Re: Productivity: Economics Blogs
On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 05:20:40PM -0400, Paul wrote: Dmytri Kleiner wrote: As I'm sure most of you have noticed US labour productivity has been the talk of the economics blog world of late. .. I can't resist asking which ones you read or would reccomend. I am aware of DeLong and Sawicky - any others that focus seriously on economics or eco policy? Yes, those two, especialy the later, are the best, but there are also Albert King's EconLog and Marginal Revolution which are quite active. You will find many links there. Micheall Albert also has two, Though Dreams and Goodbye Maggie, both hosted on ZNet, where discusses 'Participatory Economics.' Regards, Dmytri.
Blair finesses victory out of defeat
A third term victory for Blair in 2005 now looks a certainty. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/byelections/story/0,11043,1263434,00.html It is to do with his systematic use of market relations profiling to dominate the centre of the political agenda. The Conservatives threw their best shots at these byelections and ended up third in each. Blair has another five years if he wants it. Chris Burford
Re: Venture Communism
On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 01:03:57PM -0400, Diane Monaco wrote: Dmytri, this is really an interesting and terrific scheme, Thanks. I hope that am using economics concepts and terminology correctly, since I am not an economist. but I think education and skill enhancement (human capital investment itself) must also be integrated into the venture communist's investment plan for the buy back to really have a chance. Good point, I will incorporate this suggestion into the next draft. Any other comments or suggestions are appreciated. I'm getting restless for the Venture Communist Reorganization. Regards, Dmytri.
The real spoilers: Kerry and Edwards
NY Times, July 17, 2004 No Poll Boost From Edwards By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and JANET ELDER WASHINGTON, July 16 - Senator John Edwards is viewed far more favorably than unfavorably by Americans in the aftermath of his introduction as Senator John Kerry's running mate, and the intensity of feeling for Mr. Kerry has deepened, among his backers in the presidential race, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. But naming Mr. Edwards did not immediately win over any substantial number of voters for the Democratic ticket, and the campaign between Mr. Kerry and President Bush remains statistically deadlocked as Mr. Kerry heads toward the Democratic convention and his best opportunity to make a strong impression on the country, the poll found. The poll also found that Mr. Bush's approval ratings were at low levels for an incumbent at this point in a presidential campaign and that for the first time a majority of Americans feel the United States should have stayed out of Iraq. The results suggested that the country is as deeply divided as ever, leaving both sides struggling to alter the campaign's basic story line, in which Mr. Bush is showing clear vulnerabilities but Mr. Kerry has been unable to exploit them. Mr. Kerry's greatest opportunity appears to remain Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq. FIFTY-ONE percent of respondents said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 46 percent in April, May and June. Forty-five percent said taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, down slightly from the past several months. SIXTY-TWO percent said the war was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs, a figure that has risen steadily over the past few months. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/politics/campaign/17poll.html -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
The economics of the academic press
The Believer, July 2004 Gideon Lewis-Kraus In the Penthouse of the Ivory Tower (clip) Jennifer Crewe of Columbia University Press presents some numbers, which provide perspective. Average production cost of a university-press title: $25,000. Total number of copies of each title purchased by all university libraries in bygone days: 1,000. Number of copies of each title sold to all libraries in current crisis days: 200. A book that sells very well (say, 500 copies) might recoup: $10,000-$12,000. Average loss on average university-press title: $10,000+. Cost of subscription to run-of-the-mill scientific journal: $20,000. It's like a parody of a MasterCard commercial, but all of the priceless punch lines are so painfully obvious there's no reason to bother finishing the joke. The upshot: university presses, once institutions of gentlemanly loss in the service of niche scholarship, have been forced to reorient themselves toward the bottom line. Scholarly criteriamost notably the process of peer review, whereby potential titles are sent out to experts in the field for vetting purposeshave ceded to market criteria. So the whole affair, especially the spending of lavish amounts of money on corporate-funded science journals, underlines the general fear about the steady encroachment of commercial interests into the sanctum of the university. And there's a flipside: university presses are simply putting out too many titles. The number of scholarly monographs (book-length treatments of one subject, as opposed to collections or anthologies) in MLA-related fields in the year 2000 was twice what it was in 1989, though by most accounts the achievements of scholarship in that time have probably not doubled. This is where the publishing crisis and the tenure crisis bleed together. Most schools require one book for tenure, which usually means one book within the first five or six years out of grad schoolthe same years that assistant professors have the biggest teaching loads and the smallest salaries (not to mention that they're often new parents, as Charlie is). To fulfill this book requirement, most young professors go one of two routes: they either rewrite their dissertations for publication, or they puff up one substantial journal article with some bibliographical essays and call it a book. But a dissertation is a dissertation and an article is an article and neither is a book, so their publication waters down the whole field and leads right back to the publishing crisis outlined above. Vicious cycle doesn't even begin to describe it. First, it means that the presses have become the de facto site of tenure evaluation, because the people who work there are the ones who decide which books to publish. This is an unwelcome responsibility for institutions that are already overtaxed and underfunded and thus teetering on the brink of collapse, not to mention pressured into bottom-line considerations and thus less inclined to put out abstruse monographs in the first place. Secondand this is where the whole thing goes from merely unfortunate to genuinely catastrophic, and where audience members gag, actually gageveryone knows that first books are either revised dissertations or fattened-up journal articles, so there's talk at some universities about a second book for tenure. The second book was originally the basis for promotion to full professor, so now we're talking about three books for the ultimate promotionthree books for increasingly market-driven presses in an increasingly hostile market. Which means not only three books, but three books that might sell, which is hard enough for people who are trying to write for a general audience. full: http://www.believermag.com/issues/july_2004/lewiskraus.php -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Klebnikov
Friday, July 16, 2004. Page 2. Streletsky: Klebnikov Book Was on Listyev By Catherine Belton Staff Writer Paul Klebnikov, the American journalist who was shot dead in Moscow, was starting to work on a new investigation into the 1995 murder of television director Vladimir Listyev, an event he earlier linked to Boris Berezovsky in a controversial article for Forbes magazine, his Russian publisher said Thursday. He was beginning to collect material about Listyev's killing, said Valery Streletsky, the publisher, who previously served as a deputy to President Boris Yeltsin's chief bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, a longtime Berezovsky foe. Only a very small circle of people knew about this. Klebnikov, a senior editor at Forbes who this year launched the magazine's Russian-language edition as its editor, became well-known for his investigative reports on the shadowy intersection between business, politics and crime with his 1996 profile in Forbes magazine on Berezovsky, the former Kremlin kingmaker now in exile in London. The article, which immediately raised Berezovsky's ire, called him a powerful gangland boss and accused him of being behind the killing of Listyev, a well-respected former talk show host whose new job as general director of the ORT television network ended abruptly with his murder shortly after the channel was privatized. (snip) Berezovsky said he was at a loss to say who might have been behind Klebnikov's killing. But he called him a dishonest journalist whose way of working could have easily made him enemies. Somebody clearly did not like the way he operated and decided to sort it out with him, Russian-style, not through the English courts like I did, he said. He was unavailable for further comment late Thursday. (snip) Streletsky, who said he last spoke to Klebnikov early last week, said Berezovsky's comments were total lies and called him a sick person. http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/07/16/010.html __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/16/04 2:45 PM michael hoover (reporting from birkenstock, i mean ann arbor, where forum on third parties this weekend includes representative of the righteously named - and no doubt - growing group, league of pissed off voters) Isn't that another front group for the Democrats? Yoshie aren't they all, actually, i have it on good word that dems are front group for reps... michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
Farm Holiday Associationn (was Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/16/04 3:20 PM Hmm, well I think we can rule out shark attacks as a factor in the decline of the Kansas left. The American heartland remains shrouded in mystery. Carl subsitute tornadoes or some other 'act of god' for which folks hold politicians accountable... re. farmbelt left, was doing some reading on pre-american revolution/colonial era violence and came across mention of 1930s group/movement with which i'm unfamiliar: farm holiday association... apparently emerged out of iowa and spread to several other states, violent direct action was principal feature, farmers defied legal processes, blocked highways, dumped milk from trucks, forcibly halted farm disclosures, assaulted public officials,,, 'leader' was guy named milo reno, henry wallace apparently compared movement to that of of boston tea party, one branch called themselves 'modern 76ers'... any listers with any info... michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
Re: Venture Communism
Well, if you want another view.. It seems to me that Venture Communism is little different than Proudhon's people's banks dealing in labor money. Rather than Venture Communism, this proposal should be called finance Proudhonism is no alternative to advanced capitalism or social revolution. The utopian formula at the heart of Venture Communism might have some application in isolated, and essentially agrarian, communities, but it has no application in class struggle between labor and property.
Re: Farm Holiday Associationn (was Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece)
Papers of Milo Reno available at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsc100/MsC44/msc44.html
Fahrenheit 911
Yesterday - 7/16 .. . was the wife birthday and among other things we had planned on going to the movie and hanging out in celebration of her first birthday in a new city and state many miles from Detroit. Both of us are native Detroiters, having recently left the children (all adults) and relocated to Bryan/College Station Texas . . . about 90 minutes from Houston. We ended up watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, although my first suggestion was "I, Robot" with a promise that we would do "Fahrenheit" the next day. Given the media event Fahrenheit has stirred, she was adamant is seeing Moore's documentary on the Bush Jr. administration. When Fahrenheit first opened it was not scheduled in our neck of the woods and when the kids back in Detroit found out, volunteered to send us a bootleg copy of the movie. After the first weekend numbers of Fahrenheit's profitability it was scheduled in our location. We went to the first showing of the movie and perhaps 30-40 folks were in the theater . . . with us being the only African Americans. During the showing the wife was strangely quiet and several times seem to be on the verge of tears. Every now and then . . . almost imperceptibly . . . she was say "rotten mutherfuckers" . . . and finally "that's why you a communist . . . I really get it now." As the movie was coming to an obvious end she said "baby I do not want to talk about this." I had notice that folks in the theater were strangely silent and at one point in the movie I remarked to one of Bush ignorant utterances . . . "boy this guy is stupid, dangerous and a fucking fascists . . . with Congress kissing his ass." Several folks turned around and looked at me and I was not talking loud but the theater was strangely silent. When the movie ended we left the theater with everyone strangely silent. It made me wish that I had a leaflet or something to pass out explaining some of the detail of the movie and why corporate power and dominance was the meaning of bourgeois power and capital as a living embodiment of absolute greed and debasement of that which makes us human. Leaving the parking lot of the theater in silence I reached to turn on the radio and she said, "I do not want to listen to any music." I had notice that walking to our vehicle her eyes was watery. "Let's go and get something to eat and start celebrating your new freedom." She nodded in agreement and several minutes later said "How can a human being be that ignorant?" I said nothing and nodded slightly. We pulled up to a joint to eat and inside the discussion began on a strange note. While placing her order she mentioned to the waitress that today was her birthday and we had just come from the movies. The waitress asked, "What did you see?" "Fahrenheit 911" "How was it?" "You have to see this one for yourself because Bush is crazy and the war was for money." The waitress looked at me for a response and to take my order. I asked about the menu and ordered some fish and between looking over the side dishes said . . . "as long as people think they are doing all right no one thinks about things. Bush represent the most narrow money interest in the country . . . everyone knows he stole the election and for my money can go straight to hell." The waitress took the rest of my order and stated she had not seen the movie yet and asked if we had seen "Spiderman?" The wife replied "Of course and it was good." I smiled in agreement. The waitress left the table to place our order and the discussion began. "That's why I am becoming more spiritual because if I was in some political group I would want to kill all those mutherfuckers." I waited a moment . . . "yea it does make you crazy to get an eye full of truth but killing an individual won't change the system. This shit's deeper than that. Baby you having a spiritual and political awakening on your birthday." "That stupid flag waving bitch in the movie had to have her son killed in Iraq to have a clue about the country?" The "flag waving bitch" she was referring to was MS Lila Lipscomb whose transformation is recorded on film from a decent, God fearing supporter of the American military to a person unable to come to grips with her own concept of our bourgeois democracy because of the death of her son. Early in the documentary Lila proudly explains the military tradition in her family and how she had hated the "war protesters" and only recently began to understand that protesters did not hate the troops by government policy. Apparently she strongly believed in bourgeois democracy . . . American style . . . and conceded that other have the right to have an opinion different from hers. In front of the camera Lila speaks proudly of how everyday since Gulf 1 she had put up outside her home a rather large American flag and during Gulf 1 prayed to God for the safe return of her daughter . . . and then adds in
Re: Venture Communism
In a message dated 7/16/2004 3:50:55 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Venture Communist is a Public Entrepreneur, Venture Communism is not a political model, but rather it is a transitional tacticdesigned to promote an equitable distribution of wealth via theenterprising initiates of communities, rather than through thecentral authority of the state.Venture Communism is an alternative Revolutionary Strategy to ViolentRevolution, one that preserves existing social accumulation ratherthan destroying it. Comment Venture Communism would face several real world obstacles that are economic and social in my opinion. This is not to say I am against socially responsible investments . . . with "socially responsible" increasing defined on the basis of protecting the metabolic process of the earth and women as priority one. Nor am I opposed to various projects seeking to link the less developed areas into the world distribution networks on the basis of low to zero cost communications networks based on "localized" energy grids earth friendly. An economic block to venture communism or a challenge . . . dependening on ones view, is consumption. That is to say there is a little over six billion people in the world and roughly 4 billion live on a couple of dollars a day and less. The venture communist fund would need some kind of system of "sovereign credit" for four billion people that allows them to consume the products being funded and produced by the venture communist fund. That is to say human beings must have a way to enter the exchange market and a system of "sovereign credit" means at birth one has an inalienable right to access the system or some form of modern communism identified with the writings and doctrine of Karl Marx. All the economic data I have read over the past period of my life speaks of the technological revolution ousting increasing large masses of labor from the production process as fewer and fewer hands are need to produce a previous mass of goods. In fact the venture communism proposal is predicated on a vision of the expanding capacity of production. Everyone runs into certain economic laws that have become barriers to drawing four of the six billion people on earth into the modern system of production and exchange. This means how is this going to help the lowest 30% of the American workers? Without question there is no need for the state to be a property holder in America or serves as central authority of production and distribution. Whether or not the social revolution gives rise to violent political revolution really depends upon the ruling class. If American history is to be used as a framework one must ask why the slave oligarchy refused the offer to be compensated - bought out, to end slavery. Why did the slave oligarchy refuse to be bought out as a transition program to end slavery? I do not advocate a program of violent change in America and urge the bourgeoisie to stop beating up demonstrators and protesters . . . but strongly believe that if you are shot at you must shoot back. Actually venture communism is what was attempted in the old Soviet Union during the entire decade of the 1980s . . . in my opinion. Melvin P.
Re: Fahrenheit 911
In a message dated 7/17/2004 8:59:28 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fahrenheit 911 shattered something in the consciousness of my wife that is similar to an addict hitting bottom and having to face the consequence of his actions and belief system. The transformation of the consciousness of the peoples of the American Union has the potential to be changed at lightening speeds. Follow -Up Comment In terms of social consciousness and lifestyle behavior my wife stopped watching local news broadcast back in the early 1990s . . . although it is my understanding that she never really watched the "News" because in her words "its all muder and rape." I have never watched local news broadcast . . . as a pattern of behavior . . . or with any regularity . . . in my entire 51 years on earth. Fahrenheit 911 is very powerful in its images of the most poverty stricken proletarians and the bourgeois leaders of America. Moore combines news clips that documents one endless series of justifications of plunder, greed and outright selfishness . . . that is the face of class exploitation and oppression in America. The visual presentation of Bush stating to the camera, "I am a war president" will be shocking to most people and only keep intact Bush Jr. core base amongst the American people . . . in my opinion. Moore need to rush into the studio and gather mountains of footage he did not use and put together Fahrenheit 911 (Part 2 - Temperature Rising) for October 2004. He will not have to do any advertisement for such a project. In Fahrenheit 911 (Part 2 - Temperature Rising) he need to talk about depleted nuclear shells used by our bourgeoisie and its meaning. Updates on the transfer to power in Iraq would be a big hit. He would probably have to blank out Bush Jr. face to pass the censures but everyone would know who it is. Melvin P. Melvin P.
Re: Fahrenheit 911
In a message dated 7/17/2004 9:48:40 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fahrenheit 911 shattered something in the consciousness of my wife that is similar to an addict hitting bottom and having to face the consequence of his actions and belief system. The transformation of the consciousness of the peoples of the American Union has the potential to be changed at lightening speeds. Last Comment I just asked my wife to give me a one liner on her thoughts about Fahrenheit 911. She stated . . . "It was the most profound and sharp emotional pain I have ever experience in my life." I believe she is experiencing a political awakening or the first leg of the formation ofa mass social and then class consciousness. The silence in the theater during the viewing of this movie was itself a sign of being shattered emotionally. It is one thing to privately believe that the rulers are America are greedy self serving criminals of the bourgeois order. It is a different matter to share this private belief as an experience in a public setting where no one can pretend they had not witnessed a crime. Fahrenheit 911 have done what I could not do . . . shatter the collective illusion. Melvin P.
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 10:13:12AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Comment Venture Communism would face several real world obstacles that are economic and social in my opinion. This is not to say I am against socially responsible investments . . . with socially responsible increasing defined on the basis of protecting the metabolic process of the earth and women as priority one. Well, it seems that my propspectus has caused a little confusion in that that the primary difference between a venture commune and a venture capital fund is two fold. 1- Shares are purchaced with labour not money and are non-transferable. 2- All Shareholders are equal. To be a part of a Venture Capital Fund you need to have spare money, which almost nobody has. To be a part of a Venture Commune, you need to have spare labour, which not everybody has, but a lot more people have then have spare money. Other than that, a Venture Commune operates exactly in the same way that a Venture Capital Fund does, and would face the exact same obstacles. All the economic data I have read over the past period of my life speaks of the technological revolution ousting increasing large masses of labor from the production process as fewer and fewer hands are need to produce a previous mass of goods. Yet labour, especial higly skilled technical labour, is needed to operate the technology. In fact the venture communism proposal is predicated on a vision of the expanding capacity of production. No more so than Venture Capitalism, the differences are limited to the manner in which one aquires a voting share, and how profits are devided. This means how is this going to help the lowest 30% of the American workers? By pooling there labour in to Venture Communes they can build their Capital wealth. Without question there is no need for the state to be a property holder in America or serves as central authority of production and distribution. Venture Communism is not opposed to state-based efforts to make society more equitable... I'm just not holding my breath, I image Venture Communes to be allies in the strugle for social justice along with many others. as a framework one must ask why the slave oligarchy refused the offer to be compensated - bought out, to end slavery. Why did the slave oligarchy refuse to be bought out as a transition program to end slavery? I don't know, but I would love to hear more about this. Who offered to by out the slave oligarchy? What terms where refused? I do not advocate a program of violent change in America and urge the bourgeoisie to stop beating up demonstrators and protesters . . . but strongly believe that if you are shot at you must shoot back. I agree. But shooting back when you've got a slingshot and they have a apache helicopter is futile and playing into their hands. Actually venture communism is what was attempted in the old Soviet Union during the entire decade of the 1980s . . . in my opinion. There is no simularity between when Venture Communism and the Soviet Union in the slightest. Venture Communism is an investment scheme, not a political system. Thanks you for your comments, I appreciate it! Regards.
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 09:25:07AM -0700, sartesian wrote: Well, if you want another view.. It seems to me that Venture Communism is little different than Proudhon's people's banks dealing in labor money. Thanks for the tip! I will investigate Proudhon's people's banks. Rather than Venture Communism, this proposal should be called finance Proudhonism is no alternative to advanced capitalism or social revolution. It is only meant to be an alternative to existing ways to start new organisations, it is an investment scheme, it is not a politcal system. However, by making these new organisations more equitable and more democratic it paves the way to socialism and is therefore an alternative to violent revolution, with the advantage that existing social accumulation is preserved and not destroyed. The utopian formula at the heart of Venture Communism might have some application in isolated, and essentially agrarian, communities, but it has no application in class struggle between labor and property. Why so? The forumla at the heart of Venture Communism is shares aquired by labour instead of money and profits split equaly, why do you imagine that limits its application as you describe? Please explain. Regards, Dmytri.
Re: Venture Communism
Shares of what acquired by labor instead of property? What are you going to acquire buy your arm and hammer buy outs? Exxon? Flextronics? Tinto Rio? Coca-Cola? I don't think so. You cannot buy out, substitute, or displace the existing social accumulation. You can seize it, destroy it, etc. Splitting profits equally? No such thing. Oxymoron. Profits by definition are a function of inequality. And as soon as your isolated communist community comes into contact with the world of finance capital, you're venture begins its morping into good old private capitalism. Plenty of history to demonstrate all of the above and all of the above are compressed in the history of the Russian Revolution. - Original Message - From: Dmytri Kleiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:41 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Venture Communism On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 09:25:07AM -0700, sartesian wrote: Well, if you want another view.. It seems to me that Venture Communism is little different than Proudhon's people's banks dealing in labor money. Thanks for the tip! I will investigate Proudhon's people's banks. Rather than Venture Communism, this proposal should be called finance Proudhonism is no alternative to advanced capitalism or social revolution. It is only meant to be an alternative to existing ways to start new organisations, it is an investment scheme, it is not a politcal system. However, by making these new organisations more equitable and more democratic it paves the way to socialism and is therefore an alternative to violent revolution, with the advantage that existing social accumulation is preserved and not destroyed. The utopian formula at the heart of Venture Communism might have some application in isolated, and essentially agrarian, communities, but it has no application in class struggle between labor and property. Why so? The forumla at the heart of Venture Communism is shares aquired by labour instead of money and profits split equaly, why do you imagine that limits its application as you describe? Please explain. Regards, Dmytri.
Re: Venture Communism
- Original Message - From: Dmytri Kleiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:33 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Venture Communism I agree. But shooting back when you've got a slingshot and they have a apache helicopter is futile and playing into their hands. __ Come on comrade, take a look around. Same thing about slingshots and helicopters was said 40 years ago about Vietnam, Cuba-- today about Palestine, Iraq.. . etc. All crap. Armed struggle is imposed, not chosen. Just that simple. .
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 12:14:53PM -0700, sartesian wrote: - Original Message - From: Dmytri Kleiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:33 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Venture Communism I agree. But shooting back when you've got a slingshot and they have a apache helicopter is futile and playing into their hands. __ Come on comrade, take a look around. Same thing about slingshots and helicopters was said 40 years ago about Vietnam, Cuba-- today about Palestine, Iraq.. . etc. All crap. Armed struggle is imposed, not chosen. Just that simple. I agree that it is imposed not chosen, all I am saying is that it is futile. We are outgunned.
Re: Venture Communism
Then you don't agree. Vietnam was outgunned. So was Cuba. This is a social struggle, not technical, not simply military. Futile? Here, try this one, or two : Attention workers of Paris. This commune of yours is doomed. All resistance will be crushed. Surrender. We have artillery in position at every entrance to your city. Or this: Attention Jews of Warsaw, your uprising is futile. Do not resist. Sound promising? The bourgeoisie rarely have a moment's hesitation about deploying deadly force, and when they do it's only because they are afraid of losing, or have already lost, control of the battlefield. That's the hard cold fact. Modest, relatively, struggles for union organization have been, are met almost everywhere everytime by deadly force-- in the advanced countries as well as less-developed. That's another fact. Outgunned? so was Robert Williams. Big deal. We neither glorify nor reject armed struggle. It's a tactic. But armed struggle shouldn't be the issue here-- it's an issue of power-- of seizing control of the social machinery-- not gently easing it out, or sending the bourgeoisie out to greener pastures. It's about class vs. class-- rulers vs. ruled. And the rulers, as a class, are not bought out by golden parachutes. - Original Message - From: Dmytri Kleiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 9:19 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Venture Communism On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 12:14:53PM -0700, sartesian wrote: - Original Message - From: Dmytri Kleiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:33 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Venture Communism I agree. But shooting back when you've got a slingshot and they have a apache helicopter is futile and playing into their hands. __ Come on comrade, take a look around. Same thing about slingshots and helicopters was said 40 years ago about Vietnam, Cuba-- today about Palestine, Iraq.. . etc. All crap. Armed struggle is imposed, not chosen. Just that simple. I agree that it is imposed not chosen, all I am saying is that it is futile. We are outgunned.
Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
I'd be interested in further comments on Keeran and Kenny's "Socialism Betrayed." I'm not sure what to think. They put a lot of emphasis on the destructive role of the black market, but it's not clear what they propose should have been done about it. (They do more or less make the claim that Andropov was on the right path, but that everything was later taken too far by Gorbachev's "reforms" and the pace of the changes outstripped themselves, etc.) Should the black market have simply been repressed? But how do you actually do that? Part of their explanation is also that the consumer propaganda from the West created consumer needs that had to be met by the black market -- and they seem to imply that tighter controls over media and publishing should have been kept and strengthened. Comment "Socialism Betrayed - Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union" by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is worth owning and reading several times. On a scale of 1 - 10 . . . I would rate it 7.5. The 2.5 which prevents it from being a "10" . . . are highly theoretical and . . . has to do with the specific ideology and politics of the authors. Nevertheless, I would suggest the book to anyone seeking a general view "of what happened" ushering in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why do communists fight over questions of extensive versus intensive development and financial markets as regulators of production? To answer the question one has to develop an understanding of the mechanics of industrial production and the shape of reproduction as determined by different property relations. Is central planning the essence of industrial socialism and why is it necessary to speak of industrial socialism and not simply socialism? Central planning is a method of "something else" and not . . . "the something else." If Central planning is the method of something else then we have to define the "something else." First of all central planning means the allocation of resources and labor power towards economic development and expansion . . . and this exists not as an abstraction . . . but in relationship to planning on the basis of property rights. Individuals owning the power of capital or capitalism and endowed with the legal right to invest and organized the material power of production gives a specific shape to how reproduction takes place and on what basis. The "basis" is "what is profitable to me as an individual corporate entity" and this individualism becomes the driving feature of a system of reproduction. Individuals owning the power of capital as factories and having the social power - authority, to hire labor power and put it to work, or accumulate the power of money as property can reinvest this money into production and create a distinct shape of the cycles of reproduction. What is fundamental to socialism and most certainly industrial socialism is the property relations or the property rights of individuals . . . acting and behaving as individuals. Property relations does not mean "workers control." Property relations or property rights refer to the rights of individual members of society in relationship to the factors of production. Property rights under Soviet industrial socialism meant that individuals did not have the legal right to convert money possession or governmental authority into individual ownership of the means of production . . . especially in the industrial infrastructure. Individual ownership of means of production imparts an individual will to reproduction that comes into conflict with other individual wills as competition over market shares. In Marx "Critique of the Gotha Program" he makes this fairly clear and when speaking of the transition to a communist society, states that nothing but means of consumption can pass into the hands of individuals. According to the Communists in the Soviet Union - writing during the early 1960s, what you had in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, was the development of a caricature of the bourgeoisie . . . these are their exact words . . . and not simply a "petty bourgeoisie." Keeran and Kenny's insights and articulation of the extensive and intensive development of the second economy (black market) is extremely insightful and important and explains how "the caricature of the bourgeoisie" was able to usher in the counter revolution and abolish public property in the industrial infrastructure and change the cycle of reproduction. What is the origin of this "caricature of the bourgeoisie" . . . according to the Soviet communist? This "caricature of the bourgeoisie" is not a petty bourgeoisie as I understand the meaning of the term or "small scale producer" laboring in the second economy but an excretion of the state . . . while the low scale producer in the second economy is an _expression_ of shortage and the value relationship in any industrial society. Then it is helpful that one has an
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 12:11:58PM -0700, sartesian wrote: Shares of what acquired by labor instead of property? Share of a new organisation, a startup. That's why I all it //Venture// Communism instead of say //Investment// Communism or //Merchant// Communism. The Venture Commune invests third party capital, in the form of labour, in new ventures. What are you going to acquire buy your arm and hammer buy outs? Exxon? Flextronics? Tinto Rio? Coca-Cola? I don't think so. Not as a start up, but if the start up grows enoough it starts to accumalate other kinds of Capital as well as labour capital, i.e. Money Capital, Capital Goods, it can infact buy out large organisations, or simply take away there markets. You cannot buy out, substitute, or displace the existing social accumulation. You can seize it, destroy it, etc. Please explain why you believe this is so. Capital can be seized, social accumulation is accumulated capital, therefor social accumlation can be seized. Capital can be destroyed, social accumulation is accumulated capital, therefor social accumlation can be destroyed. Capital can be purchaced, social accumulation is accumulated capital, therefor social accumlation can be purchaced. Why do you think the last syllogism is different from the first two? Splitting profits equally? No such thing. Oxymoron. Profits by definition are a function of inequality. Thats the trick in Venture Communism, all share holders are equal, all workers are shareholders, profits are thus shared equaly. And as soon as your isolated communist community comes into contact with the world of finance capital, you're venture begins its morping into good old private capitalism. How so? All workers are shareholders. Shares can not be purchased with money. Profits are devided equaly. Plenty of history to demonstrate all of the above and all of the above are compressed in the history of the Russian Revolution. I see, so what do you suggest workers do in the mean time, give up? Be happy working for capitalists and having no stake? Starve? Or should we grab a molitov cocktail and hit the streats immedietly to die for your revolution? Perhaps we should just read about history and do nothing at all? Venture Communism is not a politcal system, as I've explained, it is a (emerging) plan for starting new organisations, organisations that are equitable and democratic. Dispite your unexplained insistenance to the contrary, I believe than new organisations can replace old organisations and change the world. Regards, Dmytri.
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 12:36:13PM -0700, sartesian wrote: Then you don't agree. Vietnam was outgunned. So was Cuba. This is a social struggle, not technical, not simply military. That was then, this is now. They have more guns. We have less. Sound promising? I'm not advocating surender by any means, in fact I agree with your premise that it is the opresseors who chose conflict. The bourgeoisie rarely have a moment's hesitation about deploying deadly force, and when they do it's only because they are afraid of losing, or have already lost, control of the battlefield. That's the hard cold fact. Yes, I argee. Modest, relatively, struggles for union organization have been, are met almost everywhere everytime by deadly force-- in the advanced countries as well as less-developed. That's another fact. Outgunned? so was Robert Williams. Big deal. We neither glorify nor reject armed struggle. It's a tactic. All this is true. The hardest hitting of all the facts though is that despite the bravery of the ressistance the rich are getting richer and the poor are gettng poorer. That's the hard cold fact. But armed struggle shouldn't be the issue here-- it's an issue of power-- of seizing control of the social machinery-- not gently easing it out, or sending the bourgeoisie out to greener pastures. It's about class vs. class-- rulers vs. ruled. And the rulers, as a class, are not bought out by golden parachutes. If the workers out-accumulate them. They will have no choice. By the time the Venture Communist Reorganisation is over it will be very hard to tell who are the rulers and who are the ruled. Regards,
Re: Venture Communism
In a message dated 7/17/2004 11:53:55 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I see, so what do you suggest workers do in the mean time, give up? Be happy working for capitalists and having no stake? Starve? Or should we grab a molitov cocktail and hit the streets immediately to die for your revolution? Perhaps we should just read about history and do nothing at all? Venture Communism is not a political system, as I've explained, it is a (emerging) plan for starting new organizations, organizations that are Equitable and democratic. Despite your unexplained insistence to the contrary, I believe than new organizations can replace old organizations and change the world. Regards, Dmytri. Reply In my first reply . . . I believe in my heart a valid question was asked: "If American history is to be used as a framework one must ask why the slave oligarchy refused the offer to be compensated - bought out, to end slavery. Why did the slave oligarchy refuse to be bought out as a transition program to end slavery? " We are dealing with cold economic logic and human beings who conceived the world a certain way and earnestly believe that we have come to the end of human history when one challenges their right to be ruling class. In theory we cannot buy back the productive forces because they operate on the basis of being put to work . . . on the basis . . . ofpaying the workers a sum total that is smaller than what the owners realized as profits in the process of buying and selling. In other words our collective wages are not greater than that portion of capital the bourgeoisie appropriates for itself as a class. Individual capitalist do not have to be bought out and a handful goes over to the revolutionary upsurge of the people. Yes, . . . we fight tooth and nail for socially responsible investments. It is not fair to answer a critique on the basis of someone's "dying for an individuals social revolution," because many folks have thought these question out for many decades. Or should we grab a Molotov cocktail and hit the streets immediately to die for your revolution? As a statement of fact the Molotov cocktail is not historically obsolete. Does it not depend on terrain and conditions of warfare? It is not "my" revolution or this guys or girls revolution . . . but social revolution that can only be resolved by a political transition to something we like and agree with . . . in general. OK where do I throw my little dough to prove that we will not and cannot buy out a class or improve the lot of the American people through capitalistic market financial schemes. The most we do is improve the lot of the individual investor . . . with thoughtful investments. Exchange of labor schemes do not work in a system of private ownership of the material power of production. "Do not work" means that the bottom 30% of American society cannot be help by investment in the financial markets. You suggest creating another - alternative . . . infrastructure where the labor of real human beings can be exchanged and converted on the market into products of consumption. Great. The plan need a hell of a lot of development. I got five on it" . . . and I do not mean $5. Melvin P.
oops factor
Checking Your Bill for a New Charge Called 'Oops' By David Pogue (SF Chronicle, Dec. 4, 2003) -- Every few years, economists identify another mutant variation of inflation to keep them awake at night. In the 1980s, it was stagflation. Three years ago, it was deflation. And now, meet the economic specter of the new millennium: stealth inflation. That's when phone companies and just about anybody else who sends you a bill manages to extract more money from you without actually raising their rates. Phase 1 of this program was the proliferation of miscellaneous fees -- for regulatory assessment, handling, restocking, and so on. According to Business Week, newly concocted fees will generate $100 million for hotels this year, $2 billion for banks, $11 billion for credit-card companies -- and an average of 20 percent extra on every phone bill. Recently I may have stumbled upon Phase 2. Attracted by the superior coverage of Verizon's wireless network, I signed up for a new cellphone. The $60 package included unlimited night and weekend calling and 800 anytime minutes. A few days later, a welcome letter congratulated me on my new 700-minute plan. I called customer service. It was supposed to be 800 minutes, yes? The phone representative explained that what I signed up for was the 700-minute plan, with a 100-minute bonus. The welcome letter didn't reflect the bonus, but I would see it on my monthly statements. All right, no problem. All I'd lost was the 25 minutes on the phone with Verizon. Yet when the first statement arrived, Verizon had charged me 25 cents for every minute over 700. I called the 800 number again; the representative apologetically credited me the 100 minutes. Cost to me: another 25 minutes. When the same error cropped up on the next month's statement, my wife mentioned that she had gone through precisely the same ritual with MCI long-distance a few months earlier. In fact, after reviewing our records, we discovered at least seven cases in the last few years when a service company (including at least three phone companies) overbilled us and didn't correct the mistake until we turned ourselves into human pit bulls. All right, mistakes happen. But over and over and over again? Now, I'm not much on conspiracy theories. But in the weekly Circuits e-mail newsletter (nytimes.com/circuits) I floated a theory that all this might be part of a pattern of passive-aggressive robbery perpetrated on the premise that a certain percentage of customers won't notice, or won't bother to protest. A tidal wave of responses poured in -- over 1,200 in the first four days. Because the comments were made by e-mail or as online postings, many of the correspondents did not respond to requests for elaboration or fuller identification. But the volume of the responses made it clear that I had struck a chord. My experience with cellphone companies, airlines, and Internet providers has been so overwhelmingly dominated by 'mistakes' that I can't believe that it amounts to anything less than an insidious new business model developed to prey upon busy lives, said Jeremy Cohen, a 25-year-old music student in Cambridge, Mass. A posting on nytimes.com offered a similar lament: They've cut to the bone to increase their bottom line. They train their frontlines to blow people off, and give them no authority to make amends for problems. In previous eras, this was known as thievery. Now it's just the way things are done. Not surprisingly, the companies in question deny that there's anything fishy going on. We're not in business to part people from their money for a service that they don't get, said Mark Siegel, an ATT Wireless spokesman. Are there mistakes from time to time? Yes. But is it the conscious act of some cabal, a secret group of people sitting in a smoke-filled room? No way. On the other hand, would P.R. people even know about such a program? The people who would really know what's going on are the actual phone representatives -- and I heard from them, too. I can't speak for all the cellphone companies,'' wrote a two-year customer-service veteran at one of the big carriers, but the idea that we would intentionally overcharge customers is just plain wrong. Any time someone calls an 800 number, the company is charged, staff has to be paid and call-centers have to be maintained. Where I work, we try to find ways to prevent customers from calling in. It would not make financial sense to do things that would purposely cause customers to call in. That's a convincing argument; in fact, a Cingular spokeswoman told me that the industry-average cost per customer-service call is about $7. Yet the whole idea behind stealth inflation is that customers don't call in, that the overbilling will go unnoticed, perhaps masked by the dizzying complexity of the modern monthly statement. Verizon Wireless, for example, doesn't even provide
Re: Venture Communism
1. The fallacy in this type of proposal, venture communism, has been examined and exposed many times before you have re-proposed an essentially archaic notion. Marx demolished this notion in many of his works-- and took Proudhon apart in The Poverty of Philosophy. You will need to familiarize yourself with that work if you want to make sense of and in this discussion. 2. You propose a false strategy, of workers either doing nothing or engaging in hedge-fund socialism. Rather than pursue self-capitalist alternatives, the real struggles of the class are what the workers should do. 3. Yes capital can be purchased. But it's still capital. Purchase is not expropriation. Expropriation means the emancipation of labor and the means of production from the constraints of profit, of private property. 4. Oh yeah, it's a trick all right, the sharing of profits equally, so much of a trick that it doesn't, can't, won't exist in anything other than a Ponzi scheme. 5. How so? Because in order to purchase material from the non-venture communist world, the medium of exchange, money, will have to be absorbed into your hedge-fund utopia, and with money, debt, and then production becomes organized necessarily, for the service of money, and the servicing of the debt. 6. Glad to hear of your religious belief in your venture communist corporations. Let me know when the comet comes. - Original Message - From: Dmytri Kleiner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 9:46 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Venture Communism On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 12:11:58PM -0700, sartesian wrote: Shares of what acquired by labor instead of property? Share of a new organisation, a startup. That's why I all it //Venture// Communism instead of say //Investment// Communism or //Merchant// Communism. The Venture Commune invests third party capital, in the form of labour, in new ventures. What are you going to acquire buy your arm and hammer buy outs? Exxon? Flextronics? Tinto Rio? Coca-Cola? I don't think so. Not as a start up, but if the start up grows enoough it starts to accumalate other kinds of Capital as well as labour capital, i.e. Money Capital, Capital Goods, it can infact buy out large organisations, or simply take away there markets. You cannot buy out, substitute, or displace the existing social accumulation. You can seize it, destroy it, etc. Please explain why you believe this is so. Capital can be seized, social accumulation is accumulated capital, therefor social accumlation can be seized. Capital can be destroyed, social accumulation is accumulated capital, therefor social accumlation can be destroyed. Capital can be purchaced, social accumulation is accumulated capital, therefor social accumlation can be purchaced. Why do you think the last syllogism is different from the first two? Splitting profits equally? No such thing. Oxymoron. Profits by definition are a function of inequality. Thats the trick in Venture Communism, all share holders are equal, all workers are shareholders, profits are thus shared equaly. And as soon as your isolated communist community comes into contact with the world of finance capital, you're venture begins its morping into good old private capitalism. How so? All workers are shareholders. Shares can not be purchased with money. Profits are devided equaly. Plenty of history to demonstrate all of the above and all of the above are compressed in the history of the Russian Revolution. I see, so what do you suggest workers do in the mean time, give up? Be happy working for capitalists and having no stake? Starve? Or should we grab a molitov cocktail and hit the streats immedietly to die for your revolution? Perhaps we should just read about history and do nothing at all? Venture Communism is not a politcal system, as I've explained, it is a (emerging) plan for starting new organisations, organisations that are equitable and democratic. Dispite your unexplained insistenance to the contrary, I believe than new organisations can replace old organisations and change the world. Regards, Dmytri.
Re: oops factor
I mentioned something like this, but not as nasty a technique, a couple of weeks ago. My question then was how does this show up in the data, except as part of profits. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Can Tulipmania be explained rationally as the birth of options?
[Does this argument make any sense? I can't see any upside for the planters in this arrangment. It seems they would be better off doing all their deals on the spot market. And it doesn't seem to provide any explanation for the collapse. It seems they are just in love with the ratio and are bending the facts to fit their chosen conclusion. I was wondering if people who know more about option pricing might see merits that I'm missing.] URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2103985/ moneyboxDaily commentary about business and finance. Bulb Bubble Trouble That Dutch tulip bubble wasn't so crazy after all. By Daniel Gross Posted Friday, July 16, 2004, at 2:05 PM PT During the dot.com bubble and its collapse, economists and historians increased their study of market crazes of the past, particularly the most ludicrous one of all: the 17^th-century Dutch flower bubble. The classic description of Tulipmania appeared in Clarence Mackay's 1841 classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess them was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade. The normally sane Dutch bourgeoisie got carried away and bid up prices of tulip bulbs spectacularly in winter 1637, only to see them crash in spring. One bulb was reportedly sold in February 1637 for 6,700 guilders, as much as a house on Amsterdam's smartest canal, including coach and garden, and many times the 150-guilder average income. As Earl A. Thompson, an economist at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Jonathan Treussard, a graduate student at Boston University, note in a working paper, the contract price of tulips in early February 1637 reached a level that was about 20 times higher than in both early November 1636 and early May 1637. Sounds like a bubble. But it wasn't, asserts Thompson, who is working on a history of bubbles. Tulip-bulb investors were neither mad nor delusional in 1636 and 1637. Rather, he says, they were rationally responding, in finest efficient-market fashion, to overlooked changes in the rules of tulip investing. As European prices for the dramatic flowers rose in the 1630s, many burgomasters--local mayors--started to invest in the bulbs. But in the fall of 1636, the European tulip market suddenly wilted because of a crisis in Germany. German nobles were big fans of tulips and had taken to planting bulbs. But in October 1636, the Germans lost a battle to the Swedes at Wittstock. Then German peasants began to revolt. The German demand for tulips sagged, and princes began digging up their own bulbs and selling them, say Thompson and Treussard. The sudden glut caused prices to fall, and Dutch burgomasters began losing money. They were in a bind. Trade in tulip bulbs was conducted through futures contracts: Buyers agreed to pay a fixed price for tulip bulbs at some point in the future. With prices having fallen in the fall, leveraged burgomasters were tied into paying above-market prices for bulbs to be delivered in the spring. Rather than take their lumps, these politically connected investors tried to change the market rules--and they succeeded. First, they threatened to abandon their contracts and leave planters in the lurch entirely. But ultimately, they ironed out a deal whereby the obligation to purchase bulbs at a fixed price would be suddenly converted into an opportunity to do so. In current parlance, they aimed to transform tulip-bulb futures contracts into tulip-bulb options. Under the new deal, the investors wouldn't have to pay the high contract prices in the spring unless the future market--or spot--prices of tulip bulbs were higher. (To compensate the planters in case market prices were lower than the contract prices, the investors agreed to pay a small fraction of the contract price to get out of the contract, Thompson and Treussard note. Ultimately, that amounted to about 3 cents on the dollar.) On Feb. 24, 1637, the Dutch florists announced that all futures contracts written since November 30, 1636 and up until the opening of the spring season, were to be interpreted as option contracts, Thompson and Treussard write. The action was later ratified by the Dutch legislature. The news of these discussions began to filter out into the market in November 1636. Now, when it becomes clear that a contract is to be transformed into an option--the ability to buy something rather than the responsibility to do so--you would expect prices to rise. Why? If the investors in existing future contracts were only going to have to pay a small percentage of the contract price in the end--as was becoming apparent--then tulip planters would have to jack up contract
More on Venture Communism
On the Venture Communism in general, I'd like to first point out that when something comes up different times over history, that that is often an indication of an emotional or intuitive problem and an emotional or intuited solution -- for which a real solution may indeed exist but be the work of many generations of evolution. My view is that the solution continuously exists and is continuously implemented. One observation I'd make is that the truly natural social law only gives to societies a degree of freedom which the society as a whole has earned. So if unjust exploitations or inequities occur in society it is because common social behaviors have not yet evolved sufficiently to establish social structures that present equity in the idealized fashion of Marxists and others. Reflecting on Sartesian's interesting criticisms: 1. The fallacy in this type of proposal, venture communism, has been examined and exposed many times before you have re-proposed an essentially archaic notion. Marx demolished this notion in many of his works-- and took Proudhon apart in The Poverty of Philosophy. You will need to familiarize yourself with that work if you want to make sense of and in this discussion. You don't summarize here what Proudhon and Marx state, but is it perhaps that competition and evolution are natural law that have to be dealt with in the formulation of any pragmatic social structure that could ever exist in the real world. Perhaps one of the key questions for social policy is what does fair competition mean? My sense is that the answer is simple intellectually, but not socially: the diffusion of individual opportunity and empowermnet. Another question of equal import I suspect may be how is diffusive responsibility established? I believe that we are evolving to more cognizantly understand the meanings of these questions, and individually to practice solutions -- but the real revolution will come when understanding and practice are diffused. 2. You propose a false strategy, of workers either doing nothing or engaging in hedge-fund socialism. Rather than pursue self-capitalist alternatives, the real struggles of the class are what the workers should do. This is a Lilliputian problem of immense, now global, proportion. What have the workers always done? Tried to survive and engage collective efforts in transforming the system. The sentiment of those who would produce alternatives to the current system that are more fair is natural, but often revolutionaries tend to stand in opposition to the whole of tradition rather than just to the excessive part. The question should not be to undo capitalism, but to celebrate what parts of capitalism have diffused individual empowerment and individual responsibility while reworking the parts that oppose this. And the revolution then can be estimated to happen, one corporation at a time, (by incorporation, one person at a time -- pointing to the strength of capitalism/incorporation that must be embraced/transformed.) 3. Yes capital can be purchased. But it's still capital. Purchase is not expropriation. Expropriation means the emancipation of labor and the means of production from the constraints of profit, of private property. No specific comment (I am not sure I understand the paragraph). But I would deconstruct capital, purchasing, expropriation, emancipation, labor, production, profit, and private property in terms of diffusion of empowerment and difussion of responsibility. 4. Oh yeah, it's a trick all right, the sharing of profits equally, so much of a trick that it doesn't, can't, won't exist in anything other than a Ponzi scheme. Mathematical optimization of product rewards collaboration, especially when uniqueness (the property that drives profit) can be established from the collective efforts, as it often does. In this way, the main push back against anti-globalizers and anti-corporates is that by their looking for uniquely low paid laborers, they may actually be helping those laborers by including them. This is the irony of today's capitalism, is that it does both the greatest good and bad, good because in order to effect profit it must engage and advance those heretofore most excluded. It also points to the advanced country workers as those who have the most to lose in the continuation and extension of the current paradigm of adolesceent capitalism and perhaps they will be those to works towards growing capitalism out of its adolescence. I haven't read enough of Marx to know what he'd think, so maybe someone can opine... 5. How so? Because in order to purchase material from the non-venture communist world, the medium of exchange, money, will have to be absorbed into your hedge-fund utopia, and with money, debt, and then production becomes organized necessarily, for the service of money, and the servicing of the debt. The meme of pursuit of privilege is
Re: More on Venture Communism
The proposal for venture communism, is above all, ahistorical, derived from a moral sensibility and not the determinants of social organization. And in passing, but more than an in passing, it must be noted that for Marxists there is no such thing as natural social law, except perhaps in a list of oxymorons that would include fair competition and equal profits. I don't think I need to summarize the The Poverty of Philosophy, but I do think D. Kleiner should take the time to study this work as it anticipates and refutes his proposed system 155 years prior to his presentation. Creation of utopian communes has been attempted and executed any number of times, the venture version is not essentially different than any of these attempts. It attempts a pretense of originality with its labor financial instruments, but even these are old hat. Remember Huey Newton's picture on the dollar bill? The real detail of how such a venture would function, of course, are left out. How for example, would products be distributed within and without the venture? How would that expense be absorbed when and if market returns of production do not coincide exactly in time to sustain reproduction of the entire venture? How would the needs of the producers be satisfied, outside the realm of production. Say the medical needs of those who can't work, those with many children, those who need to work less. If their labor times are different, then their labor money will be different, and the equal distribution goes down the drain. But even if not-- what about providing for those needs? Education, medicine, infrastructure? How will the alternative venture enterprise achieve that? And how will it pay its taxes? And you know what? The answers don't even matter. Because the economic concentration of power and production inside the capsule of private property, under the control of the bourgeoisie, was a product of historical necessity-- and the solution to the conflict between the means and relations of production is not amenable to alternatives to the overthrow of that specific, obsolete property relation. That's what it's all about. It is definitely not about celebrating individual empowerment and individual responsibility that capitalism has created, first and foremost because capitalism has created no such thing-- it has empowered a specific class and only those individuals who meet the needs of that class; it has, in the corporation, created the exact antithesis of individual responsibility, only holding individuals responsible for transgressing upon the dictates of private property. Although perhaps you could sell shares in venture communism to those seeking Marxist Financial Advice.
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 01:21:46PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my first reply . . . I believe in my heart a valid question was asked: Yes, I agree, and I appreciate the question. If American history is to be used as a framework one must ask why the slave oligarchy refused the offer to be compensated - bought out, to end slavery. Why did the slave oligarchy refuse to be bought out as a transition program to end slavery? As I said in my last resonse, I would like to know more about the terms of the proposed buy out and it's refusal. We are dealing with cold economic logic and human beings who conceived the world a certain way and earnestly believe that we have come to the end of human history when one challenges their right to be ruling class. Perhaps yes, but still we must strugle against them. I want to know how. I'm not satisified simply having ample theory describing the faults and failing of the ruling the class. I want to know what I can do right now, and tomorow, and every day to change things. In theory we cannot buy back the productive forces because they operate on the basis of being put to work . . . on the basis . . . of paying the workers a sum total that is smaller than what the owners realized as profits in the process of buying and selling. In other words our collective wages are not greater than that portion of capital the bourgeoisie appropriates for itself as a class. This is why venture communism attempts to subvert the system by sharing profit equaly, instead of making surplus value into private accumulation, it makes into shared wealth. Individual capitalist do not have to be bought out and a handful goes over to the revolutionary upsurge of the people. We are losing the revolution. The capitalists are accumulating more, and we are left with less. When do you imagine this upsurge will change that? As a statement of fact the Molotov cocktail is not historically obsolete. Does it not depend on terrain and conditions of warfare? I have my doubts that there are any conditions or terrains in which a revolution of the people can defeat the forces of the capitalists. I also believe that violent revolutions put violent people in charge. Never mind the fact that existing social accumulation is destroyed. It is not my revolution or this guys or girls revolution . . . but social revolution that can only be resolved by a political transition to something we like and agree with . . . in general. I reject the notion that political transition can only be achieved by violence. OK where do I throw my little dough to prove that we will not and cannot buy out a class or improve the lot of the American people through capitalistic market financial schemes. Venture communism, on it's own can not buy out a class but by diverting the value create by labour away from capitalist and into more equitable and democratic organisation it can change the balance of power. The most we do is improve the lot of the individual investor . . . with thoughtful investments. Yes, that is what venture communism is, an investment strategy that seeks to improve the lot of the individual investor. The major difference is that it uses a form of Capital (labour) that is better distributed than money. As I've said Venture Communism is not a new politcal ideal, simply a transitional strategy. Exchange of labor schemes do not work in a system of private ownership of the material power of production. Do not work means that the bottom 30% of American society cannot be help by investment in the financial markets. The bottom 30% of American society is better served working for an organizations that are more equitable and more democratic than their current work place. You suggest creating another - alternative . . . infrastructure where the labor of real human beings can be exchanged and converted on the market into products of consumption. Not really, I'm trying to map out a strategy that is functional within the current infrastructure while at the same time compatable with a better one, not designed by me, but the end result of engaged democratic participation. Great. The plan need a hell of a lot of development. Yes, I agree. That's why I appreciate these comments and feedback. The plan does still needs a lot of work. What is your plan? Regards, Dmytri.
Re: Venture Communism
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 02:38:53PM -0700, sartesian wrote: 1. The fallacy in this type of proposal, venture communism, has been examined and exposed many times before you have re-proposed an essentially archaic notion. Marx demolished this notion in many of his works-- and took Proudhon apart in The Poverty of Philosophy. You will need to familiarize yourself with that work if you want to make sense of and in this discussion. Once again, thanks for the pointers, I will do my best to undertstand the works you recommomend. However, you can not call something a fallcy by mere allusion to unstated references, you ought to be able to demonstrate the fallacy. 2. You propose a false strategy, of workers either doing nothing or engaging in hedge-fund socialism. Rather than pursue self-capitalist alternatives, the real struggles of the class are what the workers should do. No, I ask what you would have me do with my labour instead. Currently my labour enriches capitalists. If I stop doing this then my family faces poverty. Should I feed my child Das Kapital instead of food? If you want to discourage me from starting Venture Communes, what would you have me do instead? I am not creating false delemas, I am trying to understand what your alternative recomondation is. What should I do with my labour? Starting now, not at some future hypothetical time of Capitalist crisis. 3. Yes capital can be purchased. But it's still capital. Purchase is not expropriation. Expropriation means the emancipation of labor and the means of production from the constraints of profit, of private property. There is nothing wrong with Capital! The problem is Capitalism. The idea that one can have soveriegn property rights; that is the problem. If the capital is owned collectively, the problem is solved, regardless of whether it was purchaced or seized. 4. Oh yeah, it's a trick all right, the sharing of profits equally, so much of a trick that it doesn't, can't, won't exist in anything other than a Ponzi scheme. This is an out of hand dismissal. I would like to know _why_ it doesn't, can't, won't exist. Please explain your reasoning. 5. How so? Because in order to purchase material from the non-venture communist world, the medium of exchange, money, will have to be absorbed into your hedge-fund utopia, and with money, debt, and then production becomes organized necessarily, for the service of money, and the servicing of the debt. Money is abstracted value, nothing more, nothing less. It is an artificat of the environment. 6. Glad to hear of your religious belief in your venture communist corporations. Let me know when the comet comes. Ok. Whatever.
frontiers of intellectual property
Porges, Seth. 2004. We The People...Can't Make Copies? Business Week (12 July): p. 12. How much is the U.S. Constitution worth to you? On Amazon.com, the going rate is $2.99. A copy of the founding document, long in the public domain, can be acquired easily and legally for free on the Internet or at any public library. But e-book publisher NuVision Publications has begun selling it online as an e-book in an encrypted format that can be printed only twice per year. Oddly enough, people seem to be buying the Constitution. The e-book's Amazon sales ranking, as of June 29, was a respectable 1,016 out of the hundreds of thousands of books Amazon sells on its Web site. That's despite the fact that helping someone print the e-book more than twice could violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that forbids tampering with anti-piracy protections, according to Wendy Seltzer, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Re: Venture Communism
I don't just allude to a reference, I pointed out the historical failure of such notions as venture communism. Your entire argument is based on a form of voluntarism: Currently my labour enriches capitalists. If I stop doing this then my family faces poverty. Should I feed my child Das Kapital instead of food? This sort of me-ism has nothing to do with the actual development of capitalism or class struggle. The commanding height of the society is the organization of the economy, which is class relation, property and labor. You cannot supplant that organization without overthrowing that class relation, without expropriating the property that encapsulates the means of social production. What do I propose you do? Sorry to be so blunt, but I couldn't care less. What do I propose workers do? That's a voluntarist question which has nothing to do with the actual concrete reality. What workers do do is struggle with and against exploitation. That's what they will continue to do, just as they are forced to continue to be workers. From those immediate, real, concrete struggles, revolutionary programs emerge, articulating the necessary expropriation. To say there is nothing wrong with capital, but all is wrong with capitalism is fetishism to the max. As if one could exist without the other. Capital is not some product, material, inventory. It is a social relation of production. Money is an abstracted value, nothing more, nothing less? OK, but that abstracted value is exchange value, which means wage-labor, which means the appropriation of surplus-value in the service of further empowerment of private property . That's somewhat more than an artifact. Your system will exist, if it ever exists, inside the system of world markets, inside the demands of exchange value and will necessary absorb those demands if and when it ever attempts to expand, if and when it reproduces itself-- the realization of your equal profits will not be coincident with the costs of production. Your labor money and peoples banks won't mean shit when it comes to paying your suppliers-- see for example the history of Poland 1970-1992.
Re: oops factor
Quoting Dan Scanlan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Checking Your Bill for a New Charge Called 'Oops' By David Pogue (SF Chronicle, Dec. 4, 2003) -- Every few years, economists identify another mutant variation of inflation to keep them awake at night. In the 1980s, it was stagflation. Three years ago, it was deflation. And now, meet the economic specter of the new millennium: stealth inflation. [clip] I think this article is on to something. My own experience with this phenomenon has been with my VISA credit card company. I'd had the card for something like 20 years with no problems or complaints--virtually always paid on time, etc.--when three or so years ago, suddenly and unilaterally, they canceled my VISA card and replaced it with a Mastercard. (The subsequently given rationale was that they'd negotiated a better deal with M-card.) Problem was, I already had a Mastercard and didn't need another--I wanted the VISA card I'd always had. I called and told a customer rep this, and told him I wanted the same setup I've always had--i.e.,a VISA card with no annual fee, and no interest charges if the bill is paid on time each month. He said yep, no problem, and sent me a new card. Fine. It wasn't until I got the next bill I found out that it had an annual fee. So I call. They say, oops, it was a mistake, we'll cancel the fee, but we've got to send you a different card. I say, one without an annual fee, right? They say, right, and send me a new card. Great. Until the next bill, where I see an interest charge, even though I'd paid the previous bill on time. So I call, and find out that on that card you accumulate interest charges immediately, whether or not the bill is paid on time. They say, oops, sorry, we'll cancel the interest charge, but we have to send you a new card. And I say, this one won't have an annual fee or immediately accumulating interest, right? And they say, right. And send me another new card. Okay. Well, at least I haven't had to change cards since then, but there have still been occasional annoying irregularities always resulting in me being charged for something I didn't know about, and requiring a phone call to a customer rep to clear up. In the latest go-round,for example, I got very busy recently and did something very unusual: I entirely forgot to send in the payment for a monthly bill. I discovered this when I got the next bill, with, of course, a hefty late fee and big interest charges. Oh, well, I think, my fault. I call a customer rep and ask how much I'd have to send in right then in excess of the amount on the current bill in order to catch up with *all* interest charges, so there would be no further accumulation of interest charges on the next bill, assuming I paid it on time. So the customer rep calculates a number, I add an additional figure *on top* of that, and send in my payment. Everything taken care of. ...Except not so much, since there were still additional interest charges on my next bill. So again I call, and find out from the customer rep that the earlier rep had made a mistake in advising me(oops), because it is company policy to let interest charges that result from late payments accumulate on any oustanding balances for *two* months, even if everything is paid in full after *one.* I see. But she deleted the interest charge. At some point in the above string of misfeasance I had the urge to get on PEN-L and ask if others had similar experiences. But then I thought, nah, probably just a combination of bad luck, miscommunication, new and untrained customer reps,etc. But now I'm not so sure. And I'm wondering, in light of the article Dan forwarded, if others have had something like this experience with their credit cards. In the meantime, you can find me in the barter economy. Gil
Re: Fahrenheit 911
Melvin wrote: It is one thing to privately believe that the rulers are America are greedy self serving criminals of the bourgeois order. It is a different matter to share this private belief as an experience in a public setting where no one can pretend they had not witnessed a crime. You summed up very beautifully the potential of a shared experience of watching a powerful documentary in public, as opposed to watching the same thing alone at home. Best regards to your wife. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/16/04 2:45 PM michael hoover (reporting from birkenstock, i mean ann arbor, where forum on third parties this weekend includes representative of the righteously named - and no doubt - growing group, league of pissed off voters) Isn't that another front group for the Democrats? Yoshie aren't they all, actually, i have it on good word that dems are front group for reps... michael hoover There are Democrats, and there are shamefaced Democrats, and the League of Pissed Off Voters is set up to appeal to the latter. When you look at their website http://indyvoter.org/, it uses two names alternately: the League of Pissed Off Voters and the League of Independent Voters. The League of Pissed Off Voters just had its national convention http://indyvoter.org/article.php?id=72 at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. From a friend of mine who ran into the League's national organizers at a bar tonight, I hear that about 250 attended the convention, but only 15 from Columbus itself. 15 is 15 too many. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
