[PEN-L:1000] AD/AS correction

I notice that my equation turned up very garbled in the Pen-l archive. Restated to avoid garbling, it was that: the current rate of inflation equals the core rate of inflation, reflecting expected inflation and the wage/price spiral (inertial or built-in inflation) plus additional inflatio

[PEN-L:1027] intro textbook

Based on a few years of experience with my "intro econ for non-majors" course (micro and macro in one semester), I would go along with the endorsement of the Bowles & Edwards book as a good introductory text (and it's in paperback). Mayo Toruno's book, THE POLITICAL ECONOMICS OF CAPITALISM (Ke

[PEN-L:1033] flaming & "socialism from below"

In response to Louis N Proyect's flame: Louis, I sent you a very gentle _personal_ comment, one which I thought was to a friend, even though I'm sure we disagree on a lot of stuff. So you make this note _public_ and flame it. Why? (I must admit that I've made private comments public on the ne

[PEN-L:1055] Re: principles text

Mason Clark asks:>>If there were no government, no organization of any kind, whatkind of market would there be? Would it not be a free market? So is not a free market natural? Is not this anarchic market the starting point for discussion of what the economic system should be, namely a controll

[PEN-L:1081] RatEx Redux

BTW, in my joke about Lucas and RatEx, I assumed that he was a Chicago-school-type "economic man" who wouldn't _want_ to share his loot with his ex-wife, who probably supported him through grad school (and put up with a lot of BS from him and his colleagues). But m

[PEN-L:1080] rational expectations

if the theory of rational expectations really worked, then Robert Lucas wouldn't have agreed to give his ex-wife 1/2 of his expected Nobel Prize loot when he divorced her. ;-) -- Jim Devine

[PEN-L:1103] Re: AFL-CIO's New Era (cont.) (fwd)

Doug writes: >>This is a load of utter bullshit. And to think I pay dues to the NWU/UAW - for cheap threats like this. << Sure, I agree with you. But, please explain _why_ you think so. You owe Pen-l that much, since it's supposed to be more of a place for reflective discussion than for ventin

[PEN-L:1157] stock market "bubble"?

Colin Danby writes >> I'm surprised to see so little Pen-L attention to the current bubble in U.S. stock prices. Some of this has been fuelled by U.S. banks shilling for mutual funds, and quite likely keeping CD rates down in order to push money into these things. Apparen

[PEN-L:1171] why get rid of the Commerce Department?

In addition to the reasons that Doug mentions for why the GOPsters want to abolish the Commerce Dept, I would bet that one -- never spoken -- reason is that the Dept. is currently being run by a black man (and one who wasn't a Clarence Thomas). I'd bet that this was also one of the reasons for

[PEN-L:1192] Re: Gilder's delusions

I agree with Carla Orcutt: instead of yelling about "genocide" and "fascism," it's important to use _specific_, concrete, criticisms. Or if one must be abstract, use _new_ & creative rhetoric -- that makes sense to everyday working people. I think Jesse Jackson is pretty good at this. in pe

[PEN-L:1191] overproduction/underconsumption possibilities

I wrote: > As for Peter Burns' question about the GOP actually stimulating private investment and thus the economy: yes, they can do that. But such a profits-led boom encourages investment to get further out of line with consumer demand, implying greater tendency toward recession.< Mike Lebo

[PEN-L:1210] the "middle class"

Peter Burns quotes one of our wise solons as saying: "When I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 a year, that's middle-class. When I see anyone above that, that's upper-middle class." Rep Fred Heinaman Can someone give an estimate of what percentage of US households or

[PEN-L:1211] medicaid cuts -- bounce-back?

Maybe we can oppose Medicaid cuts by appealing to middle-class self-interest? A heck of a lot of people who work in the food service industry get their health services from Medicaid and similar programs which cater to the working poor. So middle-class folks who rely on these folks' labor at r

[PEN-L:1258] Re: Shalom

I'm totally against political assassinations, but Rabin himself said it about a week ago when a leader of Hamas was assassinated (according to Professor Gary Sick, likely due to Israeli efforts): those who live by violent means tend to die by violent means. (Ironically, due to publication sche

[PEN-L:1274] words of wisdom

"Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda and entertainment without moral passion is television." -- Rita Mae Brown. sincerely, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-84

[PEN-L:1292] Re: Shalom

BTW, in criticizing Rabin and his "peace process," I was not cheering his assassination. (This note is a flip side of Tom Walker's.) It might encourage more violence by Jewish, Moslem, or even Christian extremists in the Mideast. The new PM, Peres, might be pushed to engage in military attacks

[PEN-L:1313] Fed tightness

Doug writes:>>October's unemployment rate of 5.5% is extremely low by the standards of the last 20 years. In only 29 of the 248 months since January 1975 - under 12% of the time - have we seen a jobless rate equal to or lower than 5.5%!<< On the other hand, I'd bet that the cost of job loss c

[PEN-L:1401] Wattenberg show

About Wattenberg's show, which I didn't see, Mike Meeropol writes: >> The point is he DIDN'T HAVE ONE VOICE OF DISSENT from his lockstep presentation.<< welcome to the 1990s! This is standard for our era. The GOPsters rush bills to the full House or Senate with a minimum amount of debate. Mor

[PEN-L:1501] science marches on!

Today in the mail, I received a book by David Romer, titled ADVANCED MACROECONOMICS. For those who are interested in growth theory and issues such as the Cambridge Capital Controversy, you'll be saddened to note that the C3 is totally ignored and that Romer is perfectly willing to simply assu

[PEN-L:1527] Re: Women in the workforce and Marxism

To understand the effects of affirmative action, it's important to go back a step, to understand the orgins of the basic problems being attacked by AA. The simplest coherent theory of discrimation and segregation in labor-power markets (IMHO) is that they reflect a tac

[PEN-L:1538] fighting discrimination & segregation

I wrote > I think that AA [affirmative action] would be best if it were the result of grass-roots efforts by the out-groups to win concessions from the working-class in-groups, in an effort at attaining long-term unity, rather than being bureaucratic impositions from above by the capitalists a

[PEN-L:1554] corporatespeak

On the subject of corporate euphemisms, Mark A. Leon's letter to today's L.A. TIMES presents a useful glossary: "paradigm shift"... same paradigm, only with less people. "quality circle"... musical chairs for the next wave of layoffs. "employee empowerment"... process of identifying fall guys an

[PEN-L:1606] Ireland and GDP/GNP

Terry McD mentions the problem of transfer pricing by MNCs in messing up our judgements about the quality of the prosperity in Ireland. Am I wrong to think that we could get around this problem if we could measure Ireland's (or any other small country's) Gross _National_ Product rather than i

[PEN-L:1699] oxygen for sale

I have read that smog-smuggered people can now purchase oxygen for a price in both Beijing and Mexico City. How common is this around the world. from Los Angeles, the home of smog, in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los A

[PEN-L:1735] Re: Minimum wages (Pat Mason's take)

Pat Mason suggests if "capital intensity" has risen, then maybe there isn't as much room as one would expect for a minimum-wage increase despite increases in labor productivity. (That is, wages can't increase as much as productivity without hurting the profit rate.) Doug Henwood wonders how e

[PEN-L:1746] Good News from France

"The strike by transport workers and other public employees has paralyzed France since Nov. 24 ... "But what has really shocked President Jacquez Chirac and his prime minister, Alain Juppe, is broad sympathy among ordinary French citizens for the strike -- illustrated by the hundres of thous

[PEN-L:1747] raising the minimum wage (Paul Z's take)

Paul Zarembka suggests that since the wages of unproductive labor are part of surplus-value, there is room for a minimum wage increase. But the capitalists find their expenditures on unproductive labor to be something they want to do and will resist any cutbacks on that spending in order to p

[PEN-L:1754] Re[2]: THE QUESTION OF WEALTH

Laura Bell sent this to me, personally, in addition to sending it to pen-l, because she lives nearby here in the city of emphysema. I'm really busy. But what the heck, I'd rather reply to it than grade term papers... >>My personal view is that one of the reasons the world loves to hate Bill Gat

[PEN-L:1777] more from France

the following message was posted to the Post Keynesian Thought list and may be of interest: Re: Request Report from France Thu, 7 Dec 1995 11:40:16 + Bernard Girard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > A PKT report from France on current struggle > between government and workers is requested. > If I have

[PEN-L:1782] Re: More Polanyi vs. Hayek

As much as I dislike Hayekian politics, I think it's confusing matters to call them "fascist" as Huseyin Ozel does. Hayekian politics may push us in the direction of an "objectively fascist" system, i.e., strengthen the power of the state, repressing organized labor, etc. (It need not go all t

[PEN-L:1817] silliness

Louis N Proyect wrote: > I would pay top dollar to see a debate between her and Ellen Meiksins Wood in a locked steel cage/fight to the finish debate. My money's on Wood.< Jerry Levy asks>> What do my fellow PEN-Lers have to say about the above statement?<< I'm sure Louis is being metaphori

[PEN-L:1860] miscellaneous comments

because time is such a scarce resource today (;-)), I'll make a few unrelated comments: 1. fascism: one of the problems with this term is that it has two meanings. One (the one emphasized by Marxists) is that of one kind of social system that can prevail under capitalism, in response to worki

[PEN-L:1868] STUDY: Immigrants Contribute More than they take

I don't think that this study is the first one showing that the US as a whole gets a net benefit from the average immigrant. The problem is that on a smaller level of aggregation (say, San Diego County, in Southern California), it can be argued that the cost to the government of the immigrant

[PEN-L:1878] Re[2]: miscellaneous comments

Among other things, Louis P writes: >>But the idea that the average person could make heads or tails out of PEN-L chit-chat is a delusion that Jim [meaning me]... seems to find useful. However, for "socialism from below" to have any meaning, you have to be able to reach people who are actually

[PEN-L:1881] Decentralism

jwhull writes: >>I cannot agree more strongly with John Gulick's and Doug Henwood's characterization of the US left/liberal obsession with "decentralization." Whatever the value of its utopian vision ..., I do not see that it provides us with any analytic tools to get us there. << I agree: gi

[PEN-L:1896] Re: French movement situation

bill's comments (and his quoting of Bob Rowthorn) reminds me of a useful analogy by Rosa Luxemburg on unionism: she argued that unionism's task is like the labors of Sisyphus. Every time a victory is achieved (and the rock gets up to the top of the hill), the institutional power of capital wor

[PEN-L:1929] history of "PC"

Terry McD writes: >>Political correctness was not a Maoist term, politically incorrect was a Maoist phrase ... It was used to describe propositions which were thought to be wrong for one reason or another. [The] use [of the phrase "politically incorrect"] was meant to emphasize on the one hand

[PEN-L:1942] problems with pen-l archive.

Since I won't be at the computer at all tomorrow, I'll count this as my posting for tomorrow, so that I can stick with my weaning from pen-l and non-essential e-mail in general. (Slippery slope alert! slippery slope alert!) Anyway, something's wrong with the hypertext archive at cns.colorado.

[PEN-L:2002] academian and sectariana

Terry McD is right about the feudal origins of the professoriat, while Jerry L. is right that it is progressively being subordinated to capital (even here at Catholic Church-dominated colleges). Class analysis is only a beginning. I think that the main problem with professors is that we are v

[PEN-L:2038] Unions, strikes, professors

1. Nick Gomersall suggests that there are people on the pen-l list who see unions as "necessarily progressive." I don't think anyone fits this description. All unionists know that company unions (for example) aren't progressive and some nominally independent unions approximate being company

[PEN-L:2060] miscellaneous

1. bill mitchell describes the econ. history of OZ (for the uniniated, that's Australia): >>1983-1989 - real wages cut, employment grew strongly, demand expansion from govt. >>1989-1991 - real wages cut, employment growth negative, tight demand conditions. 1992-95 - real wages cut, employment

[PEN-L:2090] corporations, non-profits, professors, boss loss.

1. Mason Clark suggests that "corporations are owned by the state." But aren't corporations treated as "legal persons" under US law? How can a "legal person" be owned by the state? There _are_ "state capitalist" organizations, such as the US Tennessee Valley Authority; they are more common out

[PEN-L:2125] Ireland, California, and the future of Education

This is a Mime message, which your current mail reader may not understand. Parts of the message will appear as text. To process the remainder, you will need to use a Mime compatible mail reader. Contact your vendor for details. --IMA.Boundary.992785918 1. People interested in the topic of

[PEN-L:2126] Help!!!

I may be interviewed by Cable News Network tomorrow at 10 a.m. Help!! Does any one have any good sound-bites on the economy and the budget and the budget impasse that I can use? Specifically, does anyone know how the CBO (or is it the OMB) measures the _cost_of_the_government_shut-down? What

[PEN-L:2132] thanks for the HELP!!!!

Thanks, pen-l, for the HELP!!! concerning my possible interview with CNN. Since I told the reporter what I thought about the budget impasse, I doubt that I will be interviewed (now or ever) by CNN. And I didn't make any cracks about Jane Fonda once being a leftist. Happy Christmas/Chanukah/Kw

[PEN-L:2179] academic Marxism

Louis P. writes: >> Popular democracy, market socialism, analytical Marxism, etc. have all been attempts to "explain" the failure of the Soviet experiment. In every instance, these ideas make concessions to bourgeois ideology. That is the problem with left academia.<<

[PEN-L:2186] popular, er radical, democracy and all that

Louis P. writes: >>Any Laclau/Mouffe defenders out there?<< not I. I am no familiar with their views enough to even discuss them. As for "popular democracy," the non-L&M concept, I am glad that Louis is willing to accept this as roughly synonymous with Marx's versi

[PEN-L:2195] OVERDETERMINATION: A Petty Bourgeois Speculation?

The above type of title should be avoided. Just because some idea is "petty bourgeois" (assuming that it is), doesn't mean that it is wrong. Remember that such socialist luminaries as Marx, Engels, and Lenin were "petty bourgeois" in the loose usage of that term. Engels, in fact, was a factory

[PEN-L:2222] political economy & postmodern Marxism

This is a Mime message, which your current mail reader may not understand. Parts of the message will appear as text. To process the remainder, you will need to use a Mime compatible mail reader. Contact your vendor for details. --IMA.Boundary.692206028 1. I don't want to get into the issue of th

[PEN-L:2231] no to Rekia!

To Programmer Proyect: Please post no more "Reckia" messages. Since he's (or she's) not an active member of pen-l, all it does is clutter the list. In fact, it might Reckia the list! ;-) If he or she wants to participate in pen-l, that's something completely different. (Two messages in one d

[PEN-L:2244] Rekia and "Sturgeon's Law"

The stuff about posting Rekia's opinions to pen-l seems to be nothing but an expression of Louis P's personal antagonism toward Jerry L. (which might be a hangover from their past membership in an unnamed leftist cult, which I would guess is the Socialist Workers' Party). Please keep this kind

[PEN-L:2305] Critical thoughts on "theories of value"

What follows are musings on "theories of value." I argue that the old distinction between "subjective" and "objective" theories of value should be rejected. More importantly, the notion of a "theory of value" should be seen as ambiguous; we either should use a different term or make it really

[PEN-L:2323] Re: critical thoughts on "Critical thoughts"

Re: [PEN-L:2308] Re: Critical thoughts on "theories of value" Since I wasn't posting my "Critical thoughts" in order to get into a debate about Gil's paper (which was not _on_ the "labor theory of value"), I won't dwell on the main issues of that paper at all. The central issue is instead "the

[PEN-L:2324] more on exploitation

Re: [PEN-L:2317] Rethinking Marx's Theory of Exploitation (Wed, 10 Jan 1996 15:43:02 -0800) Gil Skillman writes:>> Defense of the more traditional, value-theoretic account of exploitation ascribed to Marx requires one to reject as necessarily mistaken the numerous passages in which Marx unamb

[PEN-L:2348] free speech

On Sun, 31 Dec 1995, Doug Henwood wrote:> Yes yes yes! Thank you Michael. And not only does he keep the list going, he's somehow kept us free of infection by libertarians!< A. S. Fatemi responds >>I DISAGREE WITH DOUG BECAUSE I DON'T BELIEVE IN CENSORSHIP UNDER ANY GUISE OR EXCUSE.<< I think

[PEN-L:2360] How not to quote Marx

In a message titled "[PEN-L:2327] Re: Marx's value theory & Marx's method," Gil Skillman writes: >>While we're in the GRUNDRISSE, we should also note that Marx "explicitly and carefully" affirms that usury and merchant's capital, when extended to small producers, represents *capitalist exploit

[PEN-L:2389] Re: The V-word

Responding to Alan Freeman, and paraphrasing Richard Nixon, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: just because I find the _phrase_ "theory of value" to be muddled in the literature and in academic discussion, it doesn't mean that I reject the concept and usefulness of value or theories of

[PEN-L:2422] unions

Paul Phillips writes: In addition to being "schools of class struggle," >> The union if it works well prevents the alienation of the individual from companion workers and, at least to some extent, prevents workers from being used to put one against the other.<< I would add that a union, if it

[PEN-L:2507] Infinite value of nature (was: the V word)

1. The idea that nature should have an "infinite price" reminds me of my humanist-inspired idea that human lives should have infinite prices in cost-benefit analysis. It's an idea I never express, since I don't have the chutzpah and more importantly, I don't really agree with it. It also has a

[PEN-L:9763] Rethinking Marxism conference

I just heard a description of the "Rethinking Marxism" conference that occurred in Amherst late last year. The reporter (Olga Celle de Bowman, a sociologist from Peru) said that there was a tremendous amount of (verbal) conflict between the audience and the speakers at the plenaries, something I h

[PEN-L:9761] tenure

what experience do people in places like the UK have with the absense of tenure for professors? is it as bad as some people in the US fear? is there a lot of violation of academic freedom? in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ

[PEN-L:9752] re: Environmental Economics

Robin is right: mainstream economics is environmentalist in theory, but not in practice. It also assumes that the possibility of "external costs" is simply given technologically (which profit-maximizing capitalists then realize in practice); this ignores E.K. Hunt's theory, in which capitalists ac

[PEN-L:9726] unemployment in Britain

In today's New York TIMES (April 29), there's a graph showing unemployment rates in Britain, compared to those in the US and the Continent, using "OECD standard measures." My question: though it is well-known that Thatcher's administration several times redefined unemployment rates so that they ap

[PEN-L:9712] globalization question

Rakesh writes: >>If Indonesian capital can escape the contradiction between production and consumption through the export of consumer goods--as suggested by Jim-- why can't US capital escape the same contradiction through the export of investment goods to markets in Asian and Europe?<< To some ex

[PEN-L:9705] globalization question

Michael Hoover suggests (correctly, I think) that the fact that the jobs in the southern US didn't pay well meant that there were inadequate consumer markets in the South, so that there was no self-sustaining growth; the actual growth was jump-started by military-related spending. If we go furth

[PEN-L:9692] globalization

Terry McD writes that >>First, I agree that recent technical innovations in communication and transportation are of an incremental character and are therefor relatively insignificant.<< I don't see why incremental changes should be dismissed. Don't quantitative changes sometimes lead to qualitat

[PEN-L:9676] more Peru

Jerry, I don't get it: why are the supporters of Sendero relevant to pen-l? Sendero, like the MTRA, is down for the count, not very relevant as a political force in Peru except as a force that scares and/or disgusts people. Rather than talk about fights that have happened on other lists (M-I, et

[PEN-L:9673] Walras vs. Surplus-Value

(initial caveat: I am not presenting a brief in favor of Sraffa's system; I am going to ignore that system. I think that Joan Robinson's critique (that it was only dealing with comparisons of unrealistic equilibrium points) was sufficient. I don't see it as either a substitute for or a representat

[PEN-L:9445] Re: Zaire

Louis P. brings up the issue of Zaire, one that pen-l should discuss. My feeling is that the US is pressuring and is going to pressure Kabila's forces so that they will be safe neo-liberals but (hopes the State Department) not kleptocrats like Mobutu. With the USSR no longer counterbalancing the

[PEN-L:9499] query: uneven development

Does anybody on pen-l know of any good references on (or special insight into) the subject of the Marxian theory of "uneven and combined development." I am specifically thinking of the theory that the Bolsheviks invoked in the early 20th century, rather than the dependency school's "uneven develop

[PEN-L:9524] neo-liberalism

I always thought that the word "neo-liberalism" was a (perhaps unconscious) effort to deal with the conflicting meanings of the word "liberalism": "liberalism" means "classical liberalism" (laissez-faire) in Europe and most other places, while in the U.S.A., it means "welfare statism." So neo-libe

[PEN-L:9597] re: civil society

Doug, I first encountered the phrase "civil society" in a course on Marxism in the early 1970s (taught by William McBride, I believe): Marx's "burgherlicte geselleshaft" (sp??) could be translated as either "bourgeois society" or "civil society." But I think that the basic idea of civil society go

[PEN-L:9626] Peru

does anyone on pen-l have any special information about the government raid on the Japanese ambassador's mansion (ending the hostage sitation)? it seems very suspicious that ALL of the hostage-takers were killed. It sure sounds like some of the hostage-takers were killed after they were taken pris

[PEN-L:9619] re: civil society

Michael Perleman writes that (or quotes Thernborn that): >> To Hobbes and Locke, civil society was contrasted with a state of nature and was synonymous with a politically organized society.<< For Locke, the "state of nature" (ch. 2 of the 2nd TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT) was extremely different from H

[PEN-L:9592] Re: DARWIN AWARDS

Jim Craven writes:>>You all know about the Darwin Awards - It's an annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. << this kind of thing always evokes a chuckle (as with NEWS OF THE WIERD's recent story about

[PEN-L:9546] a prayer for the 'nineties

Dater Loster (commonly known as "Our Hard Drive") Our Hard Drive Which art internal Volume C: by name; Thy code be clean, Thy fonts be seen On screen as they are on paper. Give us tis day our documents, And lead us not into fragmentation But deliver us our data. For thine is the SCSI, and the EI

[PEN-L:9531] Genuine Progress Indicator

Doug writes that >>I understand that the GPI [Genuine Progress Indicator] people didn't include education in their index because they think there's no evidence that spending more money improves results. << I don't think so. Rather than starting with real GDP and subtracting or adding to correct f

[PEN-L:9523] cost of living

Dave Richardson's recent missive (and an L.A. TIMES column by Robert Kuttner, Dec. 6, 1996) suggests the following: If one wants to measure the cost of living over time, why not divide the nominal consumer spending by the Genuine Progress Indicator, which is supposed to be a measure of the real be

[PEN-L:9505] Re: Walras vs. Sraffa

Robin Hahnel writes: >>BUT the Sraffian framework is more self-consciously limited. It screams out that something other than the analysis you are being presented goes into determining the wage/profit ratio.<< This self-conscious limitation is very important. The Walrasian attitude seems to be to

[PEN-L:9489] geo-mean CPI

Rich Parkin writes: >>Incidentally, Jim, the subst. effects they claim to be addressing are only within product classes (close substitutes) (Purdue v Tyson?) rather than across them (chicken v beef), at least according to the NY Times...<< I stand (or rather, sit) corrected. But if the geo-mean

[PEN-L:9478] geometric-mean CPI

besides the obvious political advantages of using the geometric-mean CPI (lowering the budget deficit), is there any _theoretical_ reason why it is superior to the old arithmetic-mean CPI? I am not impressed by the substitution effect story. If higher prices of beef drive me to eat chicken inste

[PEN-L:9427] Re: text book hell

Michael, here's a list of books I give my students (they choose one and are supposed to write a book review that goes beyond regurgitation): 1. Teresa Amott, Caught in the Crisis: Women and the U.S. Economy Today. 2. Alan Blinder, Hard Heads, Soft Hearts: Tough-Minded Economics for a Just Societ

[PEN-L:9415] social democracy & utopianism

Tom Walker quotes Max as saying that >>The issue isn't whether I or anyone else "likes" social democracy... The issue is how good stuff happens and how shit happens.<< And then quotes me as replying: >> The basic argument here is whether [A] positive social change happens because grassroots agita

[PEN-L:9402] social democracy ad infinitum

I'm sorry if the following repeats anything that Sid, Elaine, Anders, and Louis said (not because they're wrong but because repetition is boring). I'll limit my discussion to a small number of points. Sorry if my missive is still too long.

[PEN-L:9386] socio-economics?

there's some sort of distinction between "socio-economics" (Etzioni) and social economics (the REVIEW OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS). To make things worse, there are several flavors of institutional economics, which is very similar to social economics. If any one knows what the differences are between these

[PEN-L:8915] Kevin Murphy

does anyone in pen-l land know anything about the work of Kevin Murphy of the University of Chicago, who just won the John Bates Clark award? in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 U

[PEN-L:8912]

I wrote: > The actual development of working class movements is much less predictable than the development of capital. < Jerry writes: >>Yeah, but the prediction of the actual development of capital hasn't been that easy either. Perhaps it would be better for Marxists if they got out of the pr

[PEN-L:8902] new SSA?

As Blair notes, the WSJ suggests that a new SSA is here, or at least developing (though of course they wouldn't use the phrase "SSA"). I would prefer the word "stage" (without the mechanistic interpretation of stages as phases that capitalism "automatically" has to go through). We're in a new stag

[PEN-L:8873] testing

testing: does this new e-mail facility work? (Sorry to bother you.) -- Jim

[PEN-L:8869] the MERU {child of NAIRU} revisited

The JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES, Winter 1997, had a useful forum on the "Natural Rate of Unemployment," or what is more scientifically termed the "Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment" (NAIRU). On pen-l, it seems, we reached a consensus to call it the "Macroeconomic Equilibrium

[PEN-L:9375] more Sraffa vs. Walras

I wrote: >A long time ago, someone (Gil Skillman, I believe) argued on pen-l that the Sraffa system was simply a special case of the Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium model.< He now writes: >>I confess I made a claim similar to this, but the details of the argument are important why should we

[PEN-L:9107] Meszaros

I just read Joel Kovel's glowing review of Meszaro's BEYOND CAPITAL in the March 1997 MONTHLY REVIEW. Despite the rave review (which may be that way because MR published the book), the book doesn't seem worth it. Read the review and see. Mike Lebowitz (once a pen-l stalwart) published an excellen

[PEN-L:9123] four minor points

1. If you haven't read Jane Smiley's comic novel MOO, do so. It's got great descriptions of the economist, Dr. Guest, who thinks of students as "customers" and trains them (with evangelistic glee) to be individualistic free-riders. He loves the fact that the results fit with his a priori vision of

[PEN-L:9130] customers or suckers?

Max S. asks a very good question: >>If students who pay for some type of education are not customers, what are they? Suckers?<< Strictly speaking, suckers are a kind of customer, so they could be both. In fact, I think that many of them are both. The point is that students are supposed to be _mo

[PEN-L:9157] utopianism -- final words??

For the sake of not only my own ego-enlargement but also the progress of pen-l debate, it's good to read Louis Proyect saying, after simply repeating his previous points, that >> Jim Devine is correct. Marx and Engels did respect what they [the utopians] were doing since utopian publications, wi

[PEN-L:9200] slovenia & mondragon

Barkley blames the tendency for top management to take over from worker-managers on the interference by the League of Yugo Communists, etc. That's plausible, but since the co-ops are not owned by the worker-managers alone, but by the state, isn't that kind of interference almost inevitable. Even i

[PEN-L:9214] more on co-ops and unemployment

Paul Phillips, writes that >> it is Horvat who rails against the Ward/Vanek model as empirically untrue -- in fact just the opposite.<< Right. But is the Ward model empirically wrong because it is logically flawed (because a worker co-op does not have an inherent tendency to be exclusive, to avoi

[PEN-L:9294] formalism, Horvat, utopia

Over the weekeend, Louis P. wrote: >> You [Paul Phillips] and Jim Devine lost me about three posts ago when you starting focusing on Horvat. I think that was probably the idea. << Louis, I don't think that anyone was trying to drive you out of the discussion by being overly formal. It's the langu

[PEN-L:9343] more requiem

Max Sawicky responded to a little essay I presented to pen-l on "requiem for social democracy" in a very irritating way. Rather than trying to digest the whole thing, he splits it up and answers piece-meal. That's not good for a serious discussion. I'll skip over his unneeded and distracting sarca

[PEN-L:9352] yet more requiem

Max writes: >>What remains difficult to demonstrate, it seems to me, as opposed to theorizing about, is whether the effective popular movement must be overtly revolutionary, or merely strong enough to be a political threat just by playing according to the rules of the bourgeois political system.

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