Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected
Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected Thu Jul 15, 2004 08:32 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless pay grew by more than expected last week, government data showed on Thursday, with seasonal factors offsetting a large drop the week before. First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose 40,000 to 349,000 in the week ending July 10, the Labor Department said. Wall Street analysts had forecast a substantial rise in claims to 346,000 from a revised 309,000 the previous week. Last week's number, originally reported at 310,000 and much lower than expected, had been heavily influenced by seasonal factors linked to the expected closure of auto plants for an annual exercise to change over to next year's models. Instead, this influence showed up a week later, Labor officials said, possibly because of the timing of the July 4 holiday. While initial claims rose, the four-week moving average of filings, which smoothes weekly fluctuations to provide a better picture of underlying trends, advanced 3,250 to 339,000 from a revised 335,750. This was initially reported at 336,000. Strong economic growth has delivered a sustained improvement in hiring in the United States, with 671,000 jobs added to the nonfarm payroll between April and June, although June's score of 112,000 new jobs was less than half the number expected. The number of unemployed on the benefit rolls after claiming an initial week of aid rose by 112,000 to 2.971 million in the week ending July 3, the latest for which figures are available.
Russian econ growth
PS Rosbalt's english-language site is closing. Damn. Rosbalt, 01/06/2004, 18:06 Putin's Interesting Arithmetic Analysts are divided over the ambitious plans for national development outlined in President Vladimir Putin's recent state of the federation speech, but they are agreed that realizing them, if they can be realized, will take some doing. Leaving aside vague declarations--'the tax system must not weigh excessively on business,' 'the state and business must make every effort to reduce unemployment and poverty'--we asked a number of leading analysts to comment on the few exact figures that the president did offer. 'First of all,' said Vadim Kotikov, an analyst for NetTrader.ru, 'many of Putin's assertions have already been amended by Economics Minister German Gref. Putin is, of course, a politician, not an economist, and so a few errors on his part can be excused. But it is odd that the people who wrote his speech let such mistakes get by.' 'Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8% in the first four months of 2004,' Putin stated at the start of his speech. While that number might seem too good to believe, the analysts don't question it. 'There is no reason to doubt it. It is no great jump, just a perfectly credible increase in the rate of growth [7.3% in 2003] arising from historically high prices for oil and the investment and consumer boom that high oil prices stimulated,' Kotikov said. Anton Struchenevsky, an economist with Troika Dialogue, said: 'To judge by the growth rate, the country will outperform last year. Moreover, growth is not being powered by the raw materials sector alone, and its particularly favorable price conditions, but by other elements of industry as well. Still,' he said, 'it is hard to believe that this kind of growth will last very long. Oil prices are not going to stay up forever, and when they begin to decline, so will growth.' Aleksey Vorobyev, an analyst for Aton, said preliminary figures from the Economics Ministry indicate an 8% growth rate for the January-April period of 2004 as compared with the same period in 2003. 'More exact figures will come in time from the Statistical Service,' he said. 'However, judging by the 7.9% growth rate in basic sectors of the economy (manufacturing, construction, agriculture, transportation, retail trade), the announced figures look reliable.' But what about the president's confidence that GDP can be doubled by 2010? Is this realistic? The notion of doubling GDP by 2010 is, obviously, a great motivator, said Maksim Sheyn, who heads the analysis department of Broker Credit Service. 'But to double national output in 10 years will require growth of 7.3% a year,' Sheyn said. 'And to double it by 2010 (that is, in six years), a rate of 12.2% a year would be needed, not 8%. . . . This kind of exaggeration may be all right for fairy tales but not for serious statements of policy. . . . One can only hope for a more sober approach in any corrections that are forthcoming.' Kotikov also was critical of the president's arithmetic. 'Even assuming continuation of current high growth rates of 8% a year, simple arithmetic shows that GDP can be doubled no earlier than 2012 (taking 2003 as the base year),' he said. 'The real question is on what basis Putin and the government believe the current growth rate can be maintained. Doubling GDP is a nice-sounding slogan, but there's not been a word about concrete measures that the government plans to take to see it into reality. The most disappointing thing is that the president said nothing about government plans to encourage small and medium businesses, which are the source of 40%-60% of GDP in developed countries and less than 15% for us. Creating favorable conditions for small business would set the stage for a real economic breakthrough, but that apparently is harder to do than resting on the laurels of high petroleum prices and taking credit for the growth those bring with them.' In the opinion of Struchenevsky of Troika Dialogue, a doubling of GDP is possible only with very high petroleum prices or if there are radical reforms in the economy. 'Unfortunately, reforms are barely moving,' he said. 'All we can say at this point is that the president's figures are part of a political game. We'll only really be in a position to say how the president's declaration is being acted on when we see the budget for 2005.' Even maintaining the current 8% growth rate won't produce a doubling of GDP by 2010, Aton's Vorobyev said. 'Doubling GDP in 10 years is an extremely tricky business,' he said. 'Much depends on the economic picture outside Russia and that is completely beyond the control of the Russian government.' Finally, the president called for full ruble convertibility within two years while holding the rate of inflation to 3% annually. Vorobyev said: 'Sharply reducing the rate of inflation while stimulating high rates of economic growth is virtually a contradiction in terms. One certainly cannot
Of Rumps and Dumps
Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has dumped George Bush? Check out:http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf Check the whole site at: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org
A Postmortem: The Anti-War Movement, September 2001-March 2004
A Postmortem: The Anti-War Movement, September 2001-March 2004: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/postmortem-anti-war-movement-september.html -- 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: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
In a message dated 7/18/2004 3:16:15 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: Yes, the South started the Civil War (a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat see Aptheker) because the slave system could only survive by constantly expanding geographically ,i.e. by geographical extension, or extensive development. Marx discusses this in his essays on the Civil War and U.S. economy at that time. Reply My understanding is that the plantation South attempted to secede from the Union . . . but that is not the point. By counterrevolution in the American Union . . . the Civil War itself is not referred to but rather the period of history constituting the overthrow of Reconstruction . . . or the chain of events that was the result of the Hayes Tilden agreement of 1876 . . . leading to Plessy versus Ferguson. One aspect - among several factors, of the outward expansion of the system of plantation slavery is the form of labor itself and the laboring process of gangs of slaves. The form of the laboring process of the slave system contains its own barrier that prevents an internal intensive development. This limitation of the form of slave labor has everything to do with the tools and energy source deployed by masses of slaves. Actually . . . we discussed this issue before . . . Sartesian, yourself and myself and it is all right to disagree over the form of the laboring process . . . the economic character of plantation slavery . . . why it was not a form of primitive accumulation . . . etc. Extensive and intensive development of the material power of production are not isolated categories . . . yet what is being discussed is on what basis the form of the laboring process itself is changed and what constitute a revolution in the form of the labor process - the basis or internal components of it intensive development . . . as opposed to extensive expansion. A soft ware programmer in the same building as a machinists is a different creature expressing a change in the form of the laboring process. The productive forces are revolutionized . . . sublated . . . and by definition this takes place incrementally. For instance, providing the slaves with better plows, hoes, etc., and the driver man with a better whip, cannot lead to the internal intensive development of agricultural production beyond the point of human muscle effort . . . because the form of slave labor as a laboring process contains its own barrier. This self contained barrier can only be shattered - sublated, with the development of the means of production . . . that is tools, instruments and machine development driven by a different energy source . . . radically different from the tools, instruments and energy source underlying the form of slave labor. Providing slaves with a tractor constitutes a revolution in the form of the laboring process . . . even if he remains a slave for a period of time . . . and this "period of time" is short because the form of labor corresponding to a slave mode is not compatible with mechanization of agriculture and the value system. The form of the laboring process is burst asunder. The Civil War itself is considered revolutionary because the Slave Oligarchy was overthrown and shattered as a slave oligarchy and ruling class. In this sense the abolition of slavery was a social revolution without a preceding or corresponding economic revolution. That is, the instruments of production of the agricultural South did not advance, but the North imposed a revolution in the social relations upon the South with the freeing of the slaves. Every truly great social revolution must proceed from, stand upon and develop from an economic revolution. It is not possible to truly free slaves or proletarians without replacing them with more efficient energy. At the time of Emancipation, there was no such economic revolution in the means of production connected to Southern agriculture. This truth couple with a growing domestic and international demand for cotton and tobacco condemned the freemen to a new and often more brutal form of exploitation. Without question political alliances between Northern - Wall Street Finance capital, and the conversion of the Slave Oligarchy into the landlord planter class has everything to do with the counter revolution in full swing by 1890 . . . but what is being isolated is the conditions by which the form of the laboring process is transformed. The tools or instruments of production connected to Southern agriculture changed very little between 1870 and say . . . 1940. Sharecropping and the convict-lease system became new forms of slavery for the African American and this form of labor - the laboring process itself, would undergo revolutionizing with the invention of the mechanical cotton picker and the mechanization of agriculture, the development of weed killing chemicals, tractors etc. These developments in the mean
Re: Venture Communism
On Sun, Jul 18, 2004 at 08:49:19AM -0700, sartesian wrote: One last time: I thank you for your patience, and again, I have read and reread your response carefully. Unfortunatly, there is little in the way of clear points to be found. I am not saying that this makes you wrong, you may be right, however, I have no clue what you are actualy proposing and it's relationship to Venture Communism. Further, while I will present refutations of your arguments, it is very plain to me that your knowedge of the historical context of this discussion is impressive, I benefit from your feedback. My thanks and respect to you. -- I pointed to the historical failures of these attempts and the failures of social revolutions that in fact did not complete the violent process of expropriating the bourgeois system on an international scale. Violence seems to be your numbe one fear . What you propose is not different that Owenism and a new New Lanark. As a syllogism: A certain historical attempt failed, your attempt is similar to it, therefore your attempt will fail. This is fallacy, since you have not given any applied analysis comparing the attempts and the curcumstances of failure. Simply calling something 'Owenism', or a 'new New Lanark' doesn't make an argument, however, I do appreciate the references and will look into them. Your response is proof of the voluntarism. 'Taking surplus value away from them and put it instead towards the accumulation of democratically controlled communal wealth?' Workers don't have that choice. Plain and simple. They sell their labor power out of necessity. That same necessity creates the potential, the necessity, for social, even violent, revolution. Again, as a syllogism: Your plan depends on choice, workers don't have choice, therefore your plan wont work. Again, your argument is a fallacy: _Some_ workers do have choice, they have 'spare labour' that is currently being underutilzed, they can invest this labour into a Venture Commune, which if sucessfull would become an employer, and thereby give more workers choice and more political influence. Remember, Venture Communism is primarily an investment strategy, it is therefore no more voluntaristic that a normal investment fund, in wich Capitalists 'Voluntarily' invest their spare capital. Both investments are made not out of charity, but rather in expectation of gain, therefor require Rational Actors, not volunteers. You think the workers who worked at the Ypsilanti, Michigan M-16 factory waiting to be drafted during Vietnam War did it out of choice? Yes, some of them had spare labour to invest in Venture Communes, doing so may have strengthened their movement. And many upon return, if they did return, could consider, not alternative democracies, but immediate struggle for radical transformation, in class vs. class terms. You keep saying struggle, but other than the implied grunting and groaning you do not provide any actual activities that this struggle entails. Venture Communism gives this struggle a Business Plan, if you'll forgive the language. The only alternative Business Plan you imply is a miraculous workers revolution. Without Venture Communism where do you imagine you will find the Capital required to plan and carry out this revolution? Workers are not at all faced with the 'same question.' They face this reality, this struggle with this social organization, not the question of whether to sell their labor to Ford, or 'share' it in New Amana. Choice has absolutely nothing to do with it. Here you attempt to restate the earlier fallacy, in an attempt at proof by insistence. It is still a fallacy, _All_ Wokers may not have a choice with what to do with _All_ of their labour, However _Some_ workers do have a choice with what to do with _Some_ of their labour. This spare labour is what Venture Communism seeks to mobilize. News flash: it, overthrowing the ruling class, has been attempted, and even had some success. None of the attempts or success involved venture communism, democratically shared profits, etc. And once again you attempt your first fallacy, only in reverse: A certain historical attempt had some success, your attempt is not similar to it, therefore your attempt will not succeed. This is still a fallacy, since again you have not given any applied analysis comparing the attempts and the circumstances of success. This argument is no better than saying you remind me of my uncle Tim, uncle Tim was wrong, therefore so are you. I would then follow up by accusing you of a lack of knowledge of my uncle Tim when you disagree. This is a fallacious argument, as it is up to me to demonstrate the applicability of the comparison I'm making. They all did involve a certain amount of violence, and a class, not individuals, that utilized that violence in defense of that social revolution. Nothing wrong with that, although, again, that seems
Re: Venture Communism (Robert Owen)
Hazlitt's essay on Robert Owen is quite fun: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Political/Owen.htm there's also a rather good museum in New Lanark these days which makes an attractive daytrip if you're ever stuck in Glasgow. I occasionally find myself thinking that Owen and the pre-Engels British Socialists are probably worth another look, but have always been put off by the teetotal tendency which one tends to find there. dd
Re: Of Rumps and Dumps
Sartesian wrote: Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has dumped George Bush? Check out: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf Check the whole site at: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org And this: Wall Street firms funnel millions to Bush By Thomas B. Edsall and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post May 24 2004 At Merrill Lynch Co. Inc., a suggestion from chief executive E. Stanley O'Neal is not to be taken lightly. O'Neal eliminated 24,000 jobs, froze pay and steadily pushed out competitors for executive power, including colleagues who had championed his rise up the corporate ladder. Ruthless, O'Neal has reportedly told colleagues, isn't always bad. So it came as no surprise that when O'Neal sent letters to senior executives at Merrill Lynch in early June asking them to contribute to President Bush's reelection campaign, the response was prompt and generous. Between June 12 and June 30 of last year, the Bush-Cheney campaign was inundated with 157 checks from Merrill Lynch executives and at least 20 from their spouses; 140 checks were for the maximum allowed by law: $2,000. Total take generated by the O'Neal letter: $279,750 in less than three weeks. When that total is combined with the rest of the money contributed to Bush by employees during the current election cycle, Merrill Lynch personnel have given $459,050, according to Dwight Morris Associates, which studies political money. The money flowing from Merrill Lynch employees is part of a $12.14 million tidal wave of cash to the Bush campaign from the finance and insurance sectors. Wall Street has stepped up to the plate in support of Bush, and Bush has sponsored legislation producing billions of dollars in revenue on Wall Street. Capital gains and dividend tax cuts have encouraged substantial asset shifting by investors -- transactions producing commissions for securities firms. In addition, in 2001, Bush secured a gradual repeal of the estate tax, allowing the accumulation of investment wealth without fear of large tax liability for heirs. The 10-year revenue loss from the elimination of the estate tax will be $133.2 billion, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. The revenue losses from the dividend and capital gains cuts will be $125.3 billion through 2010, according to the committee. In addition, the administration has proposed creation of tax-free Lifetime Savings Accounts that, if approved, would result in a major shift from savings accounts to investment accounts managed by Wall Street companies. O'Neal is one of nine Wall Street Rangers -- each one has raised at least $200,000 for the Bush campaign. In addition, five other executives of prominent securities firms have raised at least $100,000 each to qualify as Bush Pioneers. The O'Neal-generated cash is a record for such a short time period, according to Morris and other campaign finance experts. O'Neal's success, however, represents only a small fraction of an unprecedented drive by top Wall Street firms in support of the president. When employers of contributors to the Bush campaign are ranked, seven out of the top 10 are major securities firms. Employees of Morgan Stanley Co. Inc. have contributed the most of any single company to Bush: $505,675. Asked why so many of the top 10 employers of contributors are Wall Street securities firms, Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign, said, We are proud that we have over 1 million donors to the Bush-Cheney campaign representing every county in every state in this nation. Altogether, personnel at these seven top 10 firms have given Bush $2.33 million, or a fifth of the $12.14 million from employees of the finance and insurance sector that has flowed to Bush this election cycle. By comparison, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), has raised $472,564 from employees of the same seven firms, and the entire finance and insurance sector has given Kerry $2.7 million. Many of the Wall Street Rangers and Pioneers are, like O'Neal, chairmen and CEOs -- top executives who rarely engage in the mundane work of political fundraising. This year, the Wall Street Rangers include Philip J. Purcell, CEO of Morgan Stanley; Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman of UBS Financial Services Inc.; Henry M. Paulson Jr., chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Co.; and John J. Mack, CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. None of them tried to become a Pioneer for the Bush campaign in 2000. Spokesmen for the firms that replied to inquiries about the contribution patterns denied that the money was related to Bush tax policies. Mark Herr, of Merrill Lynch, said, The simple facts are these: Mr. O'Neal wrote a letter to executives and asked them if they wanted to contribute to the president. He also made it clear that no one was obliged to do so. In a prepared statement, UBS Financial Services said employee contributions
Re: Of Rumps and Dumps
I haven't read this thread carefully, so I hope I'm not repeating anything. The ruling class almost never acts as a unified force that dumps someonw. However, I can imagine that sections of the ruling calss could turn against Bush. More importantly, the whole election process is set up in a way that filters out the anti-capitalist candidates. In the end, the differences within the ruling class can be settled by letting the people decide, where of course the people don't have much choice and are highly influenced by campaign ads, the media, etc. The election then has the side-effect of helping to legitimate the system. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine From: PEN-L list on behalf of Marvin Gandall Sent: Mon 7/19/2004 6:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Of Rumps and Dumps Sartesian wrote: Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has dumped George Bush? Check out: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf Check the whole site at: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org And this: Wall Street firms funnel millions to Bush By Thomas B. Edsall and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post May 24 2004 At Merrill Lynch Co. Inc., a suggestion from chief executive E. Stanley O'Neal is not to be taken lightly. O'Neal eliminated 24,000 jobs, froze pay and steadily pushed out competitors for executive power, including colleagues who had championed his rise up the corporate ladder. Ruthless, O'Neal has reportedly told colleagues, isn't always bad. So it came as no surprise that when O'Neal sent letters to senior executives at Merrill Lynch in early June asking them to contribute to President Bush's reelection campaign, the response was prompt and generous. Between June 12 and June 30 of last year, the Bush-Cheney campaign was inundated with 157 checks from Merrill Lynch executives and at least 20 from their spouses; 140 checks were for the maximum allowed by law: $2,000. Total take generated by the O'Neal letter: $279,750 in less than three weeks. When that total is combined with the rest of the money contributed to Bush by employees during the current election cycle, Merrill Lynch personnel have given $459,050, according to Dwight Morris Associates, which studies political money. The money flowing from Merrill Lynch employees is part of a $12.14 million tidal wave of cash to the Bush campaign from the finance and insurance sectors. Wall Street has stepped up to the plate in support of Bush, and Bush has sponsored legislation producing billions of dollars in revenue on Wall Street. Capital gains and dividend tax cuts have encouraged substantial asset shifting by investors -- transactions producing commissions for securities firms. In addition, in 2001, Bush secured a gradual repeal of the estate tax, allowing the accumulation of investment wealth without fear of large tax liability for heirs. The 10-year revenue loss from the elimination of the estate tax will be $133.2 billion, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. The revenue losses from the dividend and capital gains cuts will be $125.3 billion through 2010, according to the committee. In addition, the administration has proposed creation of tax-free Lifetime Savings Accounts that, if approved, would result in a major shift from savings accounts to investment accounts managed by Wall Street companies. O'Neal is one of nine Wall Street Rangers -- each one has raised at least $200,000 for the Bush campaign. In addition, five other executives of prominent securities firms have raised at least $100,000 each to qualify as Bush Pioneers. The O'Neal-generated cash is a record for such a short time period, according to Morris and other campaign finance experts. O'Neal's success, however, represents only a small fraction of an unprecedented drive by top Wall Street firms in support of the president. When employers of contributors to the Bush campaign are ranked, seven out of the top 10 are major securities firms. Employees of Morgan Stanley Co. Inc. have contributed the most of any single company to Bush: $505,675. Asked why so many of the top 10 employers of contributors are Wall Street securities firms, Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign, said, We are proud that we have over 1 million donors to the Bush-Cheney campaign representing every county in every state in this nation. Altogether, personnel at these seven top 10 firms have given Bush $2.33 million, or a fifth of the $12.14 million from employees of the finance and insurance sector that has flowed to Bush this election cycle. By comparison, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), has raised $472,564 from employees of the same seven firms, and the entire finance and insurance sector has given Kerry $2.7 million. Many of the Wall Street Rangers and Pioneers are, like O'Neal,
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
by Devine, James Charles asks:Are you saying someone has put Hegel ( or dialectics) into simpler language ? No. I'm saying that Marx's dialectical and materialist perspective (in CAPITAL) can be translated into relatively common-sense terms by using a non-Hegelian language. Jd ^^^ I'm thinking the use of absolute in the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation is in the opposition absolute/relative, as in absolute and relative surplus value and other usages. However, here , Marx does not mention a relative. Perhaps these are the exceptions , the non-all other things being equal, aspects. He mentions countervailing tendencies when he describes the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. But here he says there are relative tendencies , but does not discuss them. This seems a way to emphasize this particular law, maybe. The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. Why not dialectical logic to some extent ? I certainly am not opposed to the translation you suggest above. CB
Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
by Waistline2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: Yes, the South started the Civil War (a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat see Aptheker) because the slave system could only survive by constantly expanding geographically ,i.e. by geographical extension, or extensive development. Marx discusses this in his essays on the Civil War and U.S. economy at that time. Reply My understanding is that the plantation South attempted to secede from the Union . . . but that is not the point. By counterrevolution in the American Union . . . the Civil War itself is not referred to but rather the period of history constituting the overthrow of Reconstruction . . . or the chain of events that was the result of the Hayes Tilden agreement of 1876 . . . leading to Plessy versus Ferguson. ^^ CB: Yes, I can see use of counterrevolution in this post-Civil War context. Aptheker has the thesis that the initiation of the Civil War itself was a counterrevolution, because the election of Lincoln was essentially a revolution ( a change in the mode of production because a major form of property was negated) . Lincoln's election was a revolution, not because the he and the Republicans advocated abolition of slavery in the South, but because they were for forbidding the slave system to _extend_ in the terminology you have introduced, extensive territorial development. And since the slave form of organization could not develop intensively ( as you say below), it would die if it couldn't develop extensively, therefore Lincoln's policy would indirectly abolish slavery, was a revolution and the Southern firing on Fort Sumter was a counterrevolutionary assault. Also, the slavocracy had been the ruling class of the whole U.S. the period before the Civil War for , well all of it right back to Washington and Jefferson really. The South controlled the Presidency and the Supreme Court. The Democratic Parties were the parties of the Slavocracy. So, Lincoln's election was a rev overthrowing the slavocratic ruling class. This is Aptheker's explicit thesis, but really a lot of it is in Marx's writing on the U.S. Civil War. However, I understand your use of counterrevolution for Post-Reconstruction. The Civil War counterrevolution failed,was defeated. The Counterrevolution you discuss succeeded. ^ One aspect - among several factors, of the outward expansion of the system of plantation slavery is the form of labor itself and the laboring process of gangs of slaves. The form of the laboring process of the slave system contains its own barrier that prevents an internal intensive development. This limitation of the form of slave labor has everything to do with the tools and energy source deployed by masses of slaves. ^ CB: Well, it is the property form - human beings owned - that limits what the masters can trust the slaves with. Marx has a specific passage on this. I'll look for it. Empirically, slaves would tear up a form of machinery quicker. Slaves are more readily Luddites. But this is generated by the property relationship between slave and master , not the form of the technology. ^^^ Actually . . . we discussed this issue before . . . Sartesian, yourself and myself and it is all right to disagree over the form of the laboring process . . . the economic character of plantation slavery . . . why it was not a form of primitive accumulation . . . etc. ^ CB: Right. Slavery in 1860 is no longer primitive accumulation. Slavery at the time of the primitive accumulation of all capitalism in the 1400 and 1500's is one of the things that Marx terms the chief momenta of the primitive accumulation. ^^ Extensive and intensive development of the material power of production are not isolated categories . . . yet what is being discussed is on what basis the form of the laboring process itself is changed and what constitute a revolution in the form of the labor process - the basis or internal components of it intensive development . . . as opposed to extensive expansion. A soft ware programmer in the same building as a machinists is a different creature expressing a change in the form of the laboring process. The productive forces are revolutionized . . . sublated . . . and by definition this takes place incrementally. For instance, providing the slaves with better plows, hoes, etc., and the driver man with a better whip, cannot lead to the internal intensive development of agricultural production beyond the point of human muscle effort . . . because the form of slave labor as a laboring process contains its own barrier. This self contained barrier can only be shattered - sublated, with the development of the means of production . . . that is tools, instruments and machine development driven by a different energy source . . . radically different from the tools, instruments and energy source underlying the form of slave labor. Providing slaves with a tractor constitutes a revolution in the form of the laboring process . . .
Re: /morped/ Socialism Betrayed - the property relations within, its meaning
CB: I'm not sure what you mean by "with the property relations within" ^ The unions of labor force of the workers and the means of production is simultaneously a connection of productive forces and a connection of people in the process of production which together makes up relations. The division of labor in manufacture is a relation in production and also emerges as a productive force. This applies to industrial society and the post industrial society evolving in front of us. CB: I'd differentiate between the technological organization of production, including machines and who stands where on the shop floor, and property relations, who appropriates the products. Comment/Reply The beginning of a qualitatively new production process that changes the form of the laboring process is always somewhat difficult to describe because all the new features have not yet emerged . . . and cannot emerged without political revolution that overthows the old relations of production and property relations within, that block their development. Yet, one can follow the direction ofthis development and apply certain lessons from our own history of development. Take for instance the biogenetic revolution which in fact is an authentic revolution in the material power of production that changes the form of the laboring process . . . especially in relationship to agriculture. From the standpoint of the form of slave labor prior to Emancipation to Emancipation - (which ended in counterrevolution that would eventually trap five million blacks and six million whites in the sharecropping system), to deployment of the mechanical cotton picker and the tractor . . . to the growth of the huge industrial farms to the emergence of "frankenfoods" . . . or the application of science - biogenetic, to farming . . . we are speak of a huge revolution in the mode of production. The fact of the matter is that the instruments . . . tools . . . deployment of human labor as the primary energy source of Southern agriculture did not change between say 1865 and 1900. With all due respect to Mr. Aptheker . . . I profoundly disagree that Lincoln's election constituted a revolution. I also have disagreed with his economic description of slavery and the aftermath of the Civil War for the past 30 years. Such is life. What is being spoken of is a qualitatively different production process that forever changes the form of the laboring process that arose and emerged with the industrial system. The implications are staggering because this qualitatively new production technique - regime, begins unraveling and shattering the commodity form and value. This does not mean that "all of the old mode of production (laboring process) disappears" . . . but rather the old process is sublated. Farming still takes place in the Mississippi Delta using a set of instruments and machinery half a century old. The meaning of "the property relations within" is the property relations within a given mode of production. In my opinion this is at the base of our divergence and most Marxists have in the past defined modes of production on the basis of the form of the labor process . . . like slavery, feudalism and capitalism. I am aware that I divergence from this description, while remaining consistent with the method Marx deploys in describing the advance of industry in the Communist Manifesto and Engels description of the advance of industry in Anti-Durhing. Here is what Marx states concerning "the property relations within:" "At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or what is but a legal _expression_ for the same thing with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm The "property relations within" are not simply within the legal _expression_ as abstraction . . . because what the "legal" expresses is relations of production or how people are aggregated together to utilize a given state of development of the mode of production. "From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters." The productive forces begin with human being and the specific mode of human labor + tools, instruments and/or machinery + energy source and how they are organized. How the people are organized are the relations being referred to this relation becomes a fetter in the face of the development of the productive forces - with the property relations within. The issue connected to "Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union" by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is the economic phenomena inherit to an industrial mode of
Re: Russian econ growth
Chris Doss forwarded: 'the tax system must not weigh excessively on business,' 'the state and business must make every effort to reduce unemployment and poverty'--we asked a number of leading analysts to comment on the few exact figures that the president did offer. '[...] 'Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8% in the first four months of 2004,' Putin stated at the start of his speech. While that number might seem too good to believe, the analysts don't question it. 'There is no reason to doubt it. It is no great jump, just a perfectly credible increase in the rate of growth [7.3% in 2003] arising from historically high prices for oil and the investment and consumer boom that high oil prices stimulated,' Kotikov said. Anton Struchenevsky, an economist with Troika Dialogue, said: 'To judge by the growth rate, the country will outperform last year. Moreover, growth is not being powered by the raw materials sector alone, and its particularly favorable price conditions, but by other elements of industry as well. [...] Aleksey Vorobyev, an analyst for Aton, said preliminary figures from the Economics Ministry indicate an 8% growth rate for the January-April period of 2004 as compared with the same period in 2003. 'More exact figures will come in time from the Statistical Service,' he said. 'However, judging by the 7.9% growth rate in basic sectors of the economy (manufacturing, construction, agriculture, transportation, retail trade), the announced figures look reliable.' I read a little while ago that the Russian federal budget surplus was $8.4 billion during this first half of 2004 high growth period. Budget surpluses and high growth do often go hand-in-hand. Is there the feeling in Russia that the federal tax system does weigh heavily on business? Also, are military equipment exports fueling some of this growth? (See article below) Diane Russia posts record arms sales AP http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/printer_1651.shtml Jul 19, 2004, 08:55 BOLSTERED by continued demand from its best customers - India and China - Russian arms sales grew by 20 per cent to $US5.4 billion ($7.47 billion) last year, a post-Soviet record, according to a report issued today by the state weapons trading company Rosoboronexport. President Vladimir Putin has made boosting arms exports a top priority for his government and has called for tighter export controls on weapons-related technologies and military equipment to ensure Russia's niche in international arms markets is not threatened by foreign competitors. Russia exported weapons worth a total of $US4.8 billion ($6.64 billion) in 2002. Russian weapons industries have come to depend on foreign customers after orders from the cash-strapped Russian military ground to a near halt following the 1991 Soviet collapse. Though Russia has become one of the world's top arms exporters after the US and Britain in recent years, the country's arms sales are only a fraction of the approximately $US20 billion ($27.67 billion) a year exported by the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Nikolai Novichkov, editor in chief of Arms Tass, the military technical information division of ITAR-Tass, and a correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, said that China accounted for 56 per cent of Russia's exports while India bought about 18 per cent. Russian arms are cheaper than American or European analogues but have good reliability, Mr Novichkov said. Russia has been aggressively promoting its weapons in South-East Asia and last year's figures were significantly boosted by the purchase of 18 Sukhoi SU-30 MKM fighters by Malaysia for an estimated $US900 million ($1.25 billion). Also, Indonesia agreed to buy two Sukhoi-30s, two Sukhoi-27s, and two MI-35 assault helicopters through a counter-trade deal worth $US192.6 million ($266.48 million). Alex Vatanka, a Russia expert at Jane's Sentinel in London, said the sales increase was in line with Russia's aim of becoming the No 2 exporter worldwide. It goes hand in hand with the Putin administration's pursuit of what they call the multipolar world order, to essentially say to Washington: 'We will not listen to you dictate every single item on the agenda. We have our own interests', he said. Rosoboronexport issued its statement ahead of the Farnborough air show, which begins on Monday in Britain. The aviation and space industry accounts for 70 per cent of total exports, the company said. The arms exporter will display the wares of 50 Russian defence companies at the week-long event, at which over 1000 companies from different countries are expected to participate. More than 180 pieces of military equipment will be displayed at the Rosoboronexport stall in the form of models, posters and advertising equipment; 30 of the items will be displayed for the first time. While data on the famed Sukhoi family of fighter planes will be on hand for visitors, the company has said that no military planes will take part in aerial shows since
Re: Venture Communism/morped/ Socialism Betrayed
This seems to have devolved into a discussion between 3 people. Maybe we can drop it now. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
PAUL KRUGMAN: Bush's medical plan: Class warfare
Sunday, July 18, 2004 Bush's medical plan: Class warfare By PAUL KRUGMAN SYNDICATED COLUMNIST If past patterns are any guide, about one in three Americans will go without health insurance for some part of the next two years. They won't, for the most part, be the persistently poor, who are usually covered by Medicaid. They will be members of working families with breadwinners who have jobs without medical benefits or who have been laid off. Many Americans fear the loss of health insurance. Last week, I described John Kerry's health plan. What's the Bush administration's plan? First, it offers a tax credit for low- and middle-income families who don't have health coverage through employers. That credit helps them purchase health insurance. The credit would be $3,000 for a family of four with an income of $25,000; for an income of $40,000, it would fall to $1,714. Last year, the average premium for families of four covered by employers was more than $9,000. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the tax credit would reduce the number of uninsured, 44 million people in 2002, by 1.8 million. So it wouldn't help a great majority of families unable to afford insurance. For comparison, an independent assessment of the Kerry plan by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University says that it would reduce the number of uninsured by 26.7 million. The other main component of the Bush plan involves health savings accounts. The prescription drug bill the administration pushed through Congress last year had a number of provisions unrelated to Medicare. One of them allowed people who purchase insurance policies with high deductibles, generally at least $2,000 per family, to shelter income from taxes by setting up special accounts for medical expenses. This year, the administration proposed making the premiums linked to these accounts fully tax-deductible. Although the 2005 budget presents that new deduction under the heading Helping the uninsured, health savings accounts don't seem to have much to do with the needs of the families likely to find themselves without health insurance. For one thing, such families need more protection than a plan with a $2,000 deductible provides. Furthermore, the tax advantages of health savings accounts would be small for those families most at risk of losing health insurance, who are overwhelmingly in low tax brackets. But for people whose income puts them in high tax brackets, these accounts are a very good deal; making the premiums deductible turns them into a great deal. In other words, health savings accounts will offer the already affluent, who don't have problems getting health insurance, yet another tax shelter. Meanwhile, health savings accounts, in the view of many experts, will actually increase the number of uninsured. This perverse effect shouldn't be too surprising: Unless they are carefully designed, medical policies often have side consequences that worsen the problems they supposedly address. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that one-third of the retirees who now have drug coverage through their former employers will lose that coverage as a result of the Bush prescription drug bill and will be forced to accept inferior coverage from Medicare. In the case of health savings accounts, the key side consequence is a reduced incentive for companies to insure their workers. When companies provide group health insurance, healthier employees implicitly subsidize their sicker colleagues; they're willing to do this largely because the employer's contributions to health insurance are a tax-free form of compensation, but only if the same plan is offered to all employees. Tax-free health savings accounts and premiums would provide healthier and wealthier employees an incentive to opt out, accepting higher paychecks instead, and would lead to higher insurance premiums for those who remain in traditional plans. This would cause some companies to stop providing health insurance, or raise employee contributions to a level some workers can't afford. The difference couldn't be starker. Kerry offers a health care plan that would extend coverage to most of those now uninsured, paid for by rolling back tax cuts for those with incomes over $200,000. President Bush offers a tax credit that would extend coverage to fewer than 5 percent of the uninsured, plus a new tax break for the affluent that would actually increase the number of uninsured. I don't see how Bush can win this debate.
SOCIAL MOBILITY
[While in Cuba last month, a colleague and I walked and walked throughout old Havana for days, but just could NOT bring ourselves to use one of the many bicycle cabs used as a frequent mode of transportation there. Besides all of our cash went to magnificent concerts and tipping the many wonderful musicians throughout the city and for salsa and merengue lessons :).] Is it possible that some Republican delegate might hop in a pedicab this summer and pause to ruminate on an economy in which some are always pulled and more and more are always pulling? The New Yorker SOCIAL MOBILITY by Adam Gopnik Issue of 2004-07-26 Posted 2004-07-19 One of the stranger sights in the city this summer is the bicycle taxi. Strictly speaking, it should be called a tricycle taxi, since it consists of a strong-thighed young manthere seem to be few women in the guildon a contraption with a saddle and one wheel in front, pulling a small calèche that rides along on two wheels in back. But to call it a tricycle taxi is to summon images of child labor, and to call it, as it has been called, a three-wheeled bicycle lands us in realms of contradiction too confusing even for this contradictory summer. In any event, you can hail the bicycle taxior pedicab, to give it its full Avenue of the Americas monikerat a corner, get into the calèche (or it a surrey? a barouche?), and take it for a ride wherever you want to go, for as long as it takes to get there. Bicycle taxis have been on the city streets for a decade, and there are at least three entrepreneurs hiring them outthe largest is the Soho-based Pedicabs of New Yorkbut they seem newly commonplace in midtown. Unlicensed and unmetered, though not uninsured, they roam the avenues, searching for riders. (Prices are negotiable, but seem to run to whatever the pedaller thinks the pedallee can afford, taking into account how much work it will be to pull him. Price discrimination against the portly is acceptable, and a fifteen-dollar ride seems typical.) Its hard not to admire the pedicabsélan as they scoot up and down the avenues, darting in and out of the lines of stolid traffic, the little whatever-it-is in back just squeezing through as the couple from Altoona hold on to their digital camera for dear life, all in a blur of legs and wheels and accompanying obscenities from internal-combustion chauffeurs. Although the bicycle cabs were apparently intended for tourists, their advantages in traffic seduce the natives, too, and a big chunk of their work now seems to involve transporting people who have, in essence, got fed up with sitting in stalled traffic in a taxicab. (The other day, a New Yorker hailed a pedicab for the first time, because she was late for her workout. Pumping hard, sweat pouring, the bicycle pedaller got her to the gym on time.) To try out a bicycle cab, even in a semi-philosophical spirit, is to be caught up in a rush of exhilaration, embarrassment, and potential significances. Heady and vaguely Edith Whartonish as it is to be pulled around town in an open carriage, it is, at the same time, disconcerting to have someone elses physical labor quite so plainly, quite so clearly and publicly, quite so accusingly, visible as the source of your forward movement. Normally, in New York and elsewhere, machinery and ritual intercede between the puller and the pulled. The taxi- or livery- cab-driver, whose hours, wages, and health-insurance predicaments are unknown to the rider, is enthroned behind Plexiglas, and he has a whole set of rituals (the right-hand seat piled high with personal objects, the endless cell-phone conversation) designed to salve his self-respect, and to give exploitation at least the appearance of self-reliance. The pedicab is, no getting around it, a rickshaw with pedals. (In fact, the second-leading pedicab company is called Manhattan Rickshaw.) It offers, in a pointedly symbolic, Bertolt Brecht-meets-Barbara Ehrenreich package, both the eternal facts of capitalismthe capitalist proceeds from home to office by dint of someone elses sweatand the essential ironies of the post-industrial era: the more emancipated we seem to become from physical labor, the more physical labor is left for someone else to do. What Robert Reich has talked about for years, and John Edwards has talked about for the past several monthsthat the gap has widened between the wealthy few and everybody elseis, in the bicycle taxi, suddenly given a local habitation and a loud bell. The feeling is not even so much capitalist as feudal. You are the lord of the manor, being pulled through the streets on a sedan chair; he is Piers Plowman, in spandex shorts. Riding in a bicycle taxi, one feels nostalgia for the bicycle messenger of the Reagan era. The bicycle messenger, with his whistle and his disdain, was the embodiment of underclass resentment and underclass style, and of a booming economy, which demanded that documents be here now. As oblivious of stoplights as he was of
Re: Of Rumps and Dumps
I largely agree with you, although I think you can find historical instances where the ruling class adjudges some degree of change necessary to act as a safety valve releasing mass pressures which threaten to overwhelm the system. The New Deal comes to mind in a period which saw the rapid growth internationally of the left. Of course, where a ruling class feels it has no room for concessions, as in tapped-out Italy, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe at the time, the move is mostly in the other direction. As you note, there's never perfect unanimity, and the reform/repression options are always up for debate. Some on the left, including on this list, imagine that the US corporate and political establishment is currently faced with this choice -- ie. either a move towards greater repression under the Republicans, or a prophylactic move to dump them in favour of the Democrats to siphon off popular discontent. Bit what popular unrest do they see which would provoke this kind of reaction? There's a good deal of disillusionment about Iraq and the persistent disgruntlement about capitalist inequality and hardships, but there is no organized left of any consequence in the US -- inside or outside the DP -- which would have the ruling class contemplating extraordinary measures. If the Nader/Camejo ticket were to surprise, it would sit up and register the change in temperature, but I doubt it would start to panic just yet. Marv Gandall - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 9:37 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Of Rumps and Dumps I haven't read this thread carefully, so I hope I'm not repeating anything. The ruling class almost never acts as a unified force that dumps someonw. However, I can imagine that sections of the ruling calss could turn against Bush. More importantly, the whole election process is set up in a way that filters out the anti-capitalist candidates. In the end, the differences within the ruling class can be settled by letting the people decide, where of course the people don't have much choice and are highly influenced by campaign ads, the media, etc. The election then has the side-effect of helping to legitimate the system.
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
Charles writes: The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. Why not dialectical logic to some extent ? what exactly is logic then? I'm no expert on philosophy, but it seems to me that dialectics isn't a logic in the same sense that formal logic is a logic. (My handy-dandy DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION: EASTERN AND WESTERN THOUGHT, by W.L. Reese, defines logic as The theory of the conditions of valid ... [inference, i.e.,] passage from one or more statements which are called premises to a further statement called the conclusion.) If dialectics form a system of logic, it's one that's qualitatively different from formal logic. In fact, I'd call them a system of heuristics (which Webster's defines as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving ... that utilize self-educating techniques). Formal logic looks at a connection premises X...Z imply conclusion A and says either no they don't or yes they do. On the other hand, it seems to me that dialectics centers on empirical investigation, saying that we need to look at the big picture. A dialectician might say that it's true that premises X...Z logically imply conclusion A, but you left out a lot of stuff. Premise B isn't true, while because of factors F, G, and H, this proposition isn't empirically relevant. An example: there's a bunch of economists called the social choice school that derives all sorts of of theorems from their math (mostly about how bad democracy is and therefore how wonderful the market is). My (dialectical) response: you fools ignore the empirical fact that under capitalism, democracy works following the principle of one dollar, one vote much more than it follows the one person one vote principle that you assume. To my mind, Marx Engels were very strongly empirical in their orientation (without being empiricist). Their critique of Saint Max (no relation to Saint Max Sawicky) and his friends in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY starts with the idea that Max _et al_ are talking about a revolution in thought but what really counts are revolutions in practice and, more generally, the empirical world of production, social relationships, history, etc. Given this empirical/practical orientation, it makes sense to embrace Hegel's dialectical heuristics and turn them upside down, away from speculation and toward humanity. jim devine
[Fwd: [Marxism] The Case for Nader-Camejo, by L. Proyect]
Swans The Case for Nader-Camejo by Louis Proyect (Swans - July 19, 2004) Although liberal attacks on Ralph Nader have been marked by a level of vituperation usually reserved for such as Slobodan Milosevic, Greg Bates's Ralph's Revolt is completely rancor-free by contrast. It is a calm, dispassionate case for joining Nader's rebellion, as the subtitle puts it. As founder and publisher of Common Courage Press, Greg Bates selects works that go against the grain of conventional thinking. They include Jeffrey St. Clair's Been Brown So Long (reviewed on Swans in March 2004) and numerous titles by Paul Farmer, the Harvard physician who has dedicated his life to helping AIDS patients in Haiti. On the Common Courage website, the mission statement refers to Farmer, who had invited Bates to a ceremony in Boston where Jean Bertrand Aristide was to give a speech. In explaining to Farmer why he publishes his books and those of other progressives, Bates says, Some ask why we do this work. We ask a different question: How can we not? Throughout Ralph's Revolt, Bates likens Nader to Don Quixote, a somewhat unflattering comparison if you think solely in terms of tilting at windmills, etc. However, one must remember that Cervantes chose Quixote as a vehicle for his own unhappiness with the bourgeois transformation of Spain. If Don Quixote was a fool to romanticize Spain's feudal past, at least he had the wisdom to assert There are only two families in the world, the Haves and the Have-nots, a phrase used by Bates as the epigraph for chapter nine of his book. In that chapter, titled Appease the Bond Market: the Kerry Plan to Make the Rich Richer, Bates lays out in convincing detail how Kerry would reinstitute Clintonomics. As a deficit hawk, Kerry promised to abandon earlier plans to expand college tuition subsidies and aid to state government in order to help the higher priority of halving the federal deficit in four years. These announcements worried liberal supporters such as Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect who shrewdly observed that Kerry was running an election campaign on the basis of how Clinton governed, rather than the way that he ran for office. He worried that No president ever got elected by promising to appease the bond market. Of course, it makes things a lot easier if you don't have a gadfly like Ralph Nader calling attention to this in televised debates. While Paul Krugman advised his readers in the New York Times on July 9 that John Kerry has proposed an ambitious health care plan that would extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, while reducing premiums for the insured, Bates reminds us that this does not include a provision for single payer insurance, the most cost efficient and effective means for insuring access to health care for all. Instead, tax-payer money will be showered on corporations to ease the cost of private insurance plans. The May 3rd Wall Street Journal quotes Kerry: I would think American business would jump up and down and welcome what I am offering. By contrast, votenader.org says: The Nader Campaign supports a single-payer health care plan that replaces for-profit, investor-owned health care and removes the private health insurance industry (full Medicare for all). If Nader's campaign suggests elements of Don Quixote, then Bates sees George W. Bush in terms of another familiar literary figure from the same period. The year 1605, or possibly 1606, saw the creation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. There are some parallels between this assassin and George W. Bush. The one murdered to become king, while the other stabbed democracy in the back by convincing his allies on the Supreme Court to anoint him. But, as with the Ralph Nader/Don Quixote comparison, it is the differences, not the similarities, that illustrate. As tempting as it is to understand everything that's gone wrong with the USA in the past four years as the plot of an evil King (a trope that was also found in Barbara Garson's Macbird, a send-up of LBJ during the Vietnam war), the real problem is the lack of a hero to come to the rescue in the final act. While so many liberals (including Michael Moore) hope that the Democrats arrive on a white horse to rescue the American people, the truth is that the Democrats have been complicit in the right wing drive to make war abroad, deprive us of decent jobs and curtail civil liberties. With respect to his ambitions, Bush is not qualitatively different from previous scary Republican Party presidents, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan. What he has and what they lacked is control over the Congress and Judiciary, something that has not occurred since the 1950s. Furthermore, Bush benefits from having a supine Democratic legislative opposition that has voted for the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, the invasion of Afghanistan, and many other Bush initiatives. If Bush represents some sort of fascist threat, it is remarkable that none of the leading Democrats,
Re: SOCIAL MOBILITY
Is it possible that some Republican delegate might hop in a pedicab this summer and pause to ruminate on an economy in which some are always pulled and more and more are always pulling? No. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
/morped/ Socialism Betrayed - the property relations within, its meaning
by Waistline2 From the standpoint of the form of slave labor prior to Emancipation to Emancipation - (which ended in counterrevolution that would eventually trap five million blacks and six million whites in the sharecropping system), to deployment of the mechanical cotton picker and the tractor . . . to the growth of the huge industrial farms to the emergence of frankenfoods . . . or the application of science - biogenetic, to farming . . . we are speak of a huge revolution in the mode of production. The fact of the matter is that the instruments . . . tools . . . deployment of human labor as the primary energy source of Southern agriculture did not change between say 1865 and 1900. With all due respect to Mr. Aptheker . . . I profoundly disagree that Lincoln's election constituted a revolution. I also have disagreed with his economic description of slavery and the aftermath of the Civil War for the past 30 years. ^^ CB: The slavocratic ruling class recognized it as a revolution. That's why they started the Civil War. ^ Such is life. ^ CB: C'est la guerre. ^ What is being spoken of is a qualitatively different production process that forever changes the form of the laboring process that arose and emerged with the industrial system. The implications are staggering because this qualitatively new production technique - regime, begins unraveling and shattering the commodity form and value. This does not mean that all of the old mode of production (laboring process) disappears . . . but rather the old process is sublated. Farming still takes place in the Mississippi Delta using a set of instruments and machinery half a century old. ^ CB: Sure there are new qualities to the production process due to computers, but there were new qualities added to the production process by use of electricity, the internal combustion engine, the use of oil as fuel, telephonic and radio commuication, etc., etc. all post 1867. The bourgeoisie constantly _revolutionize_ ( a contradiction) the instruments of production. ^ The meaning of the property relations within is the property relations within a given mode of production. In my opinion this is at the base of our divergence and most Marxists have in the past defined modes of production on the basis of the form of the labor process . . . like slavery, feudalism and capitalism. I am aware that I divergence from this description, while remaining consistent with the method Marx deploys in describing the advance of industry in the Communist Manifesto and Engels description of the advance of industry in Anti-Durhing. Here is what Marx states concerning the property relations within: At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface -abs.htm The property relations within are not simply within the legal expression as abstraction . . . because what the legal expresses is relations of production or how people are aggregated together to utilize a given state of development of the mode of production. ^^ CB: OK. The passage you quote equates relations of production and property relations. ...the existing relations of production, or what is but a legal expression for the same thing with the property relations... The property relations within which the forces of production developed were a combination of wage-labor and capital and slave-labor and capital. When slave labor-capital was overthrown, this was revolutionary because it change the fundamental property relations within which the forces of production had been at work hitherto. The slave-capital relationship couldn't contain the full technological development potential of Modern Industry. ^ From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. The productive forces begin with human being and the specific mode of human labor + tools, instruments and/or machinery + energy source and how they are organized. How the people are organized are the relations being referred to this relation becomes a fetter in the face of the development of the productive forces - with the property relations within. ^^ CB: Well, property relations within WHICH the productive forces work ^^ The issue connected to Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is the economic phenomena inherit to an industrial mode of production . . . no matter what the property relations within. ^ CB: Yea, I haven't read that book, but you pose the issue as it
Re: [Fwd: [Marxism] The Case for Nader-Camejo, by L. Proyect]
On budget deficits, Kerry is as bad as Clinton, which is pretty bad. But Nader has never been particularly good and clear on this issue, though I think that overall his programmatic message goes in the right direction. mbs In that chapter, titled Appease the Bond Market: the Kerry Plan to Make the Rich Richer, Bates lays out in convincing detail how Kerry would reinstitute Clintonomics. As a deficit hawk,
FUD
FUD (a perfect term to refer to the tactic that the Democratic Party uses against third parties on the left): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/fud.html
Re: Of Rumps and Dumps
I wrote: The ruling class almost never acts as a unified force that dumps someone. However, I can imagine that sections of the ruling class could turn against Bush. More importantly, the whole election process is set up in a way that filters out the anti-capitalist candidates. In the end, the differences within the ruling class can be settled by letting the people decide, where of course the people don't have much choice and are highly influenced by campaign ads, the media, etc. The election then has the side-effect of helping to legitimate the system. (edited so that no-one thinks I'm JKS based on misspelling). Marv Gandall writes: I largely agree with you, although I think you can find historical instances where the ruling class adjudges some degree of change necessary to act as a safety valve releasing mass pressures which threaten to overwhelm the system. The New Deal comes to mind in a period which saw the rapid growth internationally of the left. I don't think that the US ruling class was united behind FDR. I've been told of the abortive anti-FDR coup led by establishmentarian sorts (though I've forgotten when it happened), while my rich grandmother belonged to a social set that referred to FDR and especially his wife as a class traitor (and in a touch of anti-semitism, Rosenfeldt). I've also read a bunch of literature coming out of the business community that was highly opposed to FDR. The ruling class, though it is a coherent position is the structure of social classes, is also an ever-changing bunch of coalitions (that sometimes overlap) that are trying to serve individual capitalist needs while forming consensi (consensuses?) about serving the long-term collective interests of the class, maintaining capitalism's systemic health, etc. These coalitions -- including the Democratic Party and the GOP in the US -- often are at each others' necks but often cooperate. They respond in different ways to pressures from outside the country, from the working class, from economic crises and technological challenges, etc. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: the property relations within, its meaning- Last
In a message dated 7/19/2004 11:49:28 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: CB: Well, "property relations within WHICH the productive forces work" Comment Last response . . . the moderator has called for an end. Read what Marx states because you reverse what he stated. Marx does not explain things from the stand point of "property relations wihtin Which the productive forces work." He states the exact opposite. "At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces ofsociety come in conflict with the existing relations of production, . . . with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. My political conclusion are derived from a different assessment of the meaning of productive forces or what is the same . . . the material power of the productive forces. This means I have a racially different view of social revolution and the meaning of the proletariat as the lowest strata of society and the prospect of political revolution in America. This is all right because we have been here before. The reason the productive forces are fundamental is because they are the more mobile aspect of the mode of production with the property relations within. Productive forces of course presuppose the existence of human beings and human will as it operates in a definable "mode of production." Soviet industrial socialism was an industrial society and industrial society is being changed. In this sense it is no different from America in its industrial mode of production. That is why the law of value could not be abolished. World socialism on the basis of the industrial system cannot abolish the law of value and regulate exchange to the dustbin of history. World revolution in an industrial society would still call for a revolution in the mode of production to get to economic communism. The difference is that this leap would not take place on the basis of contradiction passing into antagonism. You have the last word. Melvin P.
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
by Devine, James Charles writes: The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. Why not dialectical logic to some extent ? what exactly is logic then? I'm no expert on philosophy, but it seems to me that dialectics isn't a logic in the same sense that formal logic is a logic. (My handy-dandy DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION: EASTERN AND WESTERN THOUGHT, by W.L. Reese, defines logic as The theory of the conditions of valid ... [inference, i.e.,] passage from one or more statements which are called premises to a further statement called the conclusion.) If dialectics form a system of logic, it's one that's qualitatively different from formal logic. In fact, I'd call them a system of heuristics (which Webster's defines as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving ... that utilize self-educating techniques). ^^ CB: In part calling it logic comes from Hegel's book title _The Science of Logic_. To me you are correct that dialectical logic is qualitatively different than formal logic, although, I think Hegel's approach is that formal logic is part of dialectical logic. For short, the main principle of formal logic is non-contradiction ,whereas dialectics' first principle is contradiction. In formal logic, a thing must be identical with itself. In dialectical logic, as a way of expressing the fact that everything changes, a thing is not identical with itself. Of course, I didn't think of this, but got it from various Marxist commentaries on dialectics. Formal logic looks at a connection premises X...Z imply conclusion A and says either no they don't or yes they do. On the other hand, it seems to me that dialectics centers on empirical investigation, saying that we need to look at the big picture. A dialectician might say that it's true that premises X...Z logically imply conclusion A, but you left out a lot of stuff. Premise B isn't true, while because of factors F, G, and H, this proposition isn't empirically relevant. An example: there's a bunch of economists called the social choice school that derives all sorts of of theorems from their math (mostly about how bad democracy is and therefore how wonderful the market is). My (dialectical) response: you fools ignore the empirical fact that under capitalism, democracy works following the principle of one dollar, one vote much more than it follows the one person one vote principle that you assume. CB: Let me consider your idea. I haven't thought of it this way. Of course, there is the dialectical dictum that the truth is concrete. Perhaps, that is some of what you are getting at ? ^^ To my mind, Marx Engels were very strongly empirical in their orientation (without being empiricist). Their critique of Saint Max (no relation to Saint Max Sawicky) and his friends in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY starts with the idea that Max _et al_ are talking about a revolution in thought but what really counts are revolutions in practice and, more generally, the empirical world of production, social relationships, history, etc. Given this empirical/practical orientation, it makes sense to embrace Hegel's dialectical heuristics and turn them upside down, away from speculation and toward humanity. jim devine CB: Yes, I think Gould referred to dialectics as a heuristic. I had a thought about that when it was raised years ago on Thaxis by Jim Farmelant, but I have to go into my memory banks. Of course there is this which has probably been copied here before: My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of the Idea, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of the Idea. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of Das Kapital, it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre 'Epigonoi who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a dead dog. I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell. In its
oops, again
Here is another article from my files. I have just included the parts relevant to the tail of the thread. Customers don't notice or don't care [or don't want to spend the time]. Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on the backs of the poor. Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that the distribution of income is even more lopsided. Mayer, Caroline E. 2002. Add-Ons Add Up: Firms Are Finding New Ways To Tack Fees on Basic Bills. Washington Post (17 November): p. H 1. And there's another reason companies do add-ons: Consumers let them do it. Most of the time, consumers don't notice the extra fees -- or feel they are so small, they don't care. There are only a few times when consumers have protested, most notably after Sprint decided to charge some of its PCS wireless customers -- primarily those with poor credit ratings who were on a special price plan -- $3 when they wanted to speak to a customer-service representative. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: oops, again
Michael Perelman wrote: Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on the backs of the poor. Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that the distribution of income is even more lopsided. How do you know they do? They should be included in the CPI calculations, based on the principles of the thing. Doug
Re: elections and the Korean experience
Doug's radio interview with Jomo also touched upon the Korean experience. He also attributed the change in Korean politics to the strength of the union movement. How have unions been more successful there than in the US? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: oops, again
I would be very interested to know if late fees or usurious interest rates are included. I have never heard anything about such inclusion. I would be very happy to learn more about it. On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 01:22:24PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on the backs of the poor. Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that the distribution of income is even more lopsided. How do you know they do? They should be included in the CPI calculations, based on the principles of the thing. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Mathematics of Venture Communism
Ok, moving on from the Various more philosophical debates about the revelutionary value of Venture Communism, I have a very concrete question regarding the Mathematics of the share prices in the Venture Commune. In order to keep the per share profitablity constant or growing, the price of each new share in labour hours must represent sufficient investment that the profitability of the Commune as a whole grows at the same rate as it's membership (at minumum). Any advice on how this per-share labour value could be calculated?
Re: oops, again
they wouldn't, necessarily. The statistics people try to get a fix on the genuine average price of things, but it's a hell of a job to be sure you're comparing like with like, and the bias is likely to be entirely one way; as Michael noted earlier, how often do they make a mistake in your favour, or give you an undisclosed discount? The issues are not a million miles different from those involved in hedonic pricing. It's also very common indeed for price indices to be moved by cheap financing or discount deals which aren't necessarily available to poorer people; the differential between average prices and prices charged in poor urban areas where people don't have cars to drive to the supermarket is a known problem in the UK stats at least. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 19 July 2004 18:22 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: oops, again Michael Perelman wrote: Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on the backs of the poor. Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that the distribution of income is even more lopsided. How do you know they do? They should be included in the CPI calculations, based on the principles of the thing. Doug
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
Charles Brown wrote: by Devine, James Charles writes: The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit that formal logic is a mathematical project, not a linguistic one (even wittgenstein might agree). fwiw, i agree with most of the rest of charles' summation of logic. --ravi
Re: elections and the Korean experience
As to the radio interview noted below with Jomo on Korea: I heard that interview and think that Jomo seriously mischaracterized the Korean situation. First he spoke of recovery and continued strong growth. The Korean economy was basically in recession the first half of last year. This year domestic consumption and investment have been falling. The economy is growing only because of exports and those increasingly to China. Now that China is trying to slow its economy there are fears of the country slidding back into another recession. The domestic consumption that helped carry the recovery for a period, 2001-2002, was largely based on a massive credit card spending explosion. People are now unable to pay debts and the financial system is shaky. The result has been a decline in consumption spending and government bailouts.. As for the president, he has low approval ratings, and remains strongly in favor of free market reforms, proposing among other things the creation of special economic zones for foreign companies where labor and environmental laws will be greatly reduced. He is also for greater labor flexibility which means greater freedom for companies to fire workers. The labor movement has gained little from him, which is why they are strong supporting the new Democratic Labor Party. Marty --On Monday, July 19, 2004 10:25 AM -0700 Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Doug's radio interview with Jomo also touched upon the Korean experience. He also attributed the change in Korean politics to the strength of the union movement. How have unions been more successful there than in the US? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
Charles Brown wrote: by Devine, James Charles writes: The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. To which Ravi responds: i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit that formal logic is a mathematical project, not a linguistic one (even wittgenstein might agree). fwiw, i agree with most of the rest of charles' summation of logic. For an in-depth defense and exploration of the idea that logic is grounded in mathematics rather than vice-versa, see G. Spencer-Brown's classic LAWS OF FORM. His argument rebuts the notion that formal logic is a linguistic project: Spencer-Brown's argument is that, given any consistent distinction (and thus any specific linguistic structure), and two rules, (essentially): 1) a double affirmative is equivalent to an affirmative ( Is is = is) and 2) a double negative is equivalent to an affirmative ( Not not = is), then certain results unavoidably follow, *whatever* the distinction or linguistic structure you begin with. Gil
Re: oops, again
Just read a bit in Tax Notes that shows you cannot logically separate financing arrangements from sticker price. Some Brit department stores are trying to finagle the VAT by characterizing part of the retail price as a credit card processing fee, thereby shunting taxable value added into non-taxable fees. This is a potential problem in the flat tax as well, if financial sector income is exempt from tax. mbs -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Davies Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 1:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: oops, again they wouldn't, necessarily. The statistics people try to get a fix on the genuine average price of things, but it's a hell of a job to be sure you're comparing like with like, and the bias is likely to be entirely one way; as Michael noted earlier, how often do they make a mistake in your favour, or give you an undisclosed discount? The issues are not a million miles different from those involved in hedonic pricing. It's also very common indeed for price indices to be moved by cheap financing or discount deals which aren't necessarily available to poorer people; the differential between average prices and prices charged in poor urban areas where people don't have cars to drive to the supermarket is a known problem in the UK stats at least. dd
Re: [Fwd: Swans' Release: July 19, 2004]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/18/04 5:23 PM Michael wrote: i've a hunch that some left interest in nader is reflection of absence of actual left alternatives, as panelist at forum i attended in ann arbor said yesterday: 'he's best known option, lousy way to develop actual left alternative... I think that those who are seriously interested in building a movement and political party capable of challenging the bipartisan consensus on the domestic and foreign policy ought to be able to think beyond the specific positive and negative attributes of Ralph Nader as an individual and think about who (among Green Party leaders, rank-and-file Green Party members, non-Green Party members, etc.) is supporting him and why, what we can do to work with them, and so on. Yoshie some will, perhaps, pooh-pooh following as not serious but - imo - neither movements nor parties are built via campaigns for prez, too much time/effort/use of too limited resources, amount/kind of attention that nader gets (which is result of name recognition, not due to green party/ideas) will not contribute to either task, important green *party* work is down ballot if at all... nader received almost 3 million votes last time, will probably receive less this time for number of reasons, but those 3 million folks (and others who voted for various left alternatives in 2000) would make bigger statement by turning out en masse to a kerry inauguration with one statement - 'we're on your ass' (pelt his motorcade with 3 million eggs)... 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: oops, again
It's true that often customers don't care. But often it's because they don't have the time, don't have the education, are totally overwhelmed by circumstances, trust authority too much, are depressed, or the like. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 10:21 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] oops, again Here is another article from my files. I have just included the parts relevant to the tail of the thread. Customers don't notice or don't care [or don't want to spend the time]. Most of the fees and usurious interest rates and the like fall on the backs of the poor. Besides falling outside the CPI calculations, they also mean that the distribution of income is even more lopsided. Mayer, Caroline E. 2002. Add-Ons Add Up: Firms Are Finding New Ways To Tack Fees on Basic Bills. Washington Post (17 November): p. H 1. And there's another reason companies do add-ons: Consumers let them do it. Most of the time, consumers don't notice the extra fees -- or feel they are so small, they don't care. There are only a few times when consumers have protested, most notably after Sprint decided to charge some of its PCS wireless customers -- primarily those with poor credit ratings who were on a special price plan -- $3 when they wanted to speak to a customer-service representative. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: oops, again
Michael Perelman wrote: I would be very interested to know if late fees or usurious interest rates are included. I have never heard anything about such inclusion. I would be very happy to learn more about it. As it says on the top of every CPI release: FOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Patrick C. Jackman (202) 691-7000 Doug
Re: oops, again
Daniel Davies wrote: they wouldn't, necessarily. Fees most certainly should be included. Usurious interest rates would be difficult to define in a world of 18-21% credit card rates. And if they're not changing, but just constantly high, it's a distributional issue, a form of secondary exploitation, but not really a CPI issue. But a fee added to a service that used to be free, or an increase in a fee, most certainly should be captured by the CPI. Doug
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/18/04 7:51 PM I don't think that the League of Pissed Off Voters, aka the League of Independent Voters, goes anywhere by itself, but seen as a part of a larger phenomenon, it's interesting. On one hand, it's an indication of how embarrassing it has become to make a straightforward argument for John Kerry or the Democratic Party in general, among thinking young persons especially, so the Democratic operatives have to come up with a face-saving cover that lets them believe that they are still independent, albeit they will be voting and working for John Kerry. Yoshie will rogers said something to effect that he wasn't a member of any party, he was a democrat... maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another, show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties... maybe nothing would happen, but maybe there would be crisis of hegemony in dem party, existing national/state dem 'leaders' might have to react, maybe they'd play their hand and decide to decertify local executive councils run by leftists/ progressives, so dem party could become something different from what it is today or it might be be destroyed, either outcome would be ok...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: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Michael Hoover wrote: maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another, show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties... This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying. What's the argument against it? Doug
The Ruling Class Dumps Bush
The Ruling Class Dumps Bush: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/ruling-class-dumps-bush.html
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Michael Hoover: will rogers said something to effect that he wasn't a member of any party, he was a democrat... when I quoted this, I was corrected: he wasn't a member of any _organized_ party. maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, all of them? then who's left? jd
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
by Gil Skillman Charles Brown wrote: by Devine, James Charles writes: The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. To which Ravi responds: i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit that formal logic is a mathematical project, not a linguistic one (even wittgenstein might agree). fwiw, i agree with most of the rest of charles' summation of logic. For an in-depth defense and exploration of the idea that logic is grounded in mathematics rather than vice-versa, see G. Spencer-Brown's classic LAWS OF FORM. His argument rebuts the notion that formal logic is a linguistic project: Spencer-Brown's argument is that, given any consistent distinction (and thus any specific linguistic structure), and two rules, (essentially): 1) a double affirmative is equivalent to an affirmative ( Is is = is) and 2) a double negative is equivalent to an affirmative ( Not not = is), then certain results unavoidably follow, *whatever* the distinction or linguistic structure you begin with. Gil ^ CB: I want to go dialectical on y'all and say logic is mathematical and linguistic, but I am curious on the essential distinction between linguistics and mathematics implied here. As a coincidental side note, I have been trying to teach some math to my son, and I just decided to focus on word definitions. So, mathematics is linguistic is another proposition :) Anyway, I wonder if the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation is not an empirical generalization, but a statement of a theoretical conclusion or something. One of the earlier posts raised this. But, maybe if it is empirical and secular, it is intended to be monotonic, as Waistline compared it to the law of gravity. Focus on this might draw attention away from the issue of crisis cycles. Capitalism is continuously ( secularly) creating poverty, not just cyclically.
math
[was: RE: [PEN-L] absolute general law of capitalist accumulation] Charles writes: CB: I want to go dialectical on y'all and say logic is mathematical and linguistic, but I am curious on the essential distinction between linguistics and mathematics implied here. it's possible that math might be part of Chomsky's transformational grammar, i.e., the structure of human language that is inborn (built-in) in the human brain? In that case, math is linguistic, but not merely so. It seems to me that math represents the abstract aspects of reality. But since it leaves out the concrete, it must be incomplete. (oops, I'm going Johnny Cochrane on y'all.) jd
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/04 3:52 PM Michael Hoover: will rogers said something to effect that he wasn't a member of any party, he was a democrat... when I quoted this, I was corrected: he wasn't a member of any _organized_ party. i stand (actually, i'm sitting) corrected... maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, all of them? then who's left? jd who's/whose left now... 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.
dialectic
my handy-dandy philosophical dictionary on dialectic: From the Greek _dialektos_ (discourse, debate). The art or science of dialectic begins in the drawing of rigorous distinctions. The procedure brings to light contradictions, and other types of opposition not sensed before. ... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Venture Communism (Robert Owen)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/04 8:50 AM Hazlitt's essay on Robert Owen is quite fun: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Political/Owen.htm there's also a rather good museum in New Lanark these days which makes an attractive daytrip if you're ever stuck in Glasgow. I occasionally find myself thinking that Owen and the pre-Engels British Socialists are probably worth another look, but have always been put off by the teetotal tendency which one tends to find there. dd tawney's _the radical tradition_ includes brief essay on owen that is worth looking at... 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.
math
Math, grammar and logic are all sets of rules on how to use symbols. CB by Devine, James [was: RE: [PEN-L] absolute general law of capitalist accumulation] Charles writes: CB: I want to go dialectical on y'all and say logic is mathematical and linguistic, but I am curious on the essential distinction between linguistics and mathematics implied here. it's possible that math might be part of Chomsky's transformational grammar, i.e., the structure of human language that is inborn (built-in) in the human brain? In that case, math is linguistic, but not merely so. It seems to me that math represents the abstract aspects of reality. But since it leaves out the concrete, it must be incomplete. (oops, I'm going Johnny Cochrane on y'all.) jd
Re: oops, again
I called, but did not get the person Doug mentioned. a lower level person could not answer me because he had never heard of such a consideration, so I had to leave a message with someone else. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: oops, again
I would include check cashing businesses, rent to own, Doug, are you saying that they should or they are included? On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 02:56:01PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Daniel Davies wrote: they wouldn't, necessarily. Fees most certainly should be included. Usurious interest rates would be difficult to define in a world of 18-21% credit card rates. And if they're not changing, but just constantly high, it's a distributional issue, a form of secondary exploitation, but not really a CPI issue. But a fee added to a service that used to be free, or an increase in a fee, most certainly should be captured by the CPI. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: oops, again
In my limited understanding, there are two capture issues here (my missus used to work in statistics, but every time I ask her, she keeps talking about some plants I haven't watered or something). 1. Doug is entirely right, in principle, that if a service which used to be free is now paid for, that is the sort of thing that the CPI people would be interested in. On the other hand, no statistical body on earth has the resource to monitor the proliferation of mobile phone payment plan options; even the consumer press gets confused on this one regularly. So what they do is either a) take the plain vanilla tariff option and look for changes in that, b) take a sampling of the tariffs on offer and guesstimate or, most often, c) a mixture of a) and b), mostly a) but having a look at b) every now and then in the hope that that it won't be too far out of line. Note that this would probably give you a decent estimate of the overall economy-wide average price of mobile phone services, because you would often miss the funky fees they started adding on, but you would also miss the superduper discount plans that they put forward to preferred customers and the two would quite likely cancel out. On the other hand, note that this would mean that the CPI would systematically overstate the cost of living the life of a rich person but underestimate the cost of being poor, which is a known problem of RPI and related statistics. 2. There are also, on the other hand, the late payment fees that companies often tack on to bills. It would be pretty unusual for these to be part of any price index, since at least in principle, they are not transactions between willing parties (the company makes a big show of not wanting to miss the payment) and in general only willing transactions are considered to be part of the national economy. Again, the incidence of these fees falls on two groups, a) the poor and b) the terminally disorganised. 3. Also, in order to be part of a big aggregate index like CPI, something has to be reasonably widely consumed in the economy in order to make it worth while collecting the statistics. That means that hire-purchase fees are almost certainly in there (so the financing deals on SUVs will show up as falling prices), but check-cashing services and payday loans probably aren't. In general, financial services have a surprisingly low weighting in RPIX and HICP and I would imagine that they did in CPI too. Statistics bods tend to hate financial services because it's so difficult to work out what the hell the value added is. best, dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 19 July 2004 19:56 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: oops, again Daniel Davies wrote: they wouldn't, necessarily. Fees most certainly should be included. Usurious interest rates would be difficult to define in a world of 18-21% credit card rates. And if they're not changing, but just constantly high, it's a distributional issue, a form of secondary exploitation, but not really a CPI issue. But a fee added to a service that used to be free, or an increase in a fee, most certainly should be captured by the CPI. Doug
Re: oops, again
Michael Perelman wrote: I would include check cashing businesses, rent to own, Doug, are you saying that they should or they are included? I may have misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about fees in general. If you're talking about finance-related fees (and interest), then those things aren't covered in the CPI, since they're considered savings investment-related, and not goods services-related. The CPI's focus is on the TV's price and features, not how it's paid for. It'd be great to have measures of the kind of bloodletting finance you're talking about, but it sure would be hard to gather the info and present coherent summary stats. Besides, the CPI's focus is on short- to medium-term price changes. The kind of finance you're talking about is a fairly timeless feature of American poverty. Doug
Re: oops, again
On the other hand, note that this would mean that the CPI would systematically overstate the cost of living the life of a rich person but underestimate the cost of being poor, which is a known problem of RPI and related statistics. I forgot to mention that this is the main reason why it is always vitally important when considering whether or not to lend your support to some well-meaning social benefit package, that it should always be indexed to average wages and not to CPI. dd
Re: oops, again
Daniel Davies wrote: On the other hand, no statistical body on earth has the resource to monitor the proliferation of mobile phone payment plan options; even the consumer press gets confused on this one regularly. The BLS has a page devoted to cell phones in the CPI: http://bls.gov/cpi/cpifactc.htm. Their weight in the index is something like 0.05%. 3. Also, in order to be part of a big aggregate index like CPI, something has to be reasonably widely consumed in the economy in order to make it worth while collecting the statistics. That means that hire-purchase fees are almost certainly in there (so the financing deals on SUVs will show up as falling prices), but check-cashing services and payday loans probably aren't. In general, financial services have a surprisingly low weighting in RPIX and HICP and I would imagine that they did in CPI too. Statistics bods tend to hate financial services because it's so difficult to work out what the hell the value added is. Oddly, there's no line for financial services in the monthly CPI release ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/cpi.txt, but it does appear as an option in the detailed data access http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/dsrv?cu. My guess is that straightforward things like checking accounts would be covered, since those are fairly straightforward and essential (though 20% of Wal-Mart customers don't have them). But anything more complicated would be too complicated, and as DD says, probably not widely enough used. No doubt Pat Jackman could clear it all up in a jiffy. Doug
Re: oops, again
Daniel Davies wrote: I forgot to mention that this is the main reason why it is always vitally important when considering whether or not to lend your support to some well-meaning social benefit package, that it should always be indexed to average wages and not to CPI. It's been a while, but don't I remember Keynes using the wage unit as the numeraire in cost comparisons? I'm writing something on oil right now, and it seems to make more sense to compare prices over time using the average hourly wage rather than the CPI, given all the guesswork involved in producing a price index. Doug
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Michael Hoover wrote: maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another, show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties... This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying. What's the argument against it? Doug An argument against it? You would actually try it yourself if it were really a good idea. Yoshie
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
First, all three million do not exist in the same locality. Secondly, a large number who voted for Nader then now are happily reunited with friends inside the regular Democratic Party. Thirdly, fat chance of getting the national party to change anything, or even state parties. Remember the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party? Fourthly, the Democratic Party is not an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again, constructed against the established leadership. Need I continue? - Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 3:29 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece Michael Hoover wrote: maybe the three million or so people who voted for nader in 2000 should take control of local democratic executive committees, use structure in place to recruit candidates, slag off on dems who suck, use available funds to issue policy statements and press releases one after another, show up at public and government meetings, control of county dem mechanisms might lead to control of state dem parties... This sounds like a very good idea, or at least one worth trying. What's the argument against it? Doug An argument against it? You would actually try it yourself if it were really a good idea. Yoshie
Democrats Put Bush on the Ballot While Fighting to Keep Nader off It
Democrats Put Bush on the Ballot While Fighting to Keep Nader off It: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/democrats-put-bush-on-ballot-while.html
Dear liberal brothers and sisters
Dear liberal brothers and sisters at the Institute of Public Accuracy, I am somewhat perplexed by Professor L. Sandy Meisel's attack on Ralph Nader's ties to the Reform Party on your Institute for Public Accuracy website (http://www.accuracy.org/). In searching my brain for the actual record of a Reform Party elected official, I can't seem to remember anything that dastardly occurring under ex-pro wrestler Jesse Ventura's term as governor of Minnesota. No Japanese-Americans were thrown into concentration camps like under FDR. No bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to teach the Russians a lesson, like under Harry S. Truman (see Gar Alperovitz). No Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. In fact, Ventura told the press while on a trip to Cuba that change should take place there without outside pressure. No Gulf of Tonkin resolution like under LBJ. No support to Somoza like under Carter. No bombing of pharmaceutical factories in Khartoum like under Clinton. All these things happened under Democrats, right? Moving right along, I can't understand why the liberal establishment didn't get its knickers tied into a knot when Kerry floated John McCain as a possible VP running mate. Isn't this the guy who once said that I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live? And turning to Kerry, didn't he tell Don Imus that his opponent in a Massachusetts campaign took more vacations than people on welfare? And what's the deal with Kerry's frequent appearances on this racist show? His pal Imus once called Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz a boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jew boy. I don't know about your kind of liberal, but my kind of liberals wouldn't hang out on a radio show like that -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
sartesian wrote: an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again, constructed against the established leadership. Ah yes. More splits in the working class. Joel Wendland _ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
Ah, Mr. Wendland, you return. Please, before you remark upon others's comments-- please review your opposition to immediate US withdrawal from Iraq. Explain the accelerating instability brought on by the US presence. Or is that too divisive for you in your role as the sage of social democracy? - Original Message - From: Joel Wendland [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 6:26 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece sartesian wrote: an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again, constructed against the established leadership. Ah yes. More splits in the working class. Joel Wendland _ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
Anti-regulatory controtions
The second paragraph is especially funny. Davis, Bob. 2004. With White House Ex-Staffers, Mercatus Helps Zap Codes It Says Restrict Business. Wall Street Journal (16 July): p. A 1. In 1998, Wendy Gramm, who headed the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the Reagan years, started Mercatus's regulatory review group. She hired a small staff of regulatory experts to work with economists at George Mason and elsewhere. Ms. Gramm, wife of former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, says Mercatus differs from special interests because it analyzes all impacts of rules with the public interest in mind. Over the past six years, Mercatus has filed 100 comments to 31 agencies on rules ranging from auto safety to financial regulation. Mercatus analysts sometimes contort themselves to build a case against regulation. Ms. Dudley and Ms. Gramm criticized one EPA rule to reduce surface ozone because the EPA didn't take into account that clearer skies would increase the rate of skin cancer. Later, two other Mercatus scholars blasted a different EPA rule on diesel engines, arguing that it was bad because it would increase surface ozone in some cities. This time they didn't say anything about the cancer-prevention benefits of more smog. We didn't go to the next step, Ms. Dudley acknowledges. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
LAT: Dealing with Killing
[This is much more interesting than the usual discussion. Several fairly intelligent things get said and the video game automaton explanation barely rates a mention. But it's the the comparative stats between WWII and Vietnam which occur halfway through that really grabbed my attention. They seem remarkable, if true.] Los Angeles Times 'Enemy Contact. Kill 'em, Kill 'em.' Sun Jul 18, 7:55 AM ET By Charles Duhigg Times Staff Writer NAJAF, Iraq (news - web sites) -- Tucked behind a gleaming machine gun, Sgt. Joseph Hall grins at his two companions in the Humvee. I want to know if I killed that guy yesterday, Hall says. I saw blood spurt from his leg, but I want to be sure I killed him. The vehicle goes silent as the driver, Spc. Joshua Dubois, swerves around asphalt previously uprooted by a blast. I'm confused about how I should feel about killing, says Dubois, who has a toddler back home. The first time I shot someone, it was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever felt. Dubois turns back to the road. We talk about killing all the time, he says. I never used to talk this way. I'm not proud of it, but it's like I can't stop. I'm worried what I will be like when I get home. The men aren't Special Forces soldiers. They're just ordinary troops with the Army's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment serving their 14th month in Iraq, much of it in daily battles. In 20 minutes, they will come under attack. Many GIs and Army psychiatrists say these constant conversations about death help troops come to grips with the trauma of combat. But mental health professionals within and outside the military point to the chatter as evidence of preventable anguish. Soldiers are untrained, experts say, for the trauma of killing. Forty years after lessons learned about combat stress in Vietnam, experts charge that avoidable psychological damage goes unchecked because military officials don't include emotional preparation in basic training. Troops, returning home with untreated and little-understood mental health issues, put themselves and their families at risk for suicide and domestic violence, experts say. Twenty-three U.S. troops in Iraq took their lives last year, according to the Defense Department -- an unusually high number, one official acknowledged. On patrol, however, all that is available is talk. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, Hall says. It's like it pounds at my brain. I'll figure out how to deal with it when I get home. Home is the wrong place for soldiers to deal with combat experiences, some experts say. It's complete negligence, says Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a retired psychology instructor at West Point who trains law enforcement officers and special operations soldiers. The military could train soldiers to talk about killing as easily as they train them to pull the trigger. But commanders are in denial. Nobody wants to accept the blame for a soldier who comes home a wreck for doing what his country asked him to do, he said. The emotional and psychological ramifications of killing are mostly unstudied by the military, defense officials acknowledge. The idea and experience of killing another person is not addressed in military training, says Col. Thomas Burke, director of mental health policy for the Defense Department. Training's intent is to re-create battle, to make it an automatic behavior among soldiers. He defends the approach, saying that if troops think too much about emotional issues in combat situations, it could undermine their effectiveness in battle. Other military representatives, including officers overseeing combat stress control programs, did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. Much of the military's research on killing and battle stress began after World War II, when studies revealed that only a small number of troops -- as few as 15% -- fired at their adversaries on the battlefield. Military studies suggested that troops were unexpectedly reluctant to kill. Military training methods changed, Grossman and others say, to make killing a more automatic behavior. Bull's-eye targets used in basic training were replaced with human-shaped objects. Battlefield conditions were reproduced more accurately, Burke says. The goal of these and other modifications was to help soldiers react more automatically. The changes were effective. In the Vietnam War, 95% of combat troops shot at hostile fighters, according to military studies. Veterans of the Vietnam War also suffered some of the highest levels of psychological damage -- possibly as many as 50% of combat forces suffered mental injury, says Rachel MacNair, an expert on veteran psychology. Most notable among the injuries was post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition contributing to violent outbursts years after soldiers
Re: oops, again
Doug writes: It's been a while, but don't I remember Keynes using the wage unit as the numeraire in cost comparisons? I'm writing something on oil right now, and it seems to make more sense to compare prices over time using the average hourly wage rather than the CPI, given all the guesswork involved in producing a price index. in the GT, Keynes proposed measuring total spending in wage units by deflating the nominal amount by the wage: (total nominal spending)/(average wage). He did this because it would be proportional to total employment. It's akin to Adam Smith's labor commanded theory of value, in which the value of a commodity is how much labor it can buy. (He also has a labor embodied theory of value, which produces different results. The two are akin to exchange-value and value in Marx.) jim devine
unions
[was: RE: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece] I don't see why pushing to make labor unions more democratic and to make the established leadership more responsible represents a split in the working class. A union would be more effective if it were more democratic rather than having decisions made on high by plump cats. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine sartesian wrote: an industrial union, like the UAW or UMW, and even there and then independent workers organizations had to be, and will have to be again, constructed against the established leadership. Ah yes. More splits in the working class. Joel Wendland
Women, Hispanics put new face on U.S. farming
Is this progress or the feminization and ethnicization of farming as farm prices stagnate and costs rise for equipment, supplies, and land, requiring increases in farming productivity just to survive? An important method for increasing productivity in farming is, of course, to use family labor. Diane Women, Hispanics put new face on U.S. farming By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY 7/19/2004 Charts also: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-07-18-cover-farmers_x.htm PEWAMO, Mich. When strangers turn from a two-lane country road onto the gravel drive of the Grazeway Dairy, they see a young woman tending the cows. They invariably ask where the boss is. People come here and think I'm the hired help, Terri Hawbaker says. They'd better rethink. Hawbaker is 24, a woman, a new mom and the owner of a 120-acre farm and 65 dairy cows in this flat, rural stretch of mid-Michigan. About 100 miles away, near Lake Michigan, the produce market on state highway M-140 in Covert still carries the name of a prominent local family. But the store and 60 acres of rich farmland that produce the luscious apples, strawberries, blueberries and tomatoes on display have a different owner: Armando Arellano, an immigrant from Mexico. Mirroring the demographic transformation of the USA, American farming is becoming more diverse. There is a marked increase in the number of women and Hispanics who are principal operators those who run the farm. Women and Hispanics have long played a significant role in farming, but often in supporting jobs from picking crops and milking cows to bookkeeping. But an aging population, the surge in Hispanics in every corner of the country and Americans' growing fascination with organic foods are propelling more women and Hispanics into owning and managing farms. Agriculture in this country is changing in ways we don't even know, says Ron Wimberley, an agricultural demographer at North Carolina State University and former president of the Rural Sociological Society. The latest Census of Agriculture by the U.S. government shows that women's presence as principal farm operators is growing in 43 states. More Hispanics are running farms in all 50 states, planting roots in regions where their role in agriculture had been limited largely to migrant labor. To those who cherish Thomas Jefferson's idea that farmers are the cornerstone of democracy, the growth is worth celebrating. It's very encouraging that there are people who want to farm, says Ralph Grossi, president of the American Farmland Trust, a non-profit group that works to protect farmland. We're seeing a reconnect. American farming is still dominated by non-Hispanic white men. About 27% of the nation's 3 million farmers are women who run farms alone or who work with their husbands or others. About 2% are Hispanic. Black farmers, whose numbers have dwindled steadily throughout much of the past century, make up only 1.2%. As giant agribusinesses extend their hold on food production, the amount of farmland and the number of farms are declining. But there's an uptick in small farms that have 10 to 49 acres and annual sales of less than $10,000. Organic farms are contributing to some of that increase. Almost 12,000 farmers reported selling some organic foods for a total of $393 million in sales in 2002. That's a tiny portion of the $200 billion U.S. agricultural market, but the numbers and the growing popularity of farmers' markets and organic grocery stores show that health-conscious Americans are clamoring for locally and organically grown produce. It's a market that some female and Hispanic farmers are starting to serve. The urban population has a favorable attitude of farmers, particularly as they think about where their food comes from, Wimberley says. People are very safety-conscious, what with this low-carb, high-carb business. The trend may change the politics of agriculture. Almost 70% of government subsidies now go to 10% of farmers, Grossi says. When debate on a new farm bill starts next year, he expects small farmers to be more vocal. There certainly will be a reason to question why so much public support goes to so few farmers, he says. 'A new generation' Farm groups are reaching out to the new arrivals. There is a new generation coming into agriculture, says Sandy Penn, outreach coordinator with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Michigan. They need to understand how to get financing, how you do things. ... A lot of programs have to be put on in Spanish. Among the reasons for the increase in female and Hispanic farmers: Aging. When male farmers die, their widows often take over. When farmers retire, they sometimes offer loyal employees a chance to buy some land, especially if no one in the family wants to keep the farm going. Many of those longtime workers are Hispanic. They came in as farm workers and have gotten to the point where some of them want to enter as operators, says Calvin Beale, a rural
