Need Help!
Sorry to be coming back on pen-l after about a year and starting it off with a call for help, and that too not of a revolutionary kind. I wonder if anybody knows of decent macro and micro principles/intermediate level web based teaching materials. Our Academy may be willing to buy such materials, which will give me more free time to do some more interesting things. Please! Please! let me know at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:12336] Re: Re: Landes and clocks
James M. Blaut wrote: For Brenner, the arrival of capitalism quite magically produces technological inventiveness. Effectively, then, he imputes unique inventiveness to Europeans the moment they are toiuched by the magic wand of (what he thinks of as) capitalism. I call this Neo-Weberian. It has none of the racist undertones of Weber, of course. _ Why should this be characterized as "magical"? Isn't capitalist relations imply that the method of control of labor process must change? Moreover, isn't capitalist relation imply competitiveness amongst capitalists that creates the dynamics of technical change? What does the rhetoric of "magic" supposed to do here? Cheers, ajit sinha No, I've never met him. I assume that he's a nice guy and I know that he is solidly progressive on contemporary issues, at least issues within the developed capitalist world. And he does good political work. This is a complicated world we live in... Cheers Jim Blaut P.S. I gather that you're a colleague of Susan Place and Chrys Rodrigue, geographers, at Chico. They think a lot like me.
[PEN-L:12170] Re: Attacking Imperialism
James M. Blaut wrote: I appreciate and support your appeals for civility. And I can't object to your chiding me when I get tetchy. But there is this one person on the list who persistently attacks left views, leftists, and the left, and I think it might be useful to chide this person a little more than I've seen you do (during my one week tenure on Pen-L). IMHO, this shit is simply not acceptable in left discourse. __ Since I have been so swamped with uninteresting work that i have largely missed this great debate. And i do not know what kind of stuff Woejeck (sp?) has been writing. But it seems Woejeck is putting forward what would be considered a minority voice on pen-l. I usually oppose any attempt to smother the minority voice. I think minority voices do a great service to the majority voices by at least forcing them to sharpen their arguments. Furthermore, i think the onus of being polite and civil lies more on the majority voices than the minority voices (if you have been a minority voice then you know how it feels!). My general criticism of Michael's moderation is that he usually supports the majority voice on pen-l and shows a lack of sensibility in handling the minority voices. Pen-l is a virtual community, and if the majority of its inhabitants are supposedly the champions of the minorities and the poor 'third world', then they should show by their action how they treat a minority voice amongst them. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:11828] Re: Re: Re: Role of Total Foreign Trade
J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote: Ricardo, I think we would be more inclined to fall at your feet in fawning admiration if you did not keep giving us major bloopers like this last one about large mammals. Last time I checked there still are elephants in Asia. Barkley Rosser But they are not as big as the African ones! Cheers, ajit sinha p.s. I think one needs to be clear whether we are talking about capitalism or industrialization. Conceptually they may not be the same thing. -Original Message- From: Ricardo Duchesne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, September 27, 1999 12:38 PM Subject: [PEN-L:11740] Re: Role of Total Foreign Trade Yeah, but you're working with outmoded data. It is the best available, most recent data out there! Check the year of the sources I cited. LP: If you are serious about these questions, you should examine the chapter on slavery and primitive accumulation in Blackburn's book that I posted from already, including the devastating numbers pointing out the nearly equal ratio between "triangle trade" profits and fixed capital investment in Great Britain in 1770. Yes, this was one of the few sources which went beyond such *absolute* numbers as how many tons of gold were extracted from the Americas (facts which do not address the role of the colonial trade *as compared to other sectors of the economy*). I did not respond because I thought I better post the stuff on total trade before Micheal had enough. From what I recall that stuff by Blackburn (took a course with him 'The strange history of Marxism') lacked a context in terms of who he is arguing with and where ere he got those numbers and what exactly they include. But I' ll I check it again, if I still have it. I don't know what your deal is, Ricardo, but you are stuck in the 1980s on a lot of these questions. I recall that you posted once on how the Mayans self-destructed because of anti-ecological farming practices. This too was an argument based on out-of-date evidence. More recent scholarship has refuted this claim rather definitively. I might add that Blaut takes up this question as well. It seems that part of the Eurocentrist arsenal is a belief that capitalism did not take hold in places like Africa and Central America because of "shifting agriculture" practices which involve burning fields and then moving on to new locales. It turns out that such practices do not damage the soil at all since fires were not allowed to get out of control and were appropriate to less than fertile soil conditions. Dont buy this 'out of date' argument which seems to be the only one Blaut has against me. I already showed here that one of those sources he cited as new and anti-eurocentric contains an artilce by Parker, and I can cite other articles there in that book edited by Tracy. But the fact is that a lot has been published recently which challenges the stuff Blaut keeps parading around. If he keeps mentioning Goody I will forward here my own analysis of that book which I posted last year to the World history list, to which he has yet to respond. I don't know what slash-burn agriculture has to do with capitalism, but the fact is that hunters and gatherers exterminated all large animals in the World except in Africa where such large animals were fortunate to grow side by side with the evolving australopithecines and homo species, thereby learning to adapt to them. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:11465] Re: Re: Re: Capitalist development
Michael Perelman wrote: I think there might be some confusion, as I mentioned before. Wood locates the origin of capitalist social relations in agriculture. The discussion here concerned that question of how the accumulation occurred once the social relations were in place. __ I think the original issue was to what extent colonial exploitation (many were though only dealing with colonial trade) was critical in the development of industrialization in Europe. If the issue is changed from industrialization to the development of capitalist relations per say, then i think Ricardo would be on much stronger footing. I haven't been able to follow this discussion for few days given the amount of traffic and my own work here, so don't know what threads are developing. Cheers, ajit sinha Ricardo Duchesne wrote: No, it looks like you are the one with a problem. Read the whole thing, instead of the 'introductory comment', and you will see that Wood's whole argument is that capitalism originated in the British agrarian sector. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:11243] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Capitalist development
As far as i know, China did not need to go around the cape of good hope,
Barkley. In the earlier period, the advantage of sea rout to India was mainly on
account of 'internalizing the security cost'. Prior to Vasco da Gama, the goods
from India went to Europe through the land rout to the mouth of Red Sea. This
rout was full of small chieftains who demanded high and unpredictable "safe
passage" charges. The sea rout cut out this big cost of transportation, though
they did have to spend money on their own guns etc. to deal with the pirates,
but this internalized the security cost and so was predictable. Cheers, ajit
sinha
J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote:
Jim,
Blaut argues that it was the fact that the
Atlantic is narrower than the Pacific that accounted
for the crucial ability of the Western Europeans to
get to the Americas to do the exploiting before the
Chinese (some Asians having already gotten there
earlier but who lacked sufficient immunity or technology
to resist a later invasion from either Europe or East Asia).
Of course this does not answer the crucial question as
to why the Chinese did not go around the Cape of Good
Hope in the 1400s while the Portuguese did in 1497 with
Vasco da Gama. Thus we had the Portuguese in Goa
and Macau rather than the Chinese in Cadiz and Lisbon.
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Friday, September 17, 1999 12:38 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:11192] Re: Re: Re: Capitalist development
Rod writes:
The question is why did the Europeans burst out of their
continent from the 15th century on, and why were they able to conquer
everyone in their path.
Bill writes:
In a nutshell, if I remember Blaut correctly, they luckily stumbled
upon America where they plundered with the aid of genocidal policies
and germ warfare (against which the Native Americans had no defense),
enriching themselves and laying the groundwork for a colossal Western
Imperium.
It's unfair to criticize Blaut on the basis of Bill's precis. (Obviously
such a short summary _must_ be simplistic.) But here goes. Just remember
that I'm not criticizing you, Bill.
The fact that the Europeans (actually the Castilians, led by some guy from
what is now called Italy) stumbled upon America suggests that they had (a)
the means to do the stumbling, e.g., the technology for sailing across the
Atlantic rather than hugging the shore; (b) the opportunity to do so, e.g.,
the finalization of the war against the Moors so that they could turn to
new worlds to conquer; and (c) the motive, i.e., the lust for gold and
power, plus the proselytism of religion.
To my mind, the first is most crucial, since there were a lot of nascent
empires that have lusted after gold and power (e.g., the Arabs) before
Queen Isabella's and the victory over the Moors seems more a determinant of
the timing of the deed. Perhaps the rise of capitalism (with this
grow-or-die economics) had something to do with motivating Spanish
aggression against the world, but I doubt it -- since the Iberian peninsula
was hardly fully capitalist at the time. If anything, the attack on the
"New" world helped stimulate capitalism's rise.
(The fact that the Norse and maybe the Irish (and maybe other Europeans)
stumbled on the Americas before Colombo indicates that it's important to
have the technology to sustain an invasion and to stumble on an area that
provides sufficient profit to justify sustaining it.)
Columbo (who should rank among the biggest of criminals in history) led his
ships to the Americas, which unfortunately for the locals were less
technologically advanced and organizationally resilient than China. When
Cortez invade Mexico, the Aztecs were deterred by his troops' use of
_horses_ (which is surely a matter of historical luck) not to mention
rudimentary firearms. Further, my reading suggests that the Aztec empire
was already in trouble, so that it would have had either a revolution, a
take-over by another ethnic group, or a simple collapse. Cortez was lucky,
coming in at the time he did, so he could prevent those kinds of results,
which would have led to a perpetuation of rule of one sort or another by
native Americans. The Spaniards and their imitators then used their initial
advantage to destroy all Indian civilization and to widen any existing
technological gaps, creating haciendas and similar forced-labor mining and
agriculture.
Once the Americas were conquered (along with a bunch of Portuguese and then
Dutch trading colonies along the coasts of Africa and south Asia) they
could be used as bases for invading China, etc. By building on such
advantages, the Europeans could either create advantages vis-a-vis China or
widen any that existed in 1492. (Linked to the purely military advantages
of position, European expansion encouraged further development of
[PEN-L:11244] Re: Re: Role of the Colonial Trade
Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Before I sent O'Brien's numbers, Ajit speculated that, if we assume that the take-off to industrialization requires an investment of approx 8% of the GDP, and that the domestic savings contributes 5% to 6% of that, whereas the colonies contribute 2% to 3%, then one cannot deny that that 2% or 3% played a critical role in allowing the take-off. But, clearly, what O'Brien numbers (cited below again) say is that "the colonial profits [in the best possible scenario] re-invested would have amounted to 10% of gross investment" - implying that the domestic savings would have contributed the other 90%!! "Among the many claims of this article is the highly damaging one that, if we agree with Bairoch's data that commodity trade between core and periphery amounted to no more than 4% of the aggregate GNP for Western Europe, and if we assume that core capitalists made such large profits as 50% on the trade turnover, and that they re-invested as high as 50% of their profits, the colonial profits re-invested would have amounted to only 1% og GNP, or 10% of gross investment." _ Just a few points. First, I would be very hesitant about buying his data. Look into all kind of biases there could be in his data collection. The categories such as "Western Europe" are usually fuzzy. In the context of hard data, I would rather stick with a better defined category as Britain. Second, as i have mentioned earlier. Trade data may not be all or even most important one that you need to look at. One needs to look at the data on plunder. As I said "home charges" would not figure in import-export data. They were direct transfers. Third, in international trade the international currency is of paramount importance. As i had suggested earlier, Britain couldn't have gone on buying from rest of the world, including the USA and China, unless Indian surpluses were there to pay for it. These relationships then become of critical importance. I think you need to give O'Brian's revisionist thesis as hard a run as you are trying to give to the so-called progressive thesis. Only then a serious product would come out of this. Cheers, ajit sinha ps. I think counterfactuals are mostly waste of time, and only designed to make ideological points. You cannot go back in history or do some sort of historical experimentation that would show you that 4 or 5% was not critical. All a historian can do is to show how things hung together. Counterfactuals are designed to make predictions. I think historians shouldn't be involved in the predicting game. Thus, for me, even the question that could Britain industrialize without its Indian Empire is a meaningless question. When you are dealing with real movement of time, you are dealing with total uncertainty, and wise men and women should shy away from getting into predicting game in such situations. That's why I think serious theorization can only deal with a given point in time rather than movement along time. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:11117] Re: Re: Re: Role of the Colonial Trade
Carrol Cox wrote: Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Yet, according to O'Brien's tentative findings, England;s trade with the periphery, and the profits thereof, were still too small a percentage of its total economy to explain its expansion through the 18th century. Thus, by means of a counterfactual demonstration, he argues that, if Britain had not traded with the periphery, its gross annual investment expenditures would have decreased by no more than 7%. In constructing this counterfactual O'Brien makes the rather optimistic assumption that colonial profits were very high and that capitalists reinvested 30% of their profits. It doesn't seem to me that analysis of total profits are of much use in historical/political analysis. Those profits did not go to the "Nation" nor were they prorated among the various enterprises. They went to only a few sectors. It is the political/economic influence of those sectors that is of analytic importance. In so far as British taxpayers had to bear the expenses of empire, those expenses (in India, for example) could have been greater even than the returns and still have been of more importance politically than larger domestic profits. I don't know whether this is the case or not, but I do feel that an analysis that does not explore it or account for it should be held suspect. Carrol As far as I know, the British tax payers did not have to bear the burden of their Indian Empire. They imposed something called "Home Charges" on Indian tax payers, which was supposed to pay all the costs of British administration in India (which included the lavish life style of the British administrators and the army officers), the Indian contingent of British army, which was supposed to defend the British interest in this region, plus all the expenses of "India Office" in Britain, which gave hefty salaries to people like James Mill etc. I think Ricardo needs to take this into account, which probably is not showing in his export-import data. Moreover, he should also take into account that up till first world war, India's trade relation with Britain was triangular in nature. India had surplus of balance of trade and payments with the rest of the world, and Britain had generally a deficit of balance of trade and payments with the rest of the world. The Indian surplus was siphoned primarily in the name of "Home Charges" that played the critical role in bridging Britain's deficit with the rest of the world including the USA. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:11118] Re: Re: Role of the Colonial Trade
Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Come on, progressive economists, Fostater pleads, how can you say that the colonial trade was not responsible for the industrialization of Europe? I would suggest, rather, that the political effect of dependency theory on the left has been divisive, setting up countries and ethnic groups against each other, foregoing universalist aspirations, which the right quite effectively took on as its own in the late 70s. But I really dont want to get into this. Here's more on O'Brien and some of his other, subsidiary, arguments, which I think might very well be enough to settle this issue here in pen-l: 1) It has not yet been shown that the rates of profits which European colonialists enjoyed in the periphery were "persistently" above the the rates "which they could have earned on feasible investments" in their home countries, or in other economies of the world. Citing studies on profits from the sugar plantations, he says that, over the long run, such earnings were *average*, fluctuating around or below 10%. Or, if I may add another figure, the percentage of slve profits in the formation of British capital was a tiny 0.11% (Anstey). Engerman, for his part, has calculated "the gross value of slve trade output" to England's national income to be 1%, to rise to 1.7% in 1770. (Of couse, if we take the triangular trade as a whole we are dealing with something more substantial, but I would agree with Rod that forward and backward linkages hold for any industry.) O'Brien also cites other studies which question the profitability of the Navigation Acts. If I may cite one source discussing a particular aspect of these Acts "...The benefit to the home country corresponding to the burden on the North American colonies was still smaller. In fact, it was itself probably a burden, not a benefit. Requiring certain colonial exports and imports to pass through Britain had the beneficial effects of reducing the prices of such goods to British consumers...The cost to British taxpayers of defending and administering the North American colonies was, by contrast, five times the maximun benefit" (Thomas and McCloskey, 1981). Likewise, even if Europeans had been forced to pay 'free market prices' for their colonial products, that would have simply worsened the terms of trade *within* this sector, which constituted a small share of total trade and an even smaller, "tiny" share of gross product. 2) What about Deane's claim that the colonial re-exports allowed Europe to acquire essential raw materials - never mind profit margins? First, O'Brien says that colonial foodstuffs contributed marginally to the supplies of calories available to Europeans. Second, that without the imported colonial produtcs, Europe would merely have experienced, *in the short run*, before substitutions were found, "a decline of not more than 3% or 4% in industrial output. __ I think the method of counterfactual is simply a poor way of doing economic history. The colonial empires were part of the rising capitalist and industrializing cores. A historian should be interested in seeing how they fitted in in the scheme of things. Colonialism was led by the mercantilist capital, and it established one form of relationship with the colonies. As the industrial capital came into ascendancy the relationship went through a change. A study of this changing relationship should through much light on the question of what that relationship meant to the rising industrial capital. When it comes to historical data, I think they are usually of rough nature and should be taken with more than a pinch of salt. And then who is to decide whether 3 to 4 percent fall in industrial output is big or small? There is no scientific way of establishing what is big or small in connection with such data, since we don't know what are the critical thresholds. My sense is that in this kind of literature any number is made to be either big or small depending upon what kind of rhetoric the numbers are inserted into. Furthermore, one should always keep in mind the terms of trade problems related to trade figures with poor countries. Let us suppose you forcibly take a lot of goods from me for free, so it will not show up in your import figures, but does that mean that I have made no contribution to your well being? Similarly, one of the objectives of colonial policies were to acquire "cheap" raw materials from the colonies, so obviously their contribution in monetary terms would appear to be small. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10996] Re: Why China Failed to Become Capitalist
Rod Hay wrote: You could on and on with the moral outrage. War and conquest extract terrible penalties on the defeated. Inside Europe as well as outside it. Has no one read the history of the thirty years war? But the question is how dependent was the development of capitalism on the exploitation of the peripheral countries. Few of the quantitative studies indicate that the dependence was large. _ I think the relevant question is not whether it was large or small, but rather whether it was critical or not. Let's suppose that the take off industrialization might have needed investment of about 8% of the GDP. The domestic savings could provide say 5 to 6 per cent and the rest 2 to 3 per cent came from the plunder of the colonies. The 2 to 3 per cent by itself may appear small but it may have caused the difference between the first world industrializing or not industrializing. On the other hand the overse logic could be applied for the colonies. They may be generating about 8 per cent surplus but fell short off taking off because the critical 2 to 3 per cent was siphoned off. So one has to understand everything by putting it in broader context and not by just looking at one number. Cheers, ajit sinha Capitalism depended and continues to depend for the most part upon the exploitation of workers within the core countries. Even with higher wages, the amount of surplus extracted is many, many times higher. This should not be surprizing given the differences in capital accumulation (both physical and human). Workers with higher educational accomplishments and more machines and more modern technology produce more. This is why the larger percentage of foreign investment is in already industrialised countries. That is where the surplus can be obtained more easily. Globalisation may change that, but even here the spread of industrial production is encompassing a small number of new countries. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10994] Re: Re: Fascism
Carrol Cox wrote: My own best guess as to what an American "Hitler" would look like is Jerry Brown of California. Hay, I tried to get a few votes for Jerry Brown in the primaries. I, of course, didn't have a vote. Was I so wrong? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10939] Re: Indigenous Epistemology
Craven, Jim wrote: From "Spirit and Reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr. Reader", Fulcrum Publishing, Golden CO, 1999 "...In 1920 George Sibley, the Indian agent for the Osages, a tribe in the Missouri region of the country, tried to convince Big Soldier, one of the more influencial chiefs, of the benefits of the white man's way. After enthusiastically describing the wonders of the white man's civilization, Sibley waited expectantly for the old man's response. Big Soldier did not disappoint him: ' I see and admire your manner of living, your good warm houses; your extensive fields of corn, your gardens, your cows, oxen, workhouses, wagons and a thousand machines, that I know not the use of. I see that you are able to clothe yourselves, even from weeds and grass. In short you can do almost what you choose. You whites possess the power of subduing almost every animal to your use. You are surrounded by slaves. Everything about you is in chains and you are slaves yourselves. I fear if I should exchange my pursuits for yours, I too should become a slave.' (Jedidiah Morse, A Report to the Secretary of War on Indian Affairs (1822), p. 207 quoted in Vine Deloria Ibid. pp 3-4) __ Is there a master-slave dialectics going on here? Please elaborate on this. __ "Many centuries ago the Senecas had a revelation. Three sisters appeared and informed them that they wished to establish a relationship with the people, the 'two-leggeds'. In return for the performance of certain ceremonies that helped the sisters to thrive, they would become plants and feed the people. Thus it was that the sisters' beans, corn and squash came to the Iroquois. These sisters had to be planted together and harvested together, and the Senecas complied with their wishes. The lands of the Senecas were never exhausted because these plants, were also [part of and formed] a sophisticated natural nitorgen cycle that kept the lands fertile and productive. ___ Now, the story of course is a good way to pass on the knowledge from generation to generation. But i wonder how did they come up with this knowledge? _ The white men came and planted only corn and wheat and very shortly exhausted the soil. After exhausting scientific experiments, the white man's scientists 'discovered' the nitrogen cycle and produced tons of chemical fertilizer to replace the natural nitrogen. But recently we have discovered that there are unpleasant by-products of commercial fertilizer that may have an even worse effect on us than they do on the soil... ( p. 12) For every scientific 'discovery', then, there may exist one or more alternative ways of understanding natural processes. But we cannot know what these alternatives are unless and until we begin to observe nature and lsiten to its rhythms and reject the idea of articifially forcing nature to tell us about herself. But science carelessly rejects alternative sources of information in favor of the clear idea, an absurd abstraction if ever there was one. Lacking a spiritual, social, or political dimension, it is difficult to understand why Western peoples believe they are so clever. Any damn fool can treat a living thing as if it were a machine and establish conditions under which it is required to perform certain functions--all that is required is a sufficient application of brute force. The result of brute force is Slavery, and whereas Big Soldier, the Osage chief, could see this dimension at once, George Sibley and his like have never been able to see the consequences of their beliefs about the world. Reductionism is about the least efficient way to garner knowledge." (p. 13) ___ It is not just reductionism. I think the knowledge claims based on causality are essentially mechanical in nature, and thus are rooted in the desire for control. Most of the people on this list are also basically control oriented. They only think that the leverage of control is in the hands of "bad guys" and they are the "good guys" who should have the control. These issues I think are most serious ones that needs to be thought through and debated. But Michael discourages it. Cheers, ajit sinha Jim Craven James Craven Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663 (360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5 *My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected Opinion*
[PEN-L:10938] Re: Re: IMF to become autonomous?
Rod Hay wrote: Globalisation is a fact that lefties have to deal with. It is futile to oppose it. Chris is pointing in the right direction but he is point at the wrong path. Capitalism may have some room for progressive action. There are still feudal institutional remnants around the world. But it is not the place of leftist to cheer the progress of capitalism. Or to worry about the institutional arrangements of international financial regulators. It is the place of leftist to champion the rights of workers. To insist that workers have their rights inforced, that everyone has enough to eat, that health care be available to those who need it, that good free education be available, etc., etc., etc. It is this opposition that will build socialism not an uncritical promotion of elite institutional reform. World government is of interest only because it helps break down national barriers to the self-organisation of the working classes of the world. __ Rod, Will this world government allow workers from all over the world to move freely and work where ever they please? Free mobility of the workers of the world would be first and foremost opposed by the workers of the 1st world. Cheers, ajit sinha Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10690] Re: Re: Timor
Rob Schaap wrote: Nope, we effectively killed the East Timorese, if not in '75/'76, in August of this year - when we decided to back the referendum without providing the material conditions it was always gonna need (everyone in East Timor - independent and integrationist alike - had been telling us this for months). We paved the road to hell with bad intentions in 1975, and now our good intentions have marched a whole population all the way up it. _ I doubt this, Rob. I think some people will get killed and few homes will be burnt, but there is no stoping East Timore from getting independence now. The Indonesian state does not seem to have much option than to control the violence within a few days. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10582] Re: Re: Re: Re: e: normal profits, etc.
Michael Perelman wrote: Ajit Sinha wrote: Michael, your firm must have a market value today. How do you arrive at the market value of your firm? Why? Is it reflected in the stock market value? The value of a firm cannot be known. The market is too thin to know the price in advance of its sale on the market, unless enough similar firms have been sold recently. _ Let us suppose you want to borrow money against your firm as collateral. Wouldn't the bank make some estimation of the value of your firm? How would the bank do that? If your firm has no price, i.e., it's worthless in the market, then in economic sense you are producing something out of nothing. But in anycase, our basic difference was about the role of inflation or deflation in calculating the generalized rate of profit. I still don't understand how inflation or deflation affects something that seem to have no price? Cheers, ajit sinha -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10583] Re: Re: Bonelessness...
Brad De Long wrote: I have heard Phil Harvey of Rutgers Law School use this story on more than one occasion in public presentations. No matter how much dogs are trained to be good bone gatherers, as long as the number of bones remain fixed, there will still be dogs left without bones. Even if all dogs had excellent training, this still holds. So training may be good, but by itself it does not address chronic bonelessness. If affirmative action programs are instituted, some dogs may be assisted in getting bones, but others will be displaced, leading to continued bonelessness as well as resentment... ... Do y'all allow your students to learn that employment in the United States has risen from 66 million in 1960 to 133 million today? The U.S. economy has lots of problems, but a fixed and ungrowing supply of jobs is not one of them. And to suggest that education-and-training programs are a scam because there is a fixed supply of jobs seems to me to be very, very, very wrong... Brad DeLong My sense is that if we take a very long term view, say the whole of 20th century, then the labor market in the developed world probably faced a supply constraint rather than a demand constraint. Otherwise how do we explain such large scale immigration from other parts of the world during this century? My sense is that the supply constraint faced by the growing capital in the developed capitalist countries have been critically responsible for the rise in the real wages of the workers in this part of the world. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10518] Re: Re: e: normal profits, etc.
Michael Perelman wrote: The problem that Ajit ignores is that most capital goods do not have a *price*. For example, a specialized piece of capital goods may be specific to my firm. It might have a very low value for any other firm or have to be sold for scrap. If an accident destroyed this machine, I would buy a new one. ___ Michael, your firm must have a market value today. How do you arrive at the market value of your firm? You must, or rather the market must impute some value to your vintage capital goods. Whatever the value imputed by the market of your particular specialized capital good is the price at with it should be valued for determining the rate of profit in your firm today. If it happens to have no market value then its contribution to the denominator is zero. The fundamental point I made was that the calculation of generalized rate of profits has nothing to do with inflation or deflation. And i fail to see what inflation or deflation have to do with your particular example, where the good seem to have no market price to begin with. Cheers, ajit sinha What is its price? The cost of a new machine? Its price on the second hand market, which is as yet undetermined? Prices are hard enough to calculate. What is its value? Ajit Sinha wrote: I find it hard to believe. If a capital good has no value in the market today, then of course it should be valued at zero dollars. However, all firms do have some market value, which must be arrived at by some estimation of the value of old capital goods today. Cheers, ajit sinha Ajit Sinha wrote: We take the price of the computer today to value the capital stock. What is the problem with that? Cheers, ajit sinha -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10474] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: normal profits, etc.
michael wrote: For some capital goods with an active national second hand goods, say cars with blue book values, you can do what you say. For most capital goods, you cannot. Many capital goods are too specialized to have a "price today." _ I find it hard to believe. If a capital good has no value in the market today, then of course it should be valued at zero dollars. However, all firms do have some market value, which must be arrived at by some estimation of the value of old capital goods today. Cheers, ajit sinha Ajit Sinha wrote: We take the price of the computer today to value the capital stock. What is the problem with that? Cheers, ajit sinha -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10457] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: normal profits, etc.
Michael Perelman wrote: The reason that inflation and depreciation has to do with the rate of profit is that the numerator has a capital stock associated with it. For example, if a computer is bought in one year, we cannot merely take the market price from last year as its contribution to the total capital stock. ___ Of course not. We take the price of the computer today to value the capital stock. What is the problem with that? Cheers, ajit sinha Ajit Sinha wrote: What inflation or deflation has got to do with calculating the generalized rate of profits? It is a measure for a given point in time, it has nothing to do with changes in prices. And if the calculation of the generalized rate of profits is "abstract", then what economic calculation could be characterized as "concrete"? --- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10444] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: normal profits, etc.
Michael Perelman wrote: Let me mention a couple of extra complications to the idea of normal profits. If you want to have a measure of real profits, let alone normal profits, you have to have a measure of both inflation and depreciation. We don't. We have seen how difficult measuring inflation is with the nonsense coming out of the Boskin Commission. Depreciation is even more difficult to measure. Someone said that, for Marx, profits depend on the surplus. But a rate of profit requires a measure of the capital stock, which is virtually impossible to measure -- even in theory. So, even average profits remain an abstraction. _ I don't know what sense to make of this post. What inflation or deflation has got to do with calculating the generalized rate of profits? It is a measure for a given point in time, it has nothing to do with changes in prices. And if the calculation of the generalized rate of profits is "abstract", then what economic calculation could be characterized as "concrete"? By the way, that "someone" you are referring to must have a name. Guess who that could be? Cheers, ajit sinha -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10430] Re: Re: Re: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
William S. Lear wrote: On Friday, August 27, 1999 at 18:02:28 (-0700) Ajit Sinha writes: Rod Hay wrote: "The will has no meaning in isolation. Therefore it does not exist" The heart has no meaning in isolation from a body. Therefore it does not exist. The part has no meaning in isolation from the whole. Therefore it does not exist. There is something wrong with this logic, Ajit. Rod, why don't you quote what people write rather than make up your own quotations? When did I say "will has no meaning in isolation. Therefore it does not exist"? Let me try to explain a simple argument for the nth time. Husband has no existence without a wife, and vise versa. Neither the husband nor the wife has any existence outside of the relationship of marriage. Sons have no existence outside of the relationship of father or/and mother, and vise versa. Yes, this is quite true, as the Puritan's pointed out using their Ramist logic. See Edmund S. Morgan, *The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England* (Harper Row, 1944 [1966]). However, the question still remains: are there such things as individuals? You merely define what a subject is (husband, son, pastor, congregation, etc.) pointing out they cannot exist in isolation, which is true but uninteresting and begs the original question. I feel that the creative use of language (for one thing) shows that no matter what the social relation, a person retains a measure of indeterminate behavior. Despite being "incited and inclined" to behave in a certain way as a subject, people often do not. This is to me the very essence of an individual. To say there are "no individuals, only subjects" seems to me to contradict this, simply by assertion I must note. To be a subject, in my view, does not mean one cannot also be an individual (I think this is the very essence of my objection to the preceding quote of yours). To be a subject is to play a particular role, the parameters of which change over time. If the roles change, somebody has got to act, at some point, outside the bounds of these roles, enlarging them or contracting them at some point. This again is evidence of individuality, to my mind. Additionally, even within the roles we are assigned, we might also remind ourselves of problems of commensurability that we have learned studying economics (honestly). To you, to be a husband may mean something totally different to me. If the roles we play are similar, though not identical, this again points to individuality. Bill __Bill, I think you are missing my point. I'm not arguing a deterministic thesis. My point is that as long as you have an ego, i.e., a subjectivity, you are a subject. Your own understanding of your individuality, of who you are, which makes you act in all sorts of ways, is a social construct. I had asked Rod a simple but an important question, when you peel away your social identity such as being a husband, a son, a father, a boss, a subordinate, a professor, etc. etc. in order to get in touch with a pure self, do you find this self to be a man or a woman? The point is that the very fundamental identity of being a man or a woman is also a social construct. Children are taught what it is to be a boy or a girl. But this does not mean that one is talking about a deterministic thesis. Our tempraments and behaviors are also affected by our genes, and our various biological capacities and capabilities. But the biological being does not have an ego or subjectivity. His/her subjectivity, the 'I' has existence only in the web of social relations, and outside of it, it does not exist. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10429] Re: Re: Re: normal profits, etc.
Mathew Forstater wrote: The notion of normal (or what Adam Smith called "natural") rate of profits is not only or even primarily a neoclassical concept. This notion is in the Classical economists and Marx. __ This point is also made by Jim Devine and Michael Perelman. I think this is not true. The notion of "normal profit" in neo-classical economics and the notion of generalized rate of profit in classical economics and in Marx are entirely different concepts. In classical and Marxian economics (not in Sraffa though) the rate of profits equalize across sectors due to competition and mobility of capital. But its size has nothing to do with the competitive mechanism. The size of the rate of profits depends on the surplus produced, that is, the amount left over after capital and real wages are deducted item by item from the gross output. The size of the rate of profits could be quite large or quite small depending on such factors as the technology in use, the length of the working day, and real wages. There is nothing normal or abnormal about it. The idea of "cost" in classical economics in general and in Marx is based on the objective aspect of cost as materials and labor-time spent in production. It is diametrically opposite to the notion of 'opportunity cost', which is a subjective notion of cost. Senior perhaps was the first one who introduced this idea of cost. I personally do find the idea of 'normal profit' of neo-classical economics to be extremely difficult to get hold of. Normal profit is a notion related to the long run situation under a perfectly competitive market structure. Now, if we accept the neo-classical marginal productivity theory of distribution, then we will have marginal productivity of capital that explains one income category. But this income category is an explanation for the interest on capital, and not the entrepreneurial profit, which is what normal profit refers to. So where would this profit come from? It can only be positive if some residual is left after the three factors are paid according to their marginal productivity. And this can happen only if firms are operating where diminishing returns holds. As long as constant returns to scale is in operation the whole output must be exhausted by the shares of the three factors. But constant returns to scale is the only logical possibility, given the assumptions of perfect competition. Actually it should be true even for the short run, contrary to all the text books assertions. It would be quite irrational for any firm in a perfectly competitive situation to not build a firm of optimum size and operate at the point of minimum cost even in the short run. So what meaning we can make of this so-called 'normal profit'? I think it is basically a petite bourgeois concept. The idea behind it is of a small entrepreneur who does a lot of management work, and the normal profit is a return to this kind of work. It's sort of a wage, and therefore forms a part of the cost. Cheers, ajit sinha It has to do with a tendency to a uniform rate of profits between and within industries, or in Marx's case--as has been argued by some, e.g., Shaikh, Semmler, and others--a simultaneous tendency toward profit rate equalization and differentiation. The notion is related to the notion of normal prices (of production), and other normal rates of return to labor and land. It has to do with the distinction made by the Classics and Marx, and some early neoclassical or marginalist economists, between normal and market prices and rates of return. There is a huge literature on these issues, in the Marxian and Sraffian traditions and the history of economic thought. See Eatwell's entry in the New Palgrave on "Natural or Normal Positions" (I think that's the title). Some Sraffians have also used the notion of "normal" for output as well. Mat -Original Message- From: William S. Lear [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 1:12 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10387] Re: normal profits, etc. Thanks to all who so thoughtfully replied to this. I'm going to digest this a bit more and possibly ask some more questions. For now, let me restate what I understand. It seems correct to me to think of "normal" profits as being endogenously determined (I think I missed this obvious and necessary step). Each entrepreneur/investor will have some level of profit/return below which s/he will not choose to engage in entrepreneurial/investment activity. This level depends on many things, including but not limited to the amount of return available elsewhere (either via investment, or perhaps even wage labor), i.e., upon the various interest and wage rates that obtain at any time. Normal profit is also firm-specific, as each firm has a different mix of entrepreneurs and investors/owners. Of course, nobody really
[PEN-L:10431] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Ideology/consciousnessandmaterial/social
Rob Schaap wrote: Hi again, Ajit, You write: So at the epistemological level, what good is will for? Well, whilst historical and contemporary relations do enable and constrain, I do believe there is an extra-structural category. That'd be 'that which is enabled and constrained by historical and contemporary relations'. Otherwise, none of us bears responsibility for our actions, our fate has been sealed since the big bang (the physical moment of which determined that I'd be here typing exactly these words to you 14 billion years down the track?), and a sound natural-scientific methodology (for whither the dialectic without 'man making his history'?) would need only correctly-weighted variables to predict all that will be. ___ Whether our fate has been sealed since the big bang or not, I don't know about that, Rob. I'm not sure whether big bang ever happened. But in anycase, the example you have given above explains my case well. You say that if we don't believe in individual's free will, none of us would bear responsibility for what we do. But this whole idea of bearing responsibility for ones action is a social construct, don't you think so? The idea of responsibility does not exist and has no meaning outside of social relationships. Here you are arguing for free will because it is expedient to maintaining social order. The argument is of similar nature as belief in private property is essential for maintaining social order. These are the arguments about how a subjectivity is constructed, and not a proof of the existence of free will. Cheers, ajit sinha Its existence or non-existence has no meaning. Would it be useful, d'ya think, to characterise this determinism (by said relations) as 'soft', rather than 'hard'? That way, we could keep the human basis of the dialectic (and 'will' is useful here, no?) whilst affording that basis something with which to be in 'contradictory unity'. That way, we could speak of our will having a scope within which it could manifest itself. It's either that, or we need but sit back and let it all wash over us (and Marx would have been better off down the pub, rather than in that dingy round room). We are not denying that people are different. At the sharp end of, say, a socialist insurrection, you'd have to assume people who'd wait and see, lest they take personal risks in a failed venture, and people who'd kiss their loved ones a poignant farewell and put their shoulders straight to it. I'm not sure which category would claim me, but what would it be that would move me to put an as-yet unproven idea before my empirically tenable self and loved ones? Whatever that something is, without it, Lenin would have gone down in history as little more than an interesting drinking partner in Swiss cafes. Quantum leap alert ... Ever hear of a Canadian pilot in WW1 called Edward (Mike) Mannock? He was a shy, one-eyed, violin-playing, officer-hating socialist, whose IWW comrades had stayed at home, who had always lived in terror of fire, funked it every time a German shot at him (for months he had but one balloon to his account), and so loudly cried himself to sleep at night when a comrade was killed that he would keep a whole embarrassed squadron awake. His disappointed C/O eventually asked him if he wanted a transfer out. Mannock asked for a little more time to wrestle with his demons, and went on (a) to become the allies' greatest ace (he killed 75 German lads), and (b) to die in the flames that had so terrified him. Sure, conetemporary relations were such as to produce several million such corpses, but how do we explain Mannock's own 'development' (in the first instance, Mannock's 'Wobbly' mates had chosen not to go at all, and in the second, his C/O had given him a choice taken by many less apparently troubled than he), or guess at the role that some of his victims might have played in history (did he kill, for fanciful instance, a young socialist who would have gone on to unify German socialists sufficiently in 1929/30 to defeat the foetal Nazi Party? After all, it seems to me that the social structure in Germany at that time was such that it could have gone either way - however silly the comintern were being about it) Sure, hard determinism can explain it all, indeed it explains everything (and with no more effort than an appealing Gallic shrug, too - that's its beauty) - but only after it's happened - when just about everybody else seems to be able to explain it, too - and in a million different ways! Hard structuralism's predictive powers might exceed those of the mainstream economics profession, but they don't hitherto seem to have matched those afforded by a few tosses of a coin. And, while it has the power to stop people doing things they might otherwise have done , it doesn't seem to have the power to move them to do anything they might otherwise not have done
[PEN-L:10418] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Ideology/consciousnessand material/social
Jim Devine wrote: At 11:40 AM 8/26/99 -0700, Ajit Sinha wrote: my problem with your Marxism is that you make Marx too pedestrian for my taste. I find that pedestrianism is a good thing (especially in L.A.) Indeed, I decided today that this semester I'd save money by parking in the free lot on campus and then walking the 1/2 mile or so to my office, helping my heart, lungs, and muscle tone. ___ A word has several meanings, Jim. You can understand its meaning only in the context of its use. I think your decision to walk half a mile is extremely revolutionary. ___ Jim: But that's not what you mean, right? Is it that you find "my Marxism" to be too empirically-oriented, too materialist, or too practice-oriented? I'd admit to any of those, though I might quibble about the meaning of these phrases. No! I just think that it is philosophically not very sophisticated. It creates a mumbo jumbo of Marxism, where Marx becomes a dialectician, a positivist, a materialist, an idealist, an atomist, a reductionist, a organicist, a wholist all at at the same time. __ Jim: I'm glad that you make it clear that your tastes are extremely important to determining your views. I assume that your tastes are societally-determined. _ My tastes are extremely important to me. I have a cultivated taste, and not a willed taste. ___ Ajit: As far as I see your basic problem, it seems that you think we are denying that human beings have a specific genetic configuration that gives them human capacities and capabilities. We are not denying this. This is as much true for humans as for rats, bacteria, or any living thing. All we are saying is that your consciousness of your individuality, of who you are, which makes you act one way or the other has no independent existence apart from the web of relations that explain your actions. It neither *determins* nor *limits* you, it is all there is to you as a human-social subject. Jim: As I said in a message to someone else on pen-l, off-list, with some minor editing: ... my point is not that the human individual (if I may use that word) is simply biological. I would start with Rod's point about "The part has no meaning in isolation from the whole. Therefore it does not exist" being logically fallacious. Consult my response to Rod. Jim: I would then say that the human individual is not only a historically-conditioned ensemble of social relations but _also_ a biological critter. We have minds, societal conditioning, and bodies in an inseparable whole (in a process of complex interaction). That we have -- or rather, are -- bodies means that we can have instincts, such as the survival instinct (or something very much like it). If we have instincts, then it's reasonable to say we have wills. __ Even bacterias have instinct, Jim. Do you think bacterias have will too? _ Jim: But of course the meaning of this will in practice -- and it's really only practice that matters in the end -- depends on the interconnected societal and natural situations we find ourselves in, plus the societal and natural conditioning we encounter throughout our lives. I have not a clue of what anybody could mean by "the meaning of *this* will in practice depends on the ...". What kind of philosophy generates such sentences? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10416] Re: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
Rod Hay wrote: "The will has no meaning in isolation. Therefore it does not exist" The heart has no meaning in isolation from a body. Therefore it does not exist. The part has no meaning in isolation from the whole. Therefore it does not exist. There is something wrong with this logic, Ajit. Rod, why don't you quote what people write rather than make up your own quotations? When did I say "will has no meaning in isolation. Therefore it does not exist"? Let me try to explain a simple argument for the nth time. Husband has no existence without a wife, and vise versa. Neither the husband nor the wife has any existence outside of the relationship of marriage. Sons have no existence outside of the relationship of father or/and mother, and vise versa. We can go on and on. Do you get the point. I'm not as weak in logic as you think. Cheers, ajit sinha Reductionist and wholistic approaches are not the only options. Both the whole and the individual exist. Neither can be understood in isolation from the other. Your "patriot" has a choice of which action to follow. His patriotism or his rejection of this patriotism have no meaning except in a social context, but the patriot chooses. Original Message Follows From: Ajit Sinha [EMAIL PROTECTED] G'day Rob! I think you are missing something. Let's suppose you are patriot who wills to fight and die for his country. Where does this willing of yours come from, where you a born patriot? The point is that the will has no meaning independent of action, and your actions can only be understood in the context of a web of relations. So at the epistemological level, what good is will for? Its existence or non-existence has no meaning. We are not denying that people are different. Cheers, ajit sinha Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10397] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
Rod Hay wrote: And no one has answered my question. How is it possible to have relations when there is nothing to relate? This is the fundamental epistemological difference between us. You, on the one hand, are insisting that there must be atoms existing independently *before* they could relate to each other. Our point is that atoms have no existence independent of the relations--they come into existence in and only through relations. This is the fundamental difference between the reductionist and the holistic thinking, in my opinion. In the context of subject, everybody understands that we wear masks in our daily practical life. The point we are making is that when you start taking off these masks one after another you realize that all you have is masks, there is no pure face behind these masks. I have been very busy, and still am, for the last few days and that's why could not attend to e-mails yesterday, and would be responding only briefly today. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10399] Re: Re: Re: RE: Ideology/consciousness andmaterial/social
Rob Schaap wrote: G'day Ajit, You write: There are no "individuals" Rod, only subjects. Think about your own 'individuality'. Who are you? Your own ego is associated with your name, which was given to you by others, and you learnt what it means only in the relations with those others. Your nationality, your gender, your race, your ethnicity, you being a son, a father, a brother, a husband, etc. etc. are all nothing but various relationships that define your so-called individuality to yourself. If you think that there is somewhere a pure you, independent of all these relations, then try finding that pure self and let us know who it is and how is it significant to anybody else. First of all, I would suggest, try to see if your pure self is a 'Man' or a 'Woman'? What would be wrong with the observation that we are, each and everyone of us, exclusively the product of relations (I'll leave physiological variability out of it for the purposes of the argument - I am surely who I am partly because I've a dick, testosterone, a typically male brain, and a big body that's good at lifting and shoving) and we are also individuals? None of you is the product of the particular relations that produced me, surely? Doesn't that make me an individual right now? I 'will' things, and I will different things in different ways than you do. And I experience my peculiar will and my ways of willing as 'that who I am'. A very fundamental part of human being indeed, I'd've thought. One to bear in mind in one's politics, no? Or do I miss the point? Cheers, Rob. G'day Rob! I think you are missing something. Let's suppose you are patriot who wills to fight and die for his country. Where does this willing of yours come from, where you a born patriot? The point is that the will has no meaning independent of action, and your actions can only be understood in the context of a web of relations. So at the epistemological level, what good is will for? Its existence or non-existence has no meaning. We are not denying that people are different. Cheers, ajit sinha Rod: It is hard to argue against a philosophy that no one believes in enough to act upon it. Everyone believes in the theory of the human will. The burden of proof is on those who would deny it. Explain consciousness as the result of relations, or as the result of material processes. No one else has done it. __ This is nothing but an example of bad rhetoric. How come I'm not a part of your "everybody"? Most of the scientists don't believe in "a theory of human will", as far as i know. And what is it by the way? The burden of proof must be on those who claim that something exists. If I claim that ghosts don't exist, then the other party has the burden to come up with some evidence to show that they do exist. You are the other party in this game, Rod. Cheers, ajit sinha Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10400] Re: Re: Re: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
William S. Lear wrote: On Tuesday, August 24, 1999 at 14:20:52 (-0500) Carrol Cox writes: "William S. Lear" wrote: On Tuesday, August 24, 1999 at 13:29:42 (-0700) Ajit Sinha writes: ... There are no "individuals" Rod, only subjects. ... Ajit, you are usually a bit more careful than this. Who gave us language? Who gave us the capacity for thought? If you have indeed answered "Descartes' Question", we'd love to hear about it, but I don't think your approach will quite do... - Who gave us language, Bill? Our individuality? Our will? How can you understand language outside of the context of its use? If you are saying that human beings have capacity to have language as part of their biological being, who is denying that? Cheers, ajit sinha I'm not sure what Descartes has to do with it. ... He posed the question of how humans use language creatively, something not explained by experience or any sort of "subjectivity". Therefore, to say we are "only subjects" is just plain wrong (as is saying the opposite). Try the mind experiment of stripping away every social relation you have ever had. What would be left? You seem to assume that the answer is "nothing", which again is quite wrong. Try stripping away our innate capacities. You'd be left with a random wadd of protoplasm. Bill
[PEN-L:10398] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Ideology/consciousness andmaterial/social
Jim Devine wrote: There are no "individuals" Rod, only subjects. what's the difference between an "individual" and a "subject"? It seems to be merely a matter of semantics. "Individuals" need not be atomistic or isolated in nature. If I understand Marx correctly, individuals/subjects reflect the ensemble of social relations -- but the existing ensemble of social relations are created by individuals/subjects (though not exactly as they please), as part of a dialectical and historical process. Marx's point wasn't that "individuals" don't exist as much as that any given individual is _powerless_ (if acting in isolation) to affect the historical process, so that the character of the individual is more of a "dependent variable" than an independent one. (He didn't address the genetic component of the determination of the individual's character, to my knowledge, though there must be some sort of genetic basis for "species being" and for the differences between people and beasts.) We can't undermine capitalistm, for instance, by simply meditating, changing our minds, wishing for a better world, writing letters to the editor, standing as individuals on street corners shouting at passersby, or voting. To change the historical process, masses of individuals/subjects need to be organized in collective practice, as with the English Chartists or the mass Social Democratic Party of Germany of Marx's time. _ Since when I have become someone worth talking to, Jim? Anyway, my problem with your Marxism is that you make Marx too pedestrian for my taste. As far as I see your basic problem, it seems that you think we are denying that human beings have a specific genetic configuration that gives them human capacities and capabilities. We are not denying this. This is as much true for humans as for rats, bacteria, or any living thing. All we are saying is that your consciousness of your individuality, of who you are, which makes you act one way or the other has no independent existence apart from the web of relations that explain your actions. It neither *determins* nor *limits* you, it is all there is to you as a human-social subject. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10325] Re: RE: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
Rod Hay wrote: Relations between what? If individuals are the results of relations, what is relating? A mere form without content? "Full of sound and fury signifying nothing" There are no "individuals" Rod, only subjects. Think about your own 'individuality'. Who are you? Your own ego is associated with your name, which was given to you by others, and you learnt what it means only in the relations with those others. Your nationality, your gender, your race, your ethnicity, you being a son, a father, a brother, a husband, etc. etc. are all nothing but various relationships that define your so-called individuality to yourself. If you think that there is somewhere a pure you, independent of all these relations, then try finding that pure self and let us know who it is and how is it significant to anybody else. First of all, I would suggest, try to see if your pure self is a 'Man' or a 'Woman'? Rod: It is hard to argue against a philosophy that no one believes in enough to act upon it. Everyone believes in the theory of the human will. The burden of proof is on those who would deny it. Explain consciousness as the result of relations, or as the result of material processes. No one else has done it. __ This is nothing but an example of bad rhetoric. How come I'm not a part of your "everybody"? Most of the scientists don't believe in "a theory of human will", as far as i know. And what is it by the way? The burden of proof must be on those who claim that something exists. If I claim that ghosts don't exist, then the other party has the burden to come up with some evidence to show that they do exist. You are the other party in this game, Rod. Cheers, ajit sinha Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10282] Re: RE: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
Rod Hay wrote: You must have be confused with some one else. I don't wish to argue a vulger materialism. I want to maintain the distinction between natural and social, which was characterised as vulgar. ___ I'm not sure whether this distinction could be maintained. But I'll leave this point pass for now. _ Rod: Yes, the human will cannot be explained by natural forces. Yes, humans are limited by socio-historical circumstances. But it not determined by them. My point was not that "humans" are 'limited" by socio-historical circumstances. My point was that the human subject has no existence outside of the socio-historical circumstances s/he is implicated in. It is not a question of "limitation" at all. I wouldn't say that the subject is "determined" by the socio-historical circumstances, but rather it is "overdetermined". Carrol is right in pointing out that "product" was a poor choice of word on my part. ___ Rod: No one has succeed in explaining the human will by material or social factors. And no, it does not imply any spiritual or religious explanation. Let's just say we don't know. Anything else could only be done as a statement of faith, without sufficient evidence. Why is human will more mysterious than matter? __ In my opinion, as Carrol has also suggested, the concept of "human will" is similar to the concept of God or Soul--its existence cannot be proved by any 'scientific' means. But that does not make it a nonsense. We all use the word "human will" in our language and communication with an understanding of what it means. But its meaning can only be understood in relation to action--a will that is unrelated to actions is no will. And action can be observed, and so it is material, if you will. Thus the very meaning of the human will is implicated in the construct of the subject and its actions that can all be analyzed within a materialist context. _ Rod: Both exist. Why must we reduce to two starting elements--matter and social relations--instead of three--matter, social relations and the individual? _ But it is you who seem to think that the reductionist methodology is the only way to go. You think that I'm suggesting that there are two fundamental elements that exist independent of each other and are the basic building blocks of all understanding, whereas you are suggesting a third fundamental and independent element, "individual", should be added to it. But this is not my point at all. As it is clear from your second fundamental element, "social relations", that it simply cannot be an element because it is a relation. My point is not to reduce things to its fundamental elements, but rather to suggest that no fundamental element exists independently of the relations in which it is found to be implicated. So my approach is holistic as opposed to yours which is atomistic. __ Rod: In your array of relations, are all relations of equal significance? __ This is a significant question. I'm not one of those who think that everything determines everything else is a profound statement--it simply is a tautology. In the game of the construction of knowledge we define our object of knowledge. Every object of knowledge has its own relations of significance and insignificance. However, no object of knowledge can be cut neatly out of the whole as a water tight compartment, and thus the inside of an object of knowledge must recognize a two way communication with the outside. Rod: Without causation there is no explanation, only description. And what is the purpose of that other than to pass the time? __ There is explanation of course, but not of the causal type. I think causal explanation is basically of mechanical nature, where one seeks knowledge of the cause for control purposes. My kind of thinking is not control oriented and so is not conducive to power, whether left or right. But I think it has a politics of its own, and that is opposition to power per se. Cheers, ajit sinha Original Message Follows From: Ajit Sinha [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm glad you brought this up, Rod. By introducing human "will", which cannot be explained by natural forces, as the original cause in the explanation of human society, you have simply and neatly thrown your 'materialist thesis' out of the window. A materialist thesis would rather not grant such autonomy to the mysterious human "will". Who does the willing, by the way? A subject, only a subject can will. But what is a subject? A subject is a product of a socio-historical context--his/her subjectivity that directs his/her willing is not at all autonomous (remember? "man is ensemble of social relations"). It can only be understood in the socio-historical (i.e., various other relations of production
[PEN-L:10274] Re: RE: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
Rod Hay wrote: I don't want to go to a system of relations without causation because there is one causal relation that it is very important not to ignore--human purposeful activity, the will, human agency, etc. (what ever you want to call it) The political consequences are passivity, hopelessness, dispair. ... Again the difference is human will-- a creative force that can not be explained by natural forces. Despite repeated claims that it is purely material. (Those claims are merely statements of faith). ... So I will continue to make the distinction and I will continue to look for causation in human society. I'm glad you brought this up, Rod. By introducing human "will", which cannot be explained by natural forces, as the original cause in the explanation of human society, you have simply and neatly thrown your 'materialist thesis' out of the window. A materialist thesis would rather not grant such autonomy to the mysterious human "will". Who does the willing, by the way? A subject, only a subject can will. But what is a subject? A subject is a product of a socio-historical context--his/her subjectivity that directs his/her willing is not at all autonomous (remember? "man is ensemble of social relations"). It can only be understood in the socio-historical (i.e., various other relations of production, culture and politics, etc.) context. Thus we are back to the relational and horizontal epistemology rather than the causal and vertical epistemology where things are arranged one on top of the other with the bottom one being always mysterious and unexplainable. I think an epistemology based on causation must in the end take shelter in some kind of spiritualism. Cheers, ajit sinha Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10243] Re: Re: Is a Fetus an Appendix?
Sam Pawlett wrote: Ajit Sinha wrote: Do you think animals have rights or not? No. I don't like rights-based theories at all--they have intractable problems-- but in some cases ,like abortion, talk about "rights" makes the conversation a lot easier. Most political philosophies, even contractarians like Rawls and Gauthier, make some use of the concept of "rights". Nozick argues that one cannot derive any conception of property rights from a right to life.(A,S,U p129) So its possible to talk about a right to life while eschewing all other talk about rights. ___ I don't understand what right-based theories have to do with my question. The fact is that most of the societies that i know of confer certain rights to animals. For example, if you have a pet and you mistreat it or torture it, you might find yourself put in jail for it--and probably most of the people on this list will not bother to cross the street to fight for you. __ If yes, do you think animals have consciousness of right and obligation? The ideas of rights and obligations are our cultural construct. On some theories, yes. A lot of rights-based theorists argue that rights are absolute and universal with no difference across cultures (Nozick). N's conception of rights is so strong that he assumes what he is trying to prove. Natural law theorists like Murray Rothbard try and derive rights from nature. __ But still they are all cultural construct. The idea of a universal culture, is a particular cultural construct as well, so is the idea that human culture must be built on 'natural laws'. My point is that 'rights' do not exist outside of human culture and consciousness. __ The most prominent rights based theorist (and defender of abortion) ,Ronald Dworkin,I think, agrees with you, he says: "Individual rights are political trumps held by individuals. Individuals have rights when, for some reason, a collective goal is not a sufficient justification for denying them what they wish, as individuals, to have or do, or not a justification for imposing some loss or injury on them." (Taking Rights Seriously pXI) _ I'm not sure whether I agree with it. I think he is dealing with the issue at much more particular level than we are. ___ Dworkin isn't interested in discussing the ontological foundations of rights, he posits them to derive his legal and poltical theories. An entity does not have to be conscious of the right that is conferred to it by us--it has mainly to do with who we are. To repeat, why assign rights to people and not trees? There must be a criterion for assigning rights or rights become arbitrary. ___ I think rights are "arbitrary" in the sense that they are not 'scientific' but are rather based on our moral values. I do think that trees should also have rights, as in some cultures they do. _ By the way, an infant, in my opinion, has no consciousness of anything that would confer it a right to life by your definition. An infant does have consciousness, so there must be some intentional content. What kind of consciousness an infant has? And how do you know a fetus does not have it? Cheers, ajit sinha A human infant, unlike many other small animals, is not born completely prepared to survive in the outside environment--this is the price we have to pay for having a large brain. Yes, humans spend a lot of time--a great deal more than most animals-- in raising and rearing the young in hopes time invested now will pay off later in terms of reproductive success. Most human brains operate at about 10-15% capacity (and that's not just some of the participants on usenet groups). But, Ajit, perhaps you know all this? Sam Pawlett
[PEN-L:10241] Re: RE: Ideology/consciousness and material/social
Rod Hay wrote: Abandoning some distinctions, between material and ideal causation, between the human and the natural world, etc. leaves us with an indeterminate system. In a world were anything goes. We have no grounds upon which to make any distinctions. __ But why we must think in terms of "causation" to make sense of anything? Why can't we think in terms of things hanging together in certain relationships, and have no existence indipendent of such relationships? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10207] Re: Re: Is a Fetus an Appendix?
Sam Pawlett wrote: Ajit Sinha wrote: __What kind of a rotten arguments you are producing Sam? Do you think a newly born child has an understanding of what x is? Has a consciousness of his/her rights and obligations? There are many even adults who do not have such consciousness due to many reasons. Are you proposing that all these people should be treated as vegetables? OK, but the idea is that someone should at least know what life is in order to respect others right to life. Even young infants and severely retarded people distinguish between life and death though there are exceptions like Rickey Ray Rector. Certainly we would want the exceptions to have the same rights. There must be some criterion for assigning rights (if one is to assign rights at all) or else cars and trees would have rights. Sam Pawlett _ Do you think animals have rights or not? If yes, do you think animals have consciousness of right and obligation? The ideas of rights and obligations are our cultural construct. An entity does not have to be conscious of the right that is conferred to it by us--it has mainly to do with who we are. By the way, an infant, in my opinion, has no consciousness of anything that would confer it a right to life by your definition. A human infant, unlike many other small animals, is not born completely prepared to survive in the outside environment--this is the price we have to pay for having a large brain. So we might as well use it. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10164] Re: Re: Michael Perleman please.Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx, andRhetoric
Michael, This person is consistntly calling Ricardo, Richard. By doing so, he is oblitirating Ricardo's Latin American identity. I'm sure Stephen is not a KKK type, but he seems to be insensitive in understanding a subtle point--everybody may not like to be assimilated into an anglo-american identity. And you seem to miss the point too, which is even sader. Cheers, ajit sinha Michael Perelman wrote: Ricardo seemed to be making a clumsy attempt at humor. In the past, he has shown himself to be insensitive, but not vicious. Let's see if he continues. Is that ok? Otherwise, I will warn him. Stephen E Philion wrote: Michael Perleman, I'm not sure what has induced this occasion for flaming, but it is growing tired already. I send off a post asking for clarification about how a certain post is 'rhetorical' as Mr. Duchesne claimed in an earlier post, in a sincere and non-hostile manner and the next post from Richard is some Teresa Ebert like post equating me the KKK... Will you please ask Mr. or Dr. Duchesne to refrain from baseless accusations of racism and stick to answering or not answering questions people ask him...? Thank you, Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Well, Stefy, considering your location, I would guess that dancing in the beach is your real profession. Richard, I didn't think you were from Latin America, though I'm not sure that there is anything I wrote that would indicate this to you. I now do wish to make a geograpical guess. You are from Buffalo...Teresa Ebert is your mentor...? Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10170] Re: Re: Is a Fetus an Appendix?
Sam Pawlett wrote: Even if a fetus is a person the rights of the mother override that of a fetus. Suppose you woke up in a hospital bed with your circulatory system plugged into the circulatory system of a famous musician. The musician dies if disconnected before nine months. Does the musician have a right to your body? Would it be wrong for you to disconnect? (this is Judith Jarvis Thompson's example). Further, having rights entails an obligation namely to respect others rights, something a fetus cannot do. To have a right to x requires being able to desire x and having a desire requires having a concept of x,(i.e. understanding what x is), something a fetus cannot have. __What kind of a rotten arguments you are producing Sam? Do you think a newly born child has an understanding of what x is? Has a consciousness of his/her rights and obligations? There are many even adults who do not have such consciousness due to many reasons. Are you proposing that all these people should be treated as vegetables? ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10169] Re: Re: Re: Re: Michael Perleman please.Re: Re: Re: Re:Marx, and Rhetoric
Okay Steve! I thought Richard is not a misspelling of Ricardo, but rather Anglicization of a Latin name. Cheers, ajit sinha Stephen E Philion wrote: Ajit, Gosh, all this because I misspelled a name? Why the subtlety? Why couldn't Ricardo just have gotten to the point and said something like, "Hey, my name is Ricardo, not Richard... Possibly, Ajit, I wasn't obliterating anyone's 'identity', but made a mistake after a day of making and remaking a syllabus? I know that explanation is not as exciting a material for deconstruction...but I'm afraid that is about the significance of my getting Ricardo's name wrong... Steve On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Ajit Sinha wrote: Michael, This person is consistntly calling Ricardo, Richard. By doing so, he is oblitirating Ricardo's Latin American identity. I'm sure Stephen is not a KKK type, but he seems to be insensitive in understanding a subtle point--everybody may not like to be assimilated into an anglo-american identity. And you seem to miss the point too, which is even sader. Cheers, ajit sinha Michael Perelman wrote: Ricardo seemed to be making a clumsy attempt at humor. In the past, he has shown himself to be insensitive, but not vicious. Let's see if he continues. Is that ok? Otherwise, I will warn him. Stephen E Philion wrote: Michael Perleman, I'm not sure what has induced this occasion for flaming, but it is growing tired already. I send off a post asking for clarification about how a certain post is 'rhetorical' as Mr. Duchesne claimed in an earlier post, in a sincere and non-hostile manner and the next post from Richard is some Teresa Ebert like post equating me the KKK... Will you please ask Mr. or Dr. Duchesne to refrain from baseless accusations of racism and stick to answering or not answering questions people ask him...? Thank you, Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Well, Stefy, considering your location, I would guess that dancing in the beach is your real profession. Richard, I didn't think you were from Latin America, though I'm not sure that there is anything I wrote that would indicate this to you. I now do wish to make a geograpical guess. You are from Buffalo...Teresa Ebert is your mentor...? Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10125] Re: Re: Re: Marx, and Rhetoric
Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above.
[PEN-L:10048] Re: Re: Abortion and communication
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Michael: How would youu begin a dialogue with a woman who is otherwise progressive who sincerely believes that abortion is immoral? A woman who is *otherwise progressive* but against abortion should be especially willing to consider what I wrote in the "Abortion Bargaining" post: Face it, rich women will always have ready access to abortion, unless the entire world ceases to provide this medical service. So whose bodies can be bargained away? Bodies of poor women, young women, rural women, conservative women, women who lack support of their family and friends in their reproductive decisions. Limits placed on abortion by Roe v. Wade itself, additional limits created by subsequent laws, limited availability, cultural limits imposed by moralizing, etc.--these numerous compromises have mainly created hardships for such women as described above. ___I don't think this is a very good argument. On a similar basis one could argue that making murder or theft etc. illegal only restricts the right of the poor, since the rich would always get away because of their connections and their capability to hire smart lawyers etc. In the above case, all that the woman who has moral problem with abortion has to do is to ask for the law to punish the women who get abortion outside of the country. If govt. can punish people for distributing medicine in Iraq, why cannot they do this? I think the best way to approach this issue would be to take it on a similar plane as religion is taken in a modern secular liberal democracy. As religion is treated as something private to an individual and the state has no right to interfere in it, pregnancy should be treated similarly as something private to the pregnant woman, where state has no right to interfere. As anybody has a right to propagate her/his religion, both the sides, the side that thinks abortion is immoral as well as the side that thinks that there is nothing immoral about it, should have freedom to propagate their ideas. All everybody has to agree to is that state has no role in this, except to see to it that the right of individuals are upheld. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:10023] Re: Re: Value Theory
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: I dare say this has to be at least as interesting + important as value theory. _ I know "value theory" has become some kind of a 'whipping boy' for radicals--an euphemism for irrelevant nonsense. And as a matter of fact so much of nonsense has been written in the name of 'value theory' that I'm beginning to sympathize with this view. However, one should keep in mind that we cannot escape "value theory" whenever we talk "economics". The fundamental question of value is the question of the measurement of economic entities, or rather more fundamentally, how something becomes an economic entity? And the most important controversy surrounding this issue, which i think should be important to any radical thinker, is whether it is in the nature of the thing or human nature itself that gives value to things or make them economic entities or whether value is implicated in a social context and has no meaning outside of it. At the epistemological level, the first position is organized vertically in the tradition of cause and effect sequence, and the later position is organized horizontally where there is no causation, only implications. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:9835] I'm Baack!
Since I have got your attention, could anyone please tell me who is organizing the urpe panels for the esterns early next year? I need her/his e-mail address, please! For those who care, below is my new address. Cheers, ajit sinha Dr. Ajit Sinha Professor of Economics LBS National Academy of Administration Mussoorie 248179, India e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:6897] Re: Re: Re: Embassy Attack Fallout
Henery: Sorry about a delayed response. I have been too busy finishing a paper, and in a couple of days I'll be leaving Delhi too. In anycase, in my opinion the idea of Russia-India-China counterweight to US led world hegemony does not have much weight. First of all both economically and militarily the Western alliance would still be much too powerful than the triangle. The only way one can curb US led military adventures is by going back to the cold war situation, which I think is almost not possible--it could happen, thanks to the present war, if Russia gets a pure fascist regime (the old communists wouldn't be able to bring back the cold war). Secondly, I think the mistrust between India and China, and China and Russia are great enough to make this triangle extremely fragile. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, all the three countries economically need the western alliance more than the western alliance needs them--from the pragmatic point of view none of the three countries would want to make the western alliance its enemy unless their interests are attacked directly. I think a counterweight must develop as a political counterweight at global and UN level, which must include other important countries including South Afria. Cheers, ajit sinha Ajit: The Russian foreign minister floated the idea last year while in India. It did not go very far. The idea is not without merit, but it has a lot of historical baggage to overcome. USSR-India alliance against China had been operative until the fall of the USSR. India, a great friend of China after WWII under Nehru, has abandoned the non-aligned nation leadership since after Nehru's death. The Indo-China border war over disputed territory left by British imperialism was unfortunate and unnecessary and China saw it as part of US containment policy against China. When India shift toward the USSR, China drew closer to Pakistan for both geo-political and domestic minority policy (moslem) considerations. Since the end of the Cold War, India and China repeatedly try to move toward rapprochement, but the complexity of Indian domestic politics needed a hostile posture toward China to justify its nuclear policy. And then there is the Tibetan exiled pretension government. To China, India adopted British imperialistic aims toward Tibet. Until India stops supporting the Dalai Lama, Indian-Chinese relations cannot improve. The Indian domestic political scene is too unstable for long term foreign policy structure as this time, and in many ways the same problem exists in Russia. Yet in the long run, there is logic in the idea. What does it look like from the Indian perspective? Henry Ajit Sinha wrote: _ Henery, What do you think of the talk about Russia-China-India triangular counterweight to US led hegemony that is going on around here? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:6705] Re: Embassy Attack Fallout
To China, its policies of the past decades has gradually led to the US treatment of China as a weak nation with no consequence. US judgment that the growing Chinese trade surplus with the US entitles the US to bully China is deeply resented by China. The China leadership cannot afford to allow the US to downgrade its hard earned status as a legitimate major power, and cannot afford to appear to the Chinese people as betraying the interest of the nation, regardless of sophisticated logic of realpolitik and economic considerations. This undeniable development will tilt in favor of forces within China that pressure for a change in policy. _ Henery, What do you think of the talk about Russia-China-India triangular counterweight to US led hegemony that is going on around here? Cheers, ajit sinha Envoy Says China Dispute Won't Last By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Holed up in the U.S. Embassy in China as a virtual prisoner for four days, Ambassador James Sasser nonetheless believes the flap over the mistaken U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is an aberration that the two sides will overcome. ``I think wiser heads will prevail on both sides, and both sides will move forward and continue to build a partnership,'' Sasser said Monday night on CNN's ``Larry King Live'' program. Sasser said he is encouraged by signs of a Chinese willingness for the first time to permit the media to publish U.S. expressions of condolences over the loss of life in Belgrade and the apologies of President Clinton and other senior officials. But Chinese President Jiang Zemin has yet to accept a telephone call from Clinton, and other Chinese officials are continuing to cast doubt on the American claim that last week's bombing was an accident. In the first direct fallout on the fragile U.S.-Chinese military relationship, Beijing canceled a planned visit next week by Gen. Charles Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps, and ``put on hold'' virtually all military-to-military cooperation with the United States, U.S. defense officials said today. Defense Secretary William Cohen's planned trip to China in June now appears unlikely, officials said, although Cohen said Monday, ``Much will depend upon whether the Chinese government wishes to have me travel there.'' He said he wanted to strengthen defense ties, ``but that depends upon the Chinese government.'' China's ambassador to the United States, Li Zhao Xing, said on CNN: ``Some people are saying this is a mistake. ... How could they make such an error?'' He demanded a ``thoroughgoing investigation'' into the incident. The situation improved today, Sasser said. ``We are not getting nearly as many rocks thrown at us and the crowds are much smaller,'' he said on NBC's ``Today.'' ``I think it is clear that we have to move rapidly to give China a clear and cogent explanation'' how the bombing mistake occurred, Sasser said. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, interviewed immediately after Sasser, was asked when the United States would provide that explanation. ``Yesterday,'' he replied, referring to Defense Secretary William Cohen's statement Monday. ``We responded with great speed and made clear to the Chinese that this was a tragic mistake,'' Pickering said. He would not rule out further explanations, adding, ``We are continuing our review.'' Sasser, a former Democratic senator from Tennessee, said he has remained at the embassy because the Chinese police were unable to guarantee his safety. He said his wife and son were moved
[PEN-L:6493] Re: Re: Re: Re: Swift
CAMILLE PAGLIA wrote: "We are hierarchical animals," I declared in my first book. Rousseauist liberals and armchair leftists (like Michel Foucault) think hierarchy is imposed on free-flowing human innocence by unjust external forces, like the government and the police. _ What's her problem? Doesn't she understand Foucault? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:6211] Re: US/Nato Motives
The following is an expanded version of remarks I made a few days ago on the marxism list. I think I have mentioned Sartre's "On Genocide" in other posts. His core argument was that the Vietnam War was fought not primarily over Viet Nam but over Latin America, which is and always has been the very core and foundation of U.S. Imperialism. In contrast to the French in Algeria, the labor and economic wealth of which was at the heart of the conflict, Vietnam had little intrinsic interest to the Empire, and thus the U.S. could follow a genocidal policy there with the primary purpose of teaching the people of Latin America a lesson. The ferocity of the U.S. response to the tiniest anti-imperialist developments in Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Panama, Haiti, etc. (not to mention the large threats such as Chile) is an index to how impossible it will be (has been) for any Latin American country to declare even partial or limited independence without being prepared for the most god-awful response from the U.S. Could it be that the current attack on Yugoslavia fits Sartre's analysis? That wherever U.S. bombers or infantry or CIA spooks go, it is really Latin America which is at stake? Carrol ___ I have a feeling that the design here must be much greater than just keeping Latin America in line, which is pretty much in line to begin with. The risk that US/NATO has taken in this operation has been the greatest--much greater than the Gulf War. This whole operation must have been in making for a long time. We need a comprehensive geo-political as well as cost-benifit analysis from US/NATO point of view to understand this phenomenon. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:6210] Re: Re: A Delhi Story
Ever heard of a monkey going bananas over booze? Here's the story about one. Every day, for the past six months, a small yet distinguished simian has been coming to the Gole market area of New the bus conductor's feet and then disappears into the crowd To show up the next day at Liquor vend in Gole Market. So, Ajit, are there intimations of reincarnation in this story for most Indian readers? Is it the equivalent of a bleeding crucifix or a weeping Mother Mary? valis 2 days and counting __ Oh! not at all. He is just being a Delhi monkey! Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:6142] A Delhi Story
A DELHI STORY Ever heard of a monkey going bananas over booze? Here's the story about one. Every day, for the past six months, a small yet distinguished simian has been coming to the Gole market area of New Delhi. He heads for one of the Government owned liquor vends there with the air of a regular. Discriminating enough to rub shoulders with connoisseurs of liquor, our friend is picky-he won't drink just anything. Says Mr. H.P. Das, who runs a magazine store next to the DSIDC liquor vend, "It first breaks open a bottle, licks some of the whiskey off the floor and only if it is good drinks the rest." Mr. Vijay Khanna, manager of the DSIDC vend agrees. "The monkey has a very evolved palate. It does not like the cheaper brands. It likes Aristocrat, McDowells, and Bagpiper. On one occasion it got hold of a bottle of Black Dog scotch whiskey." Ranking high in its list of favourites is red wine. Some months ago it polished off a few bottles of Riviera wine. In summer, beer is the monkey's drink of choice. It has been guzzling Strohs beer. Between slugs it munches monkey nuts and roasted gram. To get what it wants, says Mr. Khanna, the monkey touches his feet or tugs his clothes, asking for a bottle. It is usually safer to comply for the monkey can be destructive. It goes about breaking bottles and smashing crates if its request is turned down. Unsure of its mood, the liquor vend manager often down shutters if they are warned of the simian visitor's arrival. To make good their losses, liquor vends claim insurance for damage to goods due to monkey menace. For all its hard drinking, it's not always that the monkey can hold its drink. Sometimes it is too drunk and must take a nap, which it does by putting its head on its feet. And after all that, where does it go? To the bus stop to board a bus on route 851 or, 871 going towards Karol Bagh. It enters the bus through the front entrance [in Delhi you enter through rear entrance], takes a seat, and when it has to get off, just pulls at the bus conductor's feet and then disappears into the crowd To show up the next day at Liquor vend in Gole Market. Soni Sangwan, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, April 24 p.s. The title is mine and not the news paper's. The monkey seems to be negotiating Delhi better than I am. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:5672] Re: 4/24 Conference on Money
Mathew, Will it be possible for you to send me the papers at the below given address? Thanks! Cheers, ajit sinha Dr. Ajit Sinha Visiting Fellow Centre for Development Economics Delhi School of Economics University of Delhi, Delhi 110007 India THE NATURE OF MONEY: HISTORY, THEORY, AND POLICY Saturday, April 24th 1999, 1:30-6:00pm Wolf Conference Room, Room 242 Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science New School for Social Research 65 Fifth Avenue, New York NY Chair: Mathew Forstater Visiting Scholar, Jerome Levy Economics Institute, and Director, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability Keynote Address: Charles Goodhart The Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance, London School of Economics, and Member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee Panelists: Thomas Ferguson Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts at Boston Duncan Foley Leo Model Professor of Economics, New School For Social Research Robert Guttman Professor of Economics, Hofstra University Michael Hudson President, Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends; Research Associate, Peabody Museum, Harvard University; and Senior Consultant, Russian Academy of Sciences Edward J. Nell Malcolm B. Smith Professor of Economics, New School For Social Research L. Randall Wray Senior Scholar, Jerome Levy Economics Institute, and Associate Professor of Economics, University of Denver This seminar is open to the public and sponsored by the Program on Transformational Growth and Full Employment, Department of Economics, Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, New School For Social Research.
[PEN-L:5671] Re: Re: RE: Re: How the Left repeats simplistic analogiÉ
I whole heartedly endorse Barkley's message below. Cheers, ajit sinha I don't have Nathan's email address, but I would urge Michael P. to express to Nathan that at least some of us regret his departure, despite our disagreements. Heck, if all the pro-bombing people leave the list, I'll have to make their arguments for them, even though I oppose the bombing, ugh! This is a very serious and difficult issue and it is understandable that people are getting worked up about it. There are strong arguments on each side, as the labels "pro-imperialist" and "pro-genocide" suggest. I would not like to see this list become a love-in fest for the anti-bomb crowd, even though there are some who might prefer that for the purposes of spending our time in figuring out "how to oppose imperialism." BTW, even though I am sometimes viewed as some kind of "voice of reason" (except when I'm not, :-)) I just lost it in my Principles of Economics classes today and ended up screaming at the top of my lungs and nearly breaking lecterns while denouncing the bombing. This thing is now out of control and has become totally unpredictable and very dangerous (or maybe that description just applies to me, :-)). The big joke is that in one section I got applauded by a rightwing Republican. Oh well... In any case, I would hope that Nathan returns and that we all try to be somewhat more reasonable with each other as we attempt to explore the evolving issues and situation that confronts us all, whatever our views are. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Bohmer, Pete [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, April 19, 1999 8:03 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5559] RE: Re: How the Left repeats simplistic analogies (How the Serbs became fascists I just sent Nathan Newman a note telling him that while I am totally against the U.S./NATO war against Yugoslavia, the self-righteousness of some of the people on this list who are against the War and their ad-hominem attacks also bothers me, e.g., a few of the many posts of Proyect and Henwood fall into this category. Because of the difficulty of anti-war people in putting forth a position that protects the rights of the Albanian Kosovans, I can understand (although not agree with) why some progressive people do not have a clear position against the U.S. war. I have done a fair amount of leafleting and speaking against the war since March 24th and find myself continually being confronted by honest people with points of view and arguments similar to what Max Sawicky and Nathan Newman have been raising. I urge members on this list to challenge as strongly as they can the arguments of members of Pen-l who support the War but to respect the individual and to not attack their motives. Peter Bohmer -- Reply To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 19, 1999 2:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:5542] Re: How the Left repeats simplistic analogies (How the Serbs became fascists I wrote: It's interesting (and sad) that the DSA seems to be reverting to its roots [i.e., of cold-war liberalism], or more correctly, to some its worst traditions. When will they ever learn? My lord, the intellectual intolerance building on this issue by the "pro-Serbian genocide" forces (as opposed to us "cruise missile liberals") is getting quite incredible. You folks seem to refuse to deal with the fact that there are a large chunk of folks who have marched in anti-war marches for decades (or only for their short adult lifetimes) but who just see the alternatives in this situation differently. Look, I am NOT (repeat: NOT) "pro-Serbian genocide" at all; I've repeated that so many times you'd think you'd get it. You labelled yourself a "cruise missile liberal" or something like that and it seems to fit. Since you never have replied to my arguments against your arguments in favor of "cruising" the Serbs, I assume you have no reasonable reply except emotional cant about "'we' had to do _something_ about Kosovo/a" (as in the YDSA position paper). Instead, you respond in an ad hominem style with accusations of "intellectual intolerance." I am not responsible for what Milosevic or the Serbian government or the Serbs as a whole do, since I don't pay taxes to them and they don't act in my name. On the other hand, the US government takes my taxes and blows people away again and again. And as I've argued again and again -- and you've ignored and ignored -- the US/NATO is not making things better in Serbia, Kosova/o, Montenegro, Macedonia, or Albania. They are f*cking things up much more. It doesn't make sense tactically, strategically, politically, or morally. As for the "large c
[PEN-L:4773] Testing!
Is Pen-l down since Friday? ajit sinha
[PEN-L:4467] Re: Fwd: Attn. Jim Craven
Well Jim, we have to keep the pressure on. I think the most important element is to get the internal tribal politics cleaned up. Let us know what we can do in our limited capacity when time comes. Cheers, ajit sinha Dear Ajit, Thanks for caring enough to write that letter. the dates/delays of the response tell a lot about the level of concern of the Government of Canada about Aboriginal Peoples. They learned very well from the same ones who raped India--the British--about how to "smile with the front teeth and grind with the back teeth" (old saying in Malayalam). She doesn't mention that heading the Treatymaking Team are absoute sell-out Indians including one who is heavily tied-in with all sorts of criminal activities including a pedophile ring in Vancouer, BC and this Minister was made aware of it. No mention of the fact that the Candian and US governments are vigorously putting pressure and token bribes on corrupt Tribal Councils to turn Reserves/Reservations into highly toxic waste dumps and are vigorously fronting for developers/oil companies to facilitate grossly unconscionable--even genocidal--oil/gas/mineral leases such as the recent one at Browning for 50 year lease, full oil/gas/mineral rights for 740,000 acres (the Reservation is 937,000 acres) at $20 an acre (going rate even among the Blood Blackfoot in Canada is $5000 an acre which is still well below the going rate on non-Indian lands); Helen and Frank still live destitute and Frank still suffers from the beating he took from the RCMP and Vancouver Police. They are master woodcarvers and sell some of their carvings on the street in Vancouver and they still are hard-core for Indian rights. This whole Treaty process in Canada, including and especially the Nis'ga process. As they say in Malayalam: "If the crow takes a bath, can it become a swan?" Never. Hope you are well. I miss India dearly and will return someday. Namaskar, (Ni-Kso-Ko-Wa or "We are all related" in Pikanii or Blackfoot language) Jim n a message dated 3/20/99 12:30:30 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Subj: [PEN-L:4456] Attn. Jim Craven Date: 3/20/99 12:30:30 AM Pacific Standard Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ajit Sinha) Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I have just received a letter from Minister of Indian Affair, Canada about Helen Mitchell's letter about violation of human rights. The letter is dated November 27, 1998. It has come to me via Cambridge to Newcastle, Australia to Delhi, India. The letter in full follows: Dear Dr. Sinha: I am writing in response to your correspondence of July 30, 1998, a copy of which was forwarded to me by the Office of the Prime Minister, concerning human rights. Your kind words about Canada's reputation as a humanitarian country are much appreciated. Unfortunately, it is not possible for me to respond to the specific allegations that you forwared from Ms. Helen Mitchell, since many of them refer to police actions and dealings with social workers. I share your concerns, however, about these allegations. While Ms. Mitchell talks about "a faudulent treaty process," the particular reference is not clear. I would note that the Nisga's Nation recently approved their landmark treaty by a wide margin. The governments of British Columbia and Canada are planning to introduce legislation to bring the treaty into effect in the near future. We expect that, through the British Columbia Treaty Commission, other agreements will be reached in the near future. Canada has recognized that it needs to establish a new relationship with Aboriginal people in Canada. In January 1998, the federal government delivered a Statement of Reconciliation, which expressed regret for the many past policies and actions that have eroded the political, economic and social systems of Aboriginal people. The government also announced Gathering Strength- Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan. It is structured around several key objectives, including renewing paterships, strengthening Aboriginal governance, developing a new fiscal relationship and supporting strong communities, people and economies. The objectives reflect a sincere commitment to deal with injustices involving Aboriginal people. I am enclosing a copy of these documents for you information. Thank you for sharing your comments with the government. Your sincerely, Jane Stewart, P.C., M.P. Cheers, ajit sinha --- Headers Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from rly-zd05.mx.aol.com (rly-zd05.mail.aol.com [172.31.33.229]) 03:30:30 -0500 Received: from galaxy.csuchico.edu (galaxy.CSUChico.EDU [132.241.82.21]) by rly-zd05.mx.aol.co
[PEN-L:4315] Re: Re: Lafontaine?
Get a load of this New York Times article: Peter I think Lafontaine's resignation gives some credence to the globalization argument. It seems all the major capitalist countries are supposed to have a uniform politics. I think since Thacher this tendency has become quite strong and apparent. I would be interested in knowing if such uniformization of politics for all major capitalist countries have been a norm for much longer. Cheers, ajit sinha Dr. Ajit Sinha Visiting Fellow Centre for Development Economics Delhi School of Economics University of Delhi, Delhi 110007 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:1680] Re: Re: treatment of James Craven
At 15:19 17/12/98 -0500, you wrote: Ajit, You may be right. But, I figure every little bit helps. They need to have a barrage of pressure coming from a lot of directions. The report that the Chronicle of Higher Education is getting interested in Jim's case is the best news I've heard so far on this unfortunate matter. Barkley Rosser That's a real good news! I also think that Doug Henwood should invite Jim to his radio show and talk about the case in detail. He or somebody else should also write something on the issue of freedom of speech in academia in Nation and Z magazine etc. Cheers, ajit sinha On Thu, 17 Dec 1998 16:17:26 +1100 Ajit Sinha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't think these letters to Hasart is going to have any impact, that's why I'm not writing a second letter. I think the case should be taken up by civil liberties union or some such national level organization, and it should be written about in newspapers and magazines. I have a case too, in some sense more serious than Jim's. Someday I intend to write an article intitled, "My experience of an Australian University". Cheers, ajit sinha At 14:35 16/12/98 -0500, you wrote: Dear President Hasart, Dec. 16, 1998 Having written to you before regarding the situation of Professor James Craven, I am disappointed to learn that the result has been further harassment of him and an attack by Interim Vice-President Ramsey upon his ability to use Clark College email. Clearly his use has been related to his scholarly and educational activities at Clark College. This action by Interim Vice President Ramsey constitutes an unconscionalbe violation of both his academic freedom and civil rights.. It is a blot and stain upon the reputation of Clark College. The sooner this deplorable action is undone, the better for all concerned. Yours Sincerely, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. Professor of Economics James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA 22807 -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:1635] Re: treatment of James Craven
I don't think these letters to Hasart is going to have any impact, that's why I'm not writing a second letter. I think the case should be taken up by civil liberties union or some such national level organization, and it should be written about in newspapers and magazines. I have a case too, in some sense more serious than Jim's. Someday I intend to write an article intitled, "My experience of an Australian University". Cheers, ajit sinha At 14:35 16/12/98 -0500, you wrote: Dear President Hasart, Dec. 16, 1998 Having written to you before regarding the situation of Professor James Craven, I am disappointed to learn that the result has been further harassment of him and an attack by Interim Vice-President Ramsey upon his ability to use Clark College email. Clearly his use has been related to his scholarly and educational activities at Clark College. This action by Interim Vice President Ramsey constitutes an unconscionalbe violation of both his academic freedom and civil rights.. It is a blot and stain upon the reputation of Clark College. The sooner this deplorable action is undone, the better for all concerned. Yours Sincerely, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. Professor of Economics James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA 22807 -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:1636] Re: Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment insight
At 02:08 17/12/98 +1100, you wrote: ajit, please do send me a copy of your paper. looks interesting. what bit or bits do you want me to elaborate on re the stuff about value? regards, angela ___ I'll need your postal address to send the paper. I was not talking avout "value" in particular, but rather your statements about the dialectics of labor and labor-power. Do we get somewhere thinking in this manner? And if so, where do we get? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1587] Re: Re: Enlightenment insight
At 13:08 15/12/98 +1100, Angela wrote: i didn't really expect any treatment of marx to be exhaustive. can't be done me thinks, if only because of sheer volume. and, actually, you've hit the nail on the head: i was thinking of the a is also not-a stuff. as in, workers both labour-power and not-labour-powere (where the latter would be in terms of workers's needs (as excess to capital's image of 'itself' in money and exchange) - but, i don't mean here needs as immutable, but as marx regarded them as socially constituted. this is exactly why marx talks about ghosts and haunting so often - it is a central motif. derrida is right to point to this as an important motif, but he misses the fact that marx's concept of surplus value is inherent to this motif and the most effective way marx can see to present the complicated relationship between the identity of capital (as it is advanced in the science of political economy) and the non-identity of labour (or, better, the sheer objectification of labour as presented in political economy and political economy's tortuous attempts to misrecognise that capital is only surplus labour) - marx plays around with this endlessly, back and forth, twisting and turning. you know: subject (labour) becomes object (labour-power - surplus value - capital); object (capital) becomes subject (the fetishism of capital). so, labour is both dead (objectified as labour-power) and alive (what animates capital and the production process).i just can't see how derrida would turn away from this. and, i think he is smart enought to see it, but decides - for reasons i guess at - not to take it on. what do you reckon? is it possible to talk about the spectre of communism without talking about suplus labour? be well, angela Hi Angela! I find your spin on labor and labor-power etc. quite interesting. But I'm not sure if I understand it all--i.e. I'm not sure where is this dialectics going. It would be nice if you could elaborate on it--given that what you say above is so interesting. My general, and of course very limited, sense is that labor-power being a commodity is only an ideological (in a more conventional sense than Althusserian sense) aspect of capitalism, but it would be incorrect to maintain it so as a 'scientic' category in Marx's writings. A long section (section IV) of my paper entitled 'A Critique of Part one of *Capital* vol. one: The Value Controversy Revisited' in *Research in Political Economy* vol. 15, 1996 deals with this particular issue. I'll be happy to send you a copy if you are interested. On Derrida: I doubt that there is some political reason for him to shy away from the idea that capitalism is based on exploitation of labor. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1589] Re: RE Pray for impeachment
At 15:58 15/12/98 -0500, Frank D.wrote: This is a much belated response to Ajit sinha's posting Pen-L 1474. I guess I got carried away with my response In Pen-L 1454 I wrote: "With the US led inspection team's surprise visit yesterday to Baath Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad to search for weapons of "mass destruction", it is clear that the US and Britain are seeking a pretext for unleashing the bombers. And once the bombers are unleashed, as Valis and Michael have pointed out, the hawkish congress will not impeach our morally upright Commander in Chief struggling so heroically to defend the nation from enormously evil forces. Following are some rather startling numbers taken from CIA World Fact Book of 1997, and the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1997 US GDP(1996)$7,576.1 billion US Defense Spending (1996) $267.0 billion US Consumer spending on Alcoholic Beverages (1994) $85.5 Billion US Consumer spending on Tobacco Products (1994)$47.7 billion ***IRAQ GDP (1996) $42 billion.*** The Philadelphia Inquirer of Nov 18, 1998 reported that the Gulf War cost $61 billion and "Â…by private budget analysts' estimates, roughly $50 billion of the annual $270 billion in U.S. military spending goes toward maintaining the Persian Gulf deployment and keeping the Iraqi president in line." In Pen L-1474Ajit wrote: But don't you think that Sadam has remained in power because of the US policy. When in history a dictator or even a "leader" has lost a war in such a complete fashion and has remained in power? I think Sadam has remained in power because the sanctions for the Iraqi means that the war is not over. Sadam is still fighting a war, and that's why he will not be removed by either the people or the elites. Remove the sanction, and i tell you Sadam will fall soon. People will say, now we have to build our country, we need new politics, new leadership. Cheers, ajit sinha Ajit sinha: * Ajit, You may be correct, I just don't know. I would however, like to elaborate on a few additional points. First, I think we all err in calling it a war. It was not a "war" and to call it such ennobles it with an aura of high morality and valor. It was gargantuan turkey shoot in which the Pentagon tested out its newest toys: that the media glorified; over which members congress struggled to outdo each other in displaying patriotism; and that the American public heartily applauded as it watched the "smart bombs" rain down on thousands of Iraqi civilians and virtually defenseless young draftees. . I am at a loss to understand the attention given to Sadam. He poses absolutly no threat to world security. The Israelis bombed his only nuclear facility back in 1981. In the turkey shoot of Jan and Feb 1991, according to the Pentagon, 80% of Iraq's military capability was demolished together with virtually the entire industrial infrastructure. And since the turkey shoot, UN inspection teams have fine combed every square inch of Iraqi land and real-estate even (according to the Iraqi ambassador to the UN} entering office buildings and stores and searching women's pocket books, The inspection team claims to have destroyed 90% of the remaining Iraqi missile capacity (antique Scuds no doubt) and many times more chemical and biological weapons than were destroyed in the turkey shoot. _ I agree with what you say, but I am thinking more from the point of view of an Iraqi citizen than an US citizen. Let's suppose I'm an average Iraqi who has bought into the "sadam, our great leader" slogan. This great leader of mine takes my country to war with the US and the Western world to show the world the mother of all wars. And then does not even fight it. Gets about quater of a million soldiers directly killed, the country bombed to stone age for nothing. What an idiot this leader turns out to be! Now, I don't know whether the US policy is purposely designed to keep Sadam in power or not. Him being in power is definitely serving a purpose. It gives them an excuse to have their military presence in the region, and keep a check on the Russians. My general sense is that the policy is not purposive. Even though the US thinks of itself as "rational" and conducts its business in the interest of its "national interest", it has a strong "irrational" trait of machoism and ego. They have to show to the world that it is them who have finally forced Sadam out of power. The bully boys have to reinforce their ego. I do agree with what you say about Russia below. It is a time-bomb, and probably worse than Hitler's Germany in making. Cheers, ajit sinha The only threat Sadam poses is the fact he diverts our attention from many real threats hanging over us
[PEN-L:1585] Re: Incorrect Model of Language in TRACTATUS ( Was RE ADNAUSEAM_
At 18:37 14/12/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote: P.P.S. (post post script) Wittgenstein himself noted his pupils tended to defer to his genius. He was such an intense, sincere person that students were simply overwhelmed and as a result were neither critical of him nor capable of independent thought while under his sway. Wittgenstein always admired G.E.Moore who didn't have a clue what Wittgenstein was talking about very often, but would tell Wittgenstein so. He sat in his classes with a puzzled look on his face, not the look of adoration he saw on the faces of his admirers. Wittgenstein was always upset at the effect he tended to have on students. From the few accounts of his students I have read, there was only one arm chair in Wittgenstein's room, where he held his class, which was reserved for G. E. Moore. And Moore was the only person allowed to smoke. His students suggest that though Moore would sit there saying nothing, and Wittgenstein would not address to him, still everybody had a feeling that there was a silent debate going on between the two. As a matter of fact G. C. Moore wrote an article on his recollections on Wittgenstein's lectures in *Mind*, Jan. 1954, where, among other things, he says that Wittgenstein held it to be a "mistak" "the view that the meaning of a word was some image which it calls up by association--a view to which he seemed to refer as the "causal" theory of meaning." This I think is the most important point. *Philosophical Investigations* is a critique of *causal theory of meaning*, and I think Sraffa's PCMC is a critique of *causal theory of value*. The two seem to also come together in relation to Heinrich Hertz. Sraffa had already read Hertz in 1927-28, before Wittgenstein had returned to Cambridge, and was quite impressed with it. In Wittgenstein's biographical sketch von Wright writes in a footnote: "It would be interesting to know whether Wittgenstein's conception of the proposition as a picture is connected in any way with the introduction to Heinrich Hertz's *Die Prinzipien der Mechanik*. Wittgenstein knew this work and held it in high esteem." The idea of Proposition as a "picture" also brings an important meeting point between the two. Sraffa too held the idea that propositions of his economic system was like snap shots. In a conversation with me Hienz Kurtz suggested that Sraffa had moved away from the snap shot idea, but I'm at the moment holding on to it. By the way, do you know if Wittgenstein had ever read Saussure's *Lectures on Linguistics*? or what do you think his general attitude toward this book would be? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1522] Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment insight
At 19:47 11/12/98 +1100, Angela wrote: hello ajit, many of the things you say may well be the case, but a couple of comments: it seemed to me that 'spectres of marx' was most interesting when it tackled many of the themes that walter benjamin had tackled; that the notion of surplus value is not simply - or even most importantly - a notion confined to political economy; that a discussion of spectrality and haunting in relation to marx does not make a whole lot of sense without a discussion of surplus value, which is to say, to detach it from a discussion of surplus value (or, perhaps it may be said in this context: a discussion of the haunting of capital by labour, for instance) renders it into a stylistic rather than critical motif. i have no doubt that derrida is serious, which is why i would think he is more than capable of undertaking a fuller reading of marx. what interested (and frustrated) me, was that he made a decision not to delve into the issue of surplus value, which is after all a central concept for marx, and thus cannot be avoided. _ I would agree that surplus value is one of the central concepts in Marx. I don't read Derrida's lectures as a definitive work on Marx--I don't think there is even a pretention of this in the lectures. I think Derrida is concentrating more on the idea of revolution and the *promise* of justice and a just society in Marx's writings than the question of exploitation. What I found interesting in his discourse on ghosts is that in some sense it captures the very essence of dialectics. Isn't dialects about a state where both A and not-A coexist? The ghosts are neither dead nor alive. It is a state where dialectics is at home. What do you think? i have a good deal of respect for derrida, but i would not say he is a genius. i find this appellation kind of nauseating to be honest, as it attempts to elevate his comments beyond critique. it also raises a paradox: if he is a genius, then surely he could get round to comprehending surplus value before sitting down to write the book. ___ I don't use the word genius too often either but if this word has any meaning in English language then it should have some use and application. If we cannot use this word in connection with say Einstein then we better jettison this word to the black hole. In my opinion, geniouses make a lot of mistakes, as Einstein did, and should be criticised most ruthlessly. Cheers, ajit sinha i much prefer derrida's writings on levi-strauss and freud. and, as for deconstruction generally, i much prefer nancy to recent derrida. best, angela
[PEN-L:1523] Re: wittgenstein and Sraffa's method
David Andrews, being so modest, send me this note privately. And I'm putting this on the net without his permission. I hope he is not mad at me for this. Dear Ajit, Generally I'm not one to blow my own horn, but I have a piece called "Nothing is hidden: A Wittgensteinian interpretation of Sraffa" in the Cambridge Journal of Economics (vol. 20, no. 6, November 1996, pp. 763-777). It might possibly be useful for you and in any case I would be very interested to know what you think of it. Best regards, David ___ I have read your paper at least three times, and I think it is a great paper with a lot of interesting insights. For a long time I have been thinking about something which your paper foreshadows. I think there is on purpose no process analysis in Sraffa. Though Sraffa's prices are compatible with the classical notion of gravitational points, there is no mention of gravitational attraction in his writings. So it will be incorrect to say that Sraffian prices are "equilibrium prices" or "stable" prices etc. I intend to develop this theme in the context of Garegnani-Robinson debate. I also think that the idea that "nothing is hidden" and Sraffa's insistence on "objectivity" must be further explored. You give a very interesting and insightful spin to Keynes's well known statement about Sraffa that "from whom nothing is hid". I liked that a lot! Cheers, ajit sinha I have been reading Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS as a preparation for my work on "Sraffa's method".
[PEN-L:1526] Re: Re: Enlightenment
At 12:22 11/12/98 -0400, Ricardo D.wrote: Ajit, now that you are reading Wittgenstein I can only defer to you. Let's say my knowledge of him is based on hearsay. Checking one of my readily available sources on 20th century philosophy, I can say that, in the passages cited below, W is questioning the presumption of an ideal language (and Sraffa may have felt the same about the language of economics). There are no "independent" truths out there waiting to be discovered. Even the rules of math, like "add one", is not fixed in the sense that it would hold true in the same way for all rational beings. Other beings might follow this rule differently, the point of which is that what matters is not the rule, in the sense that there is a rule out there, a logical law, but the actual way people go about adding one. What matters is the practical way we decide what truth is for us; how a particular culture actually goes about deciding what is correct. BTW, on another occasion you might tell me if Sraffa's critique of neoclassical economics is "immanent", as I read somewhere, which obviosly ties with your study of his method. ___ I don't have any disagreement with what you say above. On Sraffa, I think I shouldn't say any more than what I have already done before I get some results. Cheers, ajit sinha 81. "F.P. Ramsey once emphasized in conversation with me that logic was a 'normative science'. I do not know exactly what he had in mind, but it was doubtless closely related to what only dawned on me later: namely, that in philosophy we often COMPARE the use of words with games and calculi which have fixed rules, but cannot say that someone who is using language MUST be playing such a game.-- But if you say that our languages only APPROXIMATE to such calculi you are standing on the very brink of a misunderstanding. For then it may look as if what we were talking about were an IDEAL language. As if our logic were, so to speak, a logic for a vacuum.-- Whereas logic does not treat of language--or of thought--in the sense in which a natural science treats of a natural phenomenon, and the most that can be said is that we CONSTRCUT ideal languages. But here the word "ideal" is liable to mislead, for it sounds as if these languages were better, more perfect, than our everyday language; and as if it took the logician to shew people at last what a proper sentence looked like. All this, however, can only appear in the right light when one has attained greater clarity about the concepts of understanding, meaning, and thinking. For it will then also become clear what can lead us (and did lead me) to think that if anyone utters a sentence and MEANS or UNDERSTANDS it he is operating a calculus according to definite rules. 82. What do I call 'the rule by which he proceeds'?-- The hypothesis that satisfactorily describes his use of words, which we observe; or the rule which he looks up when he uses signs; or the one which he gives us in reply if we ask him what his rule is?--But what if observation does not enable us to see any clear rule, and the question brings none to light?--For he did indeed give me a definition when I asked him what he understood by "N", but he was prepared to withdraw and alter it.--so How am I to determine the rule according to which he is playing? He does not know it himself.--Or, to ask a better question: What meaning is the expression "the rule by which he proceed" supposed to have left to it here?" (All the emphasis are by Wittgenstein)
[PEN-L:1548] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment
At 11:52 11/12/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote: My bit of whimsy mislead you. Of course the Sicilian gesture did not cause the change in Wiittgenstein all by itself. I always like to pull economical legs. Von Wright's remarks are probably quite accurate but my remarks do indicate precisely the sort of thing that Wittgenstein was convinced was wrong and I note that Sraffa woke Wittgenstein from his dogmatic slumbers-- as Wittgenstein notes in his preface to the Investigations.. Ramsey no doubt helped as well. Wittgenstein would never use the sort of language I used, although he was certainly offensive at times and in a famous incident is said to have threatened other philosophers with a poker. You ignore all the important detail of my post that gives it its significance, for I try to make clear what precisely Sraffa's influence changed in Wittgenstein's views. __ I didn't comment on those aspects because to a large extent I did not disagree with what you said there. Moreover, I have just started studying Wittgenstein--I'm no Wittgenstein scholar. I do have a shoft corner for Wittgenstein because from all the accounts I have read he was a man bodering on madness but exteremly genuine in his relationship with others, would not have anything do with with conceit, and was genuinely lonely. By the way the Investigations was not actually published until two years after Wittgenstein died. He was not able to get it into the finished form he desired. ___ That's right. So the Preface only relates to the first part of Philosophical Investigation. __ I have no idea what you are talking about when you refer to silences. Are you sure you haven't been listening to John Cage rather than reading the Tractatus? Wittgenstein does talk about silence in the Tractatus but the term is to be understood as a deduction from his model of the ideal language. The relationship between language and the world cannot be said or described but only the logical form shown through the similarity of structure of the symbol and the fact. One of the analogies uses is a model of a traffic accident versus the accident, or a map and the territory. Communication is possible through SEEING the common structure of model elements in the model and actual autos to each other in reality. This can only be shown and not itself spoken of--according to Wittgenstein. Hence he says: That whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent. Are these the silences whereof Ajit speaks? This silence disappears in the Investigations and is replaced by a lot of noisy lanuage games since the whole idea was based upon an incorrect model of how language works. _ I'm sorry I misled you there. I was talking about Sraffa's silences in PCMC (i.e. Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities) and not Wittgenstein's dictum in *Tractatus*. By the way, what do you mean by "incorrect model of how language works"? Is a critique of *Philosophical Investigation* lurking here or it was the *Tractatus* model that is beeing reffered to as being "incorrect"? Thanks for the references below. Cheers, ajit sinha __ From 1926 to 1928 just before he went to Cambridge WIttgenstein took part in the discussions of the Vienna Circle. Although he was never a card-carrying logical positivist he was sympathetic to their views and the Tractatus certainly makes a strict distinction between language that can be cognitively meaningful (languages of science and mathematics) and all other discourse-- a key resemblance to logical positivism. It is within the context of the attempt to delineate the formal outlines of an ideal language that would enable everyone to speak clearly (That which can be said. Can be said clearly.) that the TRACTATUS was written. So what specifically are the family resemblances between the TRACTATUS and Sraffa's PCMC? By the way most of us including my do not have an innate mechanism that can automatically interpret what the letters "PCMC" stabd for. I assume it is Sraffa's book on the reproduction of commodities. I haven't read it but I have read a bit about it and glanced through it. Perhaps there are similarities to the TRACTATUS. I don't know. Again, I would stress that the TRACTATUS is an extremely technical book and to be understood within a certain tradition of anti-metaphysical writings designed to promote the development of an ideal language using the tools of the newly developed symbolic logic and mirroring the features of a deductive system. Just a quote to give you an idea of one of the main themes of the TRACTATUS. OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY ed Ted Honderich p 912. The material is by the Wittgenstein scholar P.M.S. Hacker. This is part of his discussion of what the Tractatus is about. "The logical analysis of propositions must yield propositions which are logically independent of each other, i.e.
[PEN-L:1527] Re: Message from Jim Craven
Hang in there Jim! It all sounds so familiar! ajit sinha At 11:42 11/12/98 -0500, you wrote: Dear Friends, I just received a memo from our illustrious Interim Vice-President of Instruction who has reviewed the e-mails I was ordered to turn over at risk of dismissal from employment for refusal to turn them over, and he, a music teacher/administrator wannabe, has determined that my e-mails are personal and not in accordance with the "business" of Clark College. Apparently, the "business" of Clark College is not ideas and education or indeed even the touted campus-wide abilities (Critical Thinking/Problem Solving, Effective Citizenship, Information/Technology Awareness, Global/Multicultural Perspectives, Communication and Life-long Learning), it is most certainly not freedom of speech (except for insider toadies and sycophants), rather the "business" of Clark College is landscape, architecture (with the names of illustrious adminstrators on them), lots of paperwork from meaningless committees producing meaningless stuff from meaningless insiders, and of course, big offices for megalomanical administrators with very big egos--without portfolio. So because there is no professional reason for a professor of economics to be writing to pen-l, I have been ordered not to use the campus system to wirte or respond to pen-l. Because there is no professional reason for the Advisor of the Native American Student Club to be reading and writing on Sovernet-l, or Warriornet or to be communicating with the Blackfoot Reservation at Browning, I am barred from using campus computers to write to them and other Indians on the net. Because there is no relationship between any of the forementioned "campus-wide abilities"--especially Effective Citizenship amd Global/Multicultural Perspectives--and reading or writing about or doing activism dealing with Genocide or Indian Sovereignty or Racism, I am barred from using campus resources to be in contact with a host of international sources on those subjects. All of this comes from administrators who could not pass even my first exam in an Intro Course in Economics presuming to know what my "professional responsibilities" and subjects of coverage are as a teacher of economics and practicing economist. This order has never been given in the history of Clark College--even to one faculty member caught and cited by the State Ethics Committe (where they still threaten to take my e-mails--please do, I really hope they do) downloading child pornography and even soliciting pornographic polaroids from children according to press accounts and the Washington State Patrol who went through his computer (only after a warrant was obtained--and subsequently blown which is why he got off of criminal charges). And even after being written up in the Campus Newspaper for work on Residential Schools and with solicitous e-mails from the College President Dr. Hasart encouraging my work on Indian Issues, apparently now, my contact with a long list of listservs and scholars and activists is not consistent with my "professional responsibilities" or the "business" of Clark College. So Michael, would you please sign me up at this address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]? And all who care to write me, please use this address instead of my Clark address. This of course is only the beginning. The more wreckless the administration gets, the more they reveal their true intentions and their weaknesses. I for one will comply with every order (according to the order I could not even use the campus computer to contact pen-l to notify pen-l not to contact me at the College) and, in the principles of Akido, their wreckless, arrogant and fascistic contempt for due process, freedom of speech, academic freedom, their own campus-wide abilities and my own professional responsibilities will only reveal them for what they are and what they intend--and will, thus, become a counter-force against them. Because many (not all ) administrators are typically sycophants, narcissists, megalomaniacs, control/power freaks and intellectually/life experience challenged, they invariably sew the seeds of their own destruction. This was the case of the past Dean who was finally turfed out (a close friend of this present Interim Vice-President) with a relatively good reference (at least that did not tell all) and a baldface--lie cover story as to why he was leaving. Typical at many institutions I suspect. For all who have sent their kind letters of support, I will now contact you individually to give my heartfelt thanks. I will of course fight this and it is very clear that it is but another atttempt to set up an insubordination situation or cause me to go unstable mentally--to be used to facilitate dismissal. The good news is that these pathetic souls are so dumb, they use the same Modus Operandi over and over and thus reveal "patterns" of behavior of themselves--ver
[PEN-L:1470] Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment
At 22:09 10/12/98 -0600, you wrote: On Fri, December 11, 1998 at 14:52:46 (+1100) Ajit Sinha writes: ... I have been reading Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS as a preparation for my work on "Sraffa's method". This is probably the most remarkable book I have ever read. I think you must read it sometime. ... Noam Chomsky, *Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use* (Praeger, 1986) has extended comment on Wittgenstein that you might find of interest. Bill ___ Thank you Bill! I'll definitely take a look at it. My sense is that Chomsky and Wittgenstein would be incompatible. As a matter of fact, once young Chomsky was invited by someone to King's College High Table dinner, and Sraffa happened to be, as usual, having dinner there as well. It is known that Sraffa was considerably annoyed by some of Chomsky's statemts. I don't know the details of the exchange, which I would like to know. If anybody has Chomsky's e-mail address please pass it on to me, I'll try to get the story if he still remembers. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1471] Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment
At 00:43 11/12/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote: I didn't realise that Wittgenstein had any influence on Sraffa. I though the influence was the other way around. Sraffa sort of woke Wittgenstein from his dogmatic slumbers. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein holds that all language, to communicate, must have a certain logical structure. An ideal languages would make this structure transparent whereas it is obscured in ordinary language. Symbolic logic basically gives you the form of this structure without any content. (Wittgenstein developed truth tables independently of the mathematician Post. Wittgenstein thought they gave you a picture of "logical space".) Wittgenstein was explaining his ideas to Sraffa and Sraffa made a gesture of contempt. I gather that it is a movement of the hand under the chin that Italians use. Sraffa said: What is the logical structure of that? Strangely enough , since he usually didn't pay attention to criticism, this really impressed Wittgenstein. He said to himself. Shit. Maybe it doesn't have a logical structure. Here I thought I had solved the basic problems of the philosophy of language and have been saying THIS MUST BE SO when any idiot, even an economist, can see it AINT SO. ___ Wittgenstein did not see Sraffa as an "idiot" or "an economist". Let me give you just two quotations, one from Preface of *Philosophical Investigations* and second from von Wright's 'Biographical Sketch' of Wittgenstein. "For since beginning to occupy myself with philosophy again, sixteen years ago, I have been forced to recognize grave mistakes in what I wrote in that first book. I was helped to realize these mistakes--to a degree which I myself am hardly able to estimate--by the criticism which my ideas encountered from Frank Ramsey, with whom I discussed them in innumerable conversations during the last two years of his life. Even more than to this--always certain and forcible--criticism I am indebted to that which a teacher of this university, Mr. P. Sraffa, for many years unceasingly practised on my thoughts. I am indebted to THIS stimulus for the most consequential ideas of this book." (L.W) "Of great importance in the origination of Wittgenstein's new ideas was the criticism to which his earlier views were subjected by two of his friends. One was Ramsey, whose premature death in 1930 was a heavy loss to contemporary thought. The other was Piero Sraffa, an Italian economist who had come to Cambridge shortly before Wittgenstein returned there. It was above all Sraffa's acute and forceful criticism that compelled Wittgenstein to abandon his earlier views and set out upon new roads. He said that his discussions with Sraffa made him feel like a tree from which all branches had been cut." (von Wright) So simply it was not just Sraffa's well known 'Sisilyan gesture' that caused it all. Now, why I'm reading Wittgenstein, when the influence seems to be other way round? It is because Sraffa's writings, and particularly PCMC, is like music with full of silences. The silences are part of the music, and cannot be 'understood' without a good understanding of the silences. On the face of it, PCMC has a family resemblence with TRACTATUS, but once you begin to listen to the silences the ground starts to shift. I think the nature of shift in Wittgenstein's thought would be able to help us understand Sraffa's silences and the nature of his project much better. As far as who influenced whom is concerned, I think when two outstanding minds indulge in friendly intellectual discussions for many years it would be foolhardy for anyone to think that the influence would be a one way avenue. I don't know much about Wittgenstein's "antisemiticism", but his friend Sraffa was a jew. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1474] Re: Re ;Pray for impeachment
At 12:14 10/12/98 -0500, you wrote: With the US led inspection team's surprise visit yesterday to Baath Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad to search for weapons of "mass destruction", it is clear that the US and Britain are seeking an pretext for unleashing the bombers. And once the bombers are unleashed, as Valis and Michael have pointed out, the hawkish congress will not impeach our morally upright Commander in Chief struggling so heroically to defend the nation from enormously evil forces. Following are some rather startling numbers taken from CIA World Fact Book of 1997, and the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1997 US GDP(1996)$7,576.1 billion US Defense Spending (1996) $267.0 billion US Consumer spending on Alcoholic Beverages (1994) $85.5 Billion US Consumer spending on Tobacco Products (1994)$47.7 billion ***IRAQ GDP (1996) $42 billion.*** The Philadelphia Inquirer of Nov 18, 1998 reported that the Gulf War cost $61 billion and "Â…by private budget analysts' estimates, roughly $50 billion of the annual $270 billion in U.S. military spending goes toward maintaining the Persian Gulf deployment and keeping the Iraqi president in line." ___ But don't you think that Sadam has remained in power because of the US policy. When in history a dictator or even a "leader" has lost a war in such a complete fashion and has remained in power? I think Sadam has remained in power because the sanctions for the Iraqi means that the war is not over. Sadam is still fighting a war, and that's why he will not be removed by either the people or the elites. Remove the sanction, and i tell you Sadam will fall soon. People will say, now we have to build our country, we need new politics, new leadership. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1472] Re: Ajit re Noriega
At 07:59 10/12/98 -0600, you wrote: Ajit brings up the question of whether the "Pinochet to Spain" precedent had not been already amply established by the American hustling of Panamanian caudillo Manuel Noriega straight from his villa to a Miami courtroom and thereafter to a Federal prison. Coincidentally that case is in the news right now. The report below should clear up all aspects in question for Ajit and others, at least in terms of conventional reality. valis _ Thanks Valis! My apology to Noriega for misspelling his name. Cheers, ajit sinha __ Noriega seeks to trim prison sentence MIAMI (December 8, 1998 10:51 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega asked a federal judge Tuesday to reduce his 40-year sentence on drug charges in return for the help he gave U.S. intelligence operations in Latin America while he was in power. "We are not saying that you should forgive him for his drug deal convictions. We are not saying you should give him a slap on the wrist," said Noriega's attorney Frank Rubino. "What we are saying to you is that you gave him a hefty sentence. Now mete out justice with mercy." Noriega, 63, who was convicted in April 1992 on money laundering and drug trafficking charges, wants his sentence to be cut back to no more than 15 years and a chance to go back to Panama. Noriega could go free in 2005 if the request is granted. Noriega, jailed in 1990, is now eligible for parole in 2013. A former CIA agent, a retired U.S. ambassador to Panama and a retired adviser on Latin American affairs testified on Noriega's behalf, calling his work with the United States crucial to the nation's foreign policy objectives in South America in the 1980s. Noriega brokered deals with South American leaders, acted as a liaison to Cuban President Fidel Castro, provided details on guerrilla and terrorist activities and even gave the former Shah of Iran a safe haven, said Donald Winters, retired chief of CIA operations in Panama. "These were specific instances when the U.S. government worked through Gen. Noriega. These were major, major considerations," Winters said. But Prosecutor Guy Lewis said Noriega allowed his country to become a way station for trafficking, a safe haven for drug dealers and a safe banking capital for laundering drug money. "He's an international drug trafficker and money launderer of unequaled proportions," Lewis said. "Good works are commendable. But they are not the basis for (a jail departure)." U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler could take weeks to rule on Noriega's request. By PATRICIA MALDONADO, Associated Press Writer _ Copyright © 1998 Nando Media
[PEN-L:1466] Re: Enlightenment
At 12:59 9/12/98 -0400, Ricardo wrote: So much hogwash has been said about the enlightenment in pen-l that perhaps it is time someone set out to answer "what is the enlightenment?" First, contrary to what everyone in pen-l thinks, the enlightenment is NOT about science. The enlightenment is a phenomenon of the eighteenth century. Do not confuse it with the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. If we divide the enlightenment into three stages, then the early stage directly reflects the influence of Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Newton and others. But the enlightenment strictly speaking begins with the publication of Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (1748). Enlightenment thinkers greatly admired the rigors of the scientific method, and insisted that humans must discover truth *for themselves* through logical reason and experimentation, not religious dogma. But what makes enlightment thinkers like Voltaire, Kant and Diderot unique is their claim that POLITICAL institutions should be subjected to the self-legislated criteria of reason. Where the enlightenment falls short is in not realizing that two different learning processes are involved in ethical and scientific judgements; hence the confusion of pen-l. (The third stage may be said to begin with Rousseau and his turn to romanticism) I have been reading Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS as a preparation for my work on "Sraffa's method". This is probably the most remarkable book I have ever read. I think you must read it sometime. Here I'll just quote a couple of passages which tangentially ties in with the Enlightenment discussion. 81. "F.P. Ramsey once emphasized in conversation with me that logic was a 'normative science'. I do not know exactly what he had in mind, but it was doubtless closely related to what only dawned on me later: namely, that in philosophy we often COMPARE the use of words with games and calculi which have fixed rules, but cannot say that someone who is using language MUST be playing such a game.-- But if you say that our languages only APPROXIMATE to such calculi you are standing on the very brink of a misunderstanding. For then it may look as if what we were talking about were an IDEAL language. As if our logic were, so to speak, a logic for a vacuum.-- Whereas logic does not treat of language--or of thought--in the sense in which a natural science treats of a natural phenomenon, and the most that can be said is that we CONSTRCUT ideal languages. But here the word "ideal" is liable to mislead, for it sounds as if these languages were better, more perfect, than our everyday language; and as if it took the logician to shew people at last what a proper sentence looked like. All this, however, can only appear in the right light when one has attained greater clarity about the concepts of understanding, meaning, and thinking. For it will then also become clear what can lead us (and did lead me) to think that if anyone utters a sentence and MEANS or UNDERSTANDS it he is operating a calculus according to definite rules. 82. What do I call 'the rule by which he proceeds'?-- The hypothesis that satisfactorily describes his use of words, which we observe; or the rule which he looks up when he uses signs; or the one which he gives us in reply if we ask him what his rule is?--But what if observation does not enable us to see any clear rule, and the question brings none to light?--For he did indeed give me a definition when I asked him what he understood by "N", but he was prepared to withdraw and alter it.--so How am I to determine the rule according to which he is playing? He does not know it himself.--Or, to ask a better question: What meaning is the expression "the rule by which he proceed" supposed to have left to it here?" (All the emphasis are by Wittgenstein)
[PEN-L:1447] Re: Pinochet flies...
At 11:10 9/12/98 -0600, you wrote: TO MADRID! The Home Secretary's ruling. ___ Hay, does anybody know whatever happened to Noreaga? And why nobody ever raised the small issue of Noreaga when they were making the claim that Pinochet could not be tried out of his country since he was the head of the state? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1448] Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment insight
At 04:34 10/12/98 +1100, Angela wrote: in any case, i would have thought that the problem with 'spectres of marx' is quite of a different order: namely, in an entire book on ghosts and haunting (which is interesting in only the most banal of ways), not once does derrida confront or think through marx's central critical concept: surplus value. at least spivak had a go. but derrida can't even begin to think through this stuff because he wants to avoid the materiality of marx's use of things like 'spectre' and haunting and reification and objectification, etc as related concepts. so, he does marx a big disservice whilst pretending that he has in fact dealt with marx. i also thought his stuff on deconstruction being the equivalent to perestroika was one of the stoopidest and arrogant things i had read for a long time. _ Once I asked Etienne Balibar why there is not much analysis of the question of "value" in *Reading Capital*. He very candidly told me that it is simply because neither he nor Althusser knew political economy well enough to deal with this subject properly. I think Derrida's reason for staying away from the concept of surplus value would be similar. These are serious scholars and thinkers and they don't wanna talk about things which they don't think they have a very good understanding of. Whatever little I have read of Spivak's discussion on value and surplus value, I have found it of poor quality--showing very little understanding of the problem. In my opinion, she should have kept away from it too. Whether you like Derrida's theme of ghosts and specters in his essay on Marx or not, you cannot deny that he succeeds in drawing out this theme in Marx's writings in a surprisingly consistent manner. I had never seen this aspect of Marx's writing before reading Derrida. I don't understand Derrida--I think one needs to know phenomenology inside out to understand him. But I think he is a character similar to Wittgenstein, a true genius-- as Althusser referred to him in his autobiography,*The Future Lasts a Long Time*, "that genius of a philosopher" (quoting from memory). Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1392] Re: Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment insight
At 11:56 8/12/98 -0500, Louis P. wrote: I think the Enlightment tradition that so many Marxists cling to is a bunch of hogwash. I reject the notion of a revolutionary bourgeoisie as well. ___ So I guess you no longer champion Ellen Wood's type of Marxism anymore? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1304] Re: Re: Re: pen-lquestions
At 08:38 4/12/98 -0800, Michael P. wrote: I question whether the efficiency wage is a fad. The idea has origins that predate Lester. During the 1920s, a period which Jim knows very well, the "economy of high wages" was considered to be mainstream. We can also date such thought back to Adam Smith. Could you elaborate on the Smith story please. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:1184] Re: Emergency civil liberties appeal for Jim Craven'sright to privacy
At 18:30 22/11/98 -0500, you wrote: Anyway, here is a copy of the letter I sent. If the address was right, then it went to the right place. Professor Tana Hasart President, Clark College Dear Professor Hasart, I have learnt that there is an attempt to suppress the freedom of speech of a senior academic of your college, Professor Jim Craven, due to his unorthodox political views; as it appears from the below cited communication from Chuck Ramsey, Interim Vice President of Instruction. Professor Craven is well known in the international academic cerciles for being a good scholar and a man of high integrity. If freedom of speech is not secure in an academic institution, then where should we look for it? I think this sort of actions do not augur well for Western democracy. And definitely gives a bad name to your college. I hope you will intervene personally and restore Professor Craven's right to free speech without intimidation and harassment. Thank you. Sincerely, Dr. Ajit Sinha FROM: Chuck Ramsey, Interim Vice President of Instruction TO: Professor Jim Craven "We have received a complaint/expression of concern about your use of College e-mail. So that I may gather relevant information about the complaint, you are hereby directed to provide paper copies of all e-mails you have sent or received, using College e-mail or other electronic resources, that name or refer, directly or indirectly, to Kevin Annett. You are directed to provide paper copies of all these e-mails to the Office of Instruction no later than 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 24, 1998." In the course of getting to know Jim Craven, I have been made privy to his various battles in Indian country and academia. Jim is a Blackfoot Indian who teaches economics at Clark College in Washington State. Lately fights in these two worlds have become meshed in such a way as to threaten his employment. These are the facts. Jim has been embroiled in various battles with the College administration for a number of years, mainly revolving around issues like corruption, due process, hiring and academic standards. Jim is not only an outspoken radical, but has a blunt and uncompromising style. His tenure has protected him, but he has become such a thorn in the side of the administration that they are trying to fire him nonetheless. Part of the ammunition they are trying to use against him involves his role in exposing a former cleric named Kevin Annett. As an expert witness in an inquiry on residential schools in Canada (based on dubious credentials, as it turned out), Annett used his access to testimony in order to promote his career. The material on videotapes of horribly abused Canadian Indians found their way into an article Annett wrote for some journal. The material was used without the permission of the Indian victims and activists, who are organized in a group called Circle of Justice. Annett was once a member of the group but has been expelled for his high-handed behavior. Jim has been a forceful spokesman for the Circle of Justice people and has written both private and public email making their case for returning the tapes. Annett has now contacted Clark College and demand that they do something about Jim, whose criticisms of Annett have made their mark. This is a communication that Jim just received from a Clark College administrator: FROM: Chuck Ramsey, Interim Vice President of Instruction TO: Professor Jim Craven "We have received a complaint/expression of concern about your use of College e-mail. So that I may gather relevant information about the complaint, you are hereby directed to provide paper copies of all e-mails you have sent or received, using College e-mail or other electronic resources, that name or refer, directly or indirectly, to Kevin Annett. You are directed to provide paper copies of all these e-mails to the Office of Instruction no later than 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 24, 1998." Jim has asked me to contact people wide and far to send email to Clark College to protest this violation of his political expression and right to privacy. The school has no right to demand that he turn over his private email. Jim is even conscientious enough to include the words "My Employer has no association with my private/protected OPINION" at the end of all his communications. Email supporting Jim's right to privacy should be sent to President Tana Hasart ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:1183] Re: Emergency civil liberties appeal for Jim Craven'sright to privacy
Isn't Jim teaching somewhere in Canada? Could you please confirm that the e-mail for the President of the college you have given below is correct. Cheers, ajit sinha At 18:30 22/11/98 -0500, you wrote: In the course of getting to know Jim Craven, I have been made privy to his various battles in Indian country and academia. Jim is a Blackfoot Indian who teaches economics at Clark College in Washington State. Lately fights in these two worlds have become meshed in such a way as to threaten his employment. These are the facts. Jim has been embroiled in various battles with the College administration for a number of years, mainly revolving around issues like corruption, due process, hiring and academic standards. Jim is not only an outspoken radical, but has a blunt and uncompromising style. His tenure has protected him, but he has become such a thorn in the side of the administration that they are trying to fire him nonetheless. Part of the ammunition they are trying to use against him involves his role in exposing a former cleric named Kevin Annett. As an expert witness in an inquiry on residential schools in Canada (based on dubious credentials, as it turned out), Annett used his access to testimony in order to promote his career. The material on videotapes of horribly abused Canadian Indians found their way into an article Annett wrote for some journal. The material was used without the permission of the Indian victims and activists, who are organized in a group called Circle of Justice. Annett was once a member of the group but has been expelled for his high-handed behavior. Jim has been a forceful spokesman for the Circle of Justice people and has written both private and public email making their case for returning the tapes. Annett has now contacted Clark College and demand that they do something about Jim, whose criticisms of Annett have made their mark. This is a communication that Jim just received from a Clark College administrator: FROM: Chuck Ramsey, Interim Vice President of Instruction TO: Professor Jim Craven "We have received a complaint/expression of concern about your use of College e-mail. So that I may gather relevant information about the complaint, you are hereby directed to provide paper copies of all e-mails you have sent or received, using College e-mail or other electronic resources, that name or refer, directly or indirectly, to Kevin Annett. You are directed to provide paper copies of all these e-mails to the Office of Instruction no later than 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 24, 1998." Jim has asked me to contact people wide and far to send email to Clark College to protest this violation of his political expression and right to privacy. The school has no right to demand that he turn over his private email. Jim is even conscientious enough to include the words "My Employer has no association with my private/protected OPINION" at the end of all his communications. Email supporting Jim's right to privacy should be sent to President Tana Hasart ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:1007] Re: Re: Re: unemployed Ph.D.'s
At 15:17 11/11/98 -0500, you wrote: Ajit, I apologize (to Newitz?) if I came across as sarcastic. I am well aware that there are lots of people who have suffered, yourself included. Even those on tenure track often go through all kinds of unpleasant garbage, quivering on floors and admissions to mental wards (no shit), when they actually go up for tenure, even those who get it. I grant that after one gets it, life can become a lot easier. I am also very aware that scholarly radicals have a much harder time on the job market than do boring poop mediocrities. I am personally aware of this, in that more than one person has claimed that, given my personal research record, I "should" be at a "more prestigious school." Well, I'm not; but I grant that I have not the unpleasant experiences in the job market that you have had. However, none of this undoes my arguments against Newitz's arguments. Would eliminating tenure make life easier for radicals or heterodox scholars on the job market? I seriously doubt it and suggest that it might well make it worse. Indeed, it is not clear that Newitz actually called for the elimination of tenure, although she certainly exhibited massive envy (understandable) of those who have it, however radical they might be. What did seem to be her practical bottom line was that English grad students should be taught skills allowing them to get non-academic jobs. That may well be, but I see no relevance of that to economists. Hence, I did not see the relevance of Lou's posting of this article to this list. Barkley Rosser __ Thanks Barkley! I agree with verything you say. Though the interest Lou P's post generated gives it an implicit justification. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:990] Re: Re: Althusser as Stalinist
At 09:40 10/11/98 -0800, Brad De Long wrote:
That disaster seems to have had *something* to do with (i) contempt for the
ethics of political communication ("ideology"), (ii) contempt for all forms
of due process ("state apparatus"), and (iii) contempt for human happiness
("humanism"). As far as I understand Althusser, he was leading the charge
on all three...
Althusser did not have contempt for ideology. He simply had a different
understanding of ideology than the traditional Marxist ones. Ideology was
the realm where subjectivities were formed--no society (including
communism) could get rid of ideology. Subjectivity is necessary to our
consciousness. How can this kind of reasoning amount to "contempt for
ideology"? As a matter of fact it was the humanists such as Lukacs who had
some sort of "contempt" for ideology since they interpreted ideology as
'false knowledge'.
Where did you get the idea that Althusser had contempt for "due process"?
Read Althusser's autobiography, then you will learn the whole history of
the expulsion of his wife from PCF and his "contempt for due process".
Moreover, this is a man who suffered terribily due to court imposed forced
silence after the death of his wife.
Humanism does not mean "love for humanity", at least not in Althusser's
book. For him "humanism" is an epistimological position that tries to root
the knowledge of society in human nature of one kind or another. A theory
built on the hypothesis that human beeings are evil is as humanist as a
theory built on the hypothesis that human beeings are good. Althusser
considered Stalinism to be a humanist theory, by the way.
Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:989] Re: RN: Mumia is important to our future
At 07:45 10/11/98 -0800, you wrote: Apologies for duplicates due to cross-postings. Pass it on! __ Okay, the message below does not tell us what should we do. specially a person like me--a non-citizen sitting in Australia--what should I do at this moment? I don't understand how come Clinton, who has got rock bottom support of the black community in America and who have saved his presidency, is not intervening in this matter in a decisive way. Why aren't the black community and political leaders taking this case up? Will a letter to Clinton help? How? Cheers, ajit sinha = Dear RN list,Nov. 9 Just this morning I visited a web site from which it is possible to send a message to several addresses, including to the US President and the Governor of Pennsylvania urging action on Mumia Abu-Jamal's behalf: http://www.slip.net/~kbaird/freemumia.html The site comes up relatively easily and is very good. I believe we need Mumia Abu-Jamal. This Renaissance-Network list is intended to help build the links we'll need to make a revolution for a better, livable world a reality. As the passage I copied from the web site (below) shows, Mumia Abu-Jamal's struggle is our struggle. all the best, Jan Mumia's Life and All Our Futures from Refuse Resist! Mumia Abu-Jamal has come to mean something very special to a whole new generation of young activists. They are moved by his penetrating writing. They are touched deeply by his gentle manner. They are emboldened by the utter fearlessness of his dedication to the people in the very face of death. Can we be less dedicated now to saving his life? The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal concentrates the criminalization of Black men, the suppression of dissent, the expanded death penalty, the gutting of defendant's rights, and a whole political atmosphere based on blame and punishment of the most oppressed. Only twice in the 20th century have there been court ordered executions of political dissidents in the United States. And the government has not dared to carry out the legal execution of a prominent Black revolutionary since the days of slavery. The movement to save Mumia has been a formative experience for this new generation awakening to political life. That experience has been much more than just a cause to believe in. It has shown them the power of people working together - - people of different races and nationalities, people coming from different social backgrounds and political outlooks, coming together against injustice and repression. For many, the battle that stayed Mumia's execution date in 1995 was their first real taste of the power of the people. We have now reached a turning point in this movement. The decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to deny a new and fair trial means that a political decision has been made at the highest levels to try to push ahead with Mumia's execution. It means that all the new evidence brought forward in the various hearings since 1995 has been officially rejected. It means that the gross prejudice shown Mumia in the court system has been endorsed. It means that his case will now be in the federal courts with their new political agenda of speeded-up appeals and swift executions. The government has thrown down a challenge. How we respond and whether we succeed is going to shape the political climate of this country for years to come. Power concedes nothing without demand. And justice will not come in Mumia's case simply by wishing for it. Only a mass movement that is characterized by a conscious attempt to build its breadth and diversity, and by a spirit of selfless determination, can stop the wheels of state-sponsored murder. Our movement cannot be narrowly based. It must take in people from all walks of life and varying points of view - - both those who are appalled by this injustice and those who see it as another step in a larger agenda. Mumia's name must become a house-hold word, with the broad public straining to hear the latest news in the battle and moving to take Mumia's side. Our victory in 1995 was won by bringing so many different forces into motion that it threatened a larger anti-Black youth, "law and order" political alignment that government leaders had worked so hard to create. That is, our movement to save Mumia opened so many eyes to this flagrant injustice, that it threatened larger political goals of the leaders of both major parties. They were forced to back off for a time. It was and is possible to do this precisely because, as we say in Refuse Resist!, it's all one attack. The politics of poverty, punishment and patriarchy is the same politics that wants to silence Mumia's voice forever. Refuse Resist! calls on people everywhere to make your voices heard in the coming days and weeks. Determination comes in many forms, but its common essence is the refusal to stand by
[PEN-L:958] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: unemployed Ph.D.'s
At 11:42 9/11/98 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Ajit Sinha wrote: At 17:08 6/11/98 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Bad Subjects http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/bs/, which she was a co-founder, even takes its name from that good Stalinist, Althusser! __ What a cheap shot this is! Could you explain why do you call Althusser a Stalinist? Actually I meant it partly as a joke, and partly as a provocation to see if any PEN-Lers would take exception. But he *was* a member of the PCF, which was intensely loyal to the USSR. Quoting from David Macey's The Lives of Michel Foucault, p. 37: Doug, I thought it might be half a joke. But this kind of remarks are dangerous because Althusser already had very bad press, and might I add extremely unjustifiably. One reason why some people like to associate Althusser with Stalin is because he refused to accept the 'cult of personality' thesis for the historical event known as Stalinism. Whether Althusser's position was right or wrong is a separate matter, but it definitely was a more of a theoretically Marxist position than a Freudian one. To understand Althusser's relationship with PCF, and his personality in general, I would urge you to read his autobiography. It reads like a great novel. It's a great read, unlike his philosophical works. Cheers, ajit sinha ___ quote Foucault approached the final hurdle of the agrégation in spring 1950. This was also the year in which he finally joined the PCF. The Parti Communiste Français had emerged from the war as the single most important political grouping in France, and was able to win five million votes in 1945. By the middle of 1947, its membership reached a high point of 900,000. Authoritarian, highly centralised and disciplined, the Party was a classic Stalinist formation, complete with a somewhat absurd personality cult dedicated to its secretary-general, Maurice Thorez. It was also highly patriotic and still enjoyed and exploited the reputation it had won in the wartime Resistance; this was le parti des fusillés - the party which had lost more members than any other to German repression. From 1944 to 1947, the PCF was involved directly in government and cooperated in an unstable coalition with the SFIO (Section Française de I'lnternationale Ouvrière, the ancestor of the modern Socialist Party) and the social-democratic Mouvement Républicain Populaire. Tripartism lasted until May 1947, when Prime Minister Paul Ramadier dismissed the remaining Communist ministers. In March, the USA had adopted the Truman Doctrine of 'communist containment'. Later the same year, Andrei Zhdanov, Stalinism's principal ideologue proclaimed the symmetrical doctrine which divided the world into imperialist and anti-imperialist camps. The Cold War had begun. The PCF adopted a resolutely pro-Soviet policy and gradually retreated into a siege mentality. Membership began to decline, and continued to do so, with some fluctuations, for the next two decades. This was the party which Foucault chose to join in 1950. He took out his Party card at the urging of Althusser... /quote
[PEN-L:950] Re: Re: Living Wage book and debate with Krugman
At 13:06 8/11/98 -0500, you wrote: Concerning this passage from Krugman on Pollin and Luce's book on living wages: So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment. This theoretical prediction has, however, been hard to confirm with actual data. Indeed, much-cited studies by two well-regarded labor economists, David Card and Alan Krueger, find that where there have been more or less controlled experiments, for example when New Jersey raised minimum wages but Pennsylvania did not, the effects of the increase on employment have been negligible or even positive. Exactly what to make of this result is a source of great dispute. Card and Krueger offered some complex theoretical rationales, but most of their colleagues are unconvinced; the centrist view is probably that minimum wages "do," in fact, reduce employment, but that the effects are small and swamped by other forces. To Bob and others interested-- The impact of imposing or raising a minimum wage is not as clearcut as Krugman suggests, even under essentially neoclassical conditions; nor is the theoretical rationale for this ambiguity isn't particularly "complex." I've written a paper showing that under otherwise competitive exchange conditions, the presence of "quasi-fixed labor costs"--labor costs that vary with the number of employees rather than the total number of hours worked, like health insurance or lockers or office space--creates a setting in which raising a minimum wage may increase the number of *workers* employed, even as it reduces the total number of *hours* worked by these employees.In this light, results such as those by Card and Krueger are not so paradoxical. Gil Skillman In a course work paper for labor-economics at my graduate school, I had developed a very simple model by taking account of skilled and unskilled labor markets and linking the two markets by establishing the wages prevailing in unskilled market (say the minimum wage) as the floor for the wage structure in the skilled market. In a completely neo-classical framework, I found that a rise in minimum wage has an ambiguous effect on the demand for skilled labor, i.e. there could be an increase in the demand for skilled labor due to the rise in the minimum wage. But more importantly, I find it strange that such an intellegent man as Krugman would think that labor (power) and milk stand on the same footing in the market. The point that, within the capitalist framework itself, labor (power) is not a commodity as milk is a theoretical issue and not just a moral question--even though morality, of course, is more important than any economic question. Moreover, a rise in wages would most likely reduce the rate of profit and change all the prices. But this does not have to be necessarily inflationary as krugman suggests. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:951] Re: Re: unemployed Ph.D.'s
At 14:38 6/11/98 -0500, you wrote: Lou, May I ask what the point of sending this to us was? I know that in your heart of hearts you really do consider all the tenured profs to be a bunch of elitist bums who should be thrown out into the street. Was that the message, tenure should be abolished and we should all be fired because Dr. Newitz has not been able to get a tenure track position and was found in a foetal position shaking uncontrollably on the floor of her lover's bedroom? Somehow I don't think that this quite follows, sorry as I may feel for Dr. Newitz, which I do. It certainly is true that there are fewer options for English Ph.D.s outside academia. But for economics Ph.D.s we have all kinds of wonderful options, most of them involving making a whole lot more money than our academic positions and worthily serving very directly the masters of the capitalist system, rather than more indirectly so as even the most radical of us probably are doing either at least implicitly to some degree. Barkley Rosser ___ Well Barkley, obviously you have not suffered in the way she apparently has. Most of what she wrote hit very close to home. One point that she implicitly made, which has gone unnoticed by others is that she is an exceptionally well qualified scholar in the job market. I think it has become a general trend. Most of the best qualified and innovative minds are finding it harder and harder to get an academic job, whereas mideocrities are not having as great difficulties. This has something to do with people who are in control of jobs, and the politics of academic jobs (many of these people feel highly threatened by highly qualified and brillient candidates, and again the old boys and girls network works to keep many like us locked out--the whole academic system has become rotten to the core both on the left and the right). The main problem with her post, as far as I'm concerned, is that she is asking the painters to throw the brush away and start brick laying. That is too much of a sacrifice since so many of us have put so many years of hard work of love and passion in painting. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:952] Re: Re: Re: unemployed Ph.D.'s
At 17:08 6/11/98 -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Bad Subjects http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/bs/, which she was a co-founder, even takes its name from that good Stalinist, Althusser! __ What a cheap shot this is! Could you explain why do you call Althusser a Stalinist? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:824] Re: re striking UC TAs
At 05:57 2/11/98 -0600, valis wrote: Ajit brought up the interesting question of whether foreign grad students will get the short straw if/when TAs gain legal employee status after the coming militancy. The campus scene would surely be impoverished, socially as well as intellectually, if foreign grad students were always dashing off somewhere to cover their expenses with illegal McJobs. Well, it may be that TA work will incongruously join hotel, bar and restaurant jobs, the officially winked-at "holes in the dike" that enable low-skill foreigners to get started here. Is some more elegant solution in the works? ___ My point was even more serious. The foreign students (unless they are from very rich families) will not even get a chance to come to US and try the McJobs. Since foreign students come on F1 visa called student visa. Usually people like us get such visa by showing the promise of teaching assistantships, which assures the US govt. that we will not join the begging line. In the absence of TAships, visa will definitely be denied. On the other hand universities may not be able to offer TAships to foreign citizens because it may entail getting a green card, and for that purpose they will have to convience the immigration dept. that they could not find anyone equally qualified for the job at home, which would be a very hard thing to do at that level of qualification. So I think its legal ramification should be seriously thought through by the movement. It is important for US intellectual culture to keep the shutters open for foreign students. Cheers, ajit sinha _ And, speaking of incongruities, why is it the UAW that's going to give the TAs material strike support? Is this not very much like the corporate practice of entering totally unrelated market areas? valis
[PEN-L:801] Re: UC grad student get ready to strike (fwd)
How would this affect the foreign graduate students? Not the one who are already there, but the prospective ones. Once the teaching assistants are recognized primarily as employees rather than as students, wouldn't then there will be a move to make sure that only citizens and permanent residents get teaching assistantship and no foreigners? This would be desasterous for students from third world, and would also change the complexion of graduate schools all over America. I'm just wondering if anybody has thought over this issue. While I was there, our 'association' was not recognized as a 'union' which could have bargaining power. And we fought for our right to be an union and did win, but I was out by then. In anycase, I'm wondering and would appreciate if somebody could throw some light on it. Cheers, ajit sinha UC GRADUATE STUDENTS PREPARE TO STRIKE ALL THE CAMPUSES THIS YEAR By David Bacon BERKELEY, CA (10/31/98) -- Graduate student employees at the eight campuses of the University of California received a big morale boost in early October, when Steven Yokich, president of the United Auto Workers, announced that the United Auto Workers would pay them strike benefits should they be forced to walk off their jobs this winter. Ricardo Ochoa, president of the Association of Graduate Student Employees at the UC Berkeley campus, explained that "people were concerned about losing pay when they're already living close to the line -- teaching assistants and other grad student employees aren't paid a lot to begin with. When we were told we'd have access to the strike fund, it gave us all more courage and our organizing effort more momentum." The announcement should have also given pause to UC administrators, as it makes a strike much more likely. Since last May, graduate student employees on all the eight campuses have taken strike votes. All of their associations, which are organized campus by campus, are affiliated with the UAW. Over 9000 grad student workers are employed at the university. With over half of them participating, the decision to authorize a strike received 87% support. Graduate student employees actually carry a great deal of the teaching load at the university. While professors in many courses lecture to audiences numbering in the hundreds, teaching assistants provide instruction, hold discussions and answer questions in the smaller sessions between lectures, as well as grading papers and monitoring student performance. In some cases, associates even teach their own courses. Other graduate student employees include readers and tutors. Without the work of all of them collectively, university instruction would basically stop. For years these workers have been trying to get the university to recognize their associations and bargain a contract, providing better pay and benefits, and giving the student employees basic workplace rights. The university has consistently maintained the position that they are all students who just earn a little money on the side, and not workers at all. The university has refused to recognize their associations or bargain, despite a number of work stoppages on various campuses in years past. Student employees won an important legal victory recently, when the Public Employees Relations Board, which administers the state's Higher Education Employee Relations Act, held that the 500 grad student workers on the UC San Diego campus were employees within the meaning of the law. Last June, they voted by a 3-1 majority on the campus in favor of representation by their student employee association. Then PERB rejected a university appeal of the balloting, which again claimed that the student employees weren't covered by the law. Despite the rejection, the university nevertheless sent a letter to the union saying that it would bargain for some of the student workers, but not others. In Los Angeles, an administrative law judge has also ruled that graduate student employees are covered by the act. UC is appealing this decision as well. University stonewalling convinced the workers that a strike would likely be necessary to enforce the legal decisions, and make the administration comply with its responsibility to bargain. In the past, graduate student employee strikes have taken place on individual campuses, and have been unsuccessful. A more ambitious plan last year for rolling one-day strikes system wide was also unable to move UC's bosses. Over the past year, therefore, on all of the campuses, UAW graduate student employee organizers have created solid organizations. Although for legal reasons they are seeking individual recognition on each campus, this winter's probable strike action will take place on all campuses simultaneously. "Unless the university changes its attitude drastically, this is going to happen, and it's going to happen this semester," Ochoa says. &qu
[PEN-L:102] Re: Anthony's Indian Software Paper
At 19:25 30/06/98 +0001, you wrote: Did anyone else read this paper? It was a very interesting exercize on the difficulty of moving up the value chain. Shouldn't we take up this issue? -- Michael Perelman __ So Anthony, are you saying that capital still has a home? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:92] Re: M-C-M'
At 13:41 29/06/98 -0400, Gil Skillman wrote:
In "Why Do the Rich Save So Much?", NBER Working Paper 6549 (1998),
Christopher D. Carroll argues that
"...the saving behavior of the richest households cannot be
explained by models in which the only purpose of wealth accumulation is to
finance future consumption,
either their own or that of heirs. The paper concludes that the simplest
model that explains the relevant facts is one in which either consumers
regard *the accumulation of wealth as an end in itself*, or unspent wealth
yields a flow of services (such as power or social status) *which have the
same practical effect on behavior as if wealth were intrinsically
desirable*." {Emphasis added.}
Circuits of capital, anyone?
Gil Skillman
PS--Karl Marx is not cited in the article, but that's probably just an
oversight.
__
I'm not sure what wealth means in the above quotation, and what
accumulation of wealth would be. Unless the meaning of wealth is clear, it
would be hard to establish its relation with Marx's circuit of capital.
In my opinion, both life cycle hypothesis as well as permanent income
hypothesis of consumption behavior are quite cultural and class
specific--mostly it represents American middle class behavior. Since they
are both macro models, it would be hard to refute them by just looking at a
small and admittedly scewed population.
For those who care: I won my appeal on Study Leave, and am off (next week)
to Cambridge University for three months! Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:49] Re: Leonard Weinglass' [attorney for Mumia] answer to NYT Ad
At 01:26 24/06/98 -0400, you wrote: This response from Mumia's attorney to a NYT ad surveys the deficiencies of the state's case for killing Mumia and provides a basis for understanding a demand for Mumia's immediate release. Paul Zarembka __ What can a person like me, who is not a citizen and does not live in the US, do, apart from donating money? I haven't send any money yet either, because sending check in foreign currency would probably be not acceptable. Any ideas? ajit -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:23:09 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Leonard Weinglass' answer to NYT Ad Leonard I. Weinglass Attorney At Law Suite 10 A 6 West 20th Street New York City, NY 10011 Phone: (212) 807-8646 Fax: (212) 242-2120 17 June 1998 To: Editor, _New York Times_ In a startling, and even disgraceful, effort to hasten and insure the execution of an innocent man whose substantial legal claims that he never received a fair trial are just now being reviewed by the highest court of Pennsylvania, a previously unknown group speaking for the Fraternal Order of Police, and apparently headed by a slain police officer's widow, took out a full page unsigned ad on the most prestigious page of the Sunday New York Times of June 14th entitled, "Justice for Police Officer Daniel Faulkner." The target of this attack, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a renowned journalist from Philadelphia who has been on death row for 16 years for the alleged shooting of Officer Faulkner, and who was known as "the voice of the voiceless" for his award winning reporting on police abuse and other social and racial ills that afflicted the minority communities of Philadelphia, had received worldwide support in his effort to overturn his unjust conviction. At the time of his arrest in 1981 Jamal was serving as the President of the Association of Black Journalists and had previously been a founder of the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia and a supporter of the Philadelphia MOVE group. The advertisement for death, taken out at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars, selectively quotes from witnesses at Jamal's 1982 trial, all of whom have been thoroughly discredited in subsequent court hearings beginning in 1995. Omitted are the evidence and witnesses who have come forward to establish facts which were kept from the jury during the 1982 trial. The ad claims as a "fact" that two police officers heard Jamal confess to the shooting of officer Faulkner the night of the killing. Yet the police officer who guarded Jamal reported that very morning that Jamal had made "no comments." That officer reportedly was on vacation and unavailable at trial, when in fact, he was at home waiting to testify. Similarly, the charge that the shot which killed Faulkner came from Jamal's legally registered .38-caliber weapon contradicts the medical examiner's report--first entered into the official record in 1995--that the bullet removed from Faulkner's brain was a .44-caliber. That fact was also kept from the jury. Moreover, a weapons expert found it incredible that the police at the scene of the shooting failed to test Jamal's gun to see if it had been recently fired or to test his hands to see if he had fired a weapon. The testimony cited in the ad of "eyewitnesses" who claimed to identify Jamal as the shooter was equally flawed, coming from witnesses whose testimony has now been exposed as false. One of these witnesses, a white cab driver named Robert Chobert, first reported to police that the shooter was 225 pounds and "ran away" from the scene. This couldn't have been Jamal, who weighed 170 pounds and was found by the police sitting on a curb at the scene of the shooting, bleeding profusely from a shot fired by Faulkner. Why Chobert changed his story did not become clear until 13 years later when, at a court hearing in 1995, he admitted that at the time of the shooting he had been driving his taxicab without a license while still on probation for felony arson--throwing a Molotov cocktail at a grammar school. The jury which presumably found Chobert truthful never heard these facts. Furthermore Chobert revealed in 1995 that he had asked Jamal's prosecutor to help get his driver's license back. Years later he was still driving, unhindered by the police, without a license. The main witness cited in the ad, Cynthia White, was someone no other witness even reported seeing at the site. In return for her testimony that Jamal shot Faulkner, White was allowed to continue to work the streets as a prostitute for years, apparently with police protection. In a 1997 hearing, another former prostitute, Pamela Jenkins, who was a friend of White at the time, testified that White was acting as a police informant, a fact not given to the defense, and
[PEN-L:45] Re: Realist Postulate
theory. It was your attempt to hit me with your moral stick that I don't take people's suffering as seriously as you do. So i came up with my rhetoric. __ JD: Maybe it is in a world where any rhetorical trick is permissable -- since it's all a game. (As for fighting against injustice, let's get a justicometer and see. If, that is, it is a real phenomenon rather than Maya.) _ AS: This is interesting. The whole thesis of "Maya" was propounded by the character of Lord Krishina in *Mahabharata* just before the beginning of the great war. The interesting thing about it is that Krishna sided with the Pandavas in the war because their cause was the *just* cause. ___ JD: I do think that a sense of humor is important. (When I send prisoners to be shot, I make sure to always tell them a joke first.) But that is not what this whole discussion is about. The RP doesn't say anything about jokes. (Maybe it's the eleventh commandment of the Torah: thou shalt not make jokes.) ___ AS: This again brings out something which i have been saying for a long time. You always see things from the position of power. I could never ever say, let alone write, that "when *I* send prisoners to be shot, I make sure to always tell them a joke first." I would have said: Before I'm hanged, I'll tell a joke to the hangman. You see you never identify with the oppressed in your deep consciousness. You maintain your position of power and previledge. Your position is that you would like to do good for the poor oppressed people, but you don't identify with them--and that reflects in the positions you take. As far as sense of humor is concerned, we simply understand the meaning of the phrase quite differently. For me sense of humor means generousity of spirit. It has very little to do with cracking jokes or laughing at them. Most of the people who are good at cracking jokes don't have good sense of humor since most of the time jokes are on somebody else and not themselves. __ JD: While we're on the subject of our own personal feelings, I guess I should clarify what mine are... I am trying to understand the world because it's often confusing and I would like it to be a better place. ... But I have deep-seated feelings of skepticism about all theories and "facts." I'm not one to quote authorities as a way to end this skepticism, since how do we know that _they_ are accurate? Empirical research, logical analysis, and dialectical philosophy seem necessary. All of these do not produce "truths," especially ones that I hold self-evident... This process produce "working hypotheses" that are subject to further test... This allows the development of new working hypotheses, so that knowledge is not a _state_ but a never-ending _process_ of coming to know the world. AS: That's why we like to argue with you Jim! It's about time I get some praise -- rather than misrepresentations of my opinions. Too bad that you ignored the summary of my method in the rest of your missive, Ajit. Summary of your method is not much of a method in my opinion. I wonder why you have left out phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, etc from your list? Since you like praise, let me give you some more praise: I think you are most open to discussion and debate on pen-l, and you maintain a good sense of humor. Anybody who has tried it would know this is not easy. And breadth of your knowledge is commendable indeed. __ JD: As noted above, one does not _need_ the RP for everyday life (and I never said one did). On the other hand, if one wants to do political economy, it seems necessary. (BTW, how do you _know_ tht the Hindus had this belief? how do you _know_ that they reproduced, etc.? It could all be Maya.) __ AS: It could be all Maya. That possibility is there--but Maya makes sense only if you believe that the sole is 'real' and immortal. _ JD: It's important to remember the distinction between religion and more rational and scientific frames of mind. Religion _glories_ in faith, while science sees faith as a necessary evil to be made explicit in the form of postulates or axioms. Both have served humanity as guides to action, etc. I for one prefer the scientific attitude. _ Let's get back to where we had started from: the distinction between "out there" and "in here". We have critiqued "out there". Now, let's look at "in here". What is "in here"? Can we call our body, our brain, our tissues "in here"? No. They are all objectified and part of "out there" in Jim's RP. So what or who is "in here" who is making this distiction between "in here" and "out there" and constructing the knowledges of out there? It is Descartes's *cogito*. And cogito occupies exactly the same place as sole in religion. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:32] Re: Dunlop, Asia, and Interesting times
At 08:41 17/06/98 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: p.s. I am glad to see that we are moving on from philosophical issues. ___ I don't know how you got the idea that "we are moving on from philisophical issues". I think we are just settling in. Now if you don't like it, apply your own prescribed medicine to others, "do not read it". For a moderator to suggest that we should not talk about serious issues and manly indulge in chit-chat on news paper cuttings, which is what goes on most of the time on pen-l, is really very discouraging. Underneath the whole philosophical debate we are conducting is the most important politics of modern times, multiculturalism. For me the issue and politics of multiculturalism is more than whether I like Chinese food or not. You talk whatever interests you (have we ever objected to any of the thread you participate in?), but why discourage others from talking what interests them? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:25] Re: The Realist Postulate (was: epistemlogy)
*all* beings and not just human beings--and many Hundus and Budhists give status of being to non living things as well. As a matter of fact morality plays an upfront part in any game we play. You hear the word "sporting spirit", which is an alusion to morality, more often during a sporting discourse than most of the other kinds of discourse. And i don't "trick" my opponents and expect them to resign before they get check-mated. But aside from this, my point was that I indulge in theoretical discourse in a sporting spirit and consider myself to be on the side of anti-hegemonic team. Moral discourse is, of course, a more serious game than that. _ [4] AS: Now to multiverse. In my opinion, in the theoretical space of multiverse those scientists exists and don't exist at the same time. There was a possibility that those scientists were not born. This possibility must play out in a parallel universe where these scientists were not born, and so don't exist. And both the universes are as *objective* as the other one! This screws up your "realist postulate" real bad, doesn't it? You can't kill the RP that easily. It's really easy to posit a metauniverse which includes the multiple universes. In this, there is one universe (or several) in which the physicists exist. In fact, I have a hard time understanding how the concept of the multiverse could ever make sense without positing a metaverse. After all, _in what_ do the multiplicity of universes exist? ___ Well Jim, "_in what_ do[es]" your one univese exist? You see when you get to the level of subatomic size or the level of universe or universes the common sensical notion of space and time etc. don't hold, according to the prevalent theories of physics. Physics is an amasing thing you know! [5] AS: The great Philosopher and Mathematical geneious Blaise Pascal was convinced that he had experienced God. And Descartes thought he could establish the existence of God through reasonable arguments. JD: I don't see the point of this observation to what I was saying. In any event, my understanding of the "proof of the existence of God" business is that every proof can be easily turned into a disproof. AS: So why not apply this to your own "realist postulate" as well, and turn it into a non-realist postulate? This gets us back to what I said before (in my discussion with Ricardo in this thread). The "RP" is NOT about the _content_ of the multiverse that exists "out there." Strictly speaking, given "epistemological skepticism," we don't _know_ what exists "out there" (i.e., the content). The "RP" doesn't say _anything_ about the content. Rather, it simply says that there is a reality out there which is the basis of our (flawed) perceptions. _ Why I can't say that it is all *Maya*? I want a good answer to this question. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:18] Re: epistemology
At 07:32 15/06/98 -0400, you wrote: In a message dated 98-06-12 20:12:29 EDT, you write: Of course this "reality" of macroscopic stuff does not necessarily contradict the ontological/epistemological murkiness that apparently exists at the quantum level. On this, however, I must side with Jim D. There is a more "conservative" interpretation of Heisenberg, that says "yes, there are simultaneously momentum and location, but we just can't measure them." Of course the Copenhagen Interpretation disagrees, as has been noted. Barkley Rosser There seems to be some problem with pen-l. I never received Barkley's post, and I don't know how many other posts I never received. Is anybody else having similar problem? Cheers, ajit sinha If I am not mistaken, the hidden variable stand is contradicted by experiments showing the validity of Bell's Theorem. Some of the possible interpretations that are favored in quantum mechanics to solve this problem and to save causality are super-luminality (ie signals traveling faster than the speed of light) and David Bohm's theories of non-local information (which may effect be the same a super-luminality). The Many Worlds interpretation is also, I believe, a consistent answer to the causality problem. (Personally, I seriously doubt whether epistemology really matters.) -Paul Meyer
[PEN-L:17] Re: epistemology
At 12:10 15/06/98 -0500, you wrote: -Paul Meyer writes: (Personally, I seriously doubt whether epistemology really matters.) It seems to me that all the epistemological questions that do matter belong to neuroscience rather than a special study called "epistemology." Denials that we know are always at some level in bad faith, and neuroscience takes for granted that we know and tries to answer the question "How?" Carrol __ I don't understand what all this means. Why should epistemology belong to neuroscience? And are you saying that whoever questions the claim that "we know" is simply crazy? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:520] Re: In Defense of History
At 07:58 9/06/98 -0700, Jim Devine wrote: I had written: The realist postulate is not about the content of what we know. All it says is that there is actually something "out there" that is a basis for our perceptions. The "god exists" postulate, on the other hand, is very specific about what exists. It is asserting much more. ajit sinha asks: But then how do you distinguish "out there" from "in here". Where does this distinction come from? I think the idea of God is the idea of perfection. And why shouldn't this idea come to us as 'naturally' as the idea of "out there"? I think that the distinction between "out there" and "in here" is not a problem at all. It refers to a person's own subjective perceptions of "out there." If we can dance with Freud a little, for most people it's outside one's own ego. It's not something that people "think up" as much as it's part of perception. (I know that some philosophers spend a lot of time on _why_ we make this in there/out there distinction, but I don't understand their point. Maybe it's because I'm an egomaniac.) ___ I think, the point I made above was basically an Hegelian point, that the idea of an "objective nature" is a category already mediated by mind. I don't think "ego" could be something prior to mediation by mind either. The Althusserians won't have much problem with Hegel here because they accept that their "object of knowledge" is a theoretical object--a product of theoretical labor. One big problem I had with the book 'In Defense of History' is that in their attempt to discredit postmodernism, most of the participants embraced science and objectivity whole heartedly at the cost of Hegel and dialectics. There is simply no talk of Hegel and dialectics in that book, though ironically it is intitled 'In Defense of History'. My sense is that most of the scientists would hold that history cannot be scientific simply because you cannot replicate an experiment--Popper did make an argument like this in 'Enmies of Free Society'. In my review i left this line of attack out simply because I didn't want to confuse too many issues, and appear to come out in defense of Hegel. __ Anyway, the "idea of perfection" is something outside of most people's egos, at least outside of mine. Ideas of god usually involve some kind of potential harmony between ego and Other, unity with the god-head or the universe or whatever. This unity is sometimes called Heaven. Except in an actual mystical experience (which I've never had), the unity is non-present, non-existent, theoretical, "out there." I doubt that many economists have had mystical experiences, except perhaps with the Invisible Hand. __ The great Philosopher and Mathematical geneious Blaise Pascal was convinced that he had experienced God. And Descartes thought he could establish the existence of God through reasonable arguments. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:521] RE: In Defense of History
At 14:54 10/06/98 -0700, Jim Devine wrote: So we basically agree (since you accept, however provisionally, the existence of reality), except for some of the terminology. Saying "it would be nice if this idea were 'true'" is equivalent (I believe) to my assertion that the realist postulate (that empirical reality exists independent of our perception of it) seems necessary to rational thought. This basic point is present in most of what Jim is saying on this discussion. But I think it is a weak point from scientific perspective itself. Hisenberg's (sp?) uncertainty principle asserts that the "objective reality" is completely implicated with the "subjective perception" of it. Jim's position above would render Hisenberg's uncertainty principle and a lot of quantum physics "irrational thought". As a matter of fact many modern quantum theorists are trying to remove the subject by creating the idea of "multiverse", where infinite universes exist simultaneously and all the infinite possibilities of all the events take place in the infinite universes simultaneously. For example, I'm not only typing these letters right now but also playing soccer in the world cup in some other universe, and both of these are equally objectively true. But I have a feeling that the idea of "multiverse" would create much more problem for Jim's "realist postulate". Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:474] Re: Philosophy, Marxism and the ecological crisis
At 19:08 5/06/98 -0400, Mat Forstater wrote: Louis- For some time I have wondered whatever happened to the movement to develop a marxist phenomenology. Gurwitsch was a disciple of Schutz, and attempts were even made to synthesize Marx and Schutz. But there were other more obvious links. My gut feeling was that possibly many who would have been attracted to working on such a project instead got sidetracked into "postmodern" stuff, here used sloppily as a catch-all for post-structuralism, deconstruction, etc. Then I also recall hearing there was some infighting among those involved in the project (was this the Telos group mentioned before on one of these lists?). Anyway, if you or anyone else knows, or have thoughts on the importance/relevance of a maxian phenomenology, I would be interested in hearing about it. Aslo, if anyone is still working along these lines. ___ Karl Kosik's *Dialectics of the Concrete: a Study on problem of Man and World* is a good Phenomenological Marxist work. Also Merleau-Ponty has been quite influential--Althusser regarded him very highly. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:475] Re: In Defense of History
At 15:18 5/06/98 -0700, Jim Devine wrote: I had written: The realist postulate is not about the content of what we know. All it says is that there is actually something "out there" that is a basis for our perceptions. The "god exists" postulate, on the other hand, is very specific about what exists. It is asserting much more. ___ But then how do you distinguish "out there" from "in here". Where does this distinction come from? I think the idea of God is the idea of perfection. And why shouldn't this idea come to us as 'naturally' as the idea of "out there"? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:476] Re: Philosophy, Marxism and the ecological crisis
At 19:08 8/06/98 -0700, you Jim Devine wrote: Right. But people make history -- including the persistence of classes. If working people didn't acquiesce to the existence of the class system and instead united to overthrow it, the class system wouldn't last (despite the efforts of the state). That's pretty obvious. People make (or unmake) the system, while the system makes people, in a dynamic, dialectical, process. As Mike Lebowitz's book BEYOND CAPITAL makes clear, Marx's best-presented theory (in CAPITAL) is all about the objective conditions (class, exploitation, accumulation, etc.) but leaves the "political economy of the working class" (subjectivity, consciousness, organization) constant, takes it for granted. We need to complement Marx's objective analysis with a more psychological/social psychological vision, and complement the latter, the "fuzzy stuff," with the former. __ I don't understand what do you mean by "people". Are "people" like sack of potato? If not, why not? What does "people make persistence of classes" mean? Isn't the concept of "class" in Marx distinct from a "group of people", even when the "group of prople" may be doing the same thing? Isn't it important to distinguish between the question of ideology or subjectivity and the concept or the category of class for an understanding of Marxism? Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:473] Re: Baumol and Becker
I sent it last week, but somehow it never showed up. It's minor and a bit late. but so what? At 21:54 3/06/98 -0400, Mat Forstater wrote: But, here was what really discouraged me: the story I have is that when NYU recently eliminated its history of thought grad requirement (it may have been a choice between history of thought and economic history), Baumol--who I would have really expected to have been on the right side--was not. I don't think Leontief was of any help either. The Austrians were the ones who tried to save it--unsuccessfully. Why was it eliminated: needed more time for more econometrics. Mat Forstater Mat, some years ago (I think it was 1991 or 1992) *Economic Journal* published its centenary issue on the topic of 'next hundered years of economics'. Most of the big shots were there with their opinion. One positive thing about it was that most of the people agreed (including Baumol, I think) that Economics has over done mathematics and future of economics will see a decline in use of mathematics and rise of sociological issues in economics. However, Baumol in his paper did come out against teaching of History of Economic Thought. So his position does not come as a surprise to me. I gather that University of Toronto is also getting rid of their comulsory course in History of Economic though for graduate students. Sam Hollander is taking a retirement, and ironically both Samuelson and Baumol are going to speak in the festivity in his honor. Cheers, ajit sinha
[PEN-L:175] Re: On the status of the pen-l list
Anthony D'Costa Briefly, the nuke story everyone knows: US sanctions, Tokyo's aid cut-off, the lack of consensus among the G-8 regarding the sanctions, etc. Important questions have arisen whether India will be able to weather the sanctions. I think so. India's external exposure is very small (the globalization debate comes to mind). At the same time the current Indian leadership has taken a war-mongering posture, being remote controlled by the hardliners of the BJP. China has now accused India of the 1962 aggression and claims India's hegemonic ambitions. Pakistan's internal politics is virtually pushing it to explode a bomb! India's relationship with the US is best seen in the software industry, whereby US MNCs are setting up hi tech centers and at the same time the US government has raised the quotas for foreign engineers to enter the US. Naturally sanctions cannot be that devastating. A friend commented that India's corruption results in billions of dollars of leakages so what kind of a havoc would a cut off of a few billions do. _ My guess is Pakistan is going to get a bomb sooner or later, so everybody will have a bomb and there will be peace in the region. Of course, India's bomb is not for Pakistan but for China. Two questions interest me in this context. One, now that India has become world's bad boy, is it going to initiate a more self reliant (i.e. away from globalization) policy on economic front? BJP never was enthusiastic about globalization, so will it take this sense of "national purpose" to forge some sort of self reliant economic policy? Second, my sense was that the relationship with China was improving in the last few years. What has happened to deterioate it to this extent? Why didn't they allow Martin Scorsese to shoot Kun Dun in India then? Cheers, ajit sinha __ An American friend reported from the US: The bomb tests of course made big news here. Commentators and government officials have been trying to each out do the other in formulating expressions of outrage and condemnation. Such hypocritical bullshit. Not that I'm any fan of nuclear weapons, but I'm stunned (maybe I should be used to it by now) of the general level of stupidity in our public discourses about India. The policy moves being discussed are exactly what you'd want to do if you wanted to be counterproductive, or so it seems to me. The administration and Congress seem eager to now solidly embrace Pakistan, for re-assurance, in the name of parity, and to see if they can be promised enough rewards to dissuade them from setting off a few bombs themselves. China too is in the game, offering as yet unspecified assurances to Pakistan. I just read in the TNT today something to the effect of China's identification of India as an "enemy" and a "threat to China's national security." So with sanctions and these emerging cosy arrangements between the U.S. and its undemocratic, authoritarian, human-rights-squashing buddies, Pakistan China, India, I hate to say it, probably has more reason than ever to seek to become a nuclear power in its own right. Even though I personally wish all this nuclear busines was headed in the opposite direction, the Indian government's decision is not only understandable, it will probably pay off internationally in the long run. As China and Pakistan have both shown, the U.S. will evidently respect you and constructively "engage" you only if you are a bad boy in their eyes. Now that India has also become a bad boy, it can probably count on more respect and consideration from the U.S. in the long run. In the short run however India can probably count on more shrill, self-righteous, vein-popping rhetoric from the U.S. side. But as they say in advertising, there's no such thing as bad publicity... India has made it onto the mental map of American politics in a big way in the past few weeks. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. - Junoon is a popular Pakistani rock group who sing in the vernacular (Urdu). They are highly popular in India as well. So while bombs of all sorts were going up (and down) the young generation of the MTV culture had transcended such jingoistic postures and sought to dance themselves away. Cheers, Anthony
[PEN-L:174] Re: 35-hour week in France (fwd)
London Times May 20 1998 A CONTROVERSIAL Bill to reduce the working week from 39 hours to 35 was passed by the French National Assembly yesterday in a move described by many economists and business leaders as economic suicide. This is a great news. I hope it gives strength to workers all around the world to push for such a move. I'm wondering what would be it's impact on general price level and so real wages per worker? Cheers, ajit sinha Dismissing protests that the law will harm competitiveness and aggravate the migration of young professionals across the Channel, the Socialist-led Assembly ratified the Government's election promise to cut the working week without reducing wages by a show of hands. Members of the governing coalition - Socialists, Communists and Greens - voted for the Bill while the centre-right opposition voted against. The Bill had produced 75 hours of debate, with the Gaullists arguing that it would have no effect on France's crippling unemployment levels of around 12 per cent and might even increase joblessness. The Government, however, claims that the measure will create between 210,000 and 280,000 extra jobs over five years. The measure was originally championed by Lionel Jospin, the Socialist Prime Minister, as a way to reduce unemployment, although at one point late last year even he appeared to back away from it, describing the Left's election slogan "Work 35 hours get paid for 39" as "anti-economic". Under the terms of the law, all firms with more than 20 employees must introduce the 35-hour week by 2000. Firms with fewer than 20 workers will be allowed until 2002 to implement the measure. More than 15 million workers are estimated to be affected. The law includes no details on how it should be implemented, leaving management and trade unions to negotiate the terms. In 1999 practical details will be set out, based on the experience of companies that have adopted the measures in the interim. ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ** -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
