues surrounding AFL-CIO activities abroad have been pending for many years, It is high time to make some changes. RESOLUTION TO BUILD UNITY AND TRUST AMONG WORKERS WORLDWIDE WHEREAS, the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council (SBLC) and its affiliate, Plumbers and Fitters Local 393 presented the ³Clear the Air Resolution² at the July 24,2002 California State Federation of Labor Convention (CalFed). Though many delegates had current concern about Venezuela, ³Clear the Air² outlined an AFL-CIO role leading to the 1973 coup in Chile and, among other things, called upon the AFL-CIO, ³to fully account for what was done in Chile and other countries where similar roles may have been played in our name, to renounce such policies and practices..., describe, country by country, exactly what activities it may still be engaged in abroad with funds paid by government agencies and renounce any such ties that could compromise our authentic credibility and the trust of workers here and abroad and that would make us paid agents of government or of the forces of corporate economic globalization²; and WHEREAS, leaders of the State Federation presented a substitute resolution, ³Looking Ahead on AFL-CIO Policy Abroad,² calling ³upon the AFL-CIO to convene a meeting with the State Federation and interested affiliates in California to discuss their present foreign affairs activities involving government funds. The aim of the meeting will be to clear the air concerning AFL-CIO policy abroad and to affirm a policy of genuine global solidarity²; and WHEREAS, leaders of the State Federation, the SBLC, Local 393 and UFCW Local 428 negotiated an agreement to accept the compromise ³Looking Ahead² resolution, based explicitly on the understanding that the meeting with the AFL-CIO had the burden of satisfying the outlined concerns and if it failed to do so, then the original ³Clear the Air² resolution would require implementation. In calls for unity, that understanding was clearly stated on the floor of the convention without discord or disagreement; and WHEREAS, when, after 15 months of delays, the meeting with the AFL-CIO finally took place on 10/14/2003, those in attendance were assured that the AFL-CIO¹s total ³solidarity program² with the Venezuelan Labor Confederation (CTV) - top leaders of which had acted in pivotal collusion with the employers association (FEDECAMARAS) to try to force the democratically elected president, Hugo Chavez, into exile in April 2002 - amounted to less than $20,000 in support of the Confederation¹s internal democratization process; and WHEREAS, newly released government documents reveal that the AFL-CIO¹s American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) received a 2002 grant of $116,001, awarded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) under ³the authority contained in P.L. 98-164, as amended...and Grant No. S-L MAOM-02-H-0054 between the United States Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy..,² part of $703,927 that had been granted by NED to ACILS between 1997 and 2002 for ACILS work in Venezuela. During 2001 NED granted $154,377 to ACILS as part of a massive increase in NED funding that year to $877,000 for activities which coincide directly with the efforts of the Bush administration leading to the April 11, 2002 coup in oil rich Venezuela; and WHEREAS, according to ACILS ³VENEZUELA: QUARTERLY REPORT 2001-045 January to March 2002,² ³The CTV and FEDECAMARAS...held a national conference on March 5...to identify common objectives as well as areas of cooperation...the culminating event of some two months of meetings and planning...during which the two organizations announced a national accord¹...The joint action further established the CTV and FEDECAMARAS as the flagship organizations leading the growing opposition to the Chavez government² ONE MONTH BEFORE THE COUP; and WHEREAS, in that report ACILS said it helped to ³support the event in planning stages, organizing the initial meetings with...FEDECAMARAS... Solidarity Center (ACILS) provided assistance for the five regional preparatory meetings ...held between January 22nd and March 1st... The March 5 national
Re: The presidential election and the Supreme Court
The US has never pulled out of the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 (or 1929?), which banned war as a tool of foreign policy. So, as in WW2, it waits until the other guy declares war (as Hitler did), or simply organizes a police action. jd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list on behalf of Perelman, Michael Sent: Wed 6/30/2004 6:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The presidential election and the Supreme Court You are correct. Vietnam was also an undeclared war. Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Davies Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 6:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The presidential election and the Supreme Court I seem to remember from university days that the power of Congress to decide whether or not the USA is at war or not, is one that has repeatedly been ignored by successive US Presidents to the point where it is more or less universally regarded as part of the dignified apparatus of the US constitution rather than the efficient part. Though I also seem to remember failing that part of the course, so I may be wrong. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 01 July 2004 02:02 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The presidential election and the Supreme Court You are right. Bush claims that Congress gave him the power, but in reality Congress was not empowered according to the Constitution to adbicate that right. On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 09:13:31AM +0200, Gassler Robert wrote: I thought only Congress can declare war. It's in the Constitution. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Michael Moore on CBS
STORM: Someone said propaganda. Do you buy that? Op-ed? Mr. MOORE: No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. STORM: Well, we'll--we'll--we'll move beyond that. Mr. MOORE: What I do is providing--why? Let's not move beyond that. Let's... STORM: You know what? Mr. MOORE: No, well--well, seriously, though... STORM: No, let's talk about your movie. Copyright 2004 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved CBS News Transcripts SHOW: The Early Show (7:00 AM ET) - CBS June 25, 2004 Friday TYPE: Interview LENGTH: 1467 words HEADLINE: Michael Moore discusses his film, Fahrenheit 9/11 STORM: So this is satire and not documentary? We shouldn't see it as--as a... Mr. MOORE: Well, it's both. It's a satircal--it's a satirical documentary. STORM: Someone said propaganda. Do you buy that? Op-ed? Mr. MOORE: No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. STORM: Well, we'll--we'll--we'll move beyond that. Mr. MOORE: What I do is providing--why? Let's not move beyond that. Let's... STORM: You know what? Mr. MOORE: No, well--well, seriously, though... STORM: No, let's talk about your movie. Mr. MOORE: But why don't we talk about the evening news on this network and the other networks that didn't do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war... STORM: You know what? Mr. MOORE: ...demanded the evidence, ask the hard questions. STORM: OK. Mr. MOORE: We--we may not have even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say, 'Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war. We want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are? Let's see the proof. Let's see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.' STORM: But the one... Mr. MOORE: There was no proof and everybody just got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now. STORM: Michael, the one thing that journalists try to do is to present both sides of the story, and it could be argued that you did not do that in this movie. Mr. MOORE: That's wrong. STORM: You--you... Mr. MOORE: I--I certainly didn't. That's right. I presented my side. STORM: You--you presented your side of the story. Mr. MOORE: Because my side, and th--that's the side of millions of Americans, rarely gets told. And so what--what--all I'm--look, this is just a humble plea on my behalf and not to you personally, Hannah, but I'm just saying to journalists in general that instead of working so hard to tell both sides of the story, why don't you just tell that one side which is the administration? Why don't you ask them the hard questions? STORM: Which I--I think is something that we all try to do. Mr. MOORE: Well, I don't think... STORM: OK, Michael, so let me just say that... Mr. MOORE: ...I think it was a lot of cheerleading going on at the beginning of this war. STORM: All right. Mr. MOORE: A lot of cheerleading and it didn't do the public any good to have journalists standing in front of the camera going, 'Whoop-de-do, let's all go to war,' and--and it's not their kids going to war, it's not the children of the news executives going to war, it's the children of the poor... STORM: Michael, why don't you do--why don't you do your next movie about--about network news? OK, because this movie--this movie... Mr. MOORE: I--I--I know--I--I think I should do that because... STORM: ...this movie is an--is an attack on the president and his policy, and I--I want to ask you, too... Mr. MOORE: Well--and--and it also points out how the networks failed us... STORM: OK. Mr. MOORE: ...at the beginning of this war and didn't do their job. Robert Naiman Senior Policy Analyst Venezuela Information Office 733 15th Street, NW Suite 932 Washington, DC 20005 t. 202-347-8081 x. 605 f. 202-347-8091 (*Please note new suite number and telephone*) ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: The Venezuela Information Office is dedicated to informing the American public about contemporary Venezuela. More information is available from the FARA office of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.
Re: The presidential election and the Supreme Court
or simply organizes a police action. jd That's why Washington loves the rhetoric of the war on drugs and the war on terrorism, casting the ostensible targets of military force as crimes. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: The presidential election and the Supreme Court
Yes, and even when they are on the right side, it must be a war. War on Poverty, War on Cancer, but no War on War. On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 11:04:46AM -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: That's why Washington loves the rhetoric of the war on drugs and the war on terrorism, casting the ostensible targets of military force as crimes. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Chechnya and capitalism
Kenneth Campbell wrote: Respectfully, I have to disagree. Michael is an excellent moderator. Michael does something akin to actual life: keep differing ideas in contact, because there is something that comes out of it that's better than the sectarianism Jim mentioned in a separate thread. I am sure you put me in the same sniper category as Doug. I have accepted that horrible fate. But those two chaps are both better moderators than you. (That is just my opinion, since you have opened up that line of comment.) Why thank you. Michael was my role model as a moderator. I've got a higher tolerance for polemic than he does sometimes, but I've got a lot of respect for the way he runs PEN-L. We owe him thanks, not rotten tomatoes. Doug
Burkett Hart-Landsberg: full-fledged capitalist restoration in China
Monthly Review, July-August 2004 Introduction: China and Socialism by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett China and socialism...during the three decades following the 1949 establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), it seemed as if these words would forever be joined in an inspiring unity. China had been forced to suffer the humiliation of defeat in the 184042 Opium War with Great Britain and the ever-expanding treaty port system that followed it. The Chinese people suffered under not only despotic rule by their emperor and then a series of warlords, but also under the crushing weight of imperialism, which divided the country into foreign-controlled spheres of influence. Gradually, beginning in the 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong organized growing popular resistance to the foreign domination and exploitation of the country and the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. The triumph of the revolution under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party finally came in 1949, when the party proclaimed it would bring not only an end to the suffering of the people but a new democratic future based on the construction of socialism. There can be no doubt that the Chinese revolution was a world historic event and that tremendous achievements were made under the banner of socialism in the decades that followed. However, it is our opinion that this reality should not blind us to three important facts: first, at the time of Maos death in 1976, the Chinese people remained far from achieving the promises of socialism. Second, beginning in 1978 the Chinese Communist Party embarked on a market-based reform process that, while allegedly designed to reinvigorate the effort to build socialism, has actually led in the opposite direction and at great cost to the Chinese people. And finally, progressives throughout the world continue to identify with and take inspiration from developments in China, seeing the countrys rapid export-led growth as either confirmation of the virtues of market socialism or proof that, regardless of labels, active state direction of the economy can produce successful development within a capitalist world system. As much as we were also inspired by the Chinese revolution, we have for some time believed that this continuing identification by progressives with China and its socialist market economy represents not only a serious misreading of the Chinese reform experience but, even more important, a major impediment to the development of the theoretical and practical understandings required to actually advance socialism in China and elsewhere. As we will argue in this book, it is our position that Chinas market reforms have led not to socialist renewal but rather to full-fledged capitalist restoration, including growing foreign economic domination. Significantly, this outcome was driven by more than simple greed and class interest. Once the path of pro-market reforms was embarked upon, each subsequent step in the reform process was largely driven by tensions and contradictions generated by the reforms themselves. The weakening of central planning led to ever more reliance on market and profit incentives, which in turn encouraged the privileging of private enterprises over state enterprises and, increasingly, of foreign enterprises and markets over domestic ones. Although a correct understanding of the dynamics of Chinas reform process supports the Marxist position that market socialism is an unstable formation, this important insight has largely been lost because of the continuing widespread belief by many progressives that China remains in some sense a socialist country. This situation cannot help but generate confusion about the meaning of socialism while strengthening the ideological position of those who oppose it. Many other progressive scholars and activists dismiss arguments about the meaning of socialism as irrelevant to the challenges of development faced by people throughout the world. They look at Chinas record of rapid and sustained export-led growth and conclude that China is a development model, with a growth strategy that can and should be emulated by other countries. We believe, and argue in this book, that this celebration of China is a serious mistake, one that reflects a misunderstanding not only of the Chinese experience but also of the dynamics and contradictions of capitalism as an international system. In fact, an examination of the effects of Chinas economic transformation on the regions other economies makes clear that the countrys growth is intensifying competitive pressures and crisis tendencies to the detriment of workers throughout the region, including in China. Our differences with leftists and progressives might never have produced a book about China if it were not for our May 2003 trip to Cuba to
China and the environment
(cited in Harry Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster's introduction to Burkett Hart-Landsberg) Harvard Asia Quarterly Interview with Elizabeth Economy Chinas Development and the Environment BY HAQ Staff Elizabeth Economy is C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director, Asia Studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has written extensively on Chinese domestic and foreign policy. Her publications include: The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to Chinas Future (manuscript completed, September 2002); China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects (co-editor) (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1999); The Internationalization of Environmental Protection (co-editor) (Cambridge University Press, 1997); various articles in policy and scholarly journals such as Foreign Affairs and Survival; and op-ed pieces and book reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The South China Morning Post. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, an A.M. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Swarthmore College. HAQ: What is the state of Chinas environment today? For example, it is estimated that China will surpass the US in annual emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade and, in a few decades, in total cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution. Could you give us a few figures and statistics illustrating the nature of the problem? Economy: While Chinas spectacular economic growth over the past two decades or so has provided a significant increase in the standard of living for hundreds of millions of Chinese, it has also produced an environmental disaster. There has been a dramatic increase in the demand for natural resources of all kinds, including water, land, and energy. Forest resources have been depleted, triggering a range of devastating secondary impacts, such as desertification, flooding, and species loss. At the same time, levels of water and air pollution have skyrocketed. Small-scale township and village enterprises, which have been the engine of Chinese growth in the countryside, are very difficult to monitor and regulate and routinely dump their untreated waste directly into streams, rivers, and coastal waters. More than 75% of the water in rivers flowing through Chinas urban areas is unsuitable for drinking or fishing. Sixty million people have difficulty getting access to water, and almost three times that number drink contaminated water daily.1 Desertification, which affects one-quarter of Chinas land, is forcing tens of thousands of people to migrate every year and now threatens to envelop Beijing.2 In terms of air pollution, in 2000, Chinas State Environmental Protection Administration tested the air quality in more than 300 Chinese cities and found that almost two-thirds failed to achieve standards set by the World Health Organization for acceptable levels of total suspended particulates, which are the primary culprit in respiratory and pulmonary disease.3 China is also exerting a significant impact on the regional and global environment. Its reliance on low quality, high sulfur coal is responsible for roughly half of all sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain, throughout East Asia4 a situation that has contributed to some tensions with Japan and South Korea. Globally, China is one of the worlds largest contributors to ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, and climate change. There is some positive movement in all these areas, but it is very slow to materialize in terms of the actual implementation of new policies. It is important to remember that integrating environmental protection with economic development is a continuous battle that every country wages. In many respects, China has just begun the process of trying to factor environmental concerns into its process of economic development. After all, this is a country that has only had an independent environmental protection agency for a little over a decade. full: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/haq/200301/0301a001.htm -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Thomas Sowell
This excerpt provided by Waistline echoes the crap William F. Buckley routinely put out in the past. I recall Buckley once pointing out that minorities chose to go into song and dance as a career path, rather than, say, medicine. He applauded the freedom of choice. Simple lying economics. Gene Coyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thomas Sowell June 29, 2004 /10 Tamuz, 5764 Excerpt "Just as an artificially high price for wheat set by the government leads to a chronic surplus of wheat, so an artificially high price for labor set by the government leads to a surplus of labor better known as unemployment. "Since all workers are not the same, this unemployment is concentrated among the less skilled and less experienced workers. Many of them are simply priced out of a job. "In the United States, for example, the highest unemployment rates are almost invariably among black teenagers. But this was not always the case. "Although the federal minimum wage law was passed in 1938, wartime inflation during the Second World War meant that the minimum wage law had no major effect until a new round of increases in the minimum wage level began in 1950. Unemployment rates among black teenagers before then were a fraction of what they are today and no higher than among white teenagers. The time is long overdue for schools of journalism to start teaching economics. It would eliminate much of the nonsense and hysteria in the media, and with it perhaps some of the demagoguery in politics. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp Without question Mr. Sowell is a highly educated and talented man .. . and also an outstanding propagandist. Many simply disagree with his point of view and the implied economic concepts and frameworks his exposition are based upon. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a popular form of exposition that takes into account how the diverse people of America actually think things out. This art requires awareness of how people actually interact with one another and the real history of their ideas. I tend to steer clear of broad ideological categories called "left" and "right" . . . liberal and conservative, because in my personal experience these are not categories that express how people think out social questions and the issues of the day. For instance, ones attitude concerning abortion does not necessarily dictate or correspond to a fixed and predicable political pattern concerning how one might respond to economic issues or losing ones pension for instance . . . or having the company renege on its pledge to pay ones medical benefits during retirement. Although, I generally and specifically disagree with Mr. Sowell's inner logic about America - including gun control, and I am against gun control as the issue is currently framed in the public, what he does understand is the mood of the country and how people think things out. At any rate, he understands the mood of the audience he is writing to and for. Mr. Sowell is an outstanding leader . . . as is Colin Powell . . . and they carry the tag "black leaders" for reasons of our history. They exist and operate on a political continuum and I generally have nothing in common with these men. One can nevertheless learn an important lesson from Mr. Sowell's form of exposition, whose inner logic I radically disagree with. Melvin P.
Re: Sowell - follow up
In a message dated 7/1/2004 8:28:43 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Mr. Sowell is of course no one fool or "boy" . . . and most certainly not an Uncle Tom . . . a characterization that can mean virtually anything depending on usage. Comment - Follow up There is a tendency to reframe from characterizing a leader such as Thomas Sowell because no one wants to be accused of "color blindness" or "insensitivity." I believe other more profound factors about American society are involved that has generally escaped the logic of the radicals and liberals . . . socialists and many communists. Perhaps a year or maybe 18 months ago I wrote a couple articles called the "Peculiar Phenomena called the Black Leader" or something to thataffect on Marxmail. If this articles was written today it would be different in exposition but not its underlying internal components. Mr. Sowell is not a black leader but a leader who happens to be black. On the other hadReverend Al Sharpton is a black leader being reinvented as a leader that happens to be black. Al Sharpton was literally won over and recruited by a politically and economically important segment of the African American intelligenica that persuaded him to take off his "jump suits" and get a hair cut. The Minister Louis Farrakhan is a black leader, while Julian Bond is a leader than happens to be black, although he began as a black leader in the Civil Rights Movement. The distinction is not an ideological category but the face of the shifting economic and political relations in the American Union. The "Peculiar Phenomena called the Black Leader" arose on the basis of the defeat of Reconstruction and its political aftermath. The first set of political leaders from the slave class after Emancipation were not black leaders but leaders who were black. One must read and understand the demands of that time for reform of the system. The broad institution of Jim Crow and segregation is the context for the emergence of the"Peculiar Phenomena called the Black Leader." The destruction of Jim Crow and segregation is removing the social framework of the "Peculiar Phenomena called the Black Leader." There will always be leaders that are black. My brother's story might illustrate why one needs a concrete understanding of the evolution of American society to understand the modern world of politics instead of ideological proclamations. My brother Maurice is an International Representative of the UAW - the autoworkers union. He is not a black leader but most certainly African American. He is perhaps the most knowledgeable and militant leader the UAW currently possesses and more than less "conservative," having taken part in negotiating contracts since 1984. Maurice began his unioncareer at the Detroit Universal Division of Chrysler in Dearborn Michigan - the home of Ford Rouge, and a city where blacks could not pass through unless they had a factory badge indicating what plant they workedat.Her won his first union position as Chief Steward around 1976 andat that time much of our battle was liberally against Ku Klux Klan type groups in the plant.He had been earlier fired - discharged, for fighting a white co worker and the union returned the other guy back to work but not Maurice. We had to go to the Civil Rights Commission to get his job back. Detroit Universal made drive shafts and when Chrysler failed to meet its obligation in the bond market - 1979, and was threatening to go belly up the plant was closed. I was tossed in the streets for four years - 1980-1984, and Maurice went to Sterling Stamping, the largest stamping facility in North America with a little over 5,000 workers. I was called back to work in January 1984, zoomed in from Chicagoand moved in with my brother. He decided to run for the office of Committeeman in the upcoming May election and we analyzed the political forces and determined he had a long shot and if we ran a well organized intense campaign he could take the office two years later. The district he was running in was composed of roughly 1700 people with a workforce 30% black. Two political caucuses controlled the Local Union 1264 and the Shop floor, not unlike the Republican and Democratic Party. Maurice worked the midnight shift and had a reputation for being knowledge about contract matters, fiercely loyal to his coworkers, a lover of overtime work and took crap from on one - black or white. As a young man he actually enjoyed fisticuffs and considers himself a capitalist minded worker. Working midnight's means one has an opportunity to mingle with the workers on days and afternoons because shifts overlap so everyone knew him and the black workers loved him deeply for his iron will and ability to get things done. Real leaders get things done. As preparation for his election, which involves lots of leaflets and propaganda, he demanded that I read and
The Chicago smirk
I suspect that the Sowell thread is exhausting itself into repetition, but he did make me think about the program that Doug did with Bhagwhati. Each time this renowned economist gave a simplistic answer to Doug's question, he would giggle. His giggles gave me the same sort of feeling that Chicago economists evoke when they smirk after they give a simplistic answer. These smirks and giggles seem to say look how clever I am -- as with Sowell saying, .You see if you raise the price of labor you create unemployment.. Have others encountered the Chicago smirk or is it just me? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Sowell
Grant Lee wrote: The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html David Shemano From that interview: So you were a lefty once. Through the decade of my 20s, I was a Marxist. What made you turn around? What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels, which they did at that time industry by industry, the employment levels were falling. I was studying the sugar industry. There were two explanations of what was happening. One was the conventional economic explanation: that as you pushed up the minimum-wage level, you were pricing people out of their jobs. The other one was that there were a series of hurricanes that had come through Puerto Rico, destroying sugar cane in the field, and therefore employment was lower. The unions preferred that explanation, and some of the liberals did, too. So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of the economy. Doug
Re: Sowell
Doug asked: So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of the economy. Like some present-day socialists, he seems to thinks that using capitalist market forces to increase employment is a worthwhile objective. Grant.
Re: The Chicago smirk
Michael Perelman wrote: I suspect that the Sowell thread is exhausting itself into repetition, but he did make me think about the program that Doug did with Bhagwhati. Each time this renowned economist gave a simplistic answer to Doug's question, he would giggle. I was kind in the editing, and shortened a lot of his guffaws. Doug
Chamada de trabalhos IV Colóquio Latino Americano de Economistas Políticos]
Prezados amigos Segue, em anexo, a chamada de trabalhos do IV Colquio Latino Americano de Economistas Polticos. Peo a gentileza de divulgarem para todos os interessados, principalmente informando na lista que frequentam. Rosa Maria Marques IV Coloquio - Chamada de Trabalhos.doc Description: MS-Word document
Re: Sowell
Exactly! One wonders how anyone with even a minimal understanding of Marxism would think this somehow showed its shortcomings. At the same time the conclusion that minimum wages necessarily lead to greater unemployment is surely not that evident nor does this example show that to be the case. Are those countries or states with minimum wages those with higher unemployment rates than those with minimum wage rates? Anyway even if the conclusion were correct, the conventional economic explanation assumes some sort of idealised capitalist economic system. Why would a Marxist not conceive of ways to counteract these effects rather than just accepting them. For example by nationalising industries and subsidising them to ensure at lest a living wage etc. by putting controls on capital flight etc.etc. Passages such as this just confirm that Sowell hasnt a clue about Marxism . Prima facie even for a Marxist if wages go up then capital will tend to flow to a lower wage regime other things being equal and would thus reduce employment. Capitalists want to maximise their return after all. But then there may be no lower wage regime with equal labor skills or equal productivity, costs of moving might outweigh benefits and so and so on and on. Why is such a bright light seemingly blind to the obvious. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 11:16 AM Subject: Re: Sowell Grant Lee wrote: The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html David Shemano From that interview: So you were a lefty once. Through the decade of my 20s, I was a Marxist. What made you turn around? What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels, which they did at that time industry by industry, the employment levels were falling. I was studying the sugar industry. There were two explanations of what was happening. One was the conventional economic explanation: that as you pushed up the minimum-wage level, you were pricing people out of their jobs. The other one was that there were a series of hurricanes that had come through Puerto Rico, destroying sugar cane in the field, and therefore employment was lower. The unions preferred that explanation, and some of the liberals did, too. So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of the economy. Doug
Correction
[See comment at end] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/pageoneplus/corrections.html The New York Times July 1, 2004 Corrections A n article yesterday about Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, the American marine held by kidnappers in Iraq, quoted incompletely from a comment by a cousin of his in Salt Lake City about speculation that the corporal might have deserted. The cousin, Tarek Hassoun, said of a conversation two months ago with Corporal Hassoun: He said a lot of soldiers, they don't want to die, especially when they see someone dying in front of them. When the report from Salt Lake City was added to the Baghdad article, this further comment from Tarek Hassoun was omitted: But I'm sure he didn't run away. snip As Eric Umansky of Todays Papers points out, this correction fails to mention the tiny bit of context that his purported desertion was what that article was about -- the only thing it was about. They should create a new section entitled Retractions. Michael
Re: Correction
Maybe they could save space by having a small section of the paper reprinting the material that did not need to be retracted. On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 12:54:46PM -0400, Michael Pollak wrote: They should create a new section entitled Retractions. Michael -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Sowell
In a message dated 7/1/2004 11:30:37 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of "the economy."Like some present-day "socialists", he seems to thinks that using capitalist market forces to increase employment is a worthwhile objective. Comment In my estimate raising wages will eventually cause unemployment if one is only looking at and understanding "the economy" from one category and not the details of reproduction. When the workers win a wage increase - which has not happened as real wages in decades, this increases consumption and or by one way or another drives the expansion of production and in theory - and practice in history, leads tohiring more workers. Theowners or those charged with administering production on the basis of private ownership and private accumulation of capital, begin a frenzy of increased production to take advantage of selling to a broadening consumer market. Is this not the bottom line to Keyes and government spending? The government has to be the hiring agent or provider of last resort . . . period. This new buying impacts other sections of industry like needing new and more modern machinery, more managersand everything is wonderful until the market barrier is hit. The market barrier is the ability of consumers to buy things and finance continued consumption. The barrier is hit - generally speaking, and a segment of society, usually the less skilled are thrown into unemployment. Even during a boom the unskilled face a tenuous future became the boom has followed a downturn and many companies tend to buy new equipment on the way to the bottom of the curve and coming out of the curve to lower labor cost and fully exploit the boom. During several upticks of the market in my life time the auto industry became cash cows. This is followed by the inevitable dog fight for market shares. On the other hand lowering labor cost can impact the market as a part of a boom if say the cost of production in agriculture continues to fall faster than the labor cost in other segments of the market, but the general effect is the lowering of labor cost across the board and rendering every large segment of labor superfluous to active/continueous employment. If the labor cost of cell phones, televisions, DVD's fall faster that the labor cost of whatever sector of the economy you are employed in you are going to see a ghost that does not express the totality of the process. Low labor cost in China - on the basis of its expanding bourgeois property relations, further drag down world labor cost. Wal-Mart is a good buy for now. Mr. Sowell tends to take partial expressions of the economy and generalize, while it would be more useful to . . . say . . . trace the development of labor in the auto industry from the time of Henry Fords "Five Dollar A Day" wage scam to yesterday. How many "hands" produce how many vehicles is a simple equation. What portion of direct labor is cost? What portion indirect labor and capital expenditures? Or the ratios in what is the organic composition of capital? What is the trend or direction of this process? In a few words the general curve is that greater consumption broadens the market. Greater consumption is not the product of either cutting wages or lowering them but a combination of both under the impact of changes in the organic composition of capital - the technological revolution. Broadening the market means fiercer competition for that market. This brings about the rationalization of labor and the rationalization - improvement of the technical basis, of the material power of the productive forces. This end up creating the basis for the constriction of the market as fewer and fewer workers are needed and replaced by technological innovation. Directly suppressing the wages in a sector of the economy can increase consumption from that sector. I advocate the expansion of welfare as a practical program not just to expand the agricultural sector but to feed people, because it is morally and ethically correct to do so, but this will not stop the revolution in agriculture. Why should we not have our monthly government allocated beer ration and compel Coca Cola and Pepsi to implement massive water purification programs in every market they operate in? There is nothing wrong with Section 8 housing for right now . . . today. I do not support a program of free Coca Cola and a Coke monthly allotment for the masses. Mr. Sowell has it all wrong even from the stand point of bourgeois economic theory. He falls on the side that says funding private corporation capital accumulation and tax cuts - to the people, is the key to expanding consumption. Cutting wages or allowing market
Re: Correction
From: Michael Pollak [EMAIL PROTECTED] [See comment at end] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/pageoneplus/corrections.html The New York Times July 1, 2004 Corrections ... As Eric Umansky of Todays Papers points out, this correction fails to mention the tiny bit of context that his purported desertion was what that article was about -- the only thing it was about. They should create a new section entitled Retractions. Michael Yes, and the NYT needs another new section called Recalls. E.g., both the paper's Thomas L. Friedman and, it would seem, Judith Miller have been pulled out of production for retooling. Carl _ MSN Movies - Trailers, showtimes, DVD's, and the latest news from Hollywood! http://movies.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200509ave/direct/01/
Korean airline unions refuse to transport troops
Airline Unions Refuse to Transport Troops to Iraq The labor unions of the nations two airliners, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, declared Thursday that they refuse to transport anything related to the troop dispatch to Iraq, including Korean soldiers to be stationed in Iraq along with armor and related equipment. The Association of Airline Unions, founded by both the national airlines and the employees of Incheon International Airport and Kimpo Airport, said Thursday that in accordance with the policy of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, that they are against sending more troops to Iraq and will launch an all-out struggle against the deployment. The association said, Both Korean Air and Asiana Airlines should not sign contracts with the government to transport troops to Iraq... If they sign such contracts, the security of our union members cannot be guaranteed as they may become a target of terror during operation... Also, in order to show our rejection to a war of invasion, we will suspend all flights. In response to the unions, the two airlines pointed out, We havent been asked by the government to transport troops to Iraq, and unconditionally rejecting something before even negotiations have begun is going to far. Lee Wee-jae, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sowell
Doug Henwood writes (and others agree) What made you turn around? What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels, which they did at that time industry by industry, the employment levels were falling. I was studying the sugar industry. There were two explanations of what was happening. One was the conventional economic explanation: that as you pushed up the minimum-wage level, you were pricing people out of their jobs. The other one was that there were a series of hurricanes that had come through Puerto Rico, destroying sugar cane in the field, and therefore employment was lower. The unions preferred that explanation, and some of the liberals did, too. So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of the economy. Doug Some times you guys are just insufferable -- must you always resort to caricature? Read the entire exchange!! The relevant factor wasn't that minimum wage laws (not raising wages) reduce employment. It was the reaction of the government bureaucrats to his suggestion of an empirical test to determine why employment was falling, which led him to philosophically shift from the importance of goals to incentives: I spent the summer trying to figure out how to tell empirically which explanation was true. And one day I figured it out. I came to the office and announced that what we needed was data on the amount of sugar cane standing in the field before the hurricane moved through. I expected to be congratulated. And I saw these looks of shock on people's faces. As if, This idiot has stumbled on something that's going to blow the whole game! To me the question was: Is this law making poor people better off or worse off? That was the not the question the labor department was looking at. About one-third of their budget at that time came from administering the wages and hours laws. They may have chosen to believe that the law was benign, but they certainly weren't going to engage in any scrutiny of the law. What that said to me was that the incentives of government agencies are different than what the laws they were set up to administer were intended to accomplish. That may not sound very original in the James Buchanan era, when we know about Public Choice theory. But it was a revelation for me. You start thinking in those terms, and you no longer ask, what is the goal of that law, and do I agree with that goal? You start to ask instead: What are the incentives, what are the consequences of those incentives, and do I agree with those? BTW, the Reason review of Doug Henwood's book is now online: http://www.reason.com/0406/cr.co.that.shtml David Shemano
Re: Sowell
David wrote: The relevant factor wasn't that minimum wage laws (not raising wages) reduce employment. It was the reaction of the government bureaucrats to his suggestion of an empirical test to determine why employment was falling, which led him to philosophically shift from the importance of goals to incentives David may not know about the economics literature about the minimum wage. David Card and Alan Krueger showed that the minimum wage did not reduce employment. They compared employment into adjacent states where one increased the minimum wage. Soon thereafter, the fast food industry hired two economists to refute the study. They were not very successful. The refutation did not stand up to scrutiny. The other study did. I have to leave now even though this explanation is inadequate. Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Sowell
From: David B. Shemano [EMAIL PROTECTED] BTW, the Reason review of Doug Henwood's book is now online: http://www.reason.com/0406/cr.co.that.shtml Well that was two minutes wasted. I'd suggest that Reason critic Charles Oliver hold onto his day job, in which he covers local government for The Daily Citizen in Dalton, Georgia. Carl _ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
Re: Enron
David B. Shemano wrote: The argument that capitalism is legalized fraud and theft is a very interesting thesis which I would love to explore. (For instance, doesn't that statement, as a normative statement, assume the justness of private property, because if not, what is wrong with theft?). can we define such a thing as public property? i.e., something that belongs (i would prefer 'open' or 'available' to 'belong') to everyone (all species)? if so, anyone appropriating such property for personal use, excluding access to othres, could be said to be committing 'theft', no? --ravi
Re: Enron
k hanly wrote: What is assumed as just is that a person should be able to appropriate the value of what they produce through their labor... naive question: does this not assume that the person produces (through his labour) in a vacuum? aren't a whole slew of living and non-living things whose existence and assistance are prerequisite even for the act of the person's labour? if so, do they not have a claim to the end result of this labour? --ravi
Nike me
Nike just sent me a large packet c/o my publisher describing all the wonderful corporate responsibility activities that they support. Very slick indeed. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Nike me
Michael Perelman wrote: Nike just sent me a large packet c/o my publisher describing all the wonderful corporate responsibility activities that they support. Very slick indeed. There's so much attention on them now that they may indeed behave better than other shoe and garment makers. Doug
Re: Nike me
Michael Perelman wrote: Nike just sent me a large packet c/o my publisher describing all the wonderful corporate responsibility activities that they support. Very slick indeed. hmmm... air perelman... doesn't sound bad... ;-) --ravi
Re: Nike me
It would if you saw how badly I play. On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 04:04:03PM -0400, ravi wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Nike just sent me a large packet c/o my publisher describing all the wonderful corporate responsibility activities that they support. Very slick indeed. hmmm... air perelman... doesn't sound bad... ;-) --ravi -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Enron
John Locke wrote that such stealing of public property was the basis of private property -- but that such theft was justified if one mixed one's labor with the stolen item. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of ravi Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 12:40 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Enron David B. Shemano wrote: The argument that capitalism is legalized fraud and theft is a very interesting thesis which I would love to explore. (For instance, doesn't that statement, as a normative statement, assume the justness of private property, because if not, what is wrong with theft?). can we define such a thing as public property? i.e., something that belongs (i would prefer 'open' or 'available' to 'belong') to everyone (all species)? if so, anyone appropriating such property for personal use, excluding access to othres, could be said to be committing 'theft', no? --ravi
Sowell
Apropos of the discussion on SOwell, I add the following from Greg Mahoney at GWU David Barkin MEXICO -- Forwarded Message --- From: gmahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 14:00:56 -0400 Subject: RE: more on s. Have you ever seen Sowells book, Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (1985)? Its an awful book. Does it sound strange then to say that I would have loved to have reviewed it? My own work recently is a direct critique of Friedman, a piece titled Friedman and Freedom: Text or Antitext? given his popularity in Asia, where I've done most of my research (econo-ethnographies in rural and urban China). It's convenient that Sowell is a Chicago Schooler and Friedman Fellow at Hoover, and that his work doesn't really deviate from the Friedman mantra. Plus, he really exposes himself when he bowlderizes WEB Dubois and others in his continued assault on blacks in the book you're having sent, Applied Economics. He and Walter Williams, the other black libertarian laissez faire apologist, are such hypocrites. It's similar to Friedman's vehement arguments against various government regulations and support programs, and yet, admits that he has benefited greatly from them. And similarly, Friedman's immediate acceptance of tenure when it was first offered at Chicago despite being on the record as being opposed to tenure... Really, I don't have the training or caste to pyschoanalyze them, but Social Darwinists really seem to have a lot of self hate... See, for example, Friedman's 1972 presidential address to the Mont Pelerin Society titled Capitalism and the Jews: Confronting a Paradox where, among other things, he has the gall to cite Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism in support of his attack on Jews for a negative attitude towards capitalism despite owing it an enormous debt. Friedman must have missed the passages in Arendt's Origins when she excoriates liberalism. Perhaps he was misled by Arendt's intimacy with and apologies for Heidegger. Speaking of Williams in tandem with Sowell, here are a couple of columns from both: It's time for journalists to study a little economics Thomas Sowell June 29, 2004 A recent front-page story in the Wall Street Journal told of rising hunger and malnutrition amid chronic agricultural surpluses in India. India is now exporting wheat, and even donating some to Afghanistan, while malnutrition is a growing problem within India itself. This situation is both paradoxical and tragic, but what is also remarkable is that the long article about it omits the one key word that explains such a painful paradox: Price. There can be a surplus of any given thing at any given time. But a chronic surplus of the same thing, year after year, means that somebody is preventing the price from falling. Otherwise the excess supply would drive down the price, leading producers to produce less -- and consumers to consume more -- until the surplus was gone. What is happening in India is that the government is keeping the price of wheat and some other agricultural produce from falling. That is exactly what the government of the United States has been doing for more than half a century, leading to chronic agricultural surpluses here. Nor are India and the United States the only countries with such policies, leading to such results. Although Americans are wrestling with obesity while Indians are suffering malnutrition, the economic principle is the same -- and that principle is totally ignored by the reporters writing this story for the Wall Street Journal. There is no special need to single out the Wall Street Journal for this criticism, except that when economic illiteracy shows up in one of the highest quality publications in the country that shows one of the great deficiencies of journalists in general. One of the many jobs offered to me over the years, to my wife's astonishment, was a job as dean of a school of journalism. While I was not about to give up my own research and writing, in order to get tangled up in campus politics, the offer made me think about what a school of journalism ought to be teaching people whose jobs will be to inform the public. They first and foremost ought to know what they are talking about, which requires a solid grounding in history, statistics, science -- and economics. Since journalists are reporting on so many things with economic implications, they should have at least a year of introductory economics. People with a basic knowledge of economics would understand that words like surplus and shortage imply another word that may not be mentioned explicitly: Price. And chronic surpluses or chronic shortages imply price controls. Conversely, price controls imply chronic surpluses or shortages -- depending on whether price controls keep prices from falling to the level they would reach under supply and demand or keep them from rising to that level. Controls that keep prices from falling to the level they
Re: Enron
It is worse that Jim says: Thus the Grass my Horse has bit; the Turfs my Servant has cut; and the Ore I have digg'd ... become my Property (Locke 1698, p. 307), On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 01:39:27PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: John Locke wrote that such stealing of public property was the basis of private property -- but that such theft was justified if one mixed one's labor with the stolen item. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Green Strategy 2004-2008
Thursday, July 01, 2004 Green Strategy 2004-2008 How did the David Cobb/Pat LaMarche ticket receive the Green Party nomination? And what does it mean for the Green Party in particular and American politics in general? My conclusion is that the so-called red states Greens, by rejecting Ralph Nader/Peter Camejo campaign, first of all served to diminish the Green Party's own strength in the safe state of California, ironically without helping the pro-war Democratic Party candidate John Kerry (despite the hope of the Cobb/LaMarche faction) in the most crucial swing states: Ohio (20 electors/3.6% victory margin in 2004), Florida (27/0.0%), Pennsylvania (21/4.1%), and Michigan (17/5.1%). . . . [The full text with links is available at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/green-strategy-2004-2008.html.] -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Sowell
from his column on why journalists should study economics, one thing that strikes me as defining Sowell as a hack is that his approach is so _a priori_. He doesn't have to study _why_ black youth unemployment was so low during World War II. Instead, he _knows_ that it was because the inflation-corrected minimum wage was so low. It's a _fact_ that arises because the word surplus implies a high price and the _fact_ that only relative prices explain how the economy works. An empirically-oriented economist would look at whether or not other workers' unemployment rates (especially those for whom the minimum wage is irrelevant) were low at the same time. Indeed they were. It has something to do with high aggregate demand, something that Sowell didn't study in school, it seems. People like Sowell need to have some experience with the real world, so I think it would be good to make him take a job as a cub reporter in Compton, California. Then, he needs to study economics again. Maybe he'd learn something this time. jd
Re: Enron
you don't understand Locke. He didn't think of his servant as a human being, so that the servant's labor didn't produce property for her (according to Locke's labor theory of property). Instead, she was like Locke's horse. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 1:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Enron It is worse that Jim says: Thus the Grass my Horse has bit; the Turfs my Servant has cut; and the Ore I have digg'd ... become my Property (Locke 1698, p. 307), On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 01:39:27PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: John Locke wrote that such stealing of public property was the basis of private property -- but that such theft was justified if one mixed one's labor with the stolen item. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Enron
Michael P wrote: It is worse that Jim says: Thus the Grass my Horse has bit; the Turfs my Servant has cut; and the Ore I have digg'd ... become my Property (Locke 1698, p. 307), On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 01:39:27PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: John Locke wrote that such stealing of public property was the basis of private property -- but that such theft was justified if one mixed one's labor with the stolen item. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine One of the central contradictions of capitalism, and this is one of the fronts Indigenous activists are working on, is that the central bougeois sacreds and institutions of private property--a central contradiction that Locke certainly anticipated and tried to get around--is that these private property sacreds and institutions, that constitute core elements in the requisite social capital of capitalism, wind up exposing and indicting the very private property they purport to protect. Yes, capitalism is not only legalized fraud and theft (in capitalist as well as common sense terms), but it is also legalized murder. This is why the capitalists, through their paid whores (with all due respect to whores) in the legistlative, executive and judicial branches of the state write the laws with enough loopholes and caveats such that only non-capitalists and certain selected and more egregious capitalists are held selectively held to laws and principles others are not held to. I can bequeath, sell, give away private property only if it is not stolen in capitalist terms. Otherwise legal title would rest only with the last one to hold the property and/or with enough power and ruthlessness to hold on to it in the face of others seeking to take it; thus orderly transfers of title, continuity and stable long-term investment in and use of property would be impossible. Legal title, in bourgeois terms, comes through sale, gift, bequest--of that to thiwch one has legal title--discovery or just war. Since so much of primitive accumulation of original capitalist property that formed the foundations of present-day property and gains is not gained through any just war, discovery, or sale/gift/bequest of legally titled property, capitalist property continues to be tainted and stolen--and/or the fruits of a poisoned tree--in capitalist terms. For Indigenous Peoples, take in the case of Canada where few traties were signed, even though the colonizing and genocidal occupiers claimed Natives never held proper legal title--in capitalist terms--to Indigenous lands and resources, they nonetheless tried to create, sign and enforce fraudulent treaties that, in effect, recognized, and then sought to have surrendered, Indigenous lands and titles--lands and titles that supposedly Indigenous Peoples never held. Why then have a treaty that calls for surrendering title and control over that which one of the treating partners claimed and continues to claim the other treating partner never held legal title to and control over? That was but one of the many contradictions of capitalism and private property to which Lenin was alluding in his simple but very profound and deep metaphor that when it comes time to hang the last capitalist, he will probably be the very one who sold us the rope. Jim C.
Re: Enron
Smith (III.v,12, 362) even lumped together labouring cattle and productive labourers in his description of a world dominated by stock. On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 01:59:41PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: you don't understand Locke. He didn't think of his servant as a human being, so that the servant's labor didn't produce property for her (according to Locke's labor theory of property). Instead, she was like Locke's horse. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Enron
Jim C. writes: Since so much of primitive accumulation of original capitalist property that formed the foundations of present-day property and gains is not gained through any just war, discovery, or sale/gift/bequest of legally titled property, capitalist property continues to be tainted and stolen--and/or the fruits of a poisoned tree--in capitalist terms. For Indigenous Peoples, take in the case of Canada where few traties were signed, even though the colonizing and genocidal occupiers claimed Natives never held proper legal title--in capitalist terms--to Indigenous lands and resources, they nonetheless tried to create, sign and enforce fraudulent treaties that, in effect, recognized, and then sought to have surrendered, Indigenous lands and titles--lands and titles that supposedly Indigenous Peoples never held. In his PROGRESS AND POVERTY, Henry George argued that (almost) all of land rent should be taxed away. (The exception is rent that's due to costly improvements in the quality of the land.) To those who see this as theft, he responded that since the land had been stolen from the Indians, the landowners had received stolen goods. In normal bourgeois law, of course, the receipt of stolen goods is itself a crime, and does not justify turning them into one's private property. jd
Re: Enron
Devine, James wrote: you don't understand Locke. He didn't think of his servant as a human being, so that the servant's labor didn't produce property for her (according to Locke's labor theory of property). Instead, she was like Locke's horse. This is misleading. Until the millenia-old sense of human society as naturally hierarchical began to dissolve in the late 18th century it was not necessary (nor even desirable) to see the lower orders as non-human or less than human. They were fully human, and in the sight of God even fully equal, but god or nature had created a world in which subordination was the principle of unity and order. This is clear enough in Shakespeare; many (most / all) of his characters from the lower orders are seen as quite richly human and worthwhile, but this does not interfere in the least with an assumption that they filled their appropriate rungs of the great chain of being. It was the crumbling of this hierarchical sense of divine ordained order that generated the ideological necessity for scientific racism and scientific male supremacy in the early 19th century. Discussion of this change can be found in Stephanie Coontz, _The Social Origins of Private Life_, in Thomas Laqueur, _Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud_, Volume I of Martin Bernal's _Black Athena_, Stephen J. Gould's review of Laqueur in the NYRB, and Barbara Fields, Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America. Stephanie Coontz quotes from a letter from a 17th c. gentleman to his daughter, in which he says that were it not for the natural subordination of women, she would be a better writer than he. In the same spirit it would have been quite possible (whether it ever happened or not I do not know, but it would not have been a contradiction) for Locke to see that servant as a better human being than Locke himself, and yet without a quiver exploit the hell out of that servant. It was only with the Declaration of Independence and its assertion of human equality that there developed a serious need to justify such subordination by asserting biological inferiority. Carrol
Re: Enron
ravi wrote: can we define such a thing as public property? i.e., something that belongs (i would prefer 'open' or 'available' to 'belong') to everyone (all species)? if so, anyone appropriating such property for personal use, excluding access to othres, could be said to be committing 'theft', no? They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. Carrol
Re: Sowell
k hanly wrote: ... the conclusion that minimum wages necessarily lead to greater unemployment is surely not that evident... Indeed. Under rigorous neoclassical analysis it is easily demonstrated that under monopsonistic or monopsonistically competitive labor market conditions (ie., where the hiring of a marginal unit of labor-power increases total labor cost by more than the cost of that marginal unit) imposition of a minimum wage can, and a marginal increase in an existing minimum wage will, increase total employment. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner)
got statistics?
see http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf for one compilation of stats on Iraq. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Saddam on TV
For what it's worth... I saw Hussein on TV this morn, and Peter Jennings did an excellent job of old Murrow-style radio reporting... describing scenes without the aid of a TV camera. Jennings described a beaten down man, thin, polite, alert, tangling with the judge once. I have since seen the usual American news stuff about that -- CNN subheaders included Look, the pimp is speaking and accredited the statement to an anonymous janitor. Great journalism. BBC was better -- including some factual reporting on what he said about Kuwait and the chemical weapons against Kurds. Jennings remains the objective reporter, as far as I have seen. He was in the court room. Rather than get outraged at the media's false editorializing, I would encourage people to actually ask people to look at the statements. Mention Jennings' objective reporting. Ken. -- I am the passenger And I ride and I ride I ride through the city's backside I see the stars come out of the sky Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky You know it looks so good tonight -- The Passenger Iggy Pop, 1977 www.american-buddha.com/iggy.passenger.htm
two kinds of neoclassical analysis
Shane Mage writes:Under rigorous neoclassical analysis it is easily demonstrated of course, rigorous neoclassical analysis is not the same as the Chicago-school neoclassical analysis embraced by Sowell. For the latter, rigorous refers to free market. jd Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Sowell
It, the rise in wages, is not incompatible with increasing unemployment, but neither is it incompatible with rising employment. Sowell, or whoever wants to argue this point from the right, makes a superficial cause and effect between wage rates and employment levels, where there is none. And by the way, its is the creation of such superficial cause and effect links, and the propagation of them as profound economic insights that defines a hack. - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 9:16 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell Grant Lee wrote: The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html David Shemano From that interview: So you were a lefty once. Through the decade of my 20s, I was a Marxist. What made you turn around? What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels, which they did at that time industry by industry, the employment levels were falling. I was studying the sugar industry. There were two explanations of what was happening. One was the conventional economic explanation: that as you pushed up the minimum-wage level, you were pricing people out of their jobs. The other one was that there were a series of hurricanes that had come through Puerto Rico, destroying sugar cane in the field, and therefore employment was lower. The unions preferred that explanation, and some of the liberals did, too. So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of the economy. Doug
Re: Sowell
Mr. Sartesian writes: It, the rise in wages, is not incompatible with increasing unemployment, but neither is it incompatible with rising employment. Sowell, or whoever wants to argue this point from the right, makes a superficial cause and effect between wage rates and employment levels, where there is none. And by the way, its is the creation of such superficial cause and effect links, and the propagation of them as profound economic insights that defines a hack. For the third time, neither Sowell, nor any other neoclassical economist I know of, has ever argued that rising wages causes unemployment. Obviously, if wages are rising, people who might otherwise be at the beach will be drawn into the workforce. The argument is about the effect of minimum wage laws, and if you can't figure out the difference between minimum wage laws and rising wages, be a little more careful before you call somebody a hack. Now that I got that off my chest, I am off to see Simon and Garfunkel at the Hollywood Bowl. When I get back, how about a discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a Marxist perspective? David Shemano
Re: Sowell
I appreciate the distinction between rising wages and minimum wages, David. Thanks. Now that I got that off my chest, I am off to see Simon and Garfunkel at the Hollywood Bowl. When I get back, how about a discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a Marxist perspective? People elevate the demand for music from a moment in their past to a Frank Sinatra sorta retro act? I prefer the original recordings (Frank and SG and the rest). The Marxist perspective might be that this is a false consciousness and wishing for the days of old ideologies (Santa Claus etc)... and people pay money for it because it eases their feelings of being less than they had thought they were (socially speaking). ? Ya think? Ken. -- Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion. -- Anonymous Hessian officer, 1778
Zimmerman is back?
Perhaps in a further step down the road to Perdition after his Victoria's Secret commercial, the following appeared on the Fed of Cleveland's web-site: The Rates They Are A-changin' (with apologies to Bob Dylan) Come gather 'round people wherever you roam Recognize that inflation around you has grown And accept there's a chance it could rise through its zone Price stability is worth preservin' So less stimulus from the Fed don't bemoan For the rates they are a-changin'. Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pens Who are so confident in your opinions But don't speak too soon for the data still spins And there's no tellin' where it is goin' The theories out now could later be in For the rates they are a-changin'. Come savers, investors, please heed the call The signs are well-posted and the writin's on the wall Inflation dynamics no longer are stalled For markets are equilibratin'. And many have said that the funds rate's too small For the rates they are a-changin'. Thank goodness most people throughout the land No longer criticize for they quite understand Reputation requires that you protect your brand When patience so plainly is wanin' So stay with the program while the Fed plays its hand For the rates they are a-changin'. The line it is drawn, the course nearly cast The risks we face now appeared small in the past But with measured steps the expansion will last Futures markets are anticipatin' A considerable time will be comin' to pass For the rates they are a-changin'. Disclaimer: These lyrics are a Dylanesque take on the current situation; they are not an official statement about the likely course of monetary policy. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Sowell
Mr. Shemano asks: how about a discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a Marxist perspective? individual prices can't be explained or predicted using Marx's labor theory of value (more accurately, the law of value). Regular micro will do (though not the Chicago variant). It's a monopoly situation, where the sellers try to get as much of the consumer surplus as possible. That is, if they find someone who's willing to pay $200 to see Simon Garfunkel, they'll try to figure out how to get him or her to pay that much (using price discrimination). The sellers who benefit the most these days are usually Ticketmaster and ClearChannel rather than the performers. (The scalpers sometimes make a lot, but they also can lose a lot. It's not like Ticketmaster or ClearChannel, who have relatively stable incomes and relatively risk-free lives.) Now why anyone would want to listen to Simon Garfunkel is beyond me. jd
Kerry: no drivers licenses for illegals
The ABB press has been working overtime this week to construct an amalgam between Nader, Pat Buchanan and other dark forces. Meanwhile, I predict that the following will garner not even a shrug. Kerry: No licenses for illegal immigrants - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Nedra Pickler, salon.com July 1, 2004 | Pittsburgh -- Democrat John Kerry said he opposes state laws that give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, a position that puts him at odds with the Hispanic activists he is courting in the presidential race. Immigrant advocates have been pushing for the laws, saying they help undocumented workers get around safely. Licensed drivers know the rules of the road and can buy insurance, making streets safer for everyone, they say. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
A critical look at Farenheit 911
Znet.org The Problem is Bigger than the Bushes Reviewing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 by Stephen Rosenthal and Junaid Ahmad, July 1, 2004 (clip) Fahrenheit 9/11 begins with an implicit indictment of both Republicans and Democrats and ends with an implicit indictment of the system of inequality in the U.S. But in between, the film concentrates virtually all of its fire on the Bush crowd and the Republican Party. Republicans stole the 2000 election with the spineless complicity of the Democrats. Not one Democratic Senator is willing to sign the appeal demanded by African American members of the House of Representatives. But why did the Democrats passively accept the massive disenfranchisement of Black voters in Florida (and other states) in 2000? Moore does not attempt to explain the Democrat's spinelessness. The answer lies in the fact that the Democrats colluded extensively in Black disenfranchisement. Democratic majorities in Congress and the Democratic president Bill Clinton repeatedly proposed and voted for legislation that resulted in the massive criminalization of African Americans. Christian Parenti wrote in an article, The 'New' Criminal Justice System: State Repression from 1968 to 2001, Monthly Review, July 2001: During his presidency, Clinton signed the 1994 Violent Crime Control And Law Enforcement Act, which offered up a cop's cornucopia of $30.2 billion in federal cash from which we got Clinton's one hundred thousand new police officers, scores of new prisons, and SWAT teams in even small New England towns(In 1996) Clinton gave us the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which massively expanded the use of the death penalty and eviscerated federal habeas corpus The sad election year of 1996 also delivered the ideologically named Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which eliminated the undocumented person's right to due process and helped bring Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) funding up to four billion annually. These were the Clinton administration's demolition devices, strategically placed to take out what little remained for prisoners in the Bill of Rights. These acts contributed to the continuing rapid expansion of the prison system, to the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans, and to their disenfranchisement as convicted felons. Whites make up over three-fourths of the violators of drug laws, but the criminal justice system has, for the past three decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, imprisoned millions of African Americans. Moreover, those prisoners have increasingly been subjected to the same kinds of torture that took place at Abu Ghraib, sometimes even by the very same guards! Neither Al Gore nor the 100 white Senators-Republicans as well as Democrats-who themselves supported this repressive racist legislation, were going to put their signature on the appeal of black Representatives. The Democrats were spineless because they were as guilty as the Republicans. full: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15ItemID=5808 -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Sowell
Kenneth Campbell wrote: The Marxist perspective might be that this is a false consciousness and wishing for the days of old ideologies (Santa Claus etc)... and people pay money for it because it eases their feelings of being less than they had thought they were (socially speaking). ? Ya think? Once in a while the obvious needs to be restated. Marxism is not a TOE (Theory of Everything)nor did any serious Marxist ever pretend that it was. Engels goes out of his way several times to deny it. In particular he denies interest in explaining cultural minutiae. _The_ Marxist perspective obscures the multiplicity of marxist views even on those topics which marxists _do_ claim to be able to explain. Carrol
Re: Kerry: no drivers licenses for illegals
He has to be running the dummest campaign in history. Even Bush knows that the Hispanic vote is important. On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 10:00:23PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: The ABB press has been working overtime this week to construct an amalgam between Nader, Pat Buchanan and other dark forces. Meanwhile, I predict that the following will garner not even a shrug. Kerry: No licenses for illegal immigrants - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Nedra Pickler, salon.com July 1, 2004 | Pittsburgh -- Democrat John Kerry said he opposes state laws that give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, a position that puts him at odds with the Hispanic activists he is courting in the presidential race. Immigrant advocates have been pushing for the laws, saying they help undocumented workers get around safely. Licensed drivers know the rules of the road and can buy insurance, making streets safer for everyone, they say. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: The Chicago smirk
All the time. I suspect that the Sowell thread is exhausting itself into repetition, but he did make me think about the program that Doug did with Bhagwhati. Each time this renowned economist gave a simplistic answer to Doug's question, he would giggle. His giggles gave me the same sort of feeling that Chicago economists evoke when they smirk after they give a simplistic answer. These smirks and giggles seem to say look how clever I am -- as with Sowell saying, .You see if you raise the price of labor you create unemployment.. Have others encountered the Chicago smirk or is it just me? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: two kinds of neoclassical analysis
James Devine wrote: Shane Mage writes:Under rigorous neoclassical analysis it is easily demonstrated of course, rigorous neoclassical analysis is not the same as the Chicago-school neoclassical analysis embraced by Sowell. For the latter, rigorous refers to free market. I don't know about Sowell, but I have to give credit where credit is due. I learned the analytic demonstration I referred to in Gary Becker's Economic Theory class at Columbia U Grad School in 1959. Incidentally, all Becker's teaching consisted of reading from Milton Friedman's lecture notes--when he came to this point he had to proclaim that it had no real-world applications! Shane
Re: Sowell
That, the distinction between minimum wage laws, and a rising minimum wage, is sophistry, not analysis. If you can't see the identity between the two, it's only because your analysis is completely pedantic and lacks the critical, social, element, that places Marx head and shoulders above, and flat out against, every bourgeois political economist. That's what I mean when I say hack. - Original Message - From: David B. Shemano [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 5:49 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell Mr. Sartesian writes: It, the rise in wages, is not incompatible with increasing unemployment, but neither is it incompatible with rising employment. Sowell, or whoever wants to argue this point from the right, makes a superficial cause and effect between wage rates and employment levels, where there is none. And by the way, its is the creation of such superficial cause and effect links, and the propagation of them as profound economic insights that defines a hack. For the third time, neither Sowell, nor any other neoclassical economist I know of, has ever argued that rising wages causes unemployment. Obviously, if wages are rising, people who might otherwise be at the beach will be drawn into the workforce. The argument is about the effect of minimum wage laws, and if you can't figure out the difference between minimum wage laws and rising wages, be a little more careful before you call somebody a hack. Now that I got that off my chest, I am off to see Simon and Garfunkel at the Hollywood Bowl. When I get back, how about a discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a Marxist perspective? David Shemano
Re: Sowell
And one more time: The argument that is made and couched in pseudo-economic terms, is not an argument, but an ideology where any mandatory increase in benefits to the dispossessed is blamed for the eventual increase in social misery. It is nothing but the argument for laissez-faire increases in exploitation against any remedial action by, pick one or all, government, trade unions, social democrats. The argument then takes the critical element in the reproduction of capital, extraction of profit, and turns it, identifies it as the universal greatest good. That much is explicit in the argument as the practice, i.e. Chile, the US in the 70s and 80s, has shown. I am very careful before calling someone a hack. Somebody who makes purely ethereal distinctions in order to obscure the ugly reality in order to justify the continuation of that reality is a hack. Obviously nothing. This is not about simple common sense, as if there exists such a thing, price theories, or the democracy of free markets. It's about class. What makes a hack is someone denying, obscuring his or her class service, by proclaiming rationality, utility, objectivity. Would it shock you if I said J. S. Mill was a hack, and a big one? Friedman is a hack, and never hackier than when he criticized the IMF for its role in the Asian and post-Asian financial collapse of 97-98. PS. BOSTON FANS: NEW YORK THANKS YOU FOR YOUR VISIT AND WISHES YOU A SAFE TRIP HOME.
