Re: Jim Blaut on world systems analysis

Louis Proyect wrote... A related position is Giovanni Arrighi's peculiar 'geometry' of world processes under capitalism. Arrighi is an admitted Kantian, and he believes that the basic forces determining the historical trajectory of the modern world are ultimately spatial, in an absolutist, New

Re: convergence?

At 02:34 PM 07/31/2002 -0700, you wrote: [comments?] THE ECONOMIST / July 20, 2002 Convergence, period The Economist is the most loathsome economic periodical I have ever read. It is such a mass of confusion, legerdemain, prevarication, and obfuscation that I do not think it is worth wastin

Re: self-congratulatory expertise

At 11:14 AM 07/31/2002 -0700, Ian wrote: >[problem solved; all is better now!] > >There is nothing uniquely American about corporations that cook >their books, or accountants and bankers who countenance it, or >executives who use corporate treasuries as personal piggy banks. > >But it is probably

Dante and the experts

Many of you are familiar with the story of the Tower of Babel, but just so we all start on the same page, here it is (from King James version): 1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain

Re: Re: Re: Fed on preventing parallels to Japanese deflation

At 12:00 AM 07/31/2002 +, you wrote: >What?! The Federal Reserve is explicitly authorized to take equity stakes >in private enterprise? My God, is there anything the sovereign state of >the Fed is *not* entitled to do? I'm confused. The Federal Reserve, despite its name, is very much a pr

Re: Re: Re: Expertise and Vanguard Parties

At 08:55 PM 07/30/2002 +, you wrote: >What part do you reject, Doug? Representative govt? Univeral suffrage? >Extensive civil and political liberties? In fact you reject none of it. >You are a bourg lib too, as are probably 95% of the people on this list. Explain the bourgeois part. Thanks

Re: Re: RE: Expertise

At 08:42 PM 07/30/2002 +, you wrote: >>What do you think of juries? Is this an example of the hoi polloi >>interfering in your area of expertise? >> >>Joanna > > >No. Juries find facts, they don't decide questions of law. Neither I nor >any other lawyer has any expertise in hwta happened in

Re: The size of the bubble?

At 09:16 AM 07/30/2002 -0400, you wrote: >4] To what degree has the bubble (aka "new") economy been nothing more than >an elaborate and calculated scheme to steal money from employees and middle >class investors, or was it more fortuitous accident of history for those who >got rich at every one el

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Expertise

> >Yes I do object. With regard to reserach, neither I nor anyone here wants >to be told what to work on. Now, there is some democratization possible in >the decision to fund kinds of projects. The legislature can (and does) >decide to alot a certain amount of funds to, say, cancer research. O

Re: Re: Re: RE: Expertise

At 05:13 PM 07/29/2002 -0400, you wrote: >"science does not think" -- martin heidegger > >(thought i would throw that one out and see what kind of fish >it attracts ;-)). > > --ravi Hard to say without context; but normative science is more like a vetted bureaucratic procedure ...hence

Re: Re: RE: Expertise

At 02:20 PM 07/29/2002 +, you wrote: >Well, we have already established that I am an arrogant, elitist, right >wing tool of the bourgeoisie, no socialist, and a general son of a bitch, >so pay no attention to me. You go find a doctor who knows less than you do >about medicine. I gather that

Re: Re: The need for planning

At 10:17 AM 07/27/2002 -0700, you wrote: >I think that Michael should step in and admonish Lousi for this parody of >Justins speling. I think a laugh that good ...needs no apology. Joanna

Re: Re: Re: Re: Drudgery

At 01:29 PM 07/27/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Heavens, we don't want to quote the actual article, since it includes the >observations of the women in question, rather than technological >pessimists sitting in California. Of course, this may all just be >capitalist propaganda - Thurow failed to call

Re: Re: Re: Re: Drudgery

At 06:53 PM 07/26/2002 -0500, you wrote: >This part is simply absurd! It's the software engineers, not Bill Gates >et al who keep Microsoft undemocratic? Well, I couldn't quite follow the argument's in Ian's post. When stuff gets too abstract, I have problems. However, "writing unmaintainable c

Re: Re: Re: Vandana Shiva

At 05:12 PM 07/26/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Grinding flour is a synecdoche for a society characterized by a large >pesantry producing very low-tech goods in households and small villages. >That style of production is inconsitent with being nonpoor. If people want >to stay poor, that's their decis

Re: Drudgery

At 03:21 PM 07/26/2002 -0700, you wrote: >The Wall Street Journal today had a front page story about women >in Mali, whose use of mechanized grinding machines has given them >time to improve their lives and become literate. What's the point of this? Did the cotton gin enable slaves to improve the

Re: Re: Re: Drudgery

At 06:52 PM 07/26/2002 -0400, you wrote: >As I read Michael's post, the point was that Mali women's use of >mechanized grinding machines has given them time to improve their lives >and become literate. No attempt to draw more general conclusions about >the social consequences of machinery, or

Re: Re: Re: Re: Sokal (verb)

At 07:29 PM 07/25/2002 -0400, you wrote: >It's not Page Six material, like Justin Timberlake's flirtations with >Christina Aguilera, which has Britney all in a rage. Are you the father of a pre-teen? Joanna

Re: Re: Sokal (verb)

At 02:12 PM 07/25/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Sokal has now joined with ex-Social Text'er Bruce Robbins in a campaign to >get American Jews to sign a petition critical of Israeli policy. Times >change > >Doug Are you serious? Joanna

Re: RE: Charles P. Kindleberger

 Crying "bubble" is the easy way out, Garber says, preferred by those who believe individuals are not to be trusted in determining the value of markets - Greenspan's famous "irrational exuberance" is a perfect example. But without the kind of speculation seen today and, yes, in 1636, there would b

Re: state gov't spending

Marta Russel has recently documented the fact that CA's shortfall will affect $$ for health care. I thin ZNet ran that article a few weeks ago. Joanna At 09:08 PM 07/24/2002 -0700, you wrote: >I know that government spending has been a major factor in maintaining >demand, but now the state gove

Re: Market correction

At 07:33 AM 07/25/2002 +0100, you wrote: >The market rebound. Now they are saying that the market was overdue a >correction. What rubbish. When they dont know our experts drag out the >correction word. A code for we dont know. >Karl Carlile >Communism Site: >http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/

Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: RE: Market correction

At 12:52 PM 07/25/2002 -0400, you wrote: >everyday i hear/read pundits (financial analysts, market analysts, >MBAs, consultants, commentators, etc) speak forth on the stock >market collapse caused by the tech bubble that "we" (as they say) >all fell prey to. but iirc it was they that created the b

Re: RE: The D word surfaces

If anyone has any interesting reading on deflation, could the please cite it? (There's a lot of stuff on inflation, but no so much on deflation.) Thanks, Joanna

Re: Re: Re: Something strange about this crisis

In my opinion it has never been unclear that the purchasing power of the masses has been systematically reduced for the past two decades. This systematic reduction of purchasing power is not even or uniform or affects every individual in America to the same degree. If one has to work longer hours

Re: RE: Re: Yale men

One of the big things I learned at Yale was to have a visceral distaste for preppies and rich people, and for pretentious people in general. Was it that infinite sense of entitlement that put you off? Or something else? Joanna

ivy education

So...following up on the Yale men thread...is the education given at the ivies worth it? I ask because a former lover who went to Princeton was very bitter about that aspect too. I also ask because I have a half-baked idea to send my daughter (now 8) to Vassar or one of the other women's ivies.

Re: Re: Yale men

At 01:08 PM 07/23/2002 -0500, you wrote: > and boasted that not very many people had had a chance to cold >cock a Mellon. what does that mean? Joanna

Re: Re: Options spin....

At 05:36 PM 07/22/2002 -0400, you wrote: >business week had an article late last year (iirc) which said: now >that the recession is over [ha!], we can look back at some numbers >and some of the findings might surprise you. for instance, did you >know that [business week calculates] 99% of all the

Options spin....

As anger grows over CEO compensation/looting, beware of spin. For example, last week, WSJ ran a brief article on how the fall of the stock market upsets the culture of options. In the article, the writers noted, "Boosted by outsize grants in the top ranks, Microsoft employees averaged a whoppin

summary of credit bubble

From a friendHere's a succinct summary of the credit bubble: http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/update.htm Joanna

Re: Re: Re: do recessions have a good side?

At 04:23 PM 07/17/2002 -0700, you wrote: >You bring up an interesting point. I would like to know what others >think. The key is whether the lower classes roll over and play dead or >whether they are more likely to challenge the power structure. It seems >that during the Great Depressions in th

Re: "nfectious greed"

poor old AG. How can he reconcile his Ayn Randite tradition -- which worships greed -- with his new disdain for it? JD Actually, she doesn't worship greed. At bottom, she's a capitalist stakhanovite: all her "good" characters are selfish but workaholics. What she is incapable of acknowledging i

Re: do recessions have a good side?

Jim wrote >150 years of history suggests he was wrong. Not only are recessions nasty >(as he recognized) to the working class, but they don't automatically have >the good effects listed. Among other things, there are always >non-capitalist scape-goats at hand. And yet, in AG's latest quotabl

Re: Re: Re: Mental sounds remain fund!

At 05:23 PM 07/16/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Tom Walker wrote: > >>Joanne Bujes wrote, >> >>>And prosperity is just around the corner... >> >>Or around the coroner. > >Ah, we're back on Depression Watch, aren't we? Hope you all have good plan >for taking advantage of the blood that will soon be flow

Re: Mental sounds remain fund!

At 10:45 PM 07/15/2002 -0700, you wrote: >"Greenspan is expected to reaffirm in congressional testimony that the >fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain sound." > > >Tom Walker >604 254 0470 And prosperity is just around the corner... Joanna

Re: Re: Re: Gunder Frank

Melvin concludes his reply with: ">Here accumulation, there empoverishment, and always the >Luxemburgist relationship accumulation/expansion< seems to me to be intellectually dishonest by confusing radically distinct epochs in human history. All epoch in history are composed of time frames whe

Re: Re: potlatches/reciprocity

At 11:13 PM 07/11/2002 -0500, Paul wrote: >Such generalized reciprocity is a feature of western Canadian >(rural) society. When I was building my house and barn in the rural >area I put out a general call for anyone interested to come join a >'house/barn raising bee.' We had douzens of voluntee

woops: correction

To take an example, I think Pete Seeger's songs had much greater influence on working class consciousness...than any utopian novel. I'm spacing...I meant Woodie Guthrie. Joanna

Re: Re: Utopia/Vision

At 04:55 PM 07/11/2002 +, Carl wrote: >Absolutely. And if the devil can quote scripture to suit his purpose, I >too as a devotely irreligious person can cite the bible's memorable >comment on this topic: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." >(Proverbs 29:18) Utopian visions can

Re: I can't resist...

At 01:54 PM 07/11/2002 -0700, Jim wrote: I wrote: >There are people who can embrace socialism without having any hope,...< and most of them are on pen-l! Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine "Nec spes; nec metu!" (Neither hope nor fear!motto of the house of

Re: Re: Re: Market socialism as a form of utopianism

At 11:54 AM 07/11/2002 -0700, Gar wrote: >The worse the better eh? Both from personal experience, and from my >reading of history people are mostly likely to engage in either radical or >revolutionary activity when they have hope - when they believe things can >be better. I think you can find m

Re: Commodity hunger

Melving Wrote: " The configuration of this commodity hunger was shaped and accelerated as an aspect of the proletarianization of the world masses (in history) and in particular after World War I with the mechanization of agriculture - that is the destruction of the private producer or small scale

Re: Re: market socialism. finis.

At 03:35 AM 07/11/2002 +, Justin wrote: >I have not participated in this discussion. But I violently object to >Michael shutting down a discussion of a topic that a great many people on >the list are interested in, but that he, for some reason, has an allergy >too. There are a zillion topic

Re: Re: RE: Re: potlatches

At 11:51 AM 07/11/2002 +1000, Thiago wrote: >The idea is that whilst the commodity form alienates the worker from the his/ >her labour - his/her labour confronts him/her as something non-human, >objective - precisely the opposite happens with a gift. In a gift economy >objects are anthropomorphiz

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: markets & profit maximization

At 01:22 PM 07/10/2002 -0700, you wrote: >Enormous amounts of resources are spent to market products that are >essentially identical. Maybe you don't get phone calls from the phone >companies Say what!!! You don't think there's a difference between Pepsi and Coke? .not to mention t

Re: Short Book on Marx for Undergraduates

A - you're not going to let them see any original material You should. You don't want them to think Marx is too hard, because lots of his stuff isn't. For example, how about that 3 page essay on money from the 1844 manuscripts, you know, the one that says "money is the pimp between man an

Re: option overhang

At 02:38 PM 07/08/2002 -0700, Steve Diamond wrote: >The market will likely not recover fast enough to put most outstanding >options "in the money" tho companies will attempt to reprice options >downward and issue new options at lower strike prices. As Joanna says in >a bear market all bets are

Re: RE: Re: more & more stock options

At 12:37 PM 07/08/2002 -0700, you wrote: joanna writes:>Problem is, options don't work in a bear market. < right, but BW says that that's making companies issue more of them -- and, more importantly, encourages the "market" to be even more bearish. Jim Devine Exactly, Joanna

Re: RE: RE: Re: more & more stock options

At 12:48 PM 07/08/2002 -0700, you wrote: RE joanna writes:>Problem is, options don't work in a bear market. <   But when the stock market does start to go up--and a huge overhang of stock options are finally cashed in--what might happen to the stock market?   Eric . Exactly, Joanna

Re: more & more stock options

Problem is, options don't work in a bear market. At Sun, they've given out options a couple of times since the stock price slide (120s to 5) -- but the problem is that since the stock is heading down relentlessly, a few weeks after you get say 1000 options at 18, the stock goes "underwater" to u

Re: Re: Inflation and CPI

At 06:09 PM 07/05/2002 -0400, Doug wrote: >The CPI market basket is based on the Consumer Expenditure Survey >, not what BLS economists deem it to be, >and it includes education, which they weight at 2.7% of spending >

Re: Re: RE: inflation (offlist)

Thanks, that was very interesting. I need to think about it some more. Joanna At 12:18 AM 07/06/2002 -0500, you wrote: >I have always considered inflation to be a *general* rise in the price >level, rather than a rise in specific prices which feed into the CPI or, >as we used to call it, the COL

Re: Re: inflation and cpi

Eric concluded: >Unfortunately most who cite/use the CPI do not really understand what the CPI >intends to measure. This is true for almost _all_ economists who use the CPI-- >most are unaware of the limits of the CPI measure and, so, use it in >unappropriate ways. The question is, are they fo

Re: Re: Re: Re: Inflation/NYC transit

At 02:06 PM 07/04/2002 -0700, you wrote: >I am happy to hear about NY public transportation. NY may be unusual in that >even moderately well to do people use it. Returned from NYC a few weeks ago and agree that NYC public transit is a miracle of convenience/dependability/efficiency. Prosit! Ho

Re: The 401K hoax

At 06:10 PM 07/04/2002 -0700, Steve wrote: > > >This is a post from my favorite Bear chat room that makes some important >comments on a huge fuel source for "fictitious capital" - defined >contribution pension plans that have swept our economy in the last twenty >years: > >(Also for further rea

Re: Inflation

At 05:20 AM 07/04/2002 -0400, you wrote: >This raises a question I have always wondered about. In calculating >the CPI, the BLS uses fixed weights which are updated only every >decade or so, right? Right-wingers claim that this overstates >increases in the cost of living because, in reality, peo

Re: RE: Re: Re: RE: Greenspan's cooked book

At 03:45 PM 07/03/2002 -0700, Jim wrote: >Joanna writes: >You know, I'm really tired of this low inflation crap. The >inflation in housing, equities (till lately), health care, and education >has been HUGE. I don't know why it doesn't count.< > >at some point, economists decided on a convention

Re: UK's Guardian on widening corporate scandal

At 08:22 PM 07/01/2002 -0700, Steve Diamond cross-posted : >No one should mistake this as a fatal or even lethal blow for capitalism as >we know it. Those who predict its imminent demise underestimate its >resilience. Back in 1987 the late Eric Heffer told the House: "People's >capitalism was fall

Re: Re: Good analysis of WCOM and Credit Bubble

At 11:19 PM 07/02/2002 +1000, you wrote: >Sidgmore used his golden hour at the podium to complain about how much >MCI WorldCom spends on marketing its network services. According to >Sidgmore, an astonishing 49% of the telecom giant's service costs to >customers can be traced to marketing. In cont

Re: Re: RE: Greenspan's cooked book

At 01:04 AM 07/03/2012 +0100, you wrote: >Despite the very low interest rates inflation does not really exist in the >US. This would appear to contradict Friedman's monetarism which argued that >inflation is a product of loose money. I have noticed that Hayek has been >revived these days as a hamm

Re: Re: Re: Greenspan's cooked book

At 08:03 PM 07/01/2002 -0400, Doug wrote: >the suspicion that only gold is real money, the rest is delusion; and a >Puritan, morally drenched distaste for speculation. There should be a >marx-and-mixes.org. Ah, but we have not even begun to taste the reality of the destruction of wealth that s

Re: Re: Re: capitalism and theft

At 05:17 PM 07/01/2002 -0500, you wrote: >In practical political terms, the capitalism is theft line has the same >dangers that conspiracy theories or loose use of the charge of "fascism" >has: all three shift the focus from an oppressive and exploitative >system of social relations to the morali

Re: capitalism and theft

> >The coinage of "thiefdom" suggests even more erroneously that it is even >in part a political hierarchy of thieving. It can *seem" that way but it >is a social system whereby the value created by cooperative social labour >accrues legally to those who own the means of production. That is

Re: Re: Capitalist thievery inhibits capitalist recovery

At 08:35 AM 06/29/2002 +0100, Chris wrote: >Capital is not theft in marxist terms. But, doesn't it start out with "primitive capitalist accumulation" -- that is, theft? And, when we look at more recent capitalist formations: eastern europe, FSU, as well as the global privatization of social "ca

Re: Re: Capitalist thievery inhibits capitalist recovery

> > >since it seems true that the actions of enron, worldcom et al has >affected many more lives than that of the al qaeda, perhaps we can >call for a war on corporate terrorism? > > --ravi > I think a "war on corporate terrorism" is usually known as a "revolution." In order to avoid th

Re: another myth bites the dust?

alists, in the short term anyway. In the long term, I think they're counting on the presence of men with guns. Joanna Bujes

<    1   2   3   4   5   6