A matter of importance
Dear pen-l Today I emailed Micheal and asked for a particular person to be removed from pen-l. It is not an action that I took without thought. The person has seen fit to send email that I have sent to pen-l in the past (Feb 1997) and also another list (pkt) to senior staff in my university as a part of a campaign to cause me maximum personal damage. The email was sent out of context and without explanation other than some annotations placed by the person. There was no attempt to provide the whole debate or to explain the philosophy of our list etc. I am not concerned at all that the bosses have the data. Not in the least. I am concerned that this person has breached the trust of our list and used our discussions in a completely partial way to further his aims in the workplace. The personal nature of the attack is also disturbing and indicative of a lack of substance. But I have asked Michael to act because I do not believe this person has acted in the spirit of the list. While we can have fierce disputes and use whatever language we like within pen-l, it is reprehensible to use selected email input in another struggle and pass it on to senior university staff. This is not an act of censorship but one of trust and the breach of it. I have told michael that if he cannot accede to my request then I will leave the list. I don't see a place on the list for someone who misuses our dialogue in this way. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
Some that might interest
Dear Pen-L and Pkt If any one is interested you can read the paper I am giving at Ed Nell's conference in New York on Monday at http://econ-www/economics/research/bse-openeconomy.pdf it is in pdf. it explores the open economy considerations of my Buffer Stock Employment model of Full employment kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
Re: Ecology and the American Indian
Interesting story Louis but how do you account for the practice whereby some tribes in the plains used to stampede whole herds of bison over cliffs as a quick way of killing them and then picking only bits and pieces of the bodies below. Incredible waste and lack of concern for their natural partners. kind regards bill One famous counerexample to the view that Indians were always "in harmony with nature" is the high probability that the extinction of the sabre-tooth tiger and several other large mammals in North America probably resulted from overhunting arising from the initial invasion of the continent by the human species, the first Native American Indians to be precise. This does not say that many tribes later adopted highly ecologically sound approaches. Barkley Rosser On Mon, 26 Jan 1998 14:03:20 -0500 Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Indian religious beliefs are intrinsically ecological since they regard nature as sacred. ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
Re: Ecology and the American Indian
This, along with the disappearance of the saber-tooth tiger, is another one of those "gotchas" that figures prominently in the right-wing repertory. Hutchinson, in "Remaking of the Amerind", wrote that the Crow once drove 700 buffalo off the edge of a cliff. This anecdote has made the rounds of the Rush Limbaugh show, the National Review and other venues. What he does not deal with is the question of whether the Crow *wasted* the meat, but only projected what whites would do in capitalist society into hunting-and-gathering society. But, even granting the possibility that Indians left the meat to rot, are we supposed to draw general conclusions about this one incident? It is amazing that such events are so isolated in Indian societies. When whites killed millions of beaver and buffalo wantonly and allowed valuable parts of the animal to go to waste, how can we even begin to compare our society to their's? This of course is the goal of Hutchinson and other apologists for capitalism, to legitimize the waste that our system has institutionalized. Yes, but i wasn't making any attempt to be relative here. The capitalist societies are rapacious in the extreme and that cannot be attenuated by saying everyone else has baggage in the cupboard too. In general i agree with the interpretation that many of the native american tribes felt as one with nature. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
Re: Full translation of Castro speech
At 15:48 22/01/98 -0800, you wrote: Before you give the Pope too much credit, he is a far cry from Pope John. Also, the rhetoric is not far from that of Solzhenitsin (sp?). The Pope has supported just about every repressive regime around the world. He was the first to recognize the Haitian coup, if I remember correctly. Yes michael. Before any radical on the left gets too carried away with all this catholic mumbo jumbo they should reflect on the role of the church in countries where people have been brainwashed into believing the nonsense they call their faith. usually pro-capitalist, anti-environment. they tried to expel the liberation theologians. why castro would even have the old bastard in cuba amazes me. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
Re: Full translation of Castro speech
I said: why castro would even have the old bastard in cuba amazes me. Jim said in reply: Response: I think it was more in the order of a tactical compromise for the purpose of achieving some kind of leverage or authority to help end the social systems destabilization campain and embargo that is creating a lot of misery for the people of Cuba. Personally, I wish that Fidel had mentioned the Ratline (Vatican assistance to fleeing Nazi war criminals), the 1933 Concordat with the Nazis (Pope Pius XI prasing Nazis as "voctors for Christianity and a bulwark against Bolshevism"), high-level elements of the Church supporting fascist regimes/despots while preaching against grass- roots political action and "liberation theology" by rank-and-file Priests and Nuns (and a few higher level elements like Archbishop Romero), the Pope's collaboration with the CIA and the misery caused by destabilization campaigns against Poland and Eastern Europe (while preaching against secular political action by Priests and Nuns), the 1498 Papal Encyclical commanding either conversion or extermination of indigenous peoples, the patronizing patriarchy and patriarchal attitudes toward women, etc etc. me too! and then hold the pope to ransom to force the vatican to sell all their middle class art treasures and other properties they own. although i suppose clinton needs an invasion of some kind or another given his present rather sticky wicket. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
Re: White Jazz
On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: Where are the Louis Armstrongs or Charlie Parkers of today? Denis wrote: Hip-hopping or DJ-ing in the 'hood, that's where. I've always felt that Listen to marcus miller "tales" (1995). he attempts to stylise a link b/tw the old and the new jazz. terrifically funky and jazzy. he was miles davis's last bass player and makes a fender jazz bass sound like no other. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 ## Mobile: 0419 422 410 WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
Re: FSF
At 02:54 PM 12/26/97 -0600, you wrote: On Fri, December 26, 1997 at 12:04:02 (-0800) James Devine writes: ... where/how can one get FSF software? does it run on IBM compatibles, with Win95, etc.? The ftp location is prep.ai.mit.edu, in the directory pub/gnu. Many of the programs can be built for Win95, but I'm not sure which ones. You may be able to find pre-built binaries for the stuff, but I'm not sure where. The WWW address is http://www.fsf.org/ most of the code is portable to windows. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
Re: Marxism and Native Americans
I liked Louis's probe. I am very interested in the struggles of NA and Aust Aboriginal to remain a culturally intact group. I guess he was suggesting that we have to see what the implications are of applying historical materialism in marx literally when perhaps such applications go counter to other objectives - as appear in michael's statements below. i will follow this debate and when i have thought more about it, I will contribute. the other related issue - is whether being green and pursuing an environmentally sustainable production system is violating the same urgency to get capitalism into the phase where subjective class consciousness is possible. again the literal application which challenges other objectives. kind regards bill I want to applaud Louis's inquiries into the struggles of indigenous peoples. I wonder what sort of radical it is who does not stand up forthrightly for the rights of indigenous peoples just to exist as independent cultures. And it is not as if we do not have much to learn (about egalitarian distribution, efficient use of the land and resources, about medicines, etc.) from the few indigneous peoples left on earth. And what exactly do indigenous peoples have to gain from an integration into the modern world? If they do choose to integrate, then should we not make sure that we are fighting to make it a world worth integrating into? michael yates ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
A paper that might be of interest
Dear Pen-L Here is the address on my WWW server where you can read my paper that I will present in Chicago (the agenda was circulated by Matt in the last day or so. The Title: The Buffer Stock Employment Model and the NAIRU - the Path to Full Employment. Two formats are available: HTML (use netscape) http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/research/bse.html PDF (use netscape with adobe reader 3.0 added) http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/research/bse.pdf Comments are welcome and appreciated. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 ## Mobile: 0419 422 410 WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
Re: U.S. growth
Doug's prompts have interested me a lot - more than a lot of recent pen-l topics. Replying to louis (who has given us some excellent articles on environment/economic issues, thanks): Doug said: Two points. First, a sustained unemployment rate of below 5% does seem to be having the desired effect of boosting real wages, and most of that action has occurred during the last 12-18 months. So stopping at 1996 misses a large part of the gain. Since the present expansion began in 1991, compensation (by this definition) is up 3.1% - cume, not annual growth rate.(Productivity, it should be noted, is up almost three times as much as wages.) ...[snip]...Since the dawn of the Clinton era, real direct hourly pay for all private sector workers is up 2.6%, with most of that gain in the last year or so. So with inflation down, real pay rising, it looks good. but real unit labour costs (real wage divided by labour productivity, which is also equivalent to the wage share in national income) must have FALLEN by a substantital amount. There has been a major swing towards the share in profits. This fits Jim's also excellent analysis. It seems to be that when factor shares shift in favour of K, they invest more quickly to take advantage of it, productivity rises (noting that despite all the deregulationist, microeconomic reform rhetoric around the OECD bloc, high productivity comes with high investment (both are macro variables)), and so does employment (although the quality of this is questionable). Can you provide a RULC series doug of the top of your hat? I can go to the BLS site and do it myself but you probably have this. On hours and family income, doug said: I don't have the family of four numbers at my fingertips, but this is true of the average household. But, between 1993 1996, the average household's income is up 4.6% in real terms. Absolutely. As I said here the other day, this is a society that's sick with overwork. can you also express the average household's income as a % of the total hours worked and generate an index doug? the hypothesis from your description is that it will be taking workers in general longer to generate a real $US. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
[PEN-L:12172] Re: Slagging Di
2) Where was Camilla yesterday? tampon hunting. wasn't he pretending to be contrite at the funeral? of-course, he was really thinking "how the fuck do i get to marry her, be king, and fend of the tabloids now?" kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 ## Mobile: 0419 422 410 WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:12168] Re: Slagging Di
At 02:39 PM 9/6/97 -0700, you wrote: Sid says that we should give Disome credit. Maybe so. The National Football League is filled with "caring" athletes, many of whom have agents who give them charities as vehicles to get better reputations. My only offering about the whole sordid business are: (1) In reply to "are you going to watch the funeral?" - Me: what they are going to give the thousands of rwandans a funeral! (2) Where was Camilla yesterday? kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:11283] Re: econometrics and all that
At 05:23 PM 7/14/97 -0700, you wrote: bill mitchell wrote: Econometrics is a highly sophisticated art form and has an aesthetic aspect that takes some beating. the beauty of the data and the models and the dynamic interactions and covariances and the wonderful patterns of long and short run models, and the sheer intellectual depth of error correction formations makes it like poetry. Or... "Money is a kind of poetry." - Wallace Stevens. Doug hi Doug i am not sure of what this means. is money beautiful and complex and rhythmic, and ..? kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:11279] Re: econometrics and all that
At 02:03 PM 7/14/97 -0700, you wrote: Jim Devine writes, But models and econometrics can give one a greater understanding of what may be true. And Eric writes As any formal model and any econometric study depend on untestable and/or artificial ancillary assumptions I'm not sure how one can distinguish between models/empirical results that are "true" and those that are "false." Even some well-known mainstream econometricians have claimed that econometric modelling is merely the production of "metaphors" which might have little to do with "reality". When I do econometrics i am not thinking about truth or falsehood. I am only thinking about getting a tentatively adequate representation of the data processes via coherent and transparent methods which are better than other representations currently available (adjudicated by currently accepted model selection criteria) and which are not inconsistent with the economic theory which i may believe in as a matter of faith. when i do econometric tests i do not test economic theory. the tests are of hypotheses about the econometric model which is a quite distinct entity to the theoretical economic model. clearly, the latter conditions the construction of the former but it is difficult to map the former into the latter via testing. the economic model is a matter of faith (as joan robinson puts it - a branch of theology). the econometric model is a construct that may reflect the economic model. To draw any conclusions about the economic model from the econometric model is also a matter of faith. however, econometric modelling is one important aspect of knowledge accumulation and in a quantitative discipline like economics i fail to see how we can conduct ourselves unless we do get empirical. the question of truth and whether there is an absolute truth is another question. the old econometrics (dirty stuff) used to claim it was finding true models. read - the ones they believed in at the time. even if there is a concept of absolute truth, and the next regression i run reflects iti have no way of knowing that i have found it. for practical purposes it is better to aim at adequate representations than to search for truth. . . . Poetry, etc., is basically "about" human emotions. In my mind, poetry involves heightened attention to words, sounds, and meanings. This is not really an aside, as it relates to how I see econometrics, but time constraints don't permit me time to elaborate. Econometrics is a highly sophisticated art form and has an aesthetic aspect that takes some beating. the beauty of the data and the models and the dynamic interactions and covariances and the wonderful patterns of long and short run models, and the sheer intellectual depth of error correction formations makes it like poetry. modelling is a very emotional (human) experience. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:11143] Re: shun him!
At 02:17 PM 7/6/97 -0700, you wrote: I have removed Karl from pen-l. Although I have had private communications asking me to do so, I waited until the sentiment seemed stronger. I think that we have reached that point. This is the least entertaining part of pen-l, but at least it is an issue that comes only infrequently. -- A sad day micheal that you have to be the censor. self-regulation (along jim's lines) would have been better. then you give the person a chance to re-engage the dialogue in some effective way. it is too easy to just silence. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:10589] Re: French elections
a sinha wrote: Another example from Australia: Now it has become almost impossible for a migrant worker to bring his or her family. Even Australian citizens marrying foreigners are simply unable to be united with their families this is not true. there are around 60,000 new entrants coming in this year (down by 8,000 from 1996). the system works on points and so if you have skills you will almost certainly get in. the family reunificiation programme is also still strong. further, to say that OZ citizens who marry foreigners are "simply unable to be united" is also untrue. completely without foundation. please do not misrepresent our country to an international audience. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:9248] Re: Models
Dear Louis
there is a coding error on line 26.
kind regards
bill
to each other. I bet your model doesn't have that. And one last thing, my
model uses computer techniques to make sure that everything is
logical. Here's the software that I use:
#!/usr/local/bin/sybperl
$zero1 = "0";
$zero2 = "00";
$zero3 = "000";
$zero4 = "";
$zero5 = "0";
$zero6 = "00";
while (STDIN)
{$labor = substr($_, 1, 1);
$nature = substr($_, 2, 9);
$temperature = substr($_, 11, 2);
$x=$y=@array=@reverse_array=0;
conversion;}
sub conversion {
$orig = $nature;
while ($orig 0)
{$div = ($orig / 36);
$round_div = sprintf("%1d", $div);
$remainder = $orig - ($round_div*36);
translate;
@array[$x] = $translated_remainder;
$orig = $round_div;
$x++;}
$sizeof_array = @array;
$start_key = $sizeof_array - 1;
while ($y $sizeof_array)
{$reverse_array[$y] = $array[$start_key];
$start_key--;
$y++;}
$length = @liberation;
if ($length == 7)
{$base_36_vendnum =
"$labor@liberation[0]@liberation[1]@liberation[2]@liberation[3]@liberation[4]@liberation[5]@liberation[6]$temperature";}
elsif ($length == 6)
{$base_36_vendnum =
"$labor$zero1@liberation[0]@liberation[1]@liberation[2]@liberation[3]@liberation[4]@liberation[5]$temperature";}
elsif ($length == 5)
{$base_36_vendnum =
"$labor$zero2@liberation[0]@liberation[1]@liberation[2]@liberation[3]@liberation[4]$temperature";}
elsif ($length == 4)
{$base_36_vendnum =
"$labor$zero3@liberation[0]@liberation[1]@liberation[2]@liberation[3]$temperature";}
elsif ($length == 3)
{$base_36_vendnum =
"$labor$zero4@liberation[0]@liberation[1]@liberation[2]$temperature";}
elsif ($length == 2)
{$base_36_vendnum = "$labor$zero5@liberation[0]@liberation[1]$temperature";}
elsif ($length == 1)
{$base_36_vendnum = "$labor$zero6@liberation[0]$temperature";}
print "$base_36_vendnum\n";
}
sub translate {
@translation_array=("0","1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9",
"A","B","C","D","E","F","G","H","I","J",
"K","L","M","N","O","P","Q","R","S","T",
"U","V","W","X","Y","Z");
$translated_remainder = @translation_array[$remainder];
}
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:8702] Re: market socialism, planned socialism
Anders wrote (in part):
Our side could use some more dreamers. I can't tell you how many political
actions I've been involved with where the lefties involved will Talk the
Big Talk (Revolution, etc.) while fighting for a couple of lousy crumbs.
Almost nobody is gutsy enough to say, "we want real power in 10 years"--not
Ruling the World real power but running CA's state government or turning
the temp industry inside-out--let alone to actually plan for it. That
takes people who are willing to dream, let alone to do the kind of
theorizing that makes dreams vivid. Unfortunately, most of the radicals I
know who think that way are on the Right...
we have spoken about this in other topics. one thing that irritates me about
the left (i speak of OZ) is their attitude to public schooling. while they are
all committed leftists planning the long haul...they feel justified in taking
their children out of the run-down state education system and putting them into
the salubrious private school education that costs a lot in terms of fees which
they can afford to pay being uni. academics and lawyers and etc and etc.
they justify it by saying their kids are more important than a principle.
i retort...nothing is more important than a principle (a principle defines
itself). either they believe in being in control of a vibrant public sector
(okay - it is no revolution, and is only palliative, and is probably a strategy
which prolongs capitalism, but it is now and it is our lives) or they don't.
their actions always lead me to think they would be the first people i would
"shoot come the revolution".
so i agreebefore we get there there is so much to do - in the community, on
the land, getting little things sorted out and in control. come the revolution,
these bastards and their bastard kids (all with big educations) will probably
take over and be as fucked as the incumbents.
take control nowin little waysthat is my approach and maybe, some time
down the road, the revolution might come and we will have some consistent
practices already in place.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:8589] Re: child of NAIRU!
This is an interesting discussion and beats flame wars and cockroaches any day. it seems that they have now gone of to wreck M-I. good riddance. Jim once again mustn't have anything much to do and wrote heaps of interesting things two points: 1) As suggested by the end of my last missive on this subject, whether or not the P curve is vertical depends on one's time-frame. From year to year, it's very flat, maybe even horizontal. In a 4 year period like the US electoral cycle, it's L-shaped, with a flat tail. It's only in the long run (of the sort that happens after we're dead) that it's probably vertical. well my current work is about regime shifts in the PC. i don't think we should be frightened of using the concept NAIRU although i argued in a 1987 paper that we should follow Kuhn and Lakatos and invent our own terminology to separate us from them. more later on that. it is foolish to get into a lather denying the verticality of the PC at some unemployment rate. i agree with tom that we have some work to do on what we think about or what constitutes employment and hence unemployment. this will be forced upon us by environmental concerns b/c there is not a hope in hell of everyone being able to work using today's technology to produce today's mix of goods and services without the environment collapsing. but that is another story and tom sort of waylaid the debate on the nairu by putting this in. back to vertical pcs. i think there is some positive level of un always required. it might be called the level of informational un. (sort of frictional).clearly information takes time to travel and be absorbed. changing agg. demand will not really affect this. so then if say we are at that rate..capitalist class struggle asideit defines full capacity (in the sense that capital is not the constraint but labour supply is) and the system cannot crank out any more physical output and thus cannot quantity adjust..then whatprices have to adjust. and once you accept that then you are on a vertical pc. the question is at what unemployment rate it occurs. i say low and i say that although there might be spikes of vertical or steep segments along the way, the govt can use AD policies to drive the economy towards that level (environmental considerations aside). we are not giving up anything to admit that such a regime shift - from a persistent or long memory segment of the PC where AD policy can have permanent quantity effects to a vertical segment where it can't --- exists. if you put this into a class struggle context then you have to admit that probably the cappos won't like the un rate to be anywhere near the informational rate. and in that context you get the nairu concept becoming the description of the rate at which the cappos stop using margin push to get a higher profit share. of-course, equally it is the rate where the unions or workers generally stop using wage push to increase their real wages. it moves depending on institutions and other things economic. jim has done a fine job of describing this. But the fact that the "long run" will never come doesn't mean that we should ignore the NAIRU completely; to avoid silly terminological squabbles, however, let's follow bill mitchell to call it the MERU, the "macroeconomic equilibrium rate of unemployment," even if it's the same thing as the NAIRU. yeh lets follow him. sounds like a good term to me. for readers who want the development of the model and the term read William F. Mitchell (1987). "The NAIRU, Structural Imbalance, and the Macroeconomic Equilibrium Unemployment Rate, Australian Economic Papers, June. (always learning things from Paul D.!!,although it is not in capitals eh?) The MERU is unknown, while it may never be known exactly. It shifts, probably even due to changes in the actual U rate. However, there _is_ some unemployment rate below which the balance of power in labor-power markets starts shifting towards workers, so that conflict-based inflation rises. That's the MERU. (It's a bit like Marx's concept of prices of production (Smith's "natural" prices): actual market prices never attain prices of production for long. PoPs are based on a violent abstraction, i.e., the assumption of equalized profit rates, but they do say something about the tendencies of market prices.) but it isn't the informational rate. the MERU is probably only a temporary constraint on AD expansion. i am also working on a model where the public sector automatically guarantess the informational rate by acting as a "buffer stock" employer. in other words, its acts to take up any employment slack created by the private sector. the govt gets round the cappos fear of too much bargaining strength by setting a non-inflationary going wage which then conditions the wage rate in the economy in general. the cappos then know that they don't have to pay union demands and push
[PEN-L:8491] Re: cockroach and pen-l list...
Most of the stuff on Pen-L is garbage! But if you insist on refusing
Cockroach and other issues that i post. Well, take Pen L. and shove it up
your ass. Now you either take me off your list or leave it alone!
Because what your are doing is banning Trotskyists and kissing the asses of
the Liberals and Mensheviks that post dozens of piss articles that have
nothing to do with poor and working class people and their struggles!
Futhermore I am posting your letter and this reply to you to the other
lists, the newsgroups and a future issue of Cockroach.
...
CC: everybody I know! And that is a whole lot of people you whiny little
fucking piece of shit.
Dear Bob
i am sure the boycott will be successful. go for it. get your loud-hailer out
(like we did in the 60-70s) and get into a lather with some slogans, old
fashioned ones like those that were popular around the vietnam days.and
march off into the distance, hating, loathing, and feeling like a real fucking
hero.
many people experienced high costs for matters of principle during the late 60
and early 70, including internment for extended periods. but that was more than
25 years ago. the struggle has changed.
i have read cockroach. it is poor communication. it is froth and bubble and
barely gets beyond the student babble that hides virtual nothingness in a
swathe of fancy titles "trotyskyists, mensheviks..."
class struggle is about communicating with people not badgering them with
insults and rudeness. pen-l is the progressive economic list. we know you exist
thanks to your postings (that michael accepts) on the table of contents. we
have the choice to go to your site and check it out. that is enough. those who
visit the site won't be bookmarking it - it is full of the sort of shit that
you pumped out today.
i might be the liberal type you hate but for the list record i support michael
completely in the way he runs the list. From my personal contact with him i
think he is a really top guy. Your failure to assess him properly, probably is
also related to the reason why your attempt at web journalism is miserable.
your attacks on him miss the mark. they merely reflect on you.
as a monthy python sketch might conclude "oh no, not that,...please not
that, please don't post anything to cockroach..., what would
i do if any of this gets in cockroach."
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:8462] re: Bougainville
do any of pen-l's ozzies* have any comments on the events
reported over pen-l concerning Bougainville?
*"ozzies" is ozzy slang for aussies.
OZ Bill here. the situation in Bougainville (B) is pretty complicated. The
people have been trying to take on a couple of huge multinational companies,
the PNG government propped up by the defence aid budget from the australian
government (even though the govt always swore black and blue that equipment
they gave to the PNG govt was only used for peaceful purposes - they lied and
brought shame on us...only slightly lesser in my view, than the way successive
OZ governments have sold out the fretilin in East Timor), and an apathetic
world (also the problem for east timor).
interestingly, the people have taken the companies on (well one of them BHP) in
the Australian courts over pollution damage from the OK-Tedi copper mine
on their island. they have had mixed success but it is a real david and goliath
effort (sort of like the mcdonalds prosecution in the UK). BHP turn up with
very expensive QCs in their fine silks and the B people hire a suburban lawyer
who ties the company up in litigation for ages. at present it is unresolved
although i think the Bs have lostthe undecided question is whether the
Australian courts have jurisdiction. the PNG, when it was initially decided
that they did, combined with BHp to appeal. the PNG govt and CRA and BHP are in
league in all of it. the pollution was a total disgrace and even BHP has
admitted it didn't take the proper safeguards. read: they dump raw and very
damaging poisonous waste into the main water channel of the people in the area
who lost their livelihoods and became ill.
as for the major struggle: well it is a classic National Liberation Struggle.
the Companies are raping the raw materials and destroying the local land
system. the companies say they are giving the people jobs. well yeh, in
dangerous tasks at low pay with high turnover through injury. and hey, they
already had jobs.they ran their own showsfarms etc. they companies
don't even pay the PNG govt much.
so the OZ govt are guilty. the OZ companies are guilty. the PNG govt is
hopelessly corrupt and guilty. and simplistically, the Bs are the fighting this
rather unlikely battle (in terms of resources and technology) against a
monolith with heaps of clout.
CRA has pulled out b/c the costs of vandalism/sabotage became too great and no
white executives were safe anywhere.
that is my view. there is also not enough anger among australians for this and
east timor, b/c in part we are being divided and conquered by our own govt
acting in the interests of capital.
hope this gives some info jim
it is a crying shame.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:8261] Re: inflation deflation
Lynn Turgeon writes: Passell also concludes that most people
seem to win as a result of overall deflation just as most people
seem to lose from overall inflation and therefore tend to go
along with fighting inflation as a national policy. No wonder
there is inertia among Japanese policy-makers when it comes to
reversing deflation.
How can Passell say such things?? How can he talk about "most
people"? Debtors win in (unanticipated) inflations and lose in
(unanticipated) deflations. Creditors get the flip side, losing
in (unant) inflations and winning in (unant) deflation. The
Japanese deflationary hegemony seems to me to be similar to that
of the 1920s (on a more global scale), partly due to the power of
the creditors and partly a reaction to past inflation.
Adding to Jim:
i am amazed that there hasn't been a consideration of the unemployment that
accompanies deflation and the strong employment growth that typically
accompanies inflation (though not always of-course).
the distributional changes that accompany unemployment (which is always
disproportionately borne by low wage groups anyway) are major. poverty doesn't
seem to stem from losing real income as your holdings of credit diminish with
inflation.
but it sure does correlate strongly with not having an income at all due to
unemployment.
give me inflation any time. all i have to do is to index the nominal economy. a
much easier option that what is confronted in the labour market when a
deflation is on.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:8261] Re: inflation deflation
Lynn Turgeon writes: Passell also concludes that most people
seem to win as a result of overall deflation just as most people
seem to lose from overall inflation and therefore tend to go
along with fighting inflation as a national policy. No wonder
there is inertia among Japanese policy-makers when it comes to
reversing deflation.
How can Passell say such things?? How can he talk about "most
people"? Debtors win in (unanticipated) inflations and lose in
(unanticipated) deflations. Creditors get the flip side, losing
in (unant) inflations and winning in (unant) deflation. The
Japanese deflationary hegemony seems to me to be similar to that
of the 1920s (on a more global scale), partly due to the power of
the creditors and partly a reaction to past inflation.
Adding to Jim:
i am amazed that there hasn't been a consideration of the unemployment that
accompanies deflation and the strong employment growth that typically
accompanies inflation (though not always of-course).
the distributional changes that accompany unemployment (which is always
disproportionately borne by low wage groups anyway) are major. poverty doesn't
seem to stem from losing real income as your holdings of credit diminish with
inflation.
but it sure does correlate strongly with not having an income at all due to
unemployment.
give me inflation any time. all i have to do is to index the nominal economy. a
much easier option that what is confronted in the labour market when a
deflation is on.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:8124] Re: M-I: vile behavior
Towards the reforging of a Communist International!
Bob your tirade has nothing to do with anything that will be achieved on an
international basis. merely internecene ego struggle from the reading of it.
and i admit that the sort of rhetoric you engaged was the stuff that turned me
off the spartacus league and ilk when i was 16 years old. too immature for even
that age.
and i haven't the slightest why you post this to pen-l which avoids such
personal fuckwitted nonsense - usually. keep it to your other lists.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:7960] Re: M-I: market socialism and fire insurance
Louis: What a joke! Does anybody think that Barclay Rosser would be
posting all of that highly detailed information about Hungary and China
to the Marxism list if having this at his fingertips was not part
of his job?
Big fucking deal. Do you think that if I wasn't paid to administer Unix
based client-server applications, I would know about this sort of stuff.
No way.
Loius, i was happy when you said that your were leaving the list again. in any
dialogue some reciprocity is required. you seem to have a dependence on the
list in some pathetic way by hanging around, yet you treat us all with
contempt.
one can only feel sorry for someone who is so pitiful.
either fuck off or realise the list is pen-l, it has academics, activists,
lawyers, and computer programmers on it among others, and usually we all get
on by expressing our ideas in our own ways which obviously is conditioned in
part by the type of things we do for a living.
and you seem to deny that in any "occupational-specific" knowledge there is not
an aesthetic. in both the seeming esoterica of economics and client-server
protocol there is such beauty to be found which has value in itself. only the
ignorant and desperately unhappy could not see this.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:7959] Re: M-I: market socialism and fire insurance
Louis: What a joke! Does anybody think that Barclay Rosser would be posting all of that highly detailed information about Hungary and China to the Marxism list if having this at his fingertips was not part of his job? Here, you want some highly detailed technical information from me?: In Perl, the variable that can be used to represent standard input is $_. In Sybase, the number of rows that are returned in an SQL statement can be limited through the use of the set rowcount command. Big fucking deal. Do you think that if I wasn't paid to administer Unix based client-server applications, I would know about this sort of stuff. No way.
[PEN-L:7932] Re: Re[2]: Re: Che and Cuba
Ken said the following:
COMMENT: Agreed that the Cuban economy is in considerable trouble
surely two of the main causes of this are: i) the US led isolation
of the Cuban economy from profitable export markets, even to the point
of alienating the US's own trading partners through extraterritorial
application of US law.ii) the collapse of
the USSR and beneficial trade relationships with the former communist
countries. These much more than central planning seems to be the cause
of Cuba's present woes.
Well we have to be careful to net out causality here. logically (another ploy
coming up which is used by academics! - eh louis):
(1) cuba made progress despite the usa blockade. so that hasn't changed.
(2) it could have been central planning.
(3) it could have been the fact that they were basically a dependent state of
the USSR.
(4) when the sugar markets collapsed there, and the aid dried up, cuba stumbles
badly, central planning or not.
(5) so what did central planning have to do with anything?
that is the question. my bet is that central planning did not necessarily lead
to any growth scenarios in cuba. its impact might have been more on equity and
civilised interactions b/tw people. the multipliers coming from the strong USSR
presence in the economy would have kicked irrespective of the type of
allocation and distribution system.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:7918] Re: An insult to Burns?
Louie, still dishing up the "i'm just an ordinary guy who knows
better than anyone what is radical and just goes about being one
in an unassuming ordinary way" talk, i note.
the list is called pen-l. progressive ECONOMISTS net list. got it.
it is not unreasonable that economists might talk about things that relate
to their ambit. the real debate i suppose is whether they are progressive.
so talking about computer programming (although it would interest me) would
seem a bit odd on pen-l.
Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but what in the hell does Peter Burns
think that he is trying to accomplish by asking me these sorts of
questions. Do you think the average person is going to have the sort of
grasp of pricing theory minutiae that a professional economist has? One of
the reasons I get steamed by these sorts of questions from Burns, Rosser,
Mitchell, etc. is that they smack of academic insider knowledge. This is
what these people do for a living.
I could throw around computer programming concepts with a bunch of people
who haven't been doing it for 28 years like me and they would say, "Wow,
how does he know all that".
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:7847] Data on Labour Managed firms
Dear Pen-l
I am interested in doing some econometric work on labour managed firms in
tandem with a person who has done some theoretical work.
Can anyone (paul p. and my old mate barkley - come in spinners) advise me
on the state of data.
and whether anyone has any they could let me use.
any help would be much appreciated.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7822] Re: Stiglitz to WB
Doug writes questioning Stigs appointment to the WB:
are the probems of the third world the result of
information asymetry?
well after 14 years or so of SAPs the WB probably thinks it has finally rid
itself of the Third World and if it hasn't quite done the job then it guesses
AIDs will do the rest, and Joe S needed a little retirement sinecure and so
that was it.
kind regards
the cryptic one
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7706] Re: an interesting WWW site
bill, bill, bill,
I am very sympathetic to green concerns and the need
to radically alter the system to deal with them. But,
please, let's not undermine the case with nonsense data.
For years there have been hysterical forecasts made on the
basis of misunderstood data. Just to pick on one of the
points on your list, 4 years to having only half the crude
oil left? Simply ridiculous.
Your Old Mate, Bahhhkley
My old mate
i made no claims that the stats were in any way solid. but it is food for
thought. even if they are a little correct they give rise for concern. and did
you go to the site and click the more detailed analysis? that is also very
interesting.
the estimates of the difference b/tw :"northern" and "southern" diets are also
very thought provoking, especially when you see the number of fat people
walking around in western societies.
that is all i was hoping to do with this.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7479] Re: more science!
Doug wrote:
I've never proposed banning anyone. I said I would not publish a piece that
argued for the nonexistence of physical reality in any journal I edited.
While I am not necessarily advocating (completely) political correctness which
accompanied post-mod thinking there is this sentiment out there that to be
critical is to be an "ist" - racist, sexist, ageist, some-other-ist. to say
that a piece of writing is verbiage and largely nonsense is to then commit a
heinous sin of hegemony and domination and usually one is then
counter-criticised for not understanding the intricasies of the discourse or
whatever.
and in other areas, we get people arguing for open literature including
paedophile type stuff and all of that.
I think the resort to "domination/hegemony/ignorance" type attacks is
unwarranted. If we allow any garbage to come out in published material then the
standards of the literature fall until we have no standards.
anyway, doug just in case you do harbour secret ambitions to take over the
world i am watching!
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7429] Re: more irreality
Speaking of performativity.
while i was out training this morning (on my cycle) i sure has hell thought i
went up a steep hill. and when i thought i was over the other side, i sure as
hell thought it seemed easier to peddle fast. and when i returned home (or what
i think is home) i sure as hell felt tired in the legsbut then i guess i
can't be sure that i have any.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7353] Re: racism, affirmative action, etc.
Obviously, but one complicating point: according to the LA Times exit poll,
48% of women (race unspecified) voted for Prop. 209. From looking at the
exit poll figures, it looks like only a third of the California electorate
consists of white men, and not all of them voted Yes. Even if all white men
voted in unison, they'd need lots of help from nonwhite nonmen to pass
odious legislation.
Doug presents a somewhat different perspective than the one we have had over
the weekend. perhaps we can stop the white stuff and just start attacking
"males". then we would have to account for the 48 per cent of the women.
hmmm, simple (dogmatic) stereotyping is not easy, is it?
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7345] Re: Affirmative Action in public employment and education
This last condition does point to the competition inherent in the condition
of wage labor and the possible discriminatory use of unions to protect jobs
for a favored group or "race." But I wouldn't expect a dogmatic Marxist
like you to be critical of unions. Of course ultimately the answer to this
problem would have to be the abolition of wage labor, not the timid utopia
of affirmative action.
Rakesh
perhaps you better consult the pen-l archives and go back to the french strike
period before you stereotype me.
and you can still get the distance you want in analysing the affirmative action
backlash without even mentioning colour. that was the point i was making.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7339] Re: Affirmative Action in public employment and
Rakesh says:
Or is it that the more whites (an interesting category) feel that they may
lose political power due to their impending minority status, the more they
will insist on the right to maintain prejudices "for their own"? Is this
why California has been the site for both Props 187 (the attack on
trabajadores sin papeles) and 209, that whites imagine themselves here as a
group headed for minority status? And do whites imagine themselves in this
paranoid way in no small part because census data, kept in racial
categories, continuously reminds them of how they will soon be "pinced" ,
as best-selling immigration expert Peter Brimelow puts it, in between
Blacks, Hispanics and Asians?
I understand your sentiment but you should be careful not to rescind into racism
yourself. your emphasis on "whites" as an oppressive colour disturbs me.
oppression is system-specific. i don't see too many whites in rwanda
oppressing.
rather you should focuc on the ruling class not by colour but by its
association with capital.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7165] Hmmm
Dear Pen-L
I went to a university once.
Once of the lecturers there hated me.
He/she kicked me out of the class.
I won't tell you why.
So fuckin what!
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7211] Re: another off-list communication
Sorry for the empty message i just sent. the mailer is giving a little trouble
today.
anyway, the new idea i comment on is "People and Their Ideas".
jim said:
My criticism (explicit or implicit) of the Post-Modernist
authors and their tradition are NOT personal attacks. There's
a big difference between a person's ideas and his or her
personality.
i have thought about this issue often, usually in the context of movements and
officials of movements etc. and my place in them.
i have sometimes concluded that i would find it difficult to invite a rabid
liberal (this is in the OZ context - a conservative, pro-business, pro-rich
prick for short) into my house no matter how "nice" they were. to what extent
does behaviour become characterisations of thought.
i understand that the SS commanders like himmler and co were lovely people.
they loved their kids, family etc. were kind to their friends. but they lost
the right to live in my mind b/c of their ideas.
so i guess i am not as tolerant as jim. if someone is right-wing,
pro-capitalist, pro-the-rich - they become my class enemy. yes, they might
still be "working class" but they are in the so-called "contradictory
location".
i then wouldn't give them the time of day no matter how many "superficial"
things they might have in common with me. like sports, music, etc etc.
the thought that is always in my mind is that if they were left unfettered what
would they do?
everything i would hate. destroy the planet some more, make other peoples'
lives miserable and line their own fucking pockets.
it makes it hard.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7158] Re: Pomo: Swimming or drawning
I think pomo is seen as difficult to engage because it's core concept is that
there is more than one truth. If one can't preach the ultimate truth, then
one can't be a hero. If one can't be a hero, one will take her/his toys and
go home.
Maggie said the above.
the trouble with truth and relativism it that it is too easy to descend into
absurd depths to avoid argument. using structure to avoid engagement.
relativism is perfectly consistent with marxism - historically specific modes
of prod after all.
i also agree with some ideas of post modernism which emphasise the relation of
self to what might be truth. is there an absolute truth? we will never know.
how would you recognise it if you got there. as a reaction against christianity
and god-based fetters on individuals i think this is useful.
but on the phenomena level that we operate day to day and which is the starting
point of political struggle there is surely truth - and although i see what i
see b/c i am me - objectivity. the obvious example is comparing me to the young
child being macheted to death by barbaric savages in say rwanda. that is truth.
i am not and the child is being slaughtered.
just to remind my self that the phenomena might have
impacts on "me" (as a relative entity in space which i define myself), i
occasionally cut my self shaving.it hurts. the machete is a fact.
so for me i am not looking for heroes. but i am also not looking to hide things
which we can agree are beyond our own subjective entities. what we think of
these things, of-course, depends on our ideology and so ultimately our
interpretations are subjective.
i also don't think it is an argument to list a heap of authors that somebody
says are post modernists and then demand that any one who wishes to criticises
post modernism as a "paradigm" must individually address the writings
and provide detailed line by line critiques. i have read some (majority) of the
writers so far mentiones but certainly not all nor even 70 percent. it is to me
tortured prose for the cogniscenti. it doesn't embrace me at all. fine.
there is an aesthetic which those within it appreciate. but even the bloody
opera (in OZ) now has by the stage big screens explaining everything as it goes
with simple english translations for the "common folk" to entice them to come
along and to demystify it a bit (of-course, dare i say it has probably helped
all the snobs who pretended they knew what was going on anyway!!). (BTW, i
haven't witnessed this first hand - no way! - i've been reliably informed as
they say).
but the point must be that a paradigm forms and many strands operate within it.
in that sense there is a definable theory and praxis. it is legitimate to
criticise a paradigm at that level without disaggregating it. one might say
there is not such level of generality. okay lets argue that.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7054] Re: anti-intellectualism against and in the left
verne said:
Anti-intellectualism has a long lineage in America that rarely gets
mentioned in this now tedious debate. Economics qua economics is as
subject to the politics of expertise and the vernacular as is "discourse
analysis". This is why we need (political) public intellectuals, like Mr.
Henwood and the Dollars and Sense people.
Doug said:
But really, we popular types should stay out of theory, right? The hell
with that. I had my first confrontation with theory at Yale in 1971, a very
early beachead for the French invasion. In continued with it at the
University of Virginia English department. I've read it, I have friends who
adore it, I understand what it's about. What it's about is nowhere near as
profound as its style affects. I'm not just some Mike Royko sounding off
between beers.
verne said:
On the other hand most of the complaints about the form that
"post-modern" writing takes seem to be specious complaints about the
language of philosophy itself. The complaints are more applicable to
Hegel than to Baudrillard, and this is all fine, but Marx would bash and
bash and bash the young Hegelians only to be a singularly excellent
reader and critic of Hegel. (Baudrillard is an idiot and a straw man.
Isn't there a bias in even picking him as an example of a "post-modern"
intellectual.)
Doug i hardly think you have to provide your cv to have credibility. it oozes
out of you. and i am not a WSJ type at all. yet i agree very much with your
sentiments.
Sweezy complained long ago about the vacuous nonsense that trades as
neoclassicana - essentially from 1st year under grad to 5th year post grad it
is the same simple stuff - mostly devoid of substance. yet it becomes
increasingly unintelligible behind the smokescreen of maths (which i might say
in terms of an view of mathematics aesthetics is mostly second rate and clumsy
maths - who cares it fools the majority of the profession). it is designed to
hide the essential lack of substance of the discipline.
The stuff dished up by the post moderninists is in the same category - a few
simple and easy to understand ideas - clothed in the most tortured, jargonised
codefor the cogniscentimakes it sound erudite. makes it sound deep.
makes it sound authoritative.who is going to challenge it? mostly it is
unintelligible.
the simple idea that values intrude in the objective/subjective distinction is
simple enough. the relativism of our lives is simple enough. why clothe it in
sophistry?
it might be that their is an aesthetic in all of it which escapes me. but then
i hate classical music too - remember - its also for the snobs and aspirers.
so yeh, doug i agree. give em hell.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:7057] Re: anti-intellectualism against and in the left
A prerequisite for giving any theory hell by critiquing it is first
*understanding* that theory. I haven't heard Doug give a critique of *any*
of the writers that he refers to. I have only heard him *dismiss* those
writers and their theories. Perhaps he does have a critique of
post-modernism but so far it reads more like sounding off between beers
(IMHO).
Jerry
doug has given a strong critique based on the style and form of theoretical
reasoning. i agreed with him. the substance of pomo is pretty simple in fact.
but it is so hidden by the need to make it sound like something really deep
that you lose the essence. The development of theory is not independent of the
way in which it is developed and the style it is presented.
anyway, i am not in here to bat for doug. he can get his WSJ'eeze out and
speak for himself
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6909] Re: that toothpaste
At 5 pm on Friday Chuck said:
I heard that the Fed is putting interest rates up. Didn't know
who said it, but one rumour is enough to keep us going for
another day
whatdyamean. i also heard that Clinton changed toothpaste brands
yesterday. Maybe he knew something we didn't then?
later
bobbie
univ. of washington
yeh i heard it to.
randy
uni of california
he used to use stripe non-flouride, but now since he has been
listening to bartok, he has got sophisticated and evidently went to
that new gee-whiz brand.
hope this helps
Cindy Lu
Federal Reserve
Chicago
hey, cindy
got any news on those rates?
Danny Jones Junior III
Americans for Truth
Dear Pen-L
i am from australia and i would like to talk about global american
imperialism.
Kind Regards
Bill
Hey man, chuck here. Which state of the US of A is australia in. Haven't heard
of that one?
Chuck
American Foundation for World Studies
Uni of Mass.
and then micheal had to come along and put a dampener on the conversation. but
i guess we will all find out everything ...surely the issues will burn for
longer than the next 24 hours. so now the philistines move in and take over
pen-l.
well alex g'day mate. what do you want to talk about. Californian electoral
hopes for clinton. where's that anyway?
anyway at the moment i am working on my phillips curve book and several papers
that arise. i am going to florence to talk about european unemployment in
november. the prevailing wisdom over there (exemplified by the LSE-Oxford mafia
- try reading Layard, nickell and jackman) emphasises supply side factors -
still. innappropriate benefit systems, excess tax rates, real wage expectations
that don't match trends in productivityand they couch all stuff in terms of
of so-called hysteretic systems (which make them sound different to the banal
but related new classical nonsense). and they do have certain concessions for
AD deficiency.
my line is that there has never been a time when governments couldn't decrease
unemployment with fiscal and monetary policy if they tried. so why is un so
high? b/c everyone has been persuaded that inflation is an enemy and so
governments have deliberately allowed un to remain high. the persistence is
nothing more than the longer term effects of deficient demand. and growth
bursts haven't been long enough to fully absorb the pool.
so why is inflation the evil? it isn't. it is a convenient tool used by the
bosses to keep a RAU up at desirable levels. profits might not be as high as
they could be if full capacity was the norm, but the hegemony of the cappos is
less under threat and the un. has allowed them to systematically destroy the
unions and turn them into a sickenly weak divided self-destructive movement
unable to capture the needs and spirit of the women and youth.
my own work shows how incomes policy clearly controls inflation in times when
growth is above (the pitiful) average. in oz, IPs work. when they have been
relaxed or modified to resemble free market bargaining, wages growth has been
way above the IP periods. one question for europe and that little joint to the
north east of us is why do IPs work here and not there?
i am also pushing this line that governments have a strong role to play. the
problem we have talked about before and i have been sort of out there as usual
not in the mainstream of pen-l.
too little AD - poor jobs performance.
too much - the environment dies.
the world can't cope with AD levels common in OZ or the USA.
so what can we do. we used to teach expenditure-switching strategies to get us
out of trade deficit/unempl dilemmas. well in a way that is what i say again.
the 1980s period of new classicana left us with a legacy of a rising rump of
RAU. people who are dispossessed. it also left us with a lot of privatised
public assets, lower public spending and lower taxes.
we need more AD to get this rump offering value. but we can't have it in the
private (polluting) sector.
the challenge for government policy is to create value among the bottom 20
percent. get them generating value in community-based green employment.
this means we abandon the gainful work classification. redefine
unemployment-employment.
i don't go for shawgi type revolutions anymore. the time is passed for that. we
have to sneak up on them. but meanwhile the world is dying from pollution. the
sneaking up has to start now.
so that is the stuff that i am throwing the hardest econometrics at right now.
it is looking good from my angle and will come out in print early in 1998
(edward elgar).
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
[PEN-L:6910] Re: Off Limits: USA
Obviously, I have a preference for issues that concern directly
the third world; but, overall speaking, in the 'global context' we
are submerged, there is little that would not influence in one way
or another, at the end, the lifes of people in the third world (and
viceversa). I have to admit that 'I have had it' with the international
financial institutions (WB, IMF, IADBs, etc.), because of their
overwhelming pressure on the third world, but *also* because I
believe they are terribly effective and dangerous at proliferating
the most orthodox mainstream economics, all over the world (at the
level of politics, but also research and teaching). And this worries
me, be it for its present *and also* its long term impact...
Beste Alex
hoe gaat het u? ik hoop dat je zijn wel. (i can add all those strange dutch
sounds too if you like).
so when were you ever enamoured with SAPs? how could they ever do the world any
good when the US President gets to appoint the WB President and the US
dominates both institutions?
i don't know of a single country that has benefitted from the programmes
(either IMF and/or WB). why should they? they are just orthodox economic
policy.
what amazes me is how little mapping there is b/tw the disasters of SAP
experiments and the mainstream of our profession. if i banged my head up
against the wall once, i might attribute the pain to some random occurrence.
twice i might start getting clever and three times i would get it i think.
how many countries have gone under SAP misery since 1980? 80 or so. when are
these bastards going to get it. the evidence is in. labour markets don't work
like they think. the programmes don't work.
btw, alex, isn't it good that the spelling has improved on pen-l today. we
finally spell labour right, programmes...etc.
anyway,
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6919] Re: I'm afraid to say this...
4. why censoring the USA for the whole world is a breakthrough.
Though of course we wouldn't even be talking to each other like this if it
weren't for the Pentagon.
there is a fallacy in this argument Doug. you assume there is a uniqueness to
phenomena. but path dependency can be non-unique and depends vitally on
starting values.
in this case we communicate via email b/c of the beginnings of the net in
military intelligence in the usa. but if that hadn't have happened it still
might have happened via another path.
so is tomorrow over?
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6896] Re: Off Limits: USA
Tomorrow, I hope that I can remember myself, I am going to ask all posters
from the U.S. to hold off posting to pen-l to encourage those from other
countries to introduce themselves or to tell us how pen-l could serve them
better.
We have probably 100 people from outside of the U.S. We get quite a bit
from Canada, some from OZ or NZ, and occassionaly something from Europe.
Let's hear from you.
hmm, michael
tomorrow has already started for us OZzes. and how can you reconcile this with
the statement that the sun never sets on america given the pervasiveness of
yankee corporate capitalism and accompanying (junk) culture in the world.
the question is when does tomorrow begin?
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6905] Re: I'm afraid to say this...
I'm afraid to say this, but isn't a USA-free day a case of (gasp)
CENSORSHIP?
if so, it's a good idea. Maybe, some time, we could have a USA-free
day for the world as a whole, not just for pen-l.
i warming up for when us OZ types and etc will rule pen-l for 24 hours at
least. (note how i assign the rest of the world minus US and OZ as "etc", i
have been learning my lessons well .).
anyway, i am still waiting to know when tomorrow begins. then the flood of
emails will begin.
topics to be discussed:
1. the role of trade unions in a community-based green society
2. how governments have to find value in the bottom 20 per cent.
3. why listening to classical music stops the revolutions.
4. why censoring the USA for the whole world is a breakthrough.
among others.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6906] Re: Off Limits: USA
This is a very good proposal to give us one day a week for picnic. I would
like to add to his proposal this one: We should have one day a week
"European Forum," One day "Asian Forum," and one day "Third World Forum."
We shoud set aside one day to air each forum. The US posters should be
silent just one day a week so that we can hear other voices and other
peoples' concerns.
Fikret
Okay the netherlands is in europe - i know that.
japan is in asia - i know that
ghana is in the (i hate this colonialist term) "the third world" - i know that
so where is OZ svp?
in all three probably!
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6870] Re: reform or revolution? revisited
Suppose one is teaching intro econ to "typical" (?) university students,
which means mainstream range of conservative, and some liberal ideas,
including many who will either in school or later go into "business."
Do you (I'm asking for your personal opinions here) teach that corporations
*must* e.g. open non-union shops, invest abroad where labor is cheaper,
skimp on quality, etc., in order to compete in capitalist markets, thereby
reinforcing those tendencies in those who are or will be in business; or
do you teach that unions can increase productivity; "environmentally
friendly commodities" can be profitable, and the like, thereby reinforcing
liberal tendencies at the cost of pushing "socialism" away?
Dear Blair
I don't teach first year but i do teach 2nd year. i tell my students that i
think there in an ineluctable logic to capitalism - a dynamic which defines the
system.distributional conflict (arising from ownership disparity), the
role of the rate of profit and the impossibility of full employment (much less
the desirability of itgiven environmental concerns and production
techniques).
within that logic...there are some things which will make it work better
for the systemthat is the cappos. i say to them that most nearly all things
that a re better for people are worse for cappos and vice versa.
so para (a) above is right.
and para (b) creates conflict and crises.
i tell them that within capitalism it might be possible to escape and create
community -based green production cultures where people and nature replace the
rate of profit as the goal and ownership becomes a second order of smallness
issue.
but i don't resile from agreeing that unions can create unemployment and are
open always (through petty greed) to being divided and conquered.
that's a start
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6824] Re: New Zealand living standards
For those followers of New Zealand on the list, the following NZ
Press Association item will be of interest, particularly since the
period covers most of the economic restructuring which began in 1984.
(Note that Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) is the semi-commercialised,
but still state-owned, Department of Statistics.)
The data is hard to interpret. Could you append it with some distributional
data?
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6826] Re: New Zealand living standards
What about spending per household on yachts?
Yeah, that's a serious question. NZ has, by far, the highest per capita
rate of recreational boat ownership. Boat ownership in NZ is certainly not
limited to the wealthy, moreover, and extends to a large percentage of
working class families.
Both australia and NZ are outdoor places and aquatic. but jerry, there is a
significant difference b/tw a 60 metre america's cup boat that hangs around the
wealthy moorings in wellington or auckland, and the working class "mirror" which
dad and mum tow behind there clapped out sedan to the beach in summer.
it is hardly a sign of wealth to own a little skiff or dinghy like a mirror.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6813] Re: Shawgi and Censorship
Jerry - i don't quite get it. his reaction to post to your mailperson about
being bombarded with multiple (did you really send 30 of each) emails back from
you seems appropriate. He gets the message with one returned mail...in the same
way you return normal mail if it is "not known at this address" (at least in
OZ).
i do not like much of tell's posts b/c i feel they are generally outlines of
basic marxist principle which i think i learned long ago. but i still think he
has not contravened any of the "rules" of pen-l which appear when you sub.
maybe he is anti-socialbut i wear yellow socks and shorts to work so
what. eccentricity is a safeguard against conformism.and conformism is
exactly what the capitalist system requires from us.
if you want block protection against him/her then just delete every mail (blair
had some useful ideas). it takes less than a second to do this. if we wnat to
innovate some "private property" rules on pen-l then michael should organise a
pen-l convention on-line and talk it through and then we vote. of-course, if
there are any rules i would leave. For those on pkt, we had this nonsense about
this time last year. the list, in my view, has not recovered since.
i also found shawgi's claims to be always willing to talk rather odd. the style
of his posts are not communicative at all.
kind regards
bill
Oh My! Poor Shawgi -- victim of censorship!
Responding to Maggie's suggestion yesterday that we make it a "two-way
street", I sent Shawgi's messages back to him.
Read what the poor victim and outspoken opponent of censorship on the
Net did next .../Jerry
Hi:
This is to officially register a complaint with the postmaster at pratt
regarding the harassment coming from Gerald Levy (user id is
[EMAIL PROTECTED]).
Gerald and I both subscribe to an internet discussion list, PEN-L. Over
the last two days he has taken whatever I have posted to PEN-L and sent
me over 30 copies of each post. I consider this a form of harassment.
He is clearly abusing his mail privileges, using them as an outlet for
harassment.
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6789] Re: postings on penl
Susan wrote among other things.
Shutting off Tell is being as Stalinist
as a Stalinist. Requesting a self-imposed limit on postings/day for all
members may be a more civil way to address the problem,(unless the
anarchists among us decide to oppose such a rule!)
Count me among the international anarchists. No rules. all this stuff about
pressing the delete key taking a lot of time is just plain. I can
appreciate people complaining if their mail box is of a finite size. but how
many are in that position? further, the titles he/she puts on his/her posts are
very indicative. the screening process is very easy in fact.
i do agree with doug though that shawgi tell is a strange characterone-way
communication doesn't at all seem to be what a progressive and active left
movement should be aspiring to. i like to talk to people not at them.
but susan also made a telling point. I have often complained about the
americo-centricity of this list. and sometimes i have tried to inject a world
view. usually, it never runs, b/c the list is hammering away at a discussion of
what toothpaste bill clinton is using or somesuch. or what the fed is doing.
it is terribly alienating being an australian person on this list at times.
and this alienation reflects in the lack of communication b/tw the americans
and the ROW.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6660] scandinavian unions
Robert
as for bill's antipathy towards unions, i'm with gompers: "MORE!"
(gompers was, after all, a socialist... ; ) i don't think unions
can ever go wrong by demanding more, as long as they do it for the
whole working class (including those not working) rather than some
sector, (like the unionized or the skilled). the swedish and
norwegian unions did it right -- they moderated the wage demands of
those at the top in return for full employment, bringing up the
bottom, and levelling the wage structure.
Well the scandinavian unions might have done that. of-course, in sweden they
also
explicitly gained wage increases in an economy which was floating on the export
of armaments (presumably to terrorists and imperialists). But recent history
(and i
note robert says "did"), doesn't bear that well, except perhaps for norway
(although
trond might be able to say more about that).
The following table is taken from a book i am writing at present and leaves out
all
the other oecd economies. it shows that to fight inflation, unemployment has
been
pushed up so the capitalists are not threatened by wage cost pressures. if the
unions
were in control of the situation how come there has been an abandonment of full
employment
in finland, sweden and to a certain extent norway. the USA looks good - no?
Average Average
1963-73 1974-79 198319871991 1995
UR INF MI UR INF MIUR INF MIUR INF MI UR INF MIUR INF MI
--
OZ
2.0 4.0 6.0 5.0 12.2 17.2 9.9 10.1 20.0 8.0 8.5 16.5 9.5 3.2 12.7 8.5 4.6 13.1
Finland
2.2 6.2 8.4 4.5 12.9 17.4 5.4 8.3 13.7 5.1 4.1 9.2 7.6 4.3 11.9 17.2 1.0 18.2
Norway
1.9 5.3 7.2 1.8 8.7 10.5 3.4 8.4 11.8 2.1 8.7 10.8 5.5 3.4 8.9 4.9 2.5 7.4
Sweden
1.9 4.9 6.8 1.9 9.8 11.7 3.5 8.9 12.4 2.1 4.2 6.3 3.0 9.7 12.7 7.7 2.9 10.6
US
4.5 3.6 8.1 6.7 8.6 15.3 9.6 3.2 12.8 6.2 3.7 9.9 6.8 4.2 11.0 5.6 2.8 8.4
OECD8.3 9.3 17.6 7.3 7.8 15.1 6.8 6.1 12.9 7.6 5.5 13.1
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6667] Re: info
Michael
with this listprocessor you can block mail from certain users and domains.
the only problem is that the spam artists operate (usually) a moveable feast of
mail addresses.
in the first instance you can write to the postperson at the domain the mail
came from and request the account be disabled for spamming.
hope you succeed.
kind regards
bill
X-Listprocessor-version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
I am trying to figure out how to block this person from spamming us with
commercials. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know.
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6656] Re: NZ Elections - Early News
A question: do the "new," Rogerless Labour Party and their partners in the
Alliance have much in the way of a positive agenda, or are they just saying
No to Rogernomics and its National Party successor?
The following agenda is the best i remember:
Economy
Repeal further tax cuts (already legislated)
repeal Emp. Contracts Act (very significant change from the right)
But keep targetting low inflation via monetary policy
the likely coalition partners however also would abolish or increase the
inflation target, reintroduce tariffs, restrict foreign investment
Health
business related reforms abandoned, free care for kids
coalition partners - abolish all user charges (back to free health for all)
Social Welfare
abandon the cuts made by nationals - (1991 levels indexed and restored)
increase support for families
Environment
abolish ozone depleting things
carbon tax
increase polluter-pays charges
money for organic farming developments
Defence
abandon the latest Anzac frigate deal (joint with OZ)
coalition partners - withdraw from ANZUS and five power agreements
Education
increase funding
reduce tertiary fees
coalition partners = more money, free tertiary educ (back to old days)
that is a summary. there were other things relating to maoris and the like.
But i think the coalition will not return to rogernomics and the labour party
is much changed since those days.
i don't think there will be a huge buy back of privatised enterprises.
the abandonment of ECA though i very significant and it signals a return to the
very protected award wage system.
there is hope doug!
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6625] Re: why raise the minimum wage (fwd)
Doug in reply to Paul Z
We're not talking about Bill Gates hiring a few workers out of revenue to
perform unproductive labor. We're talking about giving half the U.S.
workforce a big fat raise - that is, bringing the minimum wage to within
hailing distance of the present mean. All the faux Marxoid sophistry you
want to summon can't hide the fact that that would involve massive
transfers of resources and a massive shift in class political power. Those
are desirable goals, but impossible under existing arrangements.
Am I alone in thinking this?
make us a duo at least doug. there is a tendency on the left to deny that wage
share shifts of large proportions don't cause unemployment and chaos. they seem
to have been brought up with MPT and don't want to believe that and so they
enter this position of self-denial.
rowthorn said (paraphrasing) that the "working class cannot afford to be too
successful" - meaning that the system is engineered by those seeking a desired
rate of profit to ensure they get it. the workers suffer if they organise too
well and grap some surplus back.
it is not a MPT story at all but works largely through macro variables.
the experience of the mid 70s really hammered the point home after the long
golden period of growth after the war. the unions got too successful.
it also exemplifies my position on unions for which i have been severely
critized on this list (by doug as well as others). by spending efforts on
trifling about wages and conditions they are falling prey to the capitalists.
instead if they had have organised to challenge control and ownership things
might have been very different.
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6529] Re: Why raise the minimum wage? (fwd)
A student asked why raise the minumum wage? He made the argument that any
rise in the minimum wage would shift product supply curves inward thus
leading to rising prices. This inflation would be exacerbated by rising
incomes which would shift product demand curves outward. So, the student
said, any policy that raises the minumum wage would just lead to inflation
and unemployment, and why would we want that?
Any suggestions about how to respond to this student?
To enid
the "high wage economy" is the answer.
perhaps the student might consider the impact on cost via higher productivity
(most people in the min wage territory are in labour intensive work which is a
battle between person and machine and able to be fudged by the person
somewhat).
also while real incomes would rise in the first instance, there is clear
evidence that economies (up to capacity) are quantity adjusters not price
adjusters. maybe if demand rises at full capacity the result would be price
rises.
where does the unemployment arise in the above reasoning?
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6457] This is what conservatives do.....
Dear Pen-L and PKT
this was a report in the Sydney Morning Herald today detailing how our new
conservative treasurer conducts himselfit also says something about the US
economy.
kind regards
bill
October 3, 1996
Costello's global gaffe
By PAUL CLEARY, TOM ALLARD and JENNIFER HEWETT
The Treasurer, Mr Costello, was the centre of an international storm
yesterday after sparking a surge on world financial markets when he revealed a
confidential briefing with the United States' top economic adviser.
At a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, Mr Costello disclosed
highly sensitive details on US interest rate policy that he attributed to a
discussion with the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Dr Alan Greenspan.
Dr Greenspan had apparently told Mr Costello that inflation was well under
control in the US and that there was no need to raise interest rates.
Mr Costello deepened the crisis by claiming later that reports of his
remarks had been "fanciful".
However, ABC Radio has a tape that contradicts this claim.
In a day of extraordinary reaction to Mr Costello's gaffe:
US bond rates dropped.
A US bond trader said calls were coming in from around the world
asking "who the hell is this Costello bloke?"
The Australian head of trading for the US bank Chase Manhattan said
it was "very unusual, to say the least", to quote Dr Greenspan after a
meeting.
The shadow Treasurer, Mr Evans, said Mr Costello was not fit to be
Treasurer.
The Prime Minister's office went to ground.
It has also been disclosed that Mr Costello made his remarks despite
confirmation by the US Federal Reserve - known as the Fed - that the meeting
with Dr
Greenspan was private.
Mr Costello, who is in Washington for the International Monetary Fund's
annual meeting, refused to make any further comment last night.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister referred journalists to the Treasurer's
office and said Mr Howard had no comment.
Asked earlier about reports of his comments, Mr Costello told AP-Dow
Jones: "I don't comment on US interest rates."
He was then asked whether Dr Greenspan had indicated the Fed's intentions
on interest rate, and replied: "Wouldn't know. You better ask him. I never
quote on other countries' interest rates. That's fanciful if it suggests to the
contrary."
The shadow Treasurer, Mr Evans, said Mr Costello had shown that he was
unfit to be Treasurer.
"No finance minister or treasurer in living memory anywhere in the world
has committed an indiscretion on this scale," he said.
A bond trader from a large US investment bank told the Herald: "Last night
we were getting calls from all around the world asking who the hell this Costello
bloke was.
All the US banks were asking, "what the hell is going on?'"
The Australian head of trading for giant US bank Chase Manhattan, Mr Peter
Burgess, said yesterday: "I think it took awhile for people to work out
who the hell
[Mr Costello] was and what was he doing talking about Greenspan so
bluntly.
"It is very unusual, to say the least, for someone to quote Greenspan
directly after a
meeting, particularly on such a sensitive topic."
US financial market pundits have bet billions that concerns about rising
inflation
would prompt the Fed to raise interest rates this year.
Mr Costello said at his press conference: "Well, I don't think there's any
expectation
at the moment that rates are going to rise ..."
On inflation, Mr Costello added: "He [Dr Greenspan] indicated to me that
he saw
no threats to inflation down the track."
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6421] Re: Human Rights: Modern Definition
Fellow PENers,
Is anyone else irritated by the ceaseless, one-way rantings of
our comrade from Buffalo? Personally, I'm not quick to be bothered by
things like this. Deleting is easy enough. But when it's missive after
missive, apropos of nothing but his own "education" campaign, I think
the purpose of a discussion list like PEN-L is being seriously abused.
Rob
when i was young i used to go with my old man down to batman avenue in
melbourne (by the river) and all the soap box people were there each sunday
afternoonranting endlessly about all the most important things in their
world. some never attracted a single ear. but blithely they went onalmost
in abstraction of the surroundings. i used to think to my very young
selfwhy the fuck do they spend so much time having so little influence?
our mate at buffalo only raises one question for me.what is the value of
his time.
of-course, he might be a speed typist
i guess the other question is what motivates another person to totally
disregard the rest of us in our pen-l "community" and not try at all to engage
us in conversation.
hmmm.
kind regards
bill
p.s. now jim has installed me as the culture maven i thought it best to tell
you i am listening to rage against the machine right now .on my cd player
at workpretty cool. almost classical at that
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6037] Re: Rethinking Overdetemination
Jerry wrote: The rejection of classical music including operas by many also, I think, has an anti-intellectual component to it. well i think this depends on what cultural-economic enviroment you have grown up in. classical music in the capitalist western world (say, australia) tends very firmly to be what i would term "ruling class" entertainment. there is no popular classical culture in OZ. the working class typically would not listen to it and would associate it with the well to do groups who are either capitalist or their working class managerial lackeys. in that sense, an opposition to the tool of the ruling class is in fact a highly intellectual position to take. it reflects in that context a heightened sense of subjective class consciousness which should be encouraged. in OZ, opera and symphony is for the snobs. it may not intrinsically be anything, but its history suggests that it has been a vehicle where the rich ruling class (and hangers on) enjoyed the fruits of their exploitation. in that sense, the medium is polluted and like the system that has used it, it should be buried as a cultural artifact. and besides - it doesn't swing. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215065 Fax: +61 49 215065 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html "only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money." (Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:6059] re: rethinking overdetermination
Jim writes: It seems to me that _any_ kind of music can be turned into "ruling class music": there's rock, but there's also homogenized corporate rock; there's rap, but there's also manipulative corporate rap; etc. well i wasn't talking about the way the cappos steal every good idea that "free" people have. I think braverman's final chapters (labour and monopoly capital is a good insight on this process, btw). i was rather talking about the genre (or as michael put it - the milieu) that classical music is placed in. the pomp. the class structure so clearly evident at the concert halls...so if the workers happen to like the stuff they usually have to take bleachers seats well below the snobs up in the better areas. the demand for obedience on the part of the audiencesitting like stuffed shirts.the requirements to stand and cheer bravo as a social artifact rather than any spontaneous outburst of glee (imagine getting up in the middle of a symphony just as it went wild and shouting bravoand stomping in your seat, etc.no way. obedience. the obedience that the ruling class who are sitting above you...who's show it really is.(we are only there b/c of upward mobility and increased incomes).requires from you. the conduct, the dress, the cost all signals a conformity that translates well into the work place when you have to confront the bosses. i haven't seen such processses at jazz and rock concerts. Classical music has become upscale muzak for sensitive yuppies, an aural marker of "sophisticiation" popular in cafes, boutiques, and Jeep Explorers. Most of the classical canon is a relic of when the bourgeoisie was vital - Adorno said that the Beethoven concerto, with the soloist interplaying with the orchestra, but not dominant as in later Romantic concerti, was the high point of bourgeois individualism. Now products of that high bourgeois moment entertains the higher salariat, but I doubt their minds are much on the subtleties of the sonata form, or soloist-orchestra relations. yep. and baahkla At the risk of upsetting bill mitchell, I shall defend classical music, thereby proving to many that I am an elitist dog, or whatever (g'day mate!). People should know that bill himself favors a type of advanced jazz that I am not sure would be favored by the masses or workers either... advanced jazzhmmm...what exactly is that? the music that began with the suffering of african slaves transported to the usa to work for the rich. yep, i like it. More generally the point has been already been made and I shall repeat it, that music, whatever its source or funding, is viewed as revolutionary or daring or subsersive or innovative at one point in time (the well-tempered scale in the Baroque era, rock and roll in the mid-1950s) tends to become accepted, coopted and just plain boringly conservative and elitist at a later time. Who realizes now that Baroque dance suites were once considered shockingly .sensual? exactly. i said yesterday that nothing about the form concerns me. it is the historically-specific context that bothers me. the same argument goes for the artifacts of capitalist production. can an assembly line be a tool that socialism might use? some would say the form is independent of the context. well yes, but all we know of the assembly line is capitalism. the same goes for classical music in OZ. it is the tool and plaything of the rich and the would-be rich (doug's salariat). and i repeat, it doesn't swing. kind regards bill ps. at least we are not talking about clinton, america, or something similar for at least 2 or 3 mails! ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215065 Fax: +61 49 215065 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html "only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money." (Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:5924] Re: Who is Peter L. berger?
Dear Trond
He wrote a book called society in man/man in society which was a standard
first year sociology text and very influential in the development of sociology
in the 1960s when it was still a young discipline.
the essential thesis was the simultaneous influence that we have on the society
we live in and which it has on us. it represented the basic paradigm of
sociology of the day.
it does not examine this from any marxist class categories.
kind regards
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
#University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
###Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ###+61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
## http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
"only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
(Cree Indian saying...circa 1909)
[PEN-L:4328] Re: metrics question
Doug asks:
I hate to break up the flow of discussion on samuelson, summers, etal, but
I have a short economietrics question I need help with. I know there are
some metrics experts lurking out there. If you don't want to give yourselves
away, you can reply to me directly.
does this imply some shame should be attributed to being an econometrics person
on a left list? i feel no shame.
Lets say you have a specification that exibits some
heteroscedacticity.
how have you detected for this? which test? which sample? what type of data?
I realize that there are several techniques to try to
remove it.
yes, but also some which incorporate it (garch and arch-m, for example)
My question is this. I seem to remember that ANYTIME you add
another variable to the model, if there is any correlation at all, the measured
amount of heteros. will be reduced somewhat. Is this true?
well simple ways of dealing with heteroscedascity is to model a process which
exhibits volatility in its variance as
y(t) = e(t)X(t)
where e(t) is an error term and X(t) is a variable (your added variable Doug)
which can be observed and which is meant to help predict the hetero.
so a conditional prediction for y(t+1) is
y(t+1) = e(t+1)X(t)
if x(t) = x(t-1) = x(t-2) = some constant, then the {y(t)} sequence is clearly
just a normal white noise process with constant variance.
the interesting case (your case Doug) is when X is not a constant, and then the
variance of y(t+1) is conditional on x(t) and is:
var[Y(t+1)|x(t)] = X(t)^2s^2
where s^2 is the variance of e(t) and is constant.
So an estimating equation might be in logs:
y(t) = a1 + a2y(t-1) + a3X(t-1) + e(t)
and so if a3 is significant, you should expect some of the volatility in y(t)
to be absorbed by the introduction of the X variable. btw, if successive x
values are serially correlated then the conditional variance of y(t) will also
be s.c. If the size of X^2 is large, then the volatility of y(t) will depart
sizably from s^2 and vice versa.
The problem with this approach to heterosced. is that you have to assume there
is some specific cause of the volatility and be able to find the variable
which is relevant (the X).
It is often the case that there is no real guiding light variable to be used
and many likely suspects exist.
moreover, the transformation above relies on the {e(t)} sequence being white
with constant variance. if it is not then another approach is needed.
Also, is there
any test that indicates whether the reduction in heteros is the result of just
adding another variable vs. reducing the original misspecification of the
model?
well there is a battery of tests you should use. you can get an idea of whether
the addition of X(t) is the saviour by running an arch test (it is an LM test
of the TR^2 variety taken off the auxiliary regression of the residuals on
squared values of the residuals plus) and also some diagnostics on the
residuals (s.c, reset, normality, predictive error).
if the arch(p) is fine, and the residuals appear to be white (no sc, etc) then
your approach is okay..contingent of-course on the addition of the variable
making some economic sense in the context of your model.
however, you should also be aware of the pre-testing problems and what they do
to the difference b/tw nominal and true significance levels of your tests.. in
other words, i do not advocate a wild search for X(t) and a million regressions
to find it.
better by far to use an arch or garch model and proceed more circumspectly.
Okay!
so now send me the flames for being a technocrat, or maybe i have to say
something about trade unions to get them.
kind regards
bill
--
##William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
# University of Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
### Phone: +61 49 215065
# ## ### +61 49 215027
Fax: +61 49 216919
##
WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:4252] Re: male backlash
Jim writes (with deletions by me): The fact that many (most?) two-adult heterosexual families are nowadays dependent on both adults' incomes gives more women economic some econonomic leverage they didn't have in the past. (Men and women may not be competing directly in the marketplace, but insecure male egos suffer if the "little woman" is pulling in bigger bucks -- or even comparable bucks or even a rising chunk of the family change.) On top of that, there's the usual nostalgia seen during hard times: "things were better in the 1950s, when men were men and women were women" and all that crap. Anyway, my point is that the male backlash is not simply based in economics but also sociology and psychology. yes but there is more to the maladjustment than a "sick" desire to maintain hegemony. men are victims as much as women of the manipulations of capitalists and the recent command the cappos have had of formerly social democratic governments. in OZ structural economic changes (downsizing, flatter m'ment and all those nasty words) have seen men in their 40s become unemployed in their droves. The growth areas of the economy have been in the service sector, typically a female segregated sector. the problem is that the displaced blue-collar men (muscly, brawny guys used to being up to their knees in industrial squalorare just not getting the jobs in the service sector (which themselves are being casualised beyond belief). so the women in the families becomes the breadwinner, and the family plunges into near poverty (being relatively okay before all this happened) and the man has a major crisis of not being wanted anymore. this crisis may have the jim-syndrome associated with it, but it also is a separate problem of how capitalism uses gender for its aims and also only ever wants a bit of us, for some time that is at the beckoning of the bosses. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:4092] Re: Capitalism Corruption
Mike wrote: Blair defines capitalism as the appropriation of surplus value. The only way this is true is by tautology: all other forms of "surplus production" are not surplus value -- only under captalism are forms of surplus production surplus value, therefore... etc. etc. Consider what all of us might agree is really a socialist social formation: a democratically controlled industrial system where the social surplus is allocated democratically. What workers produce over and above what is necessary to replace her/himself with two equally qualified/satisfied adult children over her/his working life and what is necessary to replace all equipment over the same period would be allocated in part to the worker and in part to the rest of society. Now --- is that "appropriation" of surplus value: if the word means "taking against one's will" one might argue "no" because of the democratic control of decision-making. Yet even in that circumstance, the MINORITY's "surplus" will be appropriated by the majority. Yet this would be socialism. you have to put in the adjective alienated before the appropriation i think. workers in socialism would be exploited and their surplus appropriated. the fact is that if htey choose to do it then they are not alienated. in a simple two sector model of socialism - consumption goods and capital goods, the workers in the consumption goods sector have to be exploited in order that food is available to the capital goods workers. you can't eat machines. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:4093] Re: the xUSSR once again...
JIm wrote: Though all class societies involve the appropriation of surplus-labor, not all ruling classes appropriate surplus _value_. For surplus-labor to be surplus-value, the surplus-product has to be in the form of commodities. Though Southern U.S. slavery produced a surplus of commodities, feudalism (e.g.) didn't. feudalism did produce a surplus of commodities, jim. the difference with capitalism though is that its production was spatially and temporally separate to the reproduction cycle (2 days on serfs land, 5 on the lords or whatever) and it appropriation was therefore transparent and the authority to appropriate was based on extra-economic factors (like manorial politics, religion, etc). under capitalism there are no such extra-economics factors and so the production of subsistence and surplus occur within the one process (the working day) and have to be obsfucated (by the wage form, and marginal prod theory etc) to prevent us all from realising what a bloody farce it is. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3868] Re: Teaching economics with Hall and Taylor vs Truth
Several people have mentioned the macro text by Carlin and Soskice. Can someone please post privately or to the list the publisher so I can get a review copy? Thanks. Blair The full title is Wendy Carlin and David Soskice Macroeconomics and the Wage Bargain: A Modern Approach to Employment, Inflation, and the Exchange Rate (Oxford University Press Inc, New York), 1990. the New York is for you. Sydney for me. Brief TOC: Part 1: The Background: Macro with Competitive Foundations 1. Classical Model 2. Keynes Model of Employment 3. Inflation and Unemployment: Friedman 4. New Classical Macro 5. Keynesian Counter-Attack: Fixed Price Models Part II: Imperfect Competition Macro in Closed Economy 6. Basic Imperfect Competition Model 7. Economic policy in ICM 8. Wage Bargaining and Policy Analysis Part III: ICM in the OPen Econ. 9. IS/LM in open econ 10. Competitivness and external balance - Swann-Salter approach 11. ICM in open economy 12. Exc. Rate as a policy instrument 13. Floating ERs 14. ER expectations 15. Other topics Part IV: Macro models: styllized facts, and micro foundations 16. Stylized facts and models 17. IC labour markets [YES, it is labour - they are english] 18. ICM - firms pricing and behaviour in Prod. Mkt 19. Hysteresis - Shifting NAIRUs Hope that is helpful kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3849] Re: Teaching economics with Hall and Taylor vs Truth
Chris, did you ever try SOSKICE and CARLIN? I used them two years. They were too difficult for my students but for any student who could handle them I think that book is very good. I agree with Mike here. HT is a disaster when it comes to basic post-k, or even (spare the thought) radical teaching. Carlin and Soskice is very good on many issues and provides a framework to extend in very nice ways. it is good for intermediate macro students at the standard i teach. it does not have behavioural functions (Con, Inv), nor does it have typical AD-AS analysis which in the latter case is a plus. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3851] Re: subsidies for sprawl
Right now I am very pressed. But to answer barkly the measurement possibilities lie not in measuring things the way you propose (that is, against some benchmark status quo). Rather, some sensible work has been done in OZ on the opposite thinking process. that is, with urban sprawl being associated with a drift from the CBD, there is potential to increase residential density in the centre. the question then becomes "What savings to infrastructure suppliers (most notably local govt in OZ, but also state and federal g) of this concentration given that it avoids them supplying increased infrastructure on the periphery. that is a much more tractable problem to measure and there have been several in OZ. when i get more time, maybe later today i will send some references. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3577] Re: Aggregating capital
Marianne says: In response to bill mitchell who saw "no problem" in aggregating capital according to some common unit such as money: Of course there is a problem: the dollar value of a piece of machinery one year is not the same the next year--to calculate its value in a given year you need to adjust for both the rate of inflation and the rate of technological change * and* diffusion in the case of that particular machine. Then comes the problem of aggregation across different kinds of machinery and capital. The problem is as great or greater than that of finding a common unit of labor power--that is, why not measure the value of a machine in terms of the units of labor power embodied instead of dollars? Equally difficult problems. i was speaking as an economist and realising that i was shunting the problems you raise down the corridor to the accountants. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3578] Re: State of the New Zealand economy
Ellen writes: consistency, to "adjust" their figures. A recent opinion poll on public attitudes towards changes in labour law there is a good example. The figures showed overwhelming support for the new law, and supporters of the changes have released the figures with enormous fanfare, including swish (grace a Bill Mitchell) pamplets trumpeting these results. The problem is that the pollsters have refused to release any information on their methodology. These results don't jibe with other credible polling. Second, just a few comments on some economics-related issues. One change that I understand has come about has been to contract the numbers of items made in New Zealand. This might not be a worry in other small countries which are in centrally located places, such as Wales, but for New Zealand, a small country at the end of long supply lines, not producing essential goods may be a worry. In another swisho pamphlet (the former is the expression due to me!), the RBNZ has recently released, the energy for the new vision is decidely reduced. Maybe that is why they have this guy in Hungary (trying to get rid of him!!). the fact is that a lot of the growth in the last 5 years has been due to the very favourable terms of trade of wool. in other words there is a lot to the case that NZ is really not out of its boom and bust cycle behaviour that primary commodity export countries are characterised by (like OZ too!) and the underlying good parts of the economy are due to the terms of trade rather than the reforms. the swish pamphlet paints a very pessimistic outlook for the NZ economy in terms of low investment, low productivity and declining export prospects. In other words, while the usual criticisms of the reforms were in terms of equity and social issues (distribution etc), the alleged advantages of the reforms (efficiency etc) do not seem to have been enduring. there seems to have been a once off effect in the euphoria of the capitalist feeding frenzy which lasted for a very short time. the economy now is looking rather lame. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3580] Re: the most important issue of the day
According to my Webster's 9th Collegiate dictionary, "pommy" or "pommie" or "pom" is an Oz term [origins unkn. but in 1915] referring to Britons, esp. a British immigrant -- often used disparagingly. yes and prisoners of her majesty is the most popularly accepted version of the meaning. I dunno, but this seems small change compared to one student in my kid's school calling another a "f**king n***er." They're both about 8 years old (and, strangely, both of African-American persuasion). Then another, tragically a white girl, picked up this term of abuse. It is a therapeutic school, but this stuff is disgusting. no, not a small change. (a) the discussion arose b/c a yorkshireman referred to himself as a pom and another person on the list asked for the esoterica to be defined. (b) it is not disgusting to enquire and discuss the origins of terms which are part of cultural exchanges. (c) as i understand it the whites call the african americans - niggers (which in my dictionary says negro or a person of dark skin) as an insult come put down. the direction here is former slave owner to slave. the use of the term pom is strictly reverse. former colonial masters being attacked by the outcasts from so-called sophisticated english society for there pomposity and out dated views to us. and if you recall how transportation started jim there is a rich story to tell. the enclosures and corn laws forced otherwise free farmers (pre-capitalist) into towns to survive. stealing followed to eat. the english locked them up on the thames in ships but thatwas too much for them to look at. so they came in search of OZ - slaughtered the aboriginals, decimated local culture, and then in the C20 started coming here themselves to tell us how to run our country better. that is how pom aroseb/c a lot of poor english came here on assisted passage but still reflected the earlier transportation/colonial culture. i don't find it disgusting discussing this at all. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3553] RE: output/K
I thought that the main problem in aggregating capital was the lack of a universal measure. For instance, using price is no good because price is indeterminate when used on both sides of the equation. Other measures have similar problems, for instance, how do you quantify both computers and buildings in the same measure? The answer probably lies in quantifying labor inputs -- partly answered in Marx. The answer certainly does not lie in Neo class econs because their mathematical models do not allow for unique conclusions when produced goods are used as inputs. maggie said the above: there is really no problem aggregating capital using some common unit like money. the problem was in the context of neoclassical distribution theory which attempted to explain aggregate profits in terms of the aggregate MPk which required the profits to be known before the MPk could be determined in value terms (value here meaning monetary). obviously nonsense and down the drain went orthodox distribution theory never to be replaced by anything better (in terms of that paradigm). btw, a pom is an expression used by australians for the english. it is multipurpose and can have things appended to it like pommie bastard or whinging pom, all terms of total endearment! it is a throwback to the colonial attitude that the english have always had for us - they cast us as ignorant philistines without any class or culture there is much debate about its origin - what the word actually is derived from. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3481] Re: OZ politics
Nick asks (rather curiously), and never one to turn down a chance to talk about something non-USA, Any of our OZtralian colleagues want to comment on the new leader of the Labour Party? Please ensure that your observations are intelligible to the average pom. The leader is Kim Beasley who is the son of a ex labour politician who was in the cabinet of the Whitlam govt (1972-75) which did several reforms and was toppled by a CIA-inspired plot to protect pine gap spy stations after whitlam had made noises about taking them over. he will be a very different leader to keating who had lost touch completely with the basic problems confronting working families in OZ. that is largely why the labour party lost this time. the government had forgotten who their support base was. they alienated people with all this stuff about the "big picture" (as keating used to say) which essentially was some half-baked plan to make us an asian state. they privatised our national bank, our airline and next stop was the telecom. they cut workers wages and gave the corporate sector unprecedented profits. they introduced IR legislation which has seen workers' basic conditions eroded. and more and more. sounds pretty right eh? you wouldn't be wrong. essentially beasley will be much more moderate and in touch with the basic "heartland issues" and will avoid the statesman type of positions that keating kept taking. he will focus on a few issues and get them right. already it looks like the environment, IR, and privatisation will be important. he is keen to say things about the "insecurities" that people now face with more casual work, more contract type work, less protection etc. keating lost his touch on those basic issues. beasley is more down to earth and much more likeable. he is funny and skillful on the floor of parliament. methinks he will do well. now, how was that for a pommie? or should we start of talking about how england went out in the quarters at the world cup. at least OZ made the final! kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3459] Re: UC Berkeley's Labor Center
Last week Anders Schneiderman of UC Berkeley posted a message to PEN-L and many other lists critiquing Berkeley's Institute of Industrial Relations (IIR) and Labor Center. The posting grossly misrepresents reality and contains many false charges and inaccuracies. Many progressive faculty at Berkeley, including Clair Brown, Peter Evans, Harley Shaiken, Dick Walker and myself, as well as other members of the academic and labor communities, have been dismayed by the behavior of Schneiderman and his colleague, Nathan Newman. IIR will gladly provide detailed information to anyone who requests it. To do so, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] I was interested in the fairly long list of allegations that Anders made directly or via attached material. Seeing as you have decided to refute them without detail, how about doing what Anders did and putting the "detailed information" up on pen-l so all of us can judge for ourselves. It also saves a lot of individual mails. If Anders is at all accurate about Berkeley, it is a trend that i am observing in universities around the world, including OZ. it is insidious and difficult to stop. Anyway, Michael, how about the other side of the dispute? kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2980] Re: Babe again
Terry advises Eat the Rich. Q: Are they vegetables or other non-meat derivatives? Kind regards bill ps. i forget to mention the follow up to all my movies on farm yard animals will be one on darl the fish who lives in the farm dam and evades and teases the anglers who insist on getting satisfaction from capturing darl's confreres with vicious and sharp bits of metal. darl shows them all how to use their steel technology for better things - like solar energy. the children never eat fish again. -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:3001] Re: fantasy
Michael P asked Let me propose the following fantasy. Suppose that Clinton wins along with a compliant congress. Someone transplants a clone of Gene Deb's backbone and courage into Clinton. He then comes to pen-l and asks for advise for ways to turn the country around without creating a capital strike. Any takers? Michael M replied [with deletions] POLICY: Call the heads of the EU and Japan together and tell them the three nations need to stimulate aggregate demand in all three countries to goose the world economy forward and transfer wealth to the masses to fuel mass consumption via INFLATION Well, it all depends on what MP means on the goals of this exercise. What does "turn this country around" mean. Make capitalism work better? What does work better mean? I guess that profit rates around the world are as good as they have ever been. My guess is that some workers are also better off than ever. My guess it that many workers are back to early post WW2 standards and falling. My guess is that the system is propelling us into environmental destruction. So i don't want to turn it around to make this sort of thing happen. I think the preservation of our natural world ranks higher now than almost any economic goal. which brings me to MM - mass consumption of what? K Mart trivia? Overprocessed, overpackaged, compromised products? animal families? rain forests? waterways? before i give my prescription i need some more guidelines. If we are just talking about a keynesian revival then that is somewhat simple to achieve (in terms of outlining policies that is) but rather destructive for most important things. Of course, the capital sector doesn't want keynesian policies b/c they are doing okay and higher employment levels only pressure their margins (Kalecki - on political aspects of full employment - oblige!). So MP lets have the targets and then we can talk a bit about the instruments. btw, to jim d worrying about my downunder attack on americo-everything. it was a little joke, mate. but there is a point too. america is not the world. while the sun maybe never sets on america and its dependencies (given how much militaristic and capitalistic imperialism that your nation has pursued), it has not succeeded entirely in supplanting its culture on all of us. the list often reads as if it is only america talking and worrying. kind regards bill ps. i don't know who this gene deb is btw. ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2934] Re:
Jim posed raised the issue of the OZ movie Babe: Q: why did so many voters vote for Buchanan? A: They saw the movie "Babe" and decided that pigs aren't all bad. Further news flash: After the Academy of Motion Pictures nominated 100 pigs for best female portrayal of a male part in the movie "Babe," it was feared that they might win an Oscar Mayer. But that's a lot of baloney. i cannot comment on the americo-centric observations except to say that the relgious right seems to be becoming a more insidious force than the more straightforward capitalist right. but on Babe. It has of-course been a big success this summer in OZ. we like our own movies. But this little capitalist epic has actually been "good" for the green-vego-radicalism school which i sought of hang out in. the pork industry association has lobbied govt because there has been a decline in pork purchasing since babe came out. children who have been surveyed indicate that they will no longer eat pork meat. it has been a significant effect to be sure. the press has now started to react which pro-pork articles and i wonder who financed them. so for guys like me, it has been wonderful. i might just go and get some venture finance and do a movie on babe's half sister/brother (this is family viewing so gender is irrelevant), sweetie, who will be a really smart cow who talks and does keen things. coming after that will be a movie about honey, who will be a clever hereford stud, and then dearie, who happens to be the sweetest little (ex)-battery hen. fuck, all the kids will be vegies before we know it. it makes the point though, that as educators, we can use imagery and argument to change the preferences of students towards things we might think are more appropriate. anyone, want to put into to my new entrepreneurial ventures. all profits go to my first porsche! kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2912] Re: a question about Austrailia
Doug from Amerika asks: Subj: [PEN-L:2909] a question about Austrailia Well i live in a place called Australia so i am not sure if that is close to Austrailia but it sounds near enough. I sent out the following request about a month ago and got no response. I'm thinking it never went thru, so I am trying again. it did not come through or i missed it. ___ I am hoping our friends in OZ can answer a question. In macro, I was doing the standard rap on how the measure of GDP ignores HH production and one of my students raised an interesting point. She has a sister who lives in OZ, and she claims her sister receives a pmt from the gov't to stay home and take care of her kids. Is this really true? If so, since the gov't is apparently putting a dollar value on raising the kids, are these pmts included in the measured GDP? There are payments under our welfare system to families based on children: (a) child endowment - per kid up to a certain age - fairly modest (b) Family income supplement - means tested, expands with family size and quite significant. (c) single parent pensions - same as unemployment benefit - survivable in its own right. but just. (d) a raft of concessions such as exemption from medicare levy - significant. all of them would be treated in the same way as any transfer for national accounting purposes. they show up only when they are spent. of-course, they act to bolster agg. demand b/c most of the transfers go to people with an MPC of one, and are funded disproportionately (given tax evasion at the top) by people like me who have lower MPCs. i don't know if this is what you wanted to know doug. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2533] Re: The high tech j
Increasing work intensity can increase productivity and reduce ULC. That is why corps.spend so much time trying to intensify the work process. If a worker tends two machines instead of just one, productivity increases and ULC fall. As a non-economist, this seems wrong to me. Intensification means that theworker is being forced to do more work, not that she is more productive. It is as if hours had been added to the working day. Economists don't call increased output purchased through a prolongation of the working day to be a productivity gain, right? Rakesh - productivity is a technical relation - output per unit of input. how you measure both numerator and denominator is varied and not uncontroversial but intensification can lead to increases in labour productivity. if output/person is the measure and if the longer day yields more output then clearly labour prody has risen. if output/person-hour is the measure then it all depends on whether the per hour output is constant, rising or falling. this is not to say anything about the class motives or meanings of increased intensification. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2393] Re: Le Monde Diplomatique article on French strikes
What is the significance of this extraordinary revolt? It is the first collective rebellion, on a national level, against neo-liberalism. It is epoch-making. Beginning in mid- November as an almost corporatist reaction of the public service to the planned reform of the social security system, the protests immediately received overwhelming support from the general public - a striking new development. this was an interesting article but mentioned nothing of the outcomes of the extraordinary revolt. that is, the majority of the juppe reforms were passed by the french government soon after one of the participants in the strike (transport workers) were "bought off" by having their pension benefits restored. in other words, the "corporatist" reaction was "bankrupted" as one of the groups privatised the struggle and left the rest (the weakest) hanging. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2397] Re: Australian trade unions
Peter came back with this: Rather than debate Bill point by point on PEN-L and bore the pants off people I'll take up the issue directly with Bill if I get the time. it is always so easy to say "oh, i won't debate this openly b/c i will bore people" especially after you have called a person malicious and/or ignorant and anti-union. the issues i have raised under this thread are central to struggle into the 21 century for the left. hardly boring subject matter. anyway, there is no accounting for taste. Peter then did try a few things on. With regard to union membership rates in Oz., Bill's data is (perhaps inadvertently) misleading. I think he is taking data on absolute union membership numbers and turning that into a proportion of the workforce using other data on workforce size. The definitive Australian Bureau of Statistics data on trade union membership is the labour force survey data. Its latest data (August '94 survey - 95 data not yet released) says 35% (rather than 30%) of Australian workers are union members. Still not good news but let's not write of 5% of the workforce in a hurry. Sorry peter. the data is available in ABS Cat. No. 6203.0 November 1995 and is at June 30 1995. your claim is simply wrong. I used very precise centreing methods to make sure that the labour force denominator was the appropriate figure for the TU stocks. i also made sure that the cohort was right for each statistic i reported. So it is 30 not 35. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2346] Re: Australian trade unions
oming national election (due by May this year). Not green issues, not interest rates, not taxes, not social wage expenditure. The right of unions to organise, the right to collectively bargain and the right for workers to have protection in the form of minimum wages and conditions are emerging as big election issues. In this context it would be nice if "progressive economists" such as Bill Mitchell were not in the same camp as the legion of right wing economic and IR journalists such as Paddy McGuinness, Judith Sloan and David Clark who both trumpet and demand the demise of trade unions. more personal abuse. the major issue is not on unions as peter asserts. the libs have declared a policy rather similar to the labour party (with some differences and far more moderate than they tried to go to the last election with), as a tactic to stop the labour party pretending that they are the souls of the working class. the issues will be youth unemployment, high interest rates and family values. not green issues - no way, neither of the mainstream parties care about these issues and see them only in political terms. the right wing journos who i am "camping" with according to peter, have almost nothing on common with me. they want to destroy unions b/c they see virtue in unfettered market capitalism and want to eliminate constraints on capitalists in their dealings with labour. they want minimum conditions of employment, mostly in the safety area. they do not want any government intervention except in the law and order area. if peter reads my postings as indicating my desire for any of the above then i cannot help that. the facts are as follows: 1) i started talking about unions in the context of the french struggles. i declared support for the unions as a means to further ruin the middle class complacency but raised serious questions about the motivations of the unionists. events have borne out my interpretation. the reforms with very few concessions (mostly to train drivers) have gone through leaving students, the unemployed and low wage workers worse off. the train drivers still retire on relatively attractive pensions at age 50 and do not march in the streets when the french drop bombs in my region. 2) trade union membership is falling right around the world. why? i think it is due to the way the unions are run and the policies they have pursued. 3) since the labour party have been in federal parliament, and the unions (via the ACTU) have been co-operating via the ACCORD, workers conditions have been substantially reduced. there has been a consistent decline in the real wage (up to a 13 per cent shift in aggregate factor shares) since 1983. while unemployment fell for a time in the mid 1980s, it is now at 8.1 per cent and has been persistently high for many years. what logic is there in joining an organisation that does deals with the govt which have systematically cut their real wages? 4) it gets worse. since 1988, the ACTU has allowed the Govt and the Arbitration Commission to introduce enterprise bargaining as a means of increasing (neoclassical) efficiency and placing us better in the global competitive economy. these are not my words but i got them from a paper issued by the ACTU. it talks about efficiency, competition and labour market flexibility. how they think that OZ can compete with the low wage asian economies at our present wage rates, given our productivity growth is so low is beyond me. but that is the rhetoric. what has happened is that the govt has introduced new legislation which does threaten the unions. the recent dispute at Weipa with CRA shows just how far the ACTU underestimated the legislation and how exposed they have allowed workers to become. the liberals who peter mentioned above are now going to be able to worsen the situation b/c the labour party have already softened the workers up. similar to NZ btw. 5) the ACTU supports a govt who has abandoned the aim of achieving socialism from its political platform. the labour party was the political arm of the trade union movement. it gets large funding support from the unions. it should reflect the attitudes of the unions. but the ACTU has allowed the aim of socialism to be deleted. 6) the ACTU supports a govt which has abandoned the East Timorese and which has just signed a deal with the Indonesian govt for closer military ties. sickening in the extreme and the union movement should be ashamed for saying virtually nothing about this. how does an organisation like this get us to a green socialist world? that is the question i have been trying to get dialogue about. i also should note that in a political sense i would not be scathing about the unions in public. i do work for the unions (they pay lousy rates btw and expect the world!), and generally in public speaking support them. but on pen-l, for example, i think we can talk more directly and share our ideas. i also think it is a place where the lef
[PEN-L:2356] TU data from OZ
Hi just updating the numbers i sent yesterday for those data boffins. --- paid uptotal (includes unfinancial) per cent of LF 1990 19951990 1995 males22.3 15.326.6 18.2 females 13.6 11.514.4 12.1 total36.6 26.733.0 30.3 Between 1985 to 1995, the number of unions fell from around 325 to 142, amalgamations promoted in part by the ACTU being the principal reason. In 1972, 53 per cent of the labour force were in union members. - paid up total per cent of relevant LF (male or female) 1990 19951990 1995 males39.9 26.945.3 31.8 females 32.9 26.634.9 28.0 these are the latest figures and are entirely comparable over time. kind regards bill - ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2282] Re: Now is the time...
peter wrote [deletions] if you believe increased government borrowing tends to force up interest rates, why wouldn't you believe that increased private borrowing tends to do the same? In other words, if government debt raises interest rates, private debt ought to do the same. Wouldn't we then have grounds for *opposing* increases in private investment, since it would tend to "crowd itself out"? the argument is correct. anything that imposes pressure on the demand for money in a model with exogenous money supply will have interest rate effects as long as the demand for money is interest elastic and as long as the authorities don't accomodate with increased money. but the proponents of FCO would argue that private forcing out private is okay b/c it would mean the most profitable (and therefore best) allocation of resources was being achieved. extending that - they argue that public spending is (by definition) less productive than private spending (for many reasons most of which are fallacious) and therefore FCO leads to a worsening in efficient w.r.t. resource allocation. the important point which you did not cover in your post peter is this: you only consider the costs of borrowing. but an overwhelming amount of private capital expenditure comes initially from retained earnings (being the cheapest source of finance for business). further, the idea that there is a finite pool of savings which is either available to the "inefficient" budget deficit spending or alternatively to private "efficient" investment is based on the loanable funds doctrine which completely ignores the link b/tw savings and income. if the budget expands income then savings rises and FCO is not a necessity. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2276] Re: Vandana Shiva
Jacqueline said: [deletions] She is highly critical of the notion that all that is termed "progress" is good simply because it is "progress". Industrialism has done irreparable damage to our environment, and because it was instilled by the hands of men it was done so in such a way as to marginalise women and the natural world. [deletions] If you have specific criticisms - this might lead to a more fruitful discussion. However, the limited discussion which has been offered thus far has led me to believe that there may be more truth to the caricature of the, in the words of my old labour history professor, vulgar industrial marxists, than I previously expected. i also have read her work and in general there is much to think about - especially the recognition of how nature is dying *now* and things have to be done *now* even if they do not fit into the "narrow" old style marxist view of class struggle and even might prolong the demise of capitalism. i have said it before - we have to have a world left to be socialists in later. it also relates to my arguments that i don't agree with the usual marxist view of historical transformation. i think it better to develop elements of green anti-materialist socialism while still obviously living within a capitalist economy. the more we do that the more links to the capitalist economy will be lost and it will die from irrelevance. where i do disagree with shiva is in the first paragraph above. i don't hold a view that men did this to women and nature. "instilled by men" - is rhetoric and i don't see history like that. in a superficial sense men might have held power on the boards and prior in the aristocracies. but i think capitalism has a dynamic that subjugates all of us and makes both genders "puppet like" in our behaviour. i don't look to a victim view of gender. but jacqueline's point about dinosouric "vulgar industrial marxists" hanging around pen-l is well taken. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2202] Re: Internet mailing lists: what are they?
Jim in attacking jerry said among other things: It is THESE academics who are `fair game' on the Marxism List -- as I (for one) simply _cannot_ comprehend that an intellectual's thought-work can be taken at all seriously, if he is not CONSTANTLY testing it AGAINST REALITY. why we are discussing the marxism list is a bit curious to be sure. but i object to leftists of any persuasion talking for only 50 per cent of the population. note the intellectual above is a he! these are the sort of behavioural changes leftists have to make before we go for the economic changes. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2176] France
The pricks have blown up another bomb. on the paris news this morning (their time) greens protested, some left politicians protested, but there was no trade union protest. the train drivers were silent. kind regards bill - ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2167] Re: Academic managers of the marxist variety
more of jerry: I *don't want* to make this society work! When we "put in the effort to the best of our ability" that makes valorization work and reproduces capitalist social relations. It also, to the extent that it increases the intensity of work, can put other people *out* of work. well what do you teach your intermediate macro class? i have read you on pen-l and pkt (especially pkt) talk about interventionist macro policy. you have waxed lyrical about the glorious struggle in france to have fiscal assistance to workers. you seem to be caught in a bind. you want to resist neo-liberalism as you call it but that just means you want _now_ more govt assistance etc. this will make the system work like nothing else. it buys off the workers. advocating keynesian policies is totally unrevolutionary. say it to yourself jerry. totally un-rev-o-lut-ion-ary. i prefer to advocate keynesian policies b/c systems change slowly and take a longer span than most of our lifetimes. i don't feel good about having people unemployed for their lives while we wait for the revolution. nor do you either, but you pretend otherwise. is it something that you have to say at parties? kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2157] Academic managers of the marxist variety
Mike and Jerry sung out for some discussion of how one copes with being a head of an academic dept, especially in a time of budget stress. jerry had earlier intimated that he believed that the "progressive" becomes harsh in their IR management and soon becomes one of the ruling class. to a certain extent this email expands on, albiet in a different direction, the recent theme about the class location of the academic. it also has relevance to the way we see unions i think. for louis and the other realists - the activists (ha) - it is a real life account of the problems facing people on the left who take on organisational positions. for obvious reasons i am not really going to tell all the gory details as promised (i lied) b/c they involve real people, at least one of whom is one this list. my dept has 27 full-time academics down from 31 a year ago. By the end of 1997 it has to be down to 20. the uni is in a provincial city of newcastle (OZs 6th largest) which is a coal and steel town. the uni has 15k students. for years it has been asleep and very little staff turnover occurred. I came to it in 1990 and was one of the first "external" appointees (most having been locals and/or former students). there was no research culture - some did very good work many did nothing. some have not written a thing in 20 or more years. the dept had plenty of money and more students to teach than it cared for. it was an easy life. in 1989, the federal g. forced unis (offering education) to amalgamate with college of advanced educ (offering vocational teaching). this was a way of breaking the power of the unis and forcing us to take more students in line with the labour govts social wage policy (of expanding tertiary ed). our faculty which had previously had economics and commerce (accountancy) suddenly inherited a bachelor of business studies which is a (speaking cautiously) somewhat lower in rigour offering. the students have rushed the latter over the last 5 years and the demand for the BEc has fallen dramatically. In 1994 the feds introduced a new funding system - not based on staff levels but on student numbers. it was meant to stimulate competition. the result is that my dept is seriously over funded and in deficit of some $A570k or about 5-6 positions. the business dept is booming and while it does hardly any research it does get huge $s b/c of its student intake. we can make up some of the funding losses if we publish more. the problem is that only a minority really publish much. so what do you do? 1) my starting point as a marxist is that i am a public servant and a member of a collective (the dept). i expect of myself - that i will contribute to the collective as much as i can and also i will not treat my wage as a sinecure. the public who pay me (sort of) include coal miners, factory workers, shop assistants, and whatever. they face much more inflexible working conditions than i and in most cases earn less. so apart from capitalist ethics - my belief is that if you get paid to be an academic then you better work for the cash. put it this way - when i was a younger person (post grad etc) i mixed with many left academics. most of them were not terribly motivated and were into pontification. i used to get really disillusioned and it certainly contributed to my somewhat singular approach to the struggle. i used to think that if this lot are socialists then i would rather live with them in capitalism. they would be dangerous in a socialist state. that is my bottom line - in a socialist state - organisation of work and collective responsibility still has to occur. if someone bludges then the collective suffers. somehow the collective has to keep itself functioning. 2) i see my role as HOD as being the person who the collective is currently choosing implicitly to take this role. i will finish in 18 months now and go back to where i came from. the collective expects me to make decisions, to organise and to plan and strategise the future. there is a big debate in my dept about this though. many of my colleagues are not really keen on the idea of management. many are not really aware of the full import of the changes in the tertiary ed sector (student nos, budget changes etc). many have not even realised fully that the union traded in our tenure some years ago for a measly 2 per cent pay rise. and this is now formally in our award change. the union has also agreed to performance appraisals and many other intrusive things in the latest round for another pathetic 2 per cent. most staff have not realised a lot of things. when i tell them - they want to shoot me (the messenger) b/c they think it is a marxist plot to radicalise the workplace. 3) i have tried to push the dept into a better position. i aim to preserve the jobs of the junior staff who are exposed but more aware of things and who want to participate in a research milieu. i have no real concern for the old guard persons who patently
[PEN-L:2165] Re: Academic managers of the marxist variety
Jerry, reading marx as he typed, wrote:
I disagree with the above starting point. Firstly, the idea that state
employees are public servants is (excuse me) rather "lazy" in a marxist
sense. The state hires wage earners and controls their labor in a way
that is mirrored by the capitalist control over the labor process.
Workers in the state sector, *if* they view themselves merely as "public
servants", will voluntarily sacrifice (decreased wages and benefits,
increased workload, diminished autonomy over the labor process). This
same argument could be extended to elementary school teachers,
fire fighters, librarians at public libraries, garbage collectors, etc. If
this was done, then they would cease to pursue their own self-interest as
workers in the name of the "greater good."
what exactly is a marxist anyway? for me marx wasn't that hot on providing a
manual of how to handle the real world when many complex and conflicting things
have to be balanced b/c people and nature are at stake. for me marx is the
source of an early understanding of the dynamics of capitalism, of the source
of profit, and the origins of crises. it is in the latter sense that i say i am
a marxist. he also said nothing about desalination, de-afforestation, and
ocean and waterway pollution etc etc.
i also find your views of ethics somewhat curious. i happen to start from a
view of what human society is capable of - in the sense, of what humans
themselves are capable of in terms of motivations and responsibilities. i sort
of think this is somewhat independent of the historically-specific mode of
production. then i look around for an organisation of economy that would suit
this. i do believe in community values, in public service, in giving. i think
socialism - of the green, vegetarian, anti-material variety - like no other
socialism that has existed to date btw - is a good vehicle for this view.
but apart from that i think one should live that sort of lifestyle independent
of the system they live in. think local first. be kind to people. serve the
society. you seem to think that people can just switch themselves over to
socialism after behaving in a different way in capitalism. i don't think that.
i prefer to take a high ground position and act as though i was in a socialist
society with on exception. i am always prepared to sacrifice my own liberty (as
i have in the past at great personal cost) for a principle. i am also always
active about change towards to goals. but those changes i think have to come
from within and start of locally. in your local community, in your local
workplace. this doesn't negate any understandings that i have on a theoretical
level (which you seem so good at dwelling on) about what my class position
w.r.t. the state is and how i sit w.r.t to capital. but if i am taking money
from other workers i prefer to put effort in to justify that. w.r.t. serving
students - they are mostly our children and i think they are our future -
better to make them green and red at the same time than to treat them with
contempt.
By suggesting that faculty are
merely public servants, Bill has accepted the corolary that faculty
should not struggle against the conditions themselves imposed on them by
the state and, thereby, simply try to identify the most "fair" way of
accepting the cuts. I don't find this to be very Marxist at all.
i have not accepted this at all. i complain, write letters, make a thorough
nuisance of myself almost every day on the broader issues which restrict our
choices. but get real jerry, when the budget is put into our dept accounts and
it says cut staff, cut travel, cut paper, cut pens, cut library inputs, cut etc
what the fuck are you going to do? get capital vol I out and define some fucking
categories and shout them out in the street.
--
Despite Bill's disdain for Christmas (which I share for different
reasons), he has accepted the Protestant work ethic above. Workers, it
appears, are lucky to have jobs and owe it to their employers to work as
hard as possible ("then you better work for the cash"). Bill's statement
here is simply consistent with what he wrote previously above. No wonder
he is not a fan now of trade unions.
this is rot jerry. a belief in the birth of christ (or more likely being
totally sucked into capitalist market needs and being unable to break out of
destructive social conditioning) has nothing to do with a desire to put in
effort to the best of your ability. for any society to work (that is function)
the individuals have to be prepared to contribute. and the reality is that in
capitalism, with 6-8 per cent unemployment, and the need for a RAU, workers are
lucky to have jobs. capitalists are doing everything they can to reduce
employment and still maintain profit rates. and moreover, academics have pretty
neat (RELATIVE) conditions. and it is not just an OZ thing. i spent time in
california this winter and i got a good idea that
[PEN-L:2141] Strange Messages
Whenever i send something to pen-l lately i get this back. do others? it is an automatic reply to the listserver. they are somewhat rude i think. Denise Stanley is on vacation until 12/15/96. but more curious - this is one hell of a vacation - is this american for 15 December 1996? sounds like i need to get a job there! kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2143] Re: academic unionism
Before we start a war about my little quip, let me confirm in spades that i agree with everything jerry says here: -- I would not give others the same advice. While I have no doubt that Bill's story is factually correct in all of its details: a) academic unions vary internationally; b) labor law does as well (e.g. if a union in the US accepts dues from a member they are legally expected to represent that member and can be sued if they don't [many have sued unions successfully for failure to represent and have won significant awards]. c) while part-timers and adjuncts can form their own unions [an increasing trend in the US], being members of the same union allow them to influence union policy [especially in unions where there are significant #s of part-timers], and is to be preferred [ceteris paribus] for reasons of unity, solidarity, and strength [also for financial support from the parent union]. d) since the principle of one member-one vote holds in unions, this gives part-time and/or adjunct faculty tremendous potential clout where they have large numbers. At some schools, they are a _majority_ and can, therefore, seize control of the union in the election process. For example, at one school where I teach as a part-timer I was elected the union representative for _all_ (FT PT) faculty and professional staff. This contrasts to _faculty_ committees where faculty are treated differently by rank and where PT faculty frequently have no voice or vote or are afraid to exercise those rights for lack of job security and, consequently, possible retaliation. Jerry also mentioned bmy quip about being a HOD. [deletions] If a "radical" does become chair, what should s/he do when the budget cuts and austerity measures are introduced? One could then either lead the struggle against those measures and/or threaten to resign. It doesn't always work that way in practice, though. It has been my experience that "radicals" in theory can frequently be conservatives in practice. At some schools, discriminatory firings are initiated by "progressives." It seems that when progressive individuals assume mgt. positions they generally become part of mgt. and thereby lose their progressivity in practice in order to maintain their mgt. jobs. if pen-l would like a report from me on how i am coping with being a HOD in a time of considerable structural change in OZ unis and in a faculty (dept) which is facing major budget cuts and a necessity to reduce our staff levels, sing out and i can tell you the whole gory story. it is not true though that one automatically becomes one of the management. and it is not true that b/c one seeks to fire people that they are acting against the interests of the working class. it is very complex and i have a lot of experience at working through these type of issues (for louis et al) *in the real world* of academic industrial relations. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2145] Re: Trade Unions (apres france) - fwded message
I wasn't sure if i was mean't to assume that the sender was not on the list and wanted this forwarded or not. if my assumption is wrong then i am of-course sorry for sending private email to the list. but the ideas are worth reading. even if they are supportive of my, seemingly, isolated position. kind regards bill -- Good on ya, Bill, as the Aussies I travelled with in the Sixties used to say. Your words evoke some thoughts below. here i go again about trade unions b/c i don't think the real issues have been fully discussed. while most people on the list have characterised my position as anti-strike, that assertion would be wrong. i was obviously pro-strike and i said so. i said anything that damages capitalism is fine by me but that i wasn't going to get warm and fuzzy about the motives of the unions. i was then criticised btw for wanting workers to suffer. well yeh, before the workers get the coherence required to fully roll the system they are going to have to suffer a lot. and it is the middle class who cosily sit b/tw poverty and capital, who accept the ^^^ dabs of wealth that they are given, who are going to have to suffer before ^^^ they walk out of their mortgages and become active. ^^ Right! This is the heart of the matter. For too long I have felt obliged to tell my friends and others, "Your coming choice is between suffering for something and suffering for nothing; the options may sound equally rotten but there's all the difference in the world." The consequence, after enough repetition, is estrangement, and I'm left feeling that I have failed to alert people I care about to what lies before them. I'm also left feeling angry, for they say wounding things: "Easy for an eternal hippie like you to talk suchwise, etc." The American scene finally compels one to draw the geological doctrine of catastrophism into human affairs, by concluding that aboard the fair ship SS America the first lifeboat drill will be proposed only when all are neck-deep in the water (and thus easy recruits for the pirate vessel nearby). Until that day they will sit narcotized before the tube, wielding that electronic royal scepter, and coast on crumbs from the mega-profits of First World tyrannies in the Third World, feigning an eternal innocence. This society seems bound headlong for history's landfill. What say you? Should I even bother? When the ship is propeller-up there will be no time or milieu left for imparting the simple truths now available. i don't however as a matter of romance or course support every strike by workers. for example, earlier this year in OZ, the timber workers who want to hack the remaining natural rainforests to pieces went out and marched on the parliament. they had all the catchcrys that the french unions chanted. they were being cut back by the govt who was actually leading the way on environmental protection. sure their livelihoods were being threatened, and thet were going to have to retrain and probably leave their timber towns. which way would all of you lot go on that one. i was firmly anti-timber workers b/c i think there is a bigger picture - bigger btw than capitalism, and class conflict put together. i refer obviously to my inner belief about the sanctity of nature. I have found a stunted imagination among lumberjacks, such that the implied alternative to A is assumed to be Z: tell them what they're doing and they assume you want to see them on the dole. Timber towns are captive audiences for malicious corporate Red-baiting. A cultural vacuum is the problem, but why a Redwood stand gives them nothing spiritually is a much deeper matter. Only civil or armed restraint will prevent them from turning the whole world's old growth cover into toothpicks for a paycheck. They have a lack as literal as a vitamin deficiency; American aborigines mince no words about it. Has anyone yet dipped Marxism into a vat of Buddhist or Vedic sensibilities? i also should say, despite snipes to the contrary (like what would they know in OZ, and i wish we would get some more info from france, etc), that i am extremely well informed on a daily basis about what goes on in france. most of what i have said is fact. many things that have been said in support of the strikes in france have been thin on facts. and i need not repeat the arguments. what needs to be further discussed though is the future of the working class struggle. some questions or points are always in my head at the moment. (a) have trade unions failed? the very fact that after 200 years or so of capitalist production that workers gained some rights (in some coutntries only) and now are seemingly losing them again under the assault of
[PEN-L:2111] Re: Green Capitalist Production
Doug wrote: B. Mitchell (whose posts, except for those on France, I generally agree with, responded to glevy's post with a list of mechanism that would force a capitalist economy to function in a more Green friendly manner, by reducing the profitability on less-Green production. Many of these mechanisms might work, IF they were implemented on a global scale. Other wise, they would just lead to more capital flight. But more importantly, on the political level, it is about as likely that these measures could be implemented under capitalist controlled govts as it would be to overthrow captialism itself. So the latter strategy would be preferable. well you can't win them all (posts being agreed with that is!). i did make the point that it had to be the a population motivated trend. that is that the govts had to be taken over by the populace, preferably via the ballot box. but on the capital flight question. this is often raised when governments do anything to tinker with the distribution of income. we get told that unless the world financial moguls agree they will vote on the policy with a withdrawal of capital. i have no doubt that there is some truth in the claim. but i also think it is grossly overrated and somewhat of a bluff. 1) even large scale capital is embodied if it is actually doing something more than speculation. 2) but a lot of environmental damage in OZ is done by small scale business which is not necessarily part of a MN conglomerate. it is simply not an option for them to pack up and go to the phillipines or wherever. they might close down but then that would be preferable although clearly it would impinge on the tax base to fund the transition. kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2050] Re: Social Wage
I wrote: The Incomes and Prices Accord (in OZ) . . . was based on national wage decisions for all workers. . . . Many deals were in the form of increases in the "social wage" which were deliberately intended to redistribute and realign factor shares in OZ towards profits. Eric asked in response: Can you expand on this Bill? What form the the "social wage" take? How did the social wage help realign factor shares in OZ toward profits? OZ has had a long history of centralised wage setting - unique in the world actually. in 1983, the federal labour party (political arm of the unions or so history goes) took power. there was a recession, and the early 1980s had seen a brief return to collective bargaining (with agreements ratified by the wage fixing tribunals) and some enormous wage outcomes (boosted by the rhetoric of an impending resources boom which never really happended). so real unit labour costs (another measure of the wage share) went up and unemployment also was high as was inflation. the 1970s oil shocks had never really worked their way through. the labour govt set about installing a Prices and Incomes Accord in liaison with the ACTU (OZ Council of Trade Unions - Peak body). the bosses did not take part in the signing. the Accord sought to control wages growth (nominal), realign factor shares, and in return the govt said it would increase employment with expansionary policy and increase real wages (not via money wages growth CPI growth) via the social wage. The SW was a central concept and included public goods like increased education spending (the univ. system was expanded and children were encouraged to stay at school longer which they did), better transport systems, the reintroduction of the national health system (abandoned by the conservatives in 1975), family allowance supplements (to bolster low income family resources) and tax trade-offs. for a time all was well. nominal wages growth was modest and lagged well behind inflation which remained too high given the wages growth. in other words, it was not possible to mount the argument that the inflation was cost driven. definately margin push was responsible and profits soared and RULC dropped in an unprecendented manner. to below the alignment that was seen during the "golden" 1960s. the rhetoric was that the profit redistribution would translate into investment and productivity growth and hence real wages growth independent of the SW increases. employment growth was the strongest in the OECD bloc up to 1988-89. but something went amiss. the cappos who were meant to be investing were busily getting further into debt with foreign loans (b/c in 1983 the financial system was deregulated and no-one knew how to behave in the new free world), invested in speculative real estate, CBD office blocks (which remained unoccupied), and huge amounts of share deals, takeovers etc. its was a feeding frenzy for sure. 1987 saw it collapse. at the same time our terms of trade collapsed (well in 1985-86) which shaved off in value terms around 6 per cent of our GDP (via the export losses) - a huge loss to digest in a year or so. the govt started to cut back on the SW spending, employment started to slow down. then we had a series of wage-tax tradeoffs under the SW concept. this protected firms who were inefficient - b/c they avoided paying higher wages. the workers gained higher real income and the govt deficit was put under pressure b/c of the loss of the tax revenue. it was in the era of-course of laffer curves and stupid idiots who said lower taxes were the incentive people needed to work harder. i seemed to already see a lot of workers working hard, and a lot of bosses who never paid fucking tax any way, playing golf at swisho clubs. after the tax cuts, the workers still seemed to work hard and the bosses still seemed to play golf (in fact yachting was the go - remember allan bond won the americas cup during this era). the tax cuts were also a default industry policy b/c they kept the high cost firms in "subsidies". it was ludicrous when we were trying to become more internationally competitive and trying like hell to get rid of the lazy capital. so the SW became fiscal austerity and the firms continued to cut real wages via margin increases. by 1989, the lack of investment, the high interest rates to bring down the imports and bolster the exchange rate (given the depreciation due to the terms of trade shocks) and hence keep inflation in check, saw us dive first of all the OECD countries into a deep recession. only then did the inflation actually drop, as unemployment rose a lot. factor shares continued to move towards profits. things only got better when the govt adopted some old-fashioned keynesian spending in 1991-92. interestingly 1983-1989 - real wages cut, employment grew strongly, demand expansion from govt. 1989-1991 - real wages cut, employment growth negative, tight demand conditions. 1992-95 - real wages cut, employment
[PEN-L:2064] Re: bipartisan appeal for balanced budget - corporate
Bob Naiman P.S. As for the dismemberment of the United[sic] States, I vote yes. I would hope we could give back most of the Southwest to Mexico; perhaps they would allow San Fransisco and Austin to become international cities, like Jerusalem(will hopefully someday be). The South can be an independent country after we fully disarm the white population. Then hopefully Washington, Oregon Northern California, the Midwest and the Northeast would be allowed to join Canada, creating a country with a strongly social democratic polity. The NDP should do just fine in the new Canadian territory. That just leaves Idaho, Montana and Utah... and then what do you do with the rest of the world that has been contaminated by US imperialism? kind regards bill -- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
[PEN-L:2066] Trade unions - (apres france)
here i go again about trade unions b/c i don't think the real issues have been fully discussed. while most people on the list have characterised my position as anti-strike, that assertion would be wrong. i was obviously pro-strike and i said so. i said anything that damages capitalism is fine by me but that i wasn't going to get warm and fuzzy about the motives of the unions. i was then criticised btw for wanting workers to suffer. well yeh, before the workers get the coherence required to fully roll the system they are going to have to suffer a lot. and it is the middle class who cosily sit b/tw poverty and capital, who accept the dabs of wealth that they are given, who are going to have to suffer before they walk out of their mortgages and become active. i don't however as a matter of romance or course support every strike by workers. for example, earlier this year in OZ, the timber workers who want to hack the remaining natural rainforests to pieces went out and marched on the parliament. they had all the catchcrys that the french unions chanted. they were being cut back by the govt who was actually leading the way on environmental protection. sure their livelihoods were being threatened, and thet were going to have to retrain and probably leave their timber towns. which way would all of you lot go on that one. i was firmly anti-timber workers b/c i think there is a bigger picture - bigger btw than capitalism, and class conflict put together. i refer obviously to my inner belief about the sanctity of nature. i also should say, despite snipes to the contrary (like what would they know in OZ, and i wish we would get some more info from france, etc), that i am extremely well informed on a daily basis about what goes on in france. most of what i have said is fact. many things that have been said in support of the strikes in france have been thin on facts. and i need not repeat the arguments. what needs to be further discussed though is the future of the working class struggle. some questions or points are always in my head at the moment. (a) have trade unions failed? the very fact that after 200 years or so of capitalist production that workers gained some rights (in some coutntries only) and now are seemingly losing them again under the assault of new right programs sponsored by the large economies in the world suggests that they have. other facts are worth considering. why are memberships of unions falling to virtually meaningless levels? why is the membership in the private sector very low? why would anyone want to join a union when they see their wages and conditions falling systematically along with persistently high unemployment. why do greens (like me) get the feeling that unions are not systematically pro-environment? the future of struggle in my view is not necessarily going to be fought on traditional "industrial" lines - unions and bosses. this is the normal version of class struggle. up to now it has failed i think. the new struggle which will unite us all against capitalist production has to be sourced in a non-material ideology - a green ideology emphasising low resource usages and much reduced material standards of living. almost the exact opposite to what the unions fight for as part of their charter. i don't blame them so much. the capitalists have skillfully manipulated them into narrow disputes about income distriution. if you are arguing about pennies you certainly are not arguing about who controls the production and owns the factory, much less about the meaning of the factory and why it should exist. the unions have lost not embraced people who are becoming attracted to left green politics and activism. they have not endeared themselves to women, the young, and certainly the unemployed. in the french context, i was appalled that the unions did not oppose actively the nuclear tests. there was green opposition but the trains kept running (take not jerry - who asked about the greens). the greens have been fairly silent in their support of the strikes. for the unions to become relevant they have to unite the industrial dimension of the class struggle with the burgeoning green revolt. but of-course this has to change their charter away from disputes about wages and more more more, to disputes about control and less less less. this is where i am coming from on this. the unions in my view are not the vehicle that is required to unite the populace against production. capitalism needs production. so do unions. both have become embedded in the maintenance of production systems. the future has to reduce the emphasis on this. that is why i don't think the left should hitch their wagons to the unions who are becoming a smaller and smaller force b/c they no longer appeal to many people. so before you attack me again (not that i care btw) why not have a go at discussing this sort of stuff. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ###
[PEN-L:2067] Re: Oz Macro policy
peter robertson writes: 1. bill mitchell describes the econ. history of OZ (for the uniniated, that's Australia): 1983-1989 - real wages cut, employment grew strongly, demand expansion from govt. 1989-1991 - real wages cut, employment growth negative, tight demand conditions. 1992-95 - real wages cut, employment growth strong, expansionary demand policy. Bill Mitchell will know more about Australian Histry and policy than I, but, according to the published data in front of me; 1. The unemployment rate in Australia fell from 1982-83 to 1989, and was rising throught the rest of the 1980's 2. Real wages in Australia were falling throughout the entire period of employment growth ie 1982-83 to 1989 3. The period of employment growth coincided with a very similar period of employment growth in the USA, ie the uenmp. rate fell from 9% to 5%. Was this period of growth not simply the blip between the two recessions of the early and late 1980's? it is a bit of a change to be talking about the real world eh? not a mention of the USA in sight (eh trond?). anyway, some blip. we had very powerful employment growth in that period. but you did not mention the other part of the story that i mentioned. the rapid growth in fiscal expansion (with supportive monetary policy and terms of trade). the real contrast though peter is what happened in the 1990s. RULC kept falling but unemployment rose again - and AD was highly constrained by the tight interest rates. and yo! - RULC keep falling past 1991, yet unemp falls a bit as employment rises again b/c, yep, you guessed it AD was stimulated by the One Nation package which added at least 2 per cent to GDP in each of 1993, 1994. BTW, i forgot to say that productivity growth exhibited strong pro-cyclical patterns over the entire period 1980-1995. so it is a little hard to account for this period in terms of a marginal productivity theory. That would be my guess (being relatively ignorant of domestic macro policies over this time). However the main lesson from the data I'm looking at is that over the period 1970-90 the unemployment rate in ustrlai shifted from a trend around 2% up to around 8-10 %, where it still is. This appears at least partially to be associated with an acceleration in real wage growth in the mid 1970's. Thus the Aussie data appear to me to support the long run vertical phillips curve! you cannot talk about the movements in real wages over this period without reference to AD changes and budget policy. the way we reacted to the oil shocks (74 and 78) obviously had a lot to do with the deterioration in the labour market. but if your belief was right (real wages rising causes un) then you would have to see counter-cyclical productivity movements at the very least. you do not observe this at all in OZ. you also must focus on the profit movements over the period you mention. most of the higher un was due to AD constraints imposed by the Fraser Govt in response to the capitalists and workers failing to agree on a non-inflationary way to share the oil price rises. it also was due to the failure of business to invest in productive capacity. The empirical work i have done (reference availabe if required) shows that there is a strong state dependence in the un rate and that it rises systematically with AD falls. it does not seem to behave in any systematic way to real wage movements. there is strong evidence within the usual levels of capacity utilisation that the PC is non-vertical. kind regards bill --- ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### +61 49 215027 Fax: +61 49 216919 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html
