I think the absence of a widely shared utopia on the left is killing us.
I'm convinced by the evidence (as well as the logic) that prospect
theory is essentially right in its depiction of how people evaluate
their conditions. All evaluations are relative to a standard of
comparison. If somethin
Yes I know you have a lot more meaty stuff to
think about right now. But you all know damn well
that the "Re Utopias" thread may return
eventually. These are just some useful on-line
resources to keep on file for when that happens.
The first item on the list is by me -- because
>> 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?
>Neithe
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 perf
> 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, the
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 information can lead to
>very expl
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 partic
Pardon me for reposting. I should have mentioned in the subject line that
my message "ride free or die!" was a reply to the thread on utopias.
>Robin Hahnel wrote,
>
>>But these differences are not what is usually meant by people worried
>>about the free rider pr
> 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. . . .
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 increa
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.
>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
At 02:51 PM 1/1/98 -0500, Robin wrote:
>So, when I am voting, or
>instructing my representatives to vote, or voting for representatives
>who will vote for me regarding public good requests I have no incentive
>to over request -- since I will be charged my proportionate share of the
>cost of all su
> 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 and
impro
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 of Swedish
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."
>
Just out of curiousity, Robin, what experience do you and Mike Albert have
in d
> My only response to your ill-informed personal attack on me is: Fuck
> you.
>
Stronger letter to follow.
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 fo
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
> 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,
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 celebrat
> . . .
> Doesn't anyone know and good radical criminologists. We have a group of
> lawyers -- gasp -- in the AU law school who are radical law theorists. . . .
I know a good liberal one, and he happens to be at AU.
He's Jim Lynch, in the Soc dept. I think you'd like what
he does.
Cheers,
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 witho
misbehaving, so I've probably missed a lot of the
discussion of utopias (or misunderstood it -- since the missives are not in
order). But here are three comments. I hope that this does not involve
repetition.
1) on "private" property's abolition: I think that the point of so
> Date sent: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 12:37:26 -0500
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: Robin Hahnel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject:Re: utopias
Hahnel writes:
> One great thing about participatory planning i
Bill Lear wrote,
>Although Anders, Doug, and Tom all object to Robin's passing on the
>question of laws and enforcement, I sympathize somewhat with Robin's
>position. To the extent that any of this can be planned in advance,
>there is, or should be, a certain freedom to see things in separate
>
On Tue, December 2, 1997 at 12:37:26 (-0500) Robin Hahnel writes:
>
>One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free
>rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. Laws?
>Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a
>desirable system of law
Perhaps I should have made the point explicit. Tom alluded to Gomper's oft
cited speech in which he describes labor's aspirations as wanting "more."
Rarely do those who use the reference actually provide the entire quote from
which "more" is taken. I tried to dig it up, but could not. The quote
Wrote Anders:
>And then there are countless examples of how local control can stomp on
>minorities or dump a community's crap on its neighbors if it isn't strongly
>counterbalanced by larger entities. So, what's so great about starting
>locally, as opposed to starting locally _and_ regionally _a
At 01:53 PM 12/2/97 +, John wrote (replying to David):
>>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
>>
Robin Hahnel:
>>>Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a
>>>desirable system of law enforcement.
(This reminds me of an old joke. The punch line is "You vant bread? Go bang
a baker!")
Anders Schneiderman:
>>Er, no. If you're proposing this as a serious alternativ
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote (responding to Robin Hahnel):
>>One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free
>>rider problem for expressing desires for public goods.
>
>What about other free rider problems? And how exactly does it eliminate
>the FR problem for expressing d
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.
What about other free rider problems? And how exactly does it eliminate
the FR problem for expressing desires for public goods?
At 10:41 PM 12/1/97 -0800, you wrote:
>John Gulick:
>>what about the partial
>>correlation between the production of surplus (and I'm not talking
>>about superfluous luxury goods here) and increasingly sophisticated
>>and specialized technical and industrial divisions of labor ?
>
>What about i
At 08:11 PM 12/1/97 -0800, Michael Eisenscher wrote:
>I spent part of the day looking for the entirety of that quote from Gompers,
>but did not find it. I'm sure someone out there has it at hand. But I did
>find the following Gompersian wisdom:
>"The aim of our unions is to improve the standar
William S. Lear wrote:
>
> On Mon, December 1, 1997 at 15:36:55 (-0800) Dave Markland writes:
> >[Hahnel and Albert's] work (especially _Looking Forward: Participatory
> >Economics in the 21st century_ and _The Political Economy of
> >Participatory Economics_) examines the shortcomings of markets
michael yates wrote,
>but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, wqhich could be
mde
>into good ones (for our future good society), whihc would have to be
>eliminatedaltogether or done by machines, etc?
I suspect that most of the people on this list have jobs (or work) that th
On Tuesday, December 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
>but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, which
>could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), which would
>have to be eliminated altogether or done by machines, etc?
Do you think a good first step would be to conc
friends,
but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, wqhich could be mde
into good ones (for our future good society), whihc would have to be
eliminatedaltogether or done by machines, etc?
michael yates
John Gulick:
>what about the partial
>correlation between the production of surplus (and I'm not talking
>about superfluous luxury goods here) and increasingly sophisticated
>and specialized technical and industrial divisions of labor ?
What about it? I don't see a difficulty with divisions of
At 03:18 PM 12/1/97 -0800, Tom Walker wrote:
[SNIP]
>Someone is reported to have once asked Samuel Gompers what labour really
>wanted. He replied "More." Ironically, it was also Samuel Gompers who said
>that as long as a single worker was unemployed, the hours of work were too
long.
I spent part
Tom Walker wrote:
>My utopia is one in which _all_ of the left immediately stops doing what
>they're doing and writes novels. Not because the novels would be likely to
>have much political impact. But because the
>stopping-doing-what-they're-doing might. Many (most?) on the left have been
>holdin
Jim Devine wrote,
>I don't think that _all_ of the Left should stop doing what we're doing and
>write novels. Maybe _none_ of the Left should do so. Instead someone who
>isn't doing anything political could write a utopian novel.
My utopia is one in which _all_ of the left immediately stops doi
Tom writes: >On utopias. Here my world is populated with those who formerly
held a pretty clear (we thought) utopia in our heads, and tried to act
accordingly.<
I think that the utopias that many held were cleaned-up (idealized)
versions of the old USSR or some other USSR-style country (j
At 12:11 30/11/97 -0500, you wrote:
We don't really need utopias. We need
>plain language to describe a world where people can work 10 to 20 hours a
>week producing a basket of goods that can satisfy all but those addicted to
>shopping. What would go with this is a clean and healt
Some thoughts on the last few days' discussion:
1. I see no contradiction between nationalism and internationalism -
though I do between chauvinism and internationalism, and between
nationalism and "transnationalism" in the sense of international
capitalism. I call myself an internationalist nati
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