I'm in search for a single piece of information on the Luddites:
Approximate dates during which they were active.
I already have my "position" on their movement which is considerably
more positive than standard mainstream OR "left" positions. I just want
to locate them in the right century!
Doug Henwood wrote:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
I did not see a list of who voted yes and no in the Post. Was there a
list in the NYTimes? Or can someone post an easy web address for the
vote? I'd like to see how Bernie Sanders voted, for one.
I'm a bit behind and just catching up, so sorry
Robert Naiman wrote:
The House vote was as close as could be. The resolution
supporting the bombing failed 213-213. Twenty-six Democrats
voted against the Administration and against the bombing.
This group included some of the most progressive Members of
the House, like Dennis Kucinich,
Gar Lipow wrote:
Not all work is pleasant even in small amounts. There is a certain
amount of dirty work which has to be done, which simply is not a
source of pleasure to many. Not all of this can be automated out of
existence even in a decently run society (no examples of which are
known)
Nathan Newman wrote:
This statement by the Youth Section of DSA is incredibly good
and I would say it reflects my views almost in total.
--Nathan Newman
This statement by the Youth Section of DSA is incredibly slick and plays
to humanitarian
Gar Lipow wrote:
I think the critical points to make over and over again are that
A) The U.S., in attacking Yugoslavia is committing atrocities of it's
own.
B) It is creating situations where worse atrocities are happening
since the war than before the war started.
C) It has not prevented
I'm sorry for my garbled post which may have been difficult to decipher
as it appeared. Below is a legible version:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
Gar Lipow wrote:
I think the critical points to make over and over again are that
A) The U.S., in attacking Yugoslavia is committing atrocities of it's
Gary Dymski wrote:
Martin's observations (reprinted below)
on the skepticism of many Korean people about
the market as a solution is right on the money. Jim Crotty and I had a
chance to visit Korea in March, and have followed events closely since,
and we saw precisely this view -- and even
William S. Lear wrote:
I'm a bit naive on these topics and I'd like to read some critical
assessments of them. Chomsky contends (if I remember correctly) that
the Bolshevik revolution really destroyed the nascent socialism that
existed in the soviets, and I'm curious to know more about
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
Actually I think that this discussion, although I am
not going to participate further in the dino extinction
part of it, is relevant. I remind that this arose out of a
debate over environmental/ecological economic issues. It
slid over into a discussion
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
Unless I've become too much of a town-booster, Milwaukee is the _only_
American city with socialist government in its purple past,
You have. The city of Reading, PA had a socialist
mayor by the name of Stump. He had a fondness for
the bottle but is generally
Dennis R Redmond wrote:
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote concerning the
demise of the dinos:
...the current scientific
consensus that they got zapped by an asteroid hit is really
coming on strong. Among other major pieces of evidence has
been the discovery of the
Mark Jones wrote:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
Minimizing pollution, taken literally, means zero pollution, which means
not moving and not farting. That hardly seems optimal.
and
What's wrong with capitalism is no matter how hard we try to
achieve the optimal level of pollution reduction
Ken Hanly wrote:
Why would not
those who suffer the pollution be given ownership of the permits and then they
would be compensated directly?
Do you give each citizen the same number of permits? If so, this will
come out the same as giving each citizen his/er proportionate share of
the green
Gar W. Lipow wrote:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
I doubt you mean "non-tradable" in the above, since non tradable permits
are the equivalent of regulations (that most now call "command and
control."
No, I mean non-tradeable. Non-tradeable permits are not th
I've already said I prefer auctions to handouts.
Robin challenges us to say when were there auctions (they
were proposed in Wisconsin, but not carried out).
I knew about the Wisconsin case, and must say I'm not surprised that
although auctions were proposed (obviously only by some) they
Gar W. Lipow wrote:
Granted that parecon would generate full social and ecological price signals, I
still don't understand why in capitalism non-tradable, auctioned, permits with a
floor are not superior.
I doubt you mean "non-tradable" in the above, since non tradable permits
are the
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
Robin,
Well, it is your judgment that all the other arguments
besides the one you cite are "hot air." Maybe, maybe not.
Fair enough. That's why I gave the full reference for Oates' article so
people wouldn't have to take my word for it.
Personally
Note to Robin: I wonder if non-tradable permits auctioned with a floor aren't really
pollution taxes.
Permits and taxes are not the same. The only thing that is "the same" is
that IN THEORY -- if there are no market failures in the permit markets
-- auctioning off a particular number of
Now please remind me why my
eco-guru Wally Oates said permits are more efficient
than taxes?
First late me quote Professor Oates. (Cropper and Oates: Environmental
Economics, JEL June 1992, p. 687) "Some interesting issues arise in the
choice between systems of effluent fees and marketable
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
Replies to Perelman, Schneiderman, Hahnel, Meyer, Proyect
Farmer Perelman said:
Emissions trading is a crock. If you want to give polluction
credits, why not give everybody an equal credit instead of rewarding
people for historical patterns of pollution?
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
If government gives away emissions permits, then clearly
corporations do not benefit as a group, since one firm's
sale is another's purchase. If the government sells them,
corporations are net losers in the aggregate.
For every tradable pollution permit
Doug Henwood wrote:
Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
Another wiggle, close but not the same, is that a
system can be behaving very regularly and then quite
suddenly start behaving very erratically ("chaotically"),
with different and smaller changes than the first case.
I don't like
William S. Lear wrote:
I'm really enjoying this exchange, just the kind of stuff I like to
think about, and I have one very small, peripheral question.
Robin writes:
... Even
competitive markets under conditions of perfect
Gar W. Lipow wrote:
With gambling or without, I think a Parecon will provide a welfare safety net.
I am not talking about the retired, the involuntarily unemployed, or those unable
to work. In these cases I assume you would provide average consumption plus any
special needs as a matter of
Doug Henwood wrote:
Can anyone recommend anything good to read on Native Americans/Indians?
Ward Churchill is about as much native american as most white radicals
can handle. He has written much to challenge white radicals' views and
stands on native american issues. I always find his
Or, perhaps, my oblique point would be clearer if I came at it from another
angle: the greatest indignity inflicted on the poor is not their poverty; it
is the retroactive justification of that poverty (and the corresponding
wealth of the wealthy) as being "as of right". It's worth
maxsaw wrote:
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are
financing everything via head taxes?
An important first step is that income is distributed equitably in the first place
-- which we believe it is in a participatory economy
As a precautionary note, I should say that when I envision a worthwhile
society, I generally think in terms of free people forming voluntary
associations (though that is perhaps a muddy phrase). Thus, I tend to think
of: in what manner(s) will people feel like organizing in? Further, then,
john gulick wrote:
So at last all the latent anarcho-syndics on pen-l come out of the
woodwork. I'm pleased. A few questions posed at a fairly high level
of abstraction.
1) Even at the admittedly free-wheeling level of
pencil-and-paper "models," it's easy to talk about and celebrate
More belated response to Markland and Gulick on utopian vision:
I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests
while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to
take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of
More belated responses on utopian visions:
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote:
At 12:37 PM 12/2/97 -0500, you wrote:
One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider
problem for expressing desires for public goods.
How exactly does it eliminate
the FR problem for
Louis Proyect wrote:
Robin Hahnel:
Or, you
put your faith in what a Swedish union official once answered a British
trade unionist demanding to know how Swedish unions came to an agreement
on a particular issue: "We have a meeting."
This was not intended as a criticism
Nevertheless, of greater interest to me is the contention that there
will be "No private property at all", which I claim is quite literally
impossible and therefore it is a question of how you limit (or just
plain "deal with") private property that should be addressed.
At this late date, I'd
maxsaw wrote:
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public
goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks...
This sounded no different than the routine
operation of local government. What is new
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote:
That [participatory plannings way of handling collective consumption] would take
care of some problems, but what about:
1) people who don't have kids who won't support increasing the education
budget for elementary schools?
2) people who vote against increasing
I'll take your word on this, Lou - and Trotsky himself was no fool, for
sure. But what happened? Why did Trotskyist groups - all Marxist groups
did, but it seems to be most extreme among Trot formations - show such a
prediliction for rigidity, cultishness, and schism? Why have they been
I am very sorry to hear of Castoriadis' death. I did not follow his work
in psychoanalysis, and did not particularly agree with some of his
writings in Telos during the 80s -- particularly his identification of
the Soviet Union as a more dangerous threat to human liberation than the
threat posed
Hi Marc. I'll ask Jesse to mail me a copy of the environmental reader,
the macro reader, and the progressive reader when he gets back to
Boston. I'll give him a check and tell him to fill in the right amount.
I'm pretty sure I can use the environmental reader in my environmental
economics course
Dave Markland notes:
The Parecon model "works" independantly of the state (if there
is one) and independently of many aspects of society. Mix 'n match yer
favorite political forms alongside a parecon.
Here and now very little works independently of the state. I am not versed
in
James Devine wrote:
1) on "private" property's abolition: I think that the point of socialism
is to replace "private" property with _responsibility_. "Private" property
isn't really private: owning it gives one the right to impose a lot of
costs on other people and on nature, power without
Dave Markland wrote:
regarding the parecon model. It seems to me that Albert and Hahnel have
simply thought through the process of democratizing an economy; the parecon
model has several features which, though I suspect they would be
unnecessary, are simply the logical way to organize a
Sid Shniad wrote:
I heard the author of Dilbert interviewed on national CBC radio a while
back. The guy's a reactionary individualist whose perspective is a kind
of with it cynicism about anything social (i.e. unions, politics, etc.)
I think that too many people embrace his stuff without
Doug Henwood wrote:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
Ginis among men, and ginis among women -- yes. But that just tells us if
something -- wages, income, wealth, whatever -- is more or less unequal
among men or women. What would a gini between men and women mean?
Nothing I think.
I meant
Doug Henwood wrote:
Has anyone ever done gender Ginis?
Doug
Ginis among men, and ginis among women -- yes. But that just tells us if
something -- wages, income, wealth, whatever -- is more or less unequal
among men or women. What would a gini between men and women mean?
Nothing I think.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Does anyone out there understand the legal issues in the Teamsters election
scandal? How are union elections supposed to be financed, if not from union
funds? Or is the issue that Carey's team diverted more than they were
supposed to? And where did Hoffa's money
Doug Henwood wrote:
Robin Hahnel wrote:
June 1997 article by
Peter Gottschalk and Timothy Smeeding "Cross-National Comparisons of
Earnings and Income Inequality."
Where?
Doug
Sorry. Journal of Economic Literature, JEL, pp. 633-681.
Peter Bohmer wrote:
Is there a recent book you would recommend as a good recent left analysis on
the causes of the growing inequality of income and wealth in the United
States for an undergraduate program in political eocnomy.
Thanks, peter Bohmer
Not for your students, but for you, look
Doug Henwood wrote:
I've been reviewing the 1996 Census Bureau income reports, and I've noticed
that that the gaps between male and female incomes continue to narrow, both
because of fall in men's real incomes and rises in women's. For example,
for all persons with income, women's were
Eric A. Schutz wrote:
I have just updated a bibliography on socialist economics that I sent
out to pen-l'ers in 1991, suitable for use in courses on, e.g., Comp.
Econ. Sys. I'll be happy to e-mail the new version (about 200-titles)
to pen-l'ers on request.
Cheers -- Eric Schutz
Please
I'd be very interested in your paper on housing and the home mortgage
interest deduction if you could send it to me at the Department of Economics
American University, Washington DC 20016. It sounds excellent.
I remember when I was able to deduct all interest payments from my
income before calculating my tax liability: credit card interest,
consumer loan interest, personal loan, student loan, as well as mortgage
interest.
Ah -- those were the good old days!
Then only home mortgage interest was
Carla Feldpausch just completed her PHD thesis,"The Political Economy
of Chaos: Multiple Equilibria and Fractal Basin Boundaries in a Nonlinear Envir
onmental Economy" with Walter Park (American University), Barkley Rosser
(James Madison Univerity), and Robert Blecker (American University) this
What time is Costanza's brown bag at EPI? I'd like to come.
June 19th 1865, I believe, is the day slaves were freed in Texas -- which
was in a more than usually ambiguous status during and right after the
Civil War. I wonder if that makes Texas the last place on earth to have
abolished slavery? Brazil?
There is a celebration of June teenth in Anacostia,
I've been off line, but if nobody mentioned Norma Rae starring Sally
Fields, I liked that as a labor film especially as it portrays the
character of a union organizer and a local activist (Sally Fields)
very well. Surprisingly, I think it was more of a Hollywood film than
others such as Matewan.
Matewan is a great labor movie.
An observation about "planning" that may, or may not be useful:
A plan is, by definition a single outcome we all will live with. If one
wants to add the adjective "central" to plan in recognition of this reality,
I suppose that's OK. But the general equilibrium of a market economy is also
a
Max: You could profitably look at either Pat Devine's model of democratic
planning he calls negotiated coordination (Democratic Planning, Westview
1988) or Mike Albert and my model of participatory planning (The Political
Economy of Participatory Economics, Princeton, 1991). Both treatments
deal
I really like Bill Rosenberg's analogy and the conclusions it suggests
are quite useful in my view.
I think Rosenberg's think piece is exceedingly useful and on the mark.
I second Jim Devine's message about neoclassicals and the environment in
its entirety. The astounding misinterpretation of what the Coase theorem
actually tells any reasonable analyst about the likelihood of environmental
efficiency being achieved through voluntary and private negotiations of
I second Jim Devine's message about neoclassicals and the environment in
its entirety. The astounding misinterpretation of what the Coase theorem
actually tells any reasonable analyst about the likelihood of environmental
efficiency being achieved through voluntary and private negotiations of
Mike Albert has a nice piece in the current issue of Magazine that
criticizes the Mother Jones piece.
The mainstream line on externalities has long been: "Serious economists
have always known that external effects produce inefficiencies -- and have
never claimed otherwise." But then, the
I may well know good people who are interested. Can you tell me any more
about what courses they would teach and salary?
There is a difference between what use people DO make of a theoretical
framework and what use COULD BE made of a theoretical framework. And this
difference is part of what fuels the Skillman/Ajit debate it seems.
But it is also true that certain theoretical frameworks LEND THEMSELVES
MORE
I use and highly recommend the Dollars and Sense special issues for
undergraduate teaching -- not just at the intro level. At a minimum
they provide progressive perspectives on topical issues. I do not think
it is a criticism of them to say they are NOT an alternative text, nor
do they provide
It's not really for a Marxist Economic Theory class. As a matter of
fact, its radical political economy but presented WITHOUT using the
labor theory of value to explain exploitation and alienation or macro
failures or "crises." If you'd like to see a table of contents with
short descriptions of
For next fall South End Press will have an introduction to political
economy book -- not exactly text, but it does have some problems, ex-
cercises, etc. -- intended for an intro audience -- i.e. no prior
economics is assumed. I wrote it [sorry for the self-promo -- not to
be confused with pomo]
I stand corrected on the relative importance of MITI and the Ministry
of Finance in the Japanese economic oligarchy. I think Rosser has better
information on this than I do.
I would like to express my agreement with Barkley Rosser's explanation
of the soft budget constraint as a problem in market socialist economies
where different levels of government extended credit to insolvent firms
for political reasons, but as a problem that does not afflict centrally
planned
Louis: You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed the reference I steered
you to: The minority dissenting opinion in Science and Society about
the terrible utopian essays their fellow board members and editor were
printing. I personally think it stands as a monument to the stupidity
of some practicing
My utopian badge is red and black and is polished every day by
the memory of millions who have given their lives for a more just
democratic economy that strengthens people's solidarity for one another.
I have always embraced the label "utopian" and wear the badge proudly.
I have also always criticized Marxists who rail against utopianism as
wrong headed if not self-serving. I'm sure Louis wears his labels with
pride.
It's hard to reply briefly about "aggregation" in participatory planning.
Our model (and utopian vision) is very different from small semi-autonomous
eco-economies ala Gar Alperowitz or Howie Hawkins -- or the more famous
Murray Bookchin. We have a large national economy model with federations
of
I've been called worse by better than Comrade Proyect.
I mentioned my teaching of comparative systems and visits to work with
Cuban planners in an attempt to argue that, for better or worse, my utopian
thinking is not totally uninformed by some study and familiarity with the
history of "once
Michael Albert and I developed our utopian model of a participatory economy
in large part in response to our historical evaluation of the strengths and
weaknesses of the Soviet, Chinese, Yugoslavian, and Cuban experiences. We
wrote about those experiences for 2/3 of a book -- Socialism Today and
Here! Here! Let's here it for a Jim Devine's defense of utopian thinking.
And, I'd like to add that I consider my recent reading of Bellamy's
Equality -- his lesser known but more complete work on utopianism --
and William Morris' News from Nowwhere -- a libertarian response to
what Morris
If it's of any help to anyone, I can state my position on markets
very simply: Regarding markets I'm an abolitionist but not a fool.
By which I mean:
(1) Markets play NO part in an economy that I consider desirable. [Desirable
can be spelled out at great length but I believe markets are
You need to get Eddie Wolff's book on Wealth published by the 20th
Century Fund. I borrowed data from that source and put it in "The
Political Economy of Economic Justice" (McGraw Hill 1996) available
from them for $4.50. Also See the latest EPI version of the State of
Working America and The New
progressive. I recommend them highly.
Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics
American University
Washington DC 20016
202-885-2712
202-885-3790 fax
Feel free to edit or amend as you see fit without further consultation.
If you're using Schiller's text, I hope you're getting "Political Economy
and Social Justice" for free for your students. If you order the module
along with the text it comes wrapped with the text at no extra cost to
the students. You need supplemental material on income and wealth distribution,
I agree with Max that an excellent argument for lower interest
rates is that it is a humongous budget balancer -- a freebee so to
speak. Since much of today's debt is the result of tax cuts for the
rich and spending the Soviet Union into bankrupcy -- two highly successful
Reagan period
On what percent of what I pay to the Feds goes to military and debt
service. I was wrong, but it does depend on what you count -- particularly
social security taxes. I was thinking about my federal income tax excluding
my social security tax, since that is how we fill out our 1040s. In the
back
Wages don't have to be equal to marginal revenue products. And since paying
people their marginal revenue products is often very unfair -- Michael Jordan
gets $20 million a year and a nursery school teacher gets $20 a year --
an equitable economy requires us NOT to pay according to MRP. But, for
I completely agree with the healthiness and usefulness of the thought
expressed by Harry Cleaver as: "We've just GOT to be able to do better
than this" --- "this" being capitalism.
While one might hope that relative wages in a workers' managed market
socialism would be set according to some criterion other than marginal
revenue products -- as Rosser implies they would/could be -- I know of no
analyst of such a system who does not conclude that the labor market in
such a
I was only remarking that in central planning wage rates do not have
to be equal to marginal revenue products in order to achieve static
efficiency. In market socialism, it seems to me they do. And that includes
employee managed market socialism a la Vaneck. I know that wage rates
were not fair
The market teaches people that they DESERVE to get in accord with the
market determined value of their contribution. The market teaches people
to think that way every day -- just ask my students! But progressive
taxation requires one to think that to each according to the market value
of his or
I agree with PBurns that central planning does not necessarily solve
external effect inefficiencies. What is required is for normal procedures
to correctly signal social costs and benefits. Trying to correct after the
fact is both intellectually and politically daunting -- as in, it won't
happen
Barkley, are you going to use labor markets? If so, you will get highly
unequal labor incomes that are also quite inequitable. Michael Jordan will
get $20 million per year and a nursery school teacher will get $20 thousand.
If you don't permit labor markets to determine labor income, they you
For one quick referrence on externalities see E.K. Hunt and R.C. D'Arge,
"On Lemmings and other Acquisitive Animals: Propositions on Consumption,"
Journal of Economic Issues, June 1973.
For one quick illustration: One recent study of 500 consumer goods
concluded that market prices diverged from
Is it responsible to suggest that progressive income taxes WOULD
actually make labor market outcomes reasonably equitable in a market
socialist economy?
In labor markets people have to justify what they're paid on the basis
of the value of their contribution. After doing that why will most
I have been too busy to respond to recent postings on market "socialism"
but would like to say that one reason I reject market socialism as my
vision of a desirable economy is that it does NOT help us develop our
capacities for solidarity and cooperation, but rather whets our invidious
and
In part we ARE an "atomized, stressed, and distracted" society precisely
BECAUSE we are obstructed from having significant influence over the
decisions that most affect us -- economic and political decisions in
particular in the 1990s.
Further thoughts on Justin Schwartz's concern that participatory economies
lead to a dictorship of the sociable:
Most people would be surprised to discover that participation in
participatory planning takes place almost exclusively through a
kind of voting that does NOT entail attending meetings
This is only intended as a partial answer to Justin Schwartz's thoughtful
question.
You're right. There is a fundamental dilemma that cannot be ducked: If
people are free not to participate even when given effectively equal
opportunities to do so -- and I distinguish "effectively" from
The system we call participatory planning bears no resemblance to one
long student council meeting. Like any economic model that purports to
be "worker managed" we provide full opportunities for workers to participate
in decisions about what they will make and how they will make it. We also
WhileB. Rosser is correct that many advocates of socialist planning
do NOT address the issue of what classes might or might not develop,
and do NOT explain HOW workers (and consumers) would exactly participate
in the planning process; that is NOT true of either Pat Devine whose
book and articles
Regarding the implications of endogenous preferences for normative
economics, what parts of traditional welfare economics does, and does not
"go out the window" is the subject of a long, painstaking treatise titled:
Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics, by Hahnel and Albert, Princeton Univ
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