Michael P wrote on Thursday:
>Tomorrow, I hope that I can remember myself, I am going to ask all posters
>from the U.S. to hold off posting to pen-l to encourage those from other
>countries to introduce themselves or to tell us how pen-l could serve them
>better.
>We have probably 100 people from
Paul: you might consider sending a similar message to OPE-L./Jerry
On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Paul Zarembka wrote:
> The Web site for RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY has been opened up at
>
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
>
> At the present time the contents of the last two issues a
Doug Henwood wrote:
> For some reason, I've just been reading Baudrillard's absurd book, The
> Transparency of Evil. To B., the political economy of the "sign" has
> replaced the p.e. of value.
But, Doug: I thought you rejected value theory. Is that a sign that you
have something in common with
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Value is a
> concept, a way of thinking about a social relation. What I object to is the
> attempt to put numbers on it, to do Marxian econometrics with it.
How can value *only* have a qualitative dimension? By ignoring the
quantitative dimension and the value-form, value i
Tom Walker wrote:
> Roediger and Foner argue "The length of the workdays... has historically
> been the central issue raised by the American labor movement during its most
> dynamic periods of organization".
That may be true, but there is some controversy among labor historians
regarding how mov
Jim: You wouldn't call the period since 1952 [44 years] the "long run"?
Given what Dumenil & Levy [no relation, I think, JL] write below, isn't
Alejandro's quote accurate?
Jerry
On Tue, 29 Oct 1996 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Alejandro Valle Baeza writes that: >>I think that Dumenil et al
> showe
Ellen Dannin wrote:
> Actually, I think the opposite is the case. The organization needs to
> admit it IS an employer vis a vis these employees and to decide that it
> wants to be a progressive model of an employer. Instead, what I have
> observed happens most often is that the organization dec
bill mitchell wrote:
> Doug said:
> >But really, we popular types should stay out of theory, right? The hell
> >with that. I had my first confrontation with theory at Yale in 1971, a very
> >early beachead for the French invasion. In continued with it at the
> >University of Virginia English depa
Alex Izurieta wrote:
> well... 'Understanding' denotes there is a certain 'logic'
> underneath. What if there is any ? What if the so-called theory is a
> non-theory, as pomos themselves pretend by aiming at being the
> quintessence of 'deconstructionism' (of every theory, and consequently
> -'l
Fikret Ceyhun wrote:
> The other day I was at my dentist's office for checkup and
> cleaning. As the dental assistant was scraping my teeth I was thinking: is
> she blue collar or white collar worker? I know she is "unproductive"
> worker. Can someone care to comment?
(1) The color of a
> If you could explain it using
> relatively simple, straightforward language, I'd appreciate it; that way we
> can make sure that everybody can play (those who chimes in on the anti-pomo
> side have to play by the same rules: anybody who uses terms like
> "fetishism" or "commodity production" wi
Tom Walker wrote:
> I stood in the bookstore for about 20
> minutes leafing through _Spectres of Marx_ hoping for some clue of an excuse
> to buy it, take it home and read it.
> So, Steve, tell us: what's the story? What's it about?
Oh, yeah: why don't you ask him to summarize _Capital_ for a 30
> So, how about it: _Spectres of
> Marx_ in thirty seconds? Or fifteen or ninety if you like.
> Tavis
If you think I'm going to summarize Derrida or _Capital_ in 15, 30, or 90
seconds, you've got another thing coming.
My point is that one can *not* legitimately summarize a complex body of
ideas
Tom Walker wrote:
> I'm happy to go back to my original complaint about not being able to
> determine, in a 20 minute perusal, whether Derrida's Spectre of Marx would
> be worth buying and reading. I assure you that I accord much less than 20
> minutes to most new books that come into the booksto
Two (relatively) brief comments:
(1) One doesn't have to be a fan of post-modernism to appreciate that the
old forms of "discourse" among leftists leave much to be desired. One only
has to read recent exchanges on PEN-L to appreciate this point. I don't
know: maybe I'm just getting old and tired.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Old language: "The boss is screwing you. Organize and fight back."
> New language: "The metanarratives are all broken. Liberate yourself through
> freeplay in the deliciously slippery world of discourse!"
> This is progress?
No, it's not progress.
It's not progress whe
> it is hard to see how this discussion of postmodernism could remind anyone of
> the moscow show trials. try as they might the psotmodernists [...]
> but it seems silly to respond to doug and others who criticize the pomos
> by accusing them of stalinism.
> michael yates
Just to set the record
There are frequently major differences in ideology, perspective, and
personalities among faculty and students in different economics
departments. This is also - and sometimes even more - the case at radical
econ. departments. It is by no means limited to UMass/Amherst.
I was also burned by a coup
Antonio C wrote:
> Perhaps what you say has validity as an issue in general. You, however,
> were careful not to levy personal charges out of context, as Baimoan and
> bohmer have with respect to Resnick and Wolff. If we want to discuss this
> general issue at some point, it might be a good thing
Michael Yates wrote:
> i do sign my remarks, "in solidarity" but i don't believe that i've
> ever made a scurrilous attack on anyone.
See [PEN-L:7175].
Sanctimonious preaching,
Jerry
> Weren't the Democrates in majority in both houses when Clinton's health bill
> was defeted? If so, then what are you talking about? Cheers, ajit sinha
Also: the Democrats controlled Congress when NAFTA was passed.
Of course, labor overwhelmingly supported the Dems anyway -- it's all part
of th
The following was posted on another list and Patrick Mason asked that it
be passed along to other lists for consideration and action. You can
contact Patrick directly at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
>Given California's approval of prop 209, should we begin lobbying for west
>coast ASSA conventions to be
rakesh bhandari wrote:
> Instead of simply blaming "whites" for this
> reaction or treating whites as an inherently oppressive people, I was
> trying to suggest that such paranoia, though real (is this a racist
> accusation?), may be the result in part of racial kind making by the
> state.
Is
Doug Henwood wrote:
> I still think, though, that it's women's business if they want to have a
> kid without being married.
I must have missed something. Did _anyone_ on PEN-L suggest that the
decision about whether to have children without being married _wasn't_ or
_shouldn't_ be a woman's d
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Empirically speaking - and I know what high regard you have for empirical
> work, Jerry - there's no evidence that early childbearing has any "affect"
> on the long-term employment prospects of poor women.
(1) I have a very high regard indeed for *some* empirical work. I ha
Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center wrote:
> Glick, an outspoken lesbian and generally independent Council Person, ran
> a campaign in the lower half of Manhattan, i.e., the mostly white and
> higher income half of Manhattan.
Comrade, you need a geography lesson! I assume you would include the
Lower
Doug Henwood wrote:
> In fact, some of our most
> prominent political theorists are still developing reasons why "unity" is a
> bad thing.
Who are some of these naughty "prominent theorists" who think that
"'unity' is a bad thing"??? Jee, I don't recall any of "our most
prominent" saying that.
-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 08:37:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Sierra Leone IWW needs help
Sierra Leone Solidarity Bulletin #1
Support IWW unionists in West Africa!
June 13, 1997
Forced into
Michael Perelman wrote:
> My question was in response to that announcement. Did they not hire
> scabs because of the difficulty of replacing so many workers?
I think they haven't hired scabs because they realize it would be very bad
public relations for UPS.
Sad to say, I think they could hir
Michael P asked:
> 1. The Wall Street Journal says that part time jobs are not increasing?
> Any thoughts.
Last time I looked at the numbers, part-time jobs were marginally
decreasing. BUT, if you compare figures for part-time jobs today to that
during the early 1980's then you see that there ha
Walter Daum wrote:
> Even more consistent with Marx's method, I think, would be to
> read the Thesis as saying that one has to be changing the world
> *in order to* analyze it.
... *and* in order to change the world, one must analyze it.
Of course, one *can* change the world without analyzing
Doug has condemned Gillott and Kumar's book without reading it or even
seeing a copy. If what is good for the goose is good for the gander, then
Doug should not object to others who have not read _Wall Street_ from
condemning it sight unseen. Perhaps Doug will now admit that his
"review" of book
> The Indians supported the reactionaries, so they got what they
> deserved.
I don't recall anyone on pen-l making that assertion. Who was the
original author of the above?
Jerry
Months ago LNP stated loudly, publicly, and in writing (and for the
record) that the reason he was attacking Heartfield was because of JH's
opposition to suspensions and expulsions of leftists on the M-INT, what
many now call the "menshevik-international", list.
Indeed, LNP threatened JH ominous
Doug Henwood wrote:
> It might be a better use
> of a Marxist's time to figure out how to organize to end this destructive &
> polarizing system than to devise elaborate theories of how it will do
> itself in.
Name names.
Which contemporary Marxists have been devising "elaborate" theories for
Gil Skillman wrote:
> And forget the New or Marxist Schools, my vote is that Doug should go to
> SUNY--Stonybrook. For game theory. [Hah, that'll shake him up.]
Last time I checked, there were quite a few (mathematics) courses on game
theory at NYU (a short walk away from the New School). The
Gil wrote:
> Jerry writes:
> >Look: you can't have it both ways: either value categories are important
> >or they are not...
> Jerry, this seems uncharacteristically dogmatic of you.
There is nothing dogmatic in one's pointing out that someone has:
a) avoided repeatedly answering a question;
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> > state and take a position. If it is really true that you "don't know the
> > answer to this", then you should consider either going back to school
> Jerry is staking out a very elitist intellectual position here that only
> in school do we learn anything.
You had to
Doug Henwood wrote:
> >To define productive and unproductive labour, don't you first have to
> >define surplus value?
> Hey, I just got a copy of Tom Peters' latest tome - personally autographed
> and by FedEx! - The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way To
> Greatness. Tom has a chapte
Doug Henwood wrote:
> I asked because I really want to hear answers [...]
I agree: I want to hear answers as well. You can begin by answering the
following question:
> Doug asserted that the "theoretical ground of Marxian PE ... has been a
> bit overplowed". I wonder: "overplowed" by whom? ...
James Devine wrote:
> BTW, I can't see how Doug Henwood is an empiricist. His recent book [...]
As I hinted before, Doug has claimed that the "intelligent use of
bourgeois statistics" can serve as a substitute for Marxian categories.
This prejudice against theoretical analysis informs much of D
Doug Henwood wrote:
> >PS: Who suggested, in all seriousness, that the "intelligent use of
> >bourgeois statistics" could serve as a substitute for Marxian empirical
> >studies?
> Henry Rollins?
Perhaps the following will help refresh your memory: the above was
suggested on the Internet on 10/25
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> Gery, I think you are experiencing problems with reading comprehension.
> Did Doug actually say that "everything's groovy" or was he being
> facetious? I somehow suspect the latter. I would welcome any proof that
> he was being anything but facetious.
Yes, Doug wrote
Tom Walker wrote:
> But this does raise an interesting physics question: "How much hot
> air does it take to reinflate a burst balloon?"
Why assume that the balloon has burst? Most of the air pressure that was
lost yesterday seems to have been recovered today. This, however, doesn't
mean that "e
Tom Walker wrote:
> As Doug pointed out a while ago, many mutual fund
> "investors" had come to expect annual increases of that magnitude as a
> matter of course. To "recover most of the air pressure" would require not
> only that recent losses be cancelled out but that something like the
> previ
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Never thought I'd see reasoning like that on PEN-L.
It's true: we have seen some weird reasoning on PEN-L recently. For
instance, just the other day someone wrote re Wall Street that
"everything's groovy"!
> People should keep
> their money in stocks because they have now
> I guess there must be something in V. 3 of Capital that explains
> all this.
The particular issue that I raised ("investment" of savings by
working-class families in the stock market) wasn't considered by Marx.
However, Part 5 of V3, in particular the sections on credit and fictitious
capital,
Doug Henwood wrote:
> >> >PS: Who suggested, in all seriousness, that the "intelligent use of
> >> >bourgeois statistics" could serve as a substitute for Marxian empirical
> >> >studies?
> >> Henry Rollins?
Close but no cigar.
> >Perhaps the following will help refresh your memory: the above wa
Doug Henwood wrote:
> OK, I have to confess. I've been posting to PEN-L and other lists under the
> name Jerry Levy to provoke controversy, and with it attention. Because as
> we say in the self-promotional trade, there's no such thing as bad
> publicity.
OK, I have to confess as well. I've been
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Why
> is it "more important to determine the rate of exploitation through a
> rejection of wage share" than to explore income polarlization? What does it
> reveal?
You seem to be asking: "what does exploitation reveal?" [!]
> In
> general, "productive" workers are better p
Doug Henwood wrote previously:
> Value categories may be important for examining the inner dynamics of
> capitalist economies,
which led me to note:
> Well ... that's certainly a wishy-washy statement.
and then ask:
> Are they important or are they not? If they are important, how are they
>
Doug Henwood wrote:
> If having made up your mind about everything is a mark of sophistication,
> then I think both knowledge and politics could do with a little more
> naivete.
Amazing ... you haven't "made up your mind" yet about value theory, but
have just written a "Marxist" work claiming to
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> Yes, but Jerry you have to explain why you recommend that Doug
> a) choose a liberal school that charges outrageous tution rates that most
> working class students cannot afford instead of the Marxist School, which
> is much cheaper and run by a group of admisitrators
Louis Proyect wrote:
> >becoming a pro-management snitch).
> Levy, I was going to ignore this as I used to ignore your ravings on the
> Marxism-International mailing-list. I think most people on PEN-L are
> starting to form the same sort of impression of you that people already
> have on the Spoo
James Devine wrote:
> Being Marx-informed and
> Marx-friendly, his "superficial" or "empiricist" analyses in WALL STREET
> takes for granted Marx's vol. I macro-analysis.
He has not "taken for granted" the distinction between productive and
unproductive labour and has indeed often explicitly re
Ellen (anzalone/starbird) wrote:
> Is it true that inmates incarcerated in prison are NOT counted as
> households in your data?
To be counted as being employed or unemployed in the US data, one must
first be counted as being part of the labor force. But, the labor force is
defined in such a way
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> This is the problem Jerry. You say you are critical of Malecki, yet you
> have never spent any energy criticizing this guy,
Where do you get your information from? Just recently, I criticized him
publicly (and repeatedly).
> Lou's sin was simple and he apologized fo
James Devine wrote:
> I can't believe that anyone could get so _excited_ about the issue of
> unproductive vs. productive labor; it's a pretty academic issue that should
> have no emotional content. Bitter criticism seems out of line.
I was simply pointing out that your claim re Henwood's posit
Stephen E Philion wrote:
> Think of it like this. Maurce Dobb and Paul Sweezy had a very lively
> debate in the 1950's. Their views were largely irreconcilable, yet
> neither party ever sunk to telling the other one "to go back to school to
> learn (fill in th eblank)..." Brenner and Wallerst
> ++
> A robot can build a car. But a robot cannot buy a car... The
> explosion in the development of computer- and robotic-based
> manufacturing is seeing the rapid expansion of laborless
> production systems.
Robots can NOT (presen
Colin Danby asked:
> Has anyone got the reference & context for K Marx's reported
> denial that he was a Marxist?
See Joseph O'Malley and Keith Algozin ed. _Rubel on Karl Marx: Five
Essays_, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 19-22.
Jerry
Ricardo Duchesne wrote:
> The labor theory of value in its classical form is untenable.
> Today science and technology play a greater role in the
> creation of value than productive labor.
And who, pray tell, creates "science and technology"?
> But Marx did not integrate these ideas into his
J.M. Craven wrote:
> [...] I see no difference between the "left-wing" anarchists and
> right-wing libertarians except some of the rhetoric and nominalist
> concepts of personal liberty/freedom. Historically they have wrecked
> more social movements then they have ever contributed and historicall
Jim Craven wrote:
> Anarcho-Marxists? What's next? Communist Nazis or Nazi Communists?
The above sounds, whether intended or not, like an [ill-informed]
insult to anarchists. To begin with, anarchists are part of the Left and
the workers' movement (and should in no way be confused with Nazis
I am very pleased to announce that the OPE-L (Outline on
Political Economy) mailing list has decided to make our archives
available to the public.
OPE-L is a small, closed list of Marxists which has been
discussing controversial issues in political economy since September,
1995. (A listin
Doug writes:
> H-lp! LBO badly needs an intern
What did you say you were offering prospective candidates in terms of an
hourly wage and benefits?
Jerry
Proyect on his participation at the December 1996 Rethinking Marxism
conference in Amherst:
> At the opening night's reception, I downed 3 scotches in rapid
> succession to put me in the proper frame of mind for the opening
> session.
He then went on to make a comment in the discussion period at
Barkley asks:
> Are you happy now, Jerry?
Not yet.
Had a published "review" of your book been authored by someone who
admitted (afterwards) that s/he only read the dust jacket, would your
response be so cavalier?
I doubt it.
What makes this fraud *more* important than the "Social Text affair"
Reply to Michael P:
a) I did not re-raise this issue. Proyect did when he revealed his drunken
behavior, etc. at the "Rethinking Marxism" conference. Blame him.
b) There was nothing in my post that could fit any reasonable definition
of a flame.
c) The *reason* this issue won't go away is beca
An intelligent discussion would begin by reading the references that
Anwar Shaikh (NB: _not_ "Sheik") gives rather than spinning one's
wheels in ignorance.
Or is it too much to ask that one become familiar with a person's work
before passing judgment on it?
Jerry
PS1: As this same person has o
Barkley writes -- imploring me to write more for PEN-L:
> We are waiting.
You will have to continue to wait.
What PEN-L suffers from is not the absence of posts. Quite the reverse. It
is not uncommon for daily digests to be over 500K. I would guestimate that
digests have average over 250K in r
I. CONGRATS PEN-L!
* Digest #177 was 411K!
* There were 87 posts in Digest #177!
II.
* One person wrote 18 posts yesterday!!!
This is insanity. Who has time to read this quantity of posts/day?
(Answer: only those without a life).
Given this volume and free-rider effect abuse, P
discussion, I am reminded of Marx's favorite motto:
[translation: Doubt everything]
The ruthless critique of "all that is", one should add, should also be
applied to Marxism itself since Marxism is part of "all that is."
It would seem that the anti-authoritarian traditi
The beginning of my previous post should have read:
Re the pomo discussion, I am reminded of Marx's favorite motto:
De omnibus dubitandum
[translation: Doubt everything]
Michael Hoover wrote:
> check the forward to Hal Draper's "Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution"
> Vol 2...forward is entitled "How Not to Quote Marx"...Michael
Or check-out Ch. 1 of Joseph O'Malley and Keith Algozin ed. _Rubel on Karl
Marx_ (Cambridge, CUP, 1981).
Jerry
Jim D wrote:
> (I find belief in "long waves" to be exactly that, a faith, an
> assumption.)
I think there are a number of problems with the long wave hypothesis that I
haven't seen answered satisfactorily. Firstly, there is the question of
sample size. How many "long waves" have there been? Not
Louis N Proyect wrote:
> I don't
> hear from him in months and it would be fair to say that we are not
> friends. The next thing I know I get a smirking email from him out of the
> blue telling me that Randy Martin, who I consider to be a friend and who I
> work with at the Brecht Forum in NY, w
rakesh bhandari wrote:
> The Marxist position, as developed by Paul Mattick in his several writings,
> is not against such improvements for the working class; the argument is
> that while such solutions may provide temporary relief, they will not
> eliminate the trade cycle and the eventual break
William S. Lear wrote:
> Anyway, we have RI -> DUI -> DA (Radical Intellectuals produce
> Democratically Useful Information, which will/can lead to Democratic
> Action). But my little model misses something, RI -> DTM -> DUI ->
> DA, where DTM is the Democratic Transmission Mechanism. I'm curio
D Shniad wrote:
> This is true, ironically (perhaps especially true) of
> many Marxist intellectuals, despite Marx's famous thesis on Feuerbach
> about the need to stop analyzing and start changing the world.
The much-quoted XI "Theses on Fuerbach" ["The philosophers have only
*interpreted* the
Doug Henwood wrote:
> >Perhaps it would be better to humbly join *their* progressive projects
> >rather than to "recruit" them to your projects.
> Which projects are those?
If you have to ask, then you're spending too much time in front of your
computer screen.
Jerry
D Shniad wrote:
> You're absolutely correct in your interpretation, Jerry.
> Cheers,
> Sid
> PS -- what are you doing to change the world?
If you are asking me how I am currently politically active, then the
answer (in part) is that I have been and continue to be a participant in
the squatters
-- Forwarded message --
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 18:06:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: J Poxon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**
>>> READ IT AND PASS IT ON:
>>>
>>> SENATE PASSES BILL ON NO FUNDING FOR MINORITIES IN COLLEGE!!
>>>
>>> A bill will be heard in Congress next week t
Although I was formerly an active participant, I have been lurking for
some time on PEN-L.
Reasons why:
1) Volume
--
Volume has exploded in the last 8 months or so. It caused me to switch
my sub so that I would receive the "digest" version. Even so, with daily
digests of over 200K a f
Proyect's post on this subject is chock full of inaccuracies and
distortions. And his contributions (what Ajit calls "Louis Proyectism")
have come to symbolize the downfall in the mode of discourse on pen-l.
When flames erupt on pen-l (and they erupt not infrequently), they often
begin with stra
his is the
Stalin-worshiper that Proyect has entered into an unprincipled
combination with!
On to yesterday's post ...
-- Forwarded message ------
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 07:37:16-0400 (EDT)
From: Gerald Levy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Progressive Economics <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Forwarded from a post by aut-op-sy moderator, Steve Wright
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. For more information on Toni's legal case,
see:
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~forks/TNmain.htm
--
> Negri Update, 10 May 1998
>
> Toni Negri rema
Michael, quoting Rodney King, asked:
> Can't we just get along?
No. There is too much at stake here.
Susan Flack wrote:
> May only ye who hath no sin cast the 1st stone.
Does this mean that you think we should all stay silent in the presence of
homophobia, cop-baiting, etc.?
Jerry
> in case
Previously, I wrote:
> Susan Flack wrote:
> > May only ye who hath no sin cast the 1st stone.
> Does this mean that you think we should all stay silent in the presence
> of homophobia, cop-baiting, etc.?
Michael answered:
> Yes, by all means.
A few days ago someone on pen-l commented on the s
Mark Jones wrote:
> Michael has repeatedly asked for this absurd flaming to stop. Is it not
> time to DO something to stop it?
The day before Mark Jones wrote (to Paul Zarembka):
> This (i.e. those arresting Paul Z, JL) would be the men in flapping
> white costs, presumably.
Is this what you h
Jason wrote in [PEN-L:359]:
> Boumol considers himself to be very "sympathetic" to Marx.
While one could argue that Boumol's 1970's _JEL_ article on the
"transformation problem" was "sympathetic" to Marx (especially in
comparison to Samuelson!), I have never heard it claimed before that
Boumol h
spam.
Jim D wrote:
> Scrooge represented the narrowest of the gasping capitalists, the
>> row-minded "philistines," at least to Dinkins.
that is only part of the story. Scrooge also was a symbol for Dinkins of
Christian redemption and charity.. Don't you remember how the story ends?
Jerry
I. For the benefit of Jim Craven's employers, who evidently are reading
PEN-L, let me explain what academic freedom means for someone teaching
economics. I'll make it real simple.
a) academic freedom gives instructors the right to talk about any subject
in the classroom that is in *any way* rela
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