subject:"Economics and law"

--- andie nachgeborenen:

 I agree with  about the good Czar with under
Stalinism, but that is not an example of socialist
democracy -- I don't think you think it is either.

---
Certainly not.



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Re: Economics and law

--- andie nachgeborenen
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I agree with your reservations about the term
 Stalinism, I just don't have a better one.

 I agree with  about the good Czar with under
 Stalinism, but that is not an example of socialist
 democracy -- I don't think you think it is either.

 jks

Incidentally, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq
with all its Saddam is a brutal, hated dictator, so
of course nobodt likes him and we will be greeted as
liberators rhetoric, I kept thinking of Stalin.
Stalin was not hated (by most people). He was
worshipped (by most people). Being a brutal dictator
does not necessarily mean that you are hated or seen
as illegitimate by the people over whom you are
dictating, especially if their historical experience
tells them that power is absolute and arbitrary. For
all I know, Saddam's ruthlessness may have bought him
street cred as a tough guy you don't mess with.




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Re: Economics and law/bureaucratic order made real

2004-08-16 Thread Waistline2

In a message dated 8/15/2004 1:00:35 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

The American system of vehicle production was very bureaucratic . . . but less than that of the Soviets and much more than that of the Japanese producers . . . in terms of democratic input of the workers . . . measured by their ability to halt production and correct a problem.

Comment

The domestic and historic American auto producers will never . . . ever . . . produce superior quality vehicles than their Japanese counter parts . . . for the very same reasons the Soviets could not produce vehicles superior to the American producers. On the one hand the industrial class in America was consolidated and evolved on a curve in front of its Japanese and Soviet counterpart the former produces better vehicles and the latter worse vehicles.

Why does the Japanese produce better vehicles and the old Soviet vehicles ... as massed produced . . . not specialized .. . were of an inferior quality? One thread of thought says the Soviet system was inferior to the American system and the Soviet workers were lazy, stupid, culturally backwards and lacked freedom of _expression_ due to their bureaucracy. This is the exact argument advanced by a section of the intellectual stratum of Japan against their American counterparts.

If memory serves me correct the book advancing this argument in Japan was "The Right To Say No" published in the 1980s. The reaction of the autoworkers union was to prohibit Japanese cars from being parked in the parking lot of the International Union and a wave of smashing Japanese vehicles in Detroit.

Everything is involved in the equation and real human beings - the subjective aspects . . . are always the decisive factor within a given qualitative and quantitative boundary of the industrial system. However, this does not isolate the set of factors that are fundamental to the production process. The Soviets production of military planes means the technological capability existed . . . so the human potential was present.

The history of Soviet industrial socialism contains an important key to understanding the components of industrial society because its system of production was constructed at a specific quantitative boundary. The Japanese producers . . . after the Second Imperial World War . . . constructed their industrial system at yet another . . . different . . . boundary of the industrial system.

Nor can the issue be looked at as "Forced industrialization" because industrialization by definition is forced on society in every country on earth as the material results of the triumph of a new mode of production. Even in its mode of accumulation . . . the injection of the money economy into a natural economy requires incredibly destructive force at every stage of the industrial advance. Look at the Western hemisphere and see the truth of the quest for gold. Look at American history . . . clearing of the Western frontier and the advance of the manufacturing process.

The difference in tempo of industrialization is another question all together. My understanding of industrialization - heavy industry, is that it grew out of the manufacturing process . . . and specifically heavy manufacturing as opposed to chair making.

From the 14th century on industrialization rivets in history and grows out slavery and the slave trade . . . ship building . . . heavy manufacturing . . . which laid an important basis for what would become the steel industry . . . science . . . navigation . . . the armament industry, trade routes and the early impulse of the state to shattered local constrained markets. We forget this was the actual process of divorcing millions of producers from the land and their means of production and with rose color glasses speak of capital magically rolling out of the countryside and the conversion of the serf into modern proletarians.

All industrialization is forced by definition. Soviet industrialization did not evolve from the slavery trade but occurred at another juncture of history and was infinitely more peaceful and humane than the earlier period of industrialization.

The anti-Sovietism under the banner of anti-Stalinism has very little to do with Stalin and more to do with imperial privilege and falsification of world history in y opinion. The hundreds of millions of descendants of 14th through 19th century slaves are very clear that the edifice of industrial society was carved from their backs. To hell with Stalin . . . because he is not the issue. He becomes the focal point because American Marxists have been in denial of their history for 400 years and point an accusing finger at everyone else.

Our inability to accurately describe Soviet industrial socialism and Soviet industrial democracy . . . seems to me to be based in difference about the meaning of the mode of production . . . on the level of theory. I use the concept "industrial mode of production" with the property

Re: Economics and law

Agreed. That's playing with fire.

--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 I would not like to see an extended Stalin debate.
 --
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 Chico, CA 95929

 Tel. 530-898-5321
 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu






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Re: Economics and law/bureaucratic order made real

--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Why does the Japanese produce better vehicles and the
old Soviet vehicles ... as massed produced . . . not
specialized .. . were of an inferior quality?  One
thread of thought says the Soviet system was inferior
to the American system and the Soviet workers were
lazy, stupid, culturally backwards and lacked freedom
of _expression due to their bureaucracy.  This is the
exact argument advanced by a section of the
intellectual stratum of Japan against their American
counterparts.

---
It's not because they were lazy or stupid, it's
because they couldn't be fired for doing a bad job. Or
most anything else  -- many workplaces had one or two
incorrigible alcoholics who would come in to work and
be told to sleep it off in the back room. (They were
given the worst jobs though.)

All Soviet goods were sold with the date of
manufacture, and the purchaser invariable made sure
not to buy something made after a holiday or on a
Monday (to avoid hangover-related shoddiness) or at
teh end of the month (which meant everybody was
working ful speed to fulfill the plan).

Note that in areas where the Soviets _did_ discipline
labor -- the military and aeronautics, for instance --
their goods were surberb.



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Re: Economics and law/bureaucratic order made real

--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Why does the Japanese produce better vehicles and the
old Soviet vehicles ... as massed produced . . . not
specialized .. . were of an inferior quality?  One
thread of thought says the Soviet system was inferior
to the American system and the Soviet workers were
lazy, stupid, culturally backwards and lacked freedom
of _expression due to their bureaucracy.  This is the
exact argument advanced by a section of the
intellectual stratum of Japan against their American
counterparts.

---
It's not because they were lazy or stupid, it's
because they couldn't be fired for doing a bad job. Or
most anything else  -- many workplaces had one or two
incorrigible alcoholics who would come in to work and
be told to sleep it off in the back room. (They were
given the worst jobs though.)

All Soviet goods were sold with the date of
manufacture, and the purchaser invariable made sure
not to buy something made after a holiday or on a
Monday (to avoid hangover-related shoddiness) or at
teh end of the month (which meant everybody was
working ful speed to fulfill the plan).

Note that in areas where the Soviets _did_ discipline
labor -- the military and aeronautics, for instance --
their goods were surburb.



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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread Chris Doss

--- Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Secondly, the primary Marxist point about capitalism
was that,
destructive of human life as capitalism had been from
its very
beginning
(the advances for the few from the beginning
disguising the greater
horror for the many), it _had_ opened up the
possibility of _real_
improvement of human life, a possibility that did not
exist within
agrarian society (as superior as such societies had
been for the the
vast majority in comparison with capitalism).

Carrol
---

Didn't the Bolsheviks at one point deliberately try to
immitate aspects of American big capital? (I'm
reviewing Yale Rochmond's Cultural Exchange and the
Cold War, and he asserts this.)



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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread Chris Doss

--- andie nachgeborenen So I'll use it anyway. I
don't care if it isn't a Russian word, I don't think
the Russians understand the Soviet era any better than
Western specialists. Which isn't very well -- I speak
having been one once.
--
Well, the Russians (Ukrainians, Latvians, etc. etc.
etc.) do have the advantage of having lived there.
Then again they had poor access to information (as did
Westerners, in a different way.)

My problem is that 1) the word Stalinism is used for
a whole lot of different societies and periods, so
that Romania is treated as no different from the GDR,
or the Khrushchev era is referred to as Stalinist
even though he denounced the Father of the Peoples,
and 2) when the word is applied in the West it is
usually tied up with a bunch of misconceptions about
what life was actually like in those countries.

---
As rto Charles and Chris' point that Stalinist
repression was selective and popular and that the
regime took account of public opinion, of course. We
revisionist Sovietologists argued that point against
the totalitarianism school for 35 years. That doesn't
mean, however, that Stalinism was democratic or that
it was controlled by ordinary working people the way
most of us here would want socialism to be. That is
obvious too, don't you agree? I mean, as the Old Man
said, a worker's state wouldn't have a political
police.
--

Oh, the backing of the people for Stalin was more like
the backing of the simple people for the tsars or the
Pharoah than anything else. In the 30s, the USSR was
still a largely illiterate peasant country with little
access to information whose populace was used to
seeing the Leader as something akin to God. Moreover,
if misfortune came their way, they would blame the
local authorities, not Stalin. (If only Stalin knew!)
I do not see the Cult of Personality as being
particularly Stalinist: It is Russian. Consider the
following quotes from the founder of Russian science,
Lomonosov, addressing the deferated Swedes and in
other contexts (taken from
http://www.google.ru/search?q=cache:jGjH1YybTMcJ:www.jacobite.org.uk/ellis/religion.pdf+%22Peter+the+Great%22+Lomonosov+praise+swedeshl=ru),
including the author's comments:

My address to you, our now peaceful neighbours [i.e.
the Swedes, defeated by Petersforces in the Great
Northern War] is intended such that when you hear this
praise ofthe martial exploits of our Hero [Peter] and
my celebration of the victory of Russian forces over
you, you do not take it as an insult, but rather as an
honour to you, for tohave stood for so long a time
against the mighty Russian nation, to have stood
againstPeter the Great, against the Man, sent from God
to the wonder of the universe, and inthe end to have
been defeated by Him, is still more glorious than to
have defeated weakforces under poor leadership.47

Lomonosov can be yet more explicit than that in his
identification of Peter with Christlike attributes. In
his Ode on the 1752 anniversary of Elizabeth
Petrovnas coronation, he says this about Peters
mother Natalia Naryshkina:

And thou, blessed among women,
By whom bold Alexis
Gave to us the unsurpassable Monarch
Who opened up the light to the whole of Russia.

The correspondence here with the following well-known
words from the Gospel According to St. Luke is
palpable:

And the angel came in unto her and said,
Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord
is with thee: blessed art thou among women. (Luke 1,
xxviii)

Granted, he has not gone so far as to claim for
Peters mother an Immaculate Conception, orfor Peter a
physical Resurrection, and it would be more than
far-fetched to suppose that thisis simply a question
of his not wanting to compromise the continuity of the
Romanov dynasty by denying Tsar Alexis any part in
Peters conception; but his use of such recognisably
New Testament language would be hard to explain away
as coincidental and his identification of Peter with
Christlike or, perhaps better, messianic, qualities is
still evident.

--
Me again:

In fact, there is a Cult of Putin today, which has not
been fostered by the Kremlin but is rather a source of
embarrassment to it it -- e.g. people have named bars
and even a tomato after Putin, to the Kremlin's
intense displeasure. The Kremlin has a special office
devoted to correspondence directed to Putin from the
people -- hundreds of thousands of letters every year
-- many of which take the form of asking Putin to
intercede in people's personal problems.





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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread andie nachgeborenen



---Didn't the Bolsheviks at one point deliberately try toimmitate aspects of American big capital? (I'mreviewing Yale Rochmond's Cultural Exchange and theCold War, and he asserts this.)* * 
Lenin expressly holds up Taylorism as an ideal for Soviet industry at a couple of points. I could find the references if you wanted.But I think the Bolshies were more impressed with German war planning planning, which was more familiar to them. Gramsci conceived of Fordism not only asa tool of analysis but as containing elements of a Communist society.
jks
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Re: Economics and law/bureaucratic order made real

2004-08-15 Thread Waistline2

The whole matter of workers control and democratic input in the actual production process or what I understand to be the collective intellectual and emotional passions of the working class . . . and giving this broad _expression_ . . . has driven me up the wall for twenty years of my working life.

In respects to Soviet society this whole question of democratic input versus one man management has been described under the theory category of socialist relations of production . . . and has cause me more than a few headaches. In my way of thinking an autoworker in the Soviet Union and America in 1935 or 1975 . . . had more in common in their actual life activity than"not incommon."

The reason of this is the commonality of actual tools, machines and physical organization of auto production on the basis of that, which is industrial. Important differences exists that in turn impact the actual production process. These difference have to do with the property relations and the drive for profits. Auto plants in America produce one thing and one thing only besides profit . . . automobiles or vehicles while Soviet plants had multifunction production.

I do not want to stray to far from this question of workers democrary and control . . . but an industrial facility will manifest a variation in curve of intensive and extensive development based on whether it process . . . as a system . . . on primary product or many. If you produce many products then you instruments of production are developed to perform multifunctions or rather machines are created that can be repeatedly converted over to produce more than one thing. The more functions a machine or tool has to perform . . . the less efficient it is to bourgeois property.

Shoddy products achieved legendary status in the Soviet Union and some of this had much to do with its political system . . . but my position is that this was not the fundamentality. This is my thinking based on involvement in the actual fight to close the gap between the Japanese automotive producers and the Americans. Why are the Japanese vehicles absolutely superior to the American counterparts in every category?

I discovered another truth at the time Bob Eaton was the CEO for Chrysler and he personally sent my older brother to Japan to study the issue of production and we spent the better part of a year unraveling "why." The first implentation of the results were atrempted at Trenton Engine outside Detroit . . . whose evolution was based on a previous study of the Honda system.

Mutherfuckers should have went to Toyota . . . but that is another struggle dealing with the bureaucratic order.

I asked brother "why did you not do Germany . . . because Bob wanted you to go to Germany and look around?"

We did not know that Bob Eaton had consolidated his Germany contacts while he was with "General Motors Europe" before his tourat ChryslerYes . . . Bob Eaton was consolidating his based amongst the workers in auto but we did not know this at the time of the unfolding of this history.

You know the auto magnates are rats and this knowledge is what compels you from nothing to politically something. But your world view is fucked up because you cannot see the world in concrete terms as living labor and the immediate combat . . . because you do not have the data and the subjective response of the individual is some unpredictable shit . . . that you cannot predict

"What the fuck is Bob talking about and are you going to Japan?

" I do not know brother but he seems to want to know something and I will go to Japan befoe going to Germany."

"Why in the fuck he wants you to go brother."

"Besides having the largest stamping plant in north America under my political jurisdiction and me cussing that mutherfucker out because he do not drive a Chrysler car and has a chauffeur . . . which means he never encounter quality problems . . . your Big Brother is the4 baddest mutherfucker thjaqt you know."

"OK Big Brother . . . I always knew I was number 2. Is Bob a 2 or one? This mutherfucker is not immune to operating within a certain family system or non family system?"

"He do not seem like a 1 little brother."

"That is why you not going to Germany?"

"Not at all brother . . . if we lose . . . none of us have jobs and all that retirement shit is out of the window . . . and all the money is gone. Plus. . . I want to go to Japan and see what a mutherfucker is doing. Plus I am hitting the back street of Japan and not taking the fucking tour shit. The whote guys scared and I am not hanging out with their puck ass because they treat eveyone like shit.

"Fuck them guys . . . ain't no one going to tell them shit in Japan."

"OK Big Brother . . . say all the notes and documents."

The evolution is deep . . . on every front.

Remember when General Motors was called "Generous Motors" and "what is good for General Motors is good for the country?"

Well, today General Motors ismanufacturing Snoop Dog

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread Carrol Cox

Justin (converted to plain text from html code): Lenin expressly holds
up Taylorism as an ideal for Soviet industry at a couple of points. I
could find the references if you wanted. But I think the Bolshies were
more impressed with German war planning planning, which was more
familiar to them. Gramsci conceived of Fordism not only asa  tool of
analysis but as containing elements of a Communist society.

-

These passages are commonly cited to show how Lenin was a spawn of the
devil. But they probably should be collated with his (half serious)
comment that communism was soviets + electricity, and glossed with Tom
Walker's signature line, Wealth is liberty... it is disposable time and
nothing more. (I don't know who he was quoting), _and_ with ME's
argument in GI that communism would involve the dissolution of the
division of labor.

If necessary labor (in Hannah Arendt's sense of _merely_ necessary labor
in contrast to work or action) is to be reduced to the absolute minimum,
and men/women are to be fishers in the morning and critics in the
afternoon, that necessary labor needs to be rationalized and divided
into such minute parts that it becomes a trivial part (in terms of time
 skill) of human activity, which then can become fully human (work 
action in contrast to labor). One of Engels's footnotes in Capital I is
also a useful gloss: The English language has the advantage of
possessing different words for the two aspects of labour here
considered. The labour which creates Use-Value, and counts
qualitatively, is Work, as distinguished from Labour, that which creates
Value and counts quantitatively, is Labour as distinguished from Work.
The ultimate goal of socialism is to eliminate Labor and replace it with
Work -- electricity and taylorism are means to that end. In this light,
Lenin's perspective on taylorism might also evoke that passage in
_Capital_ where Marx compares the ancient and modern perspective on
labor-saving technology, quoting an ancient poet on how the water-wheel
could reduce the labor of the servant and contrasting it with the
capitalist use of machinery to extend the working day.

Carrol

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread andie nachgeborenen

I agree with your reservations about the term Stalinism, I just don't have a better one. 

I agree with about the good Czar with under Stalinism, but that is not an example of socialist democracy -- I don't think you think it is either.

jksChris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
--- andie nachgeborenen don't care if it isn't a Russian word, I don't thinkthe Russians understand the Soviet era any better thanWestern specialists. Which isn't very well -- I speakhaving been one once.--Well, the Russians (Ukrainians, Latvians, etc. etc.etc.) do have the advantage of having lived there.Then again they had poor access to information (as didWesterners, in a different way.)My problem is that 1) the word "Stalinism" is used fora whole lot of different societies and periods, sothat Romania is treated as no different from the GDR,or the Khrushchev era is referred to as "Stalinist"even though he denounced the Father of the Peoples,and 2) when the word is applied in the West it isusually tied up with a bunch of misconceptions aboutwhat life was actually like in those
 countries.---As rto Charles and Chris' point that Stalinistrepression was selective and popular and that theregime took account of public opinion, of course. Werevisionist Sovietologists argued that point againstthe totalitarianism school for 35 years. That doesn'tmean, however, that Stalinism was democratic or thatit was controlled by ordinary working people the waymost of us here would want socialism to be. That isobvious too, don't you agree? I mean, as the Old Mansaid, a worker's state wouldn't have a politicalpolice.--Oh, the backing of the people for Stalin was more likethe backing of the simple people for the tsars or thePharoah than anything else. In the 30s, the USSR wasstill a largely illiterate peasant country with littleaccess to information whose populace was used toseeing the Leader as something akin to God. 
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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread Waistline2

In a message dated 8/15/2004 12:34:00 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Lenin expressly holds up Taylorism as an ideal for Soviet industry at a couple of points. I could find the references if you wanted. But I think the Bolshies were more impressed with German war planning planning, which was more familiar to them. Gramsci conceived of Fordism not only asa tool of analysis but as containing elements of a Communist society.

jks

Comment

I like Lenin but he wrote that electrification of agriculture and Soviet Power equates communism and that is how things looked in 1920 . . . but we know different in 2004.

All of us historically wrong.

What was understood in 1920 was the actual material components of a mode of production called industrial production. Lenin's whole fight with the syndicalist or rather anacho syndicalist . . . can be read on line in the Lenin library.

The communist called these fights around the specific extensive and intensive development of industry "right and left deviations" . . . while the capitalist called them winning and losing in the market.

This fight occurred under the heading of "state capitalism" . . . a concept Lenin rejected but spoke to. An aspect of Taylorism . . . which was superseded in Japan . . . was another level of rationalization of production. . . and quality control based on statistical analysis of every product.

If the world had evolved different . . . which it did not . . . we would be arguing the attributes of intensive versus extensive development of the material power of production.

Hey the industrial system by definition is an economic terrain hostile to communism.

Now the real question is that the quality of what you produce is largely determined by the quality of the machines you get from the producers of your heavy machinery which is only corrected and evolved in relationship to the feed back you get from the muckerfuckersmaking the final product.

OK.

Excello and Gidding and Lewis are important manufactures of heavy machinery for auto. They can only evolve the intensive manufacture of the equipment them provide you with based on the feedback loop you supply them.

This is the cultural thing . . . which is also a property thing . . . but nothing makes sense until we put things into an agreeded upon context.

For Lenin the man . . . real person and political leader . . . the system of Talyorism . . . which grew out of the Singer Sewing Machine assembly and manufacture process . . . and later adapted to the Ford system or Fordism . . . this was a giant step over what Russia possessed.

I became convince of the importance of Giant Steps by John Coltrane. :-)

This was after father and mother beat "My Favorite Things" into my head by Coltrane.

Melvin P.

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-15 Thread Ted Winslow

Carrol Cox wrote:
If necessary labor (in Hannah Arendt's sense of _merely_ necessary 
labor
in contrast to work or action) is to be reduced to the absolute 
minimum,
and men/women are to be fishers in the morning and critics in the
afternoon, that necessary labor needs to be rationalized and divided
into such minute parts that it becomes a trivial part (in terms of time
 skill) of human activity, which then can become fully human (work 
action in contrast to labor). One of Engels's footnotes in Capital I is
also a useful gloss: The English language has the advantage of
possessing different words for the two aspects of labour here
considered. The labour which creates Use-Value, and counts
qualitatively, is Work, as distinguished from Labour, that which 
creates
Value and counts quantitatively, is Labour as distinguished from Work.
The ultimate goal of socialism is to eliminate Labor and replace it 
with
Work -- electricity and taylorism are means to that end. In this light,
Lenin's perspective on taylorism might also evoke that passage in
_Capital_ where Marx compares the ancient and modern perspective on
labor-saving technology, quoting an ancient poet on how the water-wheel
could reduce the labor of the servant and contrasting it with the
capitalist use of machinery to extend the working day.
Marx also identifies free time in this sense with time for individual 
development.  This development is required for the activities that 
constitute life in the realm of freedom.  Marx also claims it's 
required for activity in the realm of necessity, however.  Taylorism is 
inconsistent with this.  Moreover, the claim is that the most 
productive - i.e. the most efficient
- form of relations and forces of production in this realm are those 
that presuppose and require this development on the part of 
individuals, i.e. conditions most worthy and appropriate to their 
human nature.

Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his needs, to 
maintain and reproduce his life, so must civilized man, and he must do 
so in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production.  
This realm of natural necessity expands with his development, because 
his needs do too; but the productive forces to satisfy these expand at 
the same time.  Freedom, in this sphere, can only consist in this, that 
socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism 
with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective 
control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; 
accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions 
most worthy and appropriate to their human nature.  But this always 
remains a realm of necessity.  The true realm of freedom, the 
development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it, 
though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis.  
The reduction of the working day is the basic prerequisite.  (Marx, 
Capital vol. III [Penguin ed.], p. 959)

The theft of alien labour time, on which the present wealth is based, 
appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by 
large-scale industry itself. As soon as labour in the direct form has 
ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and 
must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to 
be the measure] of use value. The surplus labour of the mass has ceased 
to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the 
non-labour of the few,for the development of the general powers of the 
human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, 
and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of 
penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities, and 
hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus 
labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of 
society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, 
scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, 
and with the means created, for all of them.  Grundrisse pp. 705-6

Real economy -- saving -- consists of the saving of labour time 
(minimum (and minimization) of production costs); but this saving 
identical with development of the productive force. Hence in no way 
abstinence from consumption, but rather the development of power, of 
capabilities of production, and hence both of the capabilities as well 
as the means of consumption. The capability to consume is a condition 
of consumption, hence its primary means, and this capability is the 
development of an individual potential, a force of production. The 
saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time 
for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts back 
upon the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive 
power. From the standpoint of the direct production process it can be 
regarded as the production of fixed capital,

Re: Economics and law

The majority of cars sold in Russia are Russian-made,
or imports of used cars from the West. Not many people
are going to be able to afford a brand-new Volvo.

--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 Obviously, someone who is very poor  needs
 transportation will be unlikely to
 purchase a Volvo  would be more likely to settle
 for a Yugo.


 --
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 Chico, CA 95929

 Tel. 530-898-5321
 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu





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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-14 Thread andie nachgeborenen

Do we really know at all what a socialist society would do about transportation safety? I think trying to predict from the hostory of Stalinist societies is a very shaky guide. A socialist society, as most conceive it in this list, would be one where there would be a lot more democratic input into decisions about how much weight to give values like transportation safety. Of course the very hallmark of Stalinism was that there was very little democratic input into such decisions. So you can't tell much from what people would do when they hadno say about what they might do if they had a real say. Now, we might guess that if they had a say they would prefer to be safer, but (as this thread began) safety competes with other things that might matter a lot to them too. Cost in resources, availability of transportation, etc. So it's not really possible to say how the debate would come out beforehand. jks"David B. Shemano" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
Kenneth Campbell writes: How about West and East Germany? Can't complain about different historical development. I think most might agree that there is a very different historical development between the parts of Germany that were east and west. Check it out. Pretty main stream. And, after the war, the east had a different trajectory, as well, based on need of the conquering powers. You seem to know history... help me out here... Which one of the two countries that has "US" in its acronym... which one lost about 25 million people in the war... and had cities bombed, occupied, dismantled, bombed again... I stand by the position that if you refuse to consider historical evidence and insist
on speculating about what could happen in utopia: cop out. I say the same thing! Brother, we've found each other at last!Let's try one last time. The suggestion was made that a socialist economy will more highly value transportation safety than a capitalist economy. Every historical example I come up with to try and test the suggestion, you say is not an appropriate comparison. For example, you imply there is apparently something in the historical development of East Germany, as compared to West Germany, that would cause East Germany auto manufacturers not to value safety as much as their West German counterparts, even though the East Germans had a socialist economy and West Germany had a capitalist economy, but such fact has no relevance for the validity of the suggestion that socialist economies value safety more than capitalist economies. I am at a loss how to respond.How do you propose to test the
hypothesis? Is there nothing relevant from 75 years of historical experience that will satisfy you?David Shemano
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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-14 Thread andie nachgeborenen

Where did you get it? It's not like there is a Lada dealership on every corner . . . jksDaniel Davies [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I drove a Lada for five years. It was fourteen years old when I got it andwas still going just fine when I gave it away last month. They were builtoff the plans of old Fiats.dd-Original Message-From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris DossSent: 13 August 2004 07:42To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: Re: Economics and lawDavid:Cop out. In my experience, there was one example ofasocialist inspired car in the capitalist market: theYugo.Case closed.---This is totally untrue. The USSR exported automobilesto Latin America and elsewhere. Russia and Belarusexport tractors to Australia to this day, where Ladas,I am told, have a cult following.Those vehicles break down a lot, but then again theyare easy to
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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-14 Thread Bill Lear

On Saturday, August 14, 2004 at 07:18:13 (-0700) andie nachgeborenen writes:
Do we really know at all what a socialist society would do about
transportation safety? I think trying to predict from the hostory of
Stalinist societies is a very shaky guide. A socialist society, as
most conceive it in this list, would be one where there would be a
lot more democratic input into decisions about how much weight to
give values like transportation safety. Of course the very hallmark
of Stalinism was that there was very little democratic input into
such decisions. So you can't tell much from what people would do when
they had no say about what they might do if they had a real say. Now,
we might guess that if they had a say they would prefer to be safer,
but (as this thread began) safety competes with other things that
might matter a lot to them too. Cost in resources, availability of
transportation, etc. So it's not really possible to say how the
debate would come out beforehand. jks

The distinction between Stalinist societies that appropriated the name
socialist and those based upon real democratic input is absolutely
spot-on.


Bill

Economics and law

2004-08-14 Thread Charles Brown


by andie nachgeborenen

Do we really know at all what a socialist society would do about
transportation safety? I think trying to predict from the hostory of
Stalinist societies is a very shaky guide. A socialist society, as most
conceive it in this list, would be one where there would be a lot more
democratic input into decisions about how much weight to give values like
transportation safety. Of course the very hallmark of Stalinism was that
there was very little democratic input into such decisions.

^
CB: It is not quite clear that because there was a Gulag, show trials of
Party members and other acts of state repression on specific occasions, that
there was no or little democratic process in decisions on other matters in
Soviet society during Stalin's rule or Stalinism ( other matters such as
decisions on transportation safety)

With respect to the infamous crimes of Stalin , it is not even established
that majorities of people in the SU opposed them. So as to whether they were
_democratic_ there is some dispute. In other words, much of the infamous
Stalinist crimes may have been a tyranny of the majority, a problem with
democracy discussed on LBO-talk about now. They might have been violations
of due process and cruel and unusual punishment rights that should be
universal, but not necessarily violations of the actual will of the Soviet
majority. The majority opinion may have been based, in part , on lies from
the CPSU, but that is not the same thing as the majority opinion having no
impact on decisions.

At any rate, in particular, criticism of Stalinism does not necessarily
claim that decisions on many aspects of Soviet society, such as
transportation forms, including safety, were undemocratic, i.e. lacked
genuine input from masses of Soviet people; input every bit as genuine as
the input from masses in liberal democratic nations such as the U.S.

The idea that the CPSU did not authentically represent the Soviet masses and
their self-determined opinions AT ALL WITH RESPECT TO ANYTHING is not
established. Gross violations of due process rights in specific instances
such as in show trials/purges or in use of terror during civil wars does not
establish that there was universal lack of democratic/republican processes
with respect to other issues in that society.

^



So you can't tell much from what people would do when they had no say about
what they might do if they had a real say. Now, we might guess that if they
had a say they would prefer to be safer, but (as this thread began) safety
competes with other things that might matter a  lot to them too. Cost in
resources, availability of transportation, etc. So it's not really possible
to say how the debate would come out beforehand. jks

Re: Economics and law

--- Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
CB: It is not quite clear that because there was a
Gulag, show trials
of
Party members and other acts of state repression on
specific occasions,
that
there was no or little democratic process in decisions
on other matters
in
Soviet society during Stalin's rule or Stalinism (
other matters such
as
decisions on transportation safety)
---

Me : In the Brezhnev era, the primary domestic purpose
of KGB informers was to gauge public opinion with
respect to this or that government policy.

I personally hate the word Stalinism. It's not even
a Russian word (it is now, but it was imported). What
exactly does it mean? And why the obsession with one man?




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Re: Economics and law

The distinction between Stalinist societies that
appropriated the name
socialist and those based upon real democratic input
is absolutely
spot-on.


Bill
--
What would you call the USSR when it had free
elections in 1990?



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Re: Economics and law

--- andie nachgeborenen
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Where did you get it? It's not like there is a Lada
 dealership on every corner . . . jks


There is here. :)




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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-14 Thread andie nachgeborenen

Well, I don't want to get into this distraction on the Russian question, but you could call the system bureaucratic collectivism (Schachtman's term) or the command-administrative system (the perestroichiki's term), or totalitarianism, or lots of things, but the fact is we don't really havea good name for it. Stalinism is unfortunate insofarr as it suggests than man was responsible for the whole thing, which is absurd, but it is also true taht he shaped the system more than anyone else and that he exemplified the social forces that created it. So I'll use it anyway. I don't care if it isn't a Russian word, I don't think the Russians understand the Soviet era any better than Western specialists. Which isn't very well -- I speak having been one once. 

As rto Charles and Chris' point that Stalinist repression was selective and popular and that the regime took account of public opinion, of course. We revisionist Sovietologists argued that point against the totalitarianism school for 35 years. That doesn't mean, however, thatStalinism was democratic or that it was controlled by ordinary working people the way most of us here would want socialism to be. That is obvious too, don't you agree? I mean, as the Old Man said, a worker's state wouldn't have a political police.

jksChris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
--- Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:CB: It is not quite clear that because there was aGulag, show trialsofParty members and other acts of state repression onspecific occasions,thatthere was no or little democratic process in decisionson other mattersinSoviet society during Stalin's rule or "Stalinism" (other matters suchasdecisions on transportation safety)---Me : In the Brezhnev era, the primary domestic purposeof KGB informers was to gauge public opinion withrespect to this or that government policy.I personally hate the word "Stalinism." It's not evena Russian word (it is now, but it was imported). Whatexactly does it mean? And why the obsession with one man?__Do you Yahoo!?New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free
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Re: Economics and law

David:

Cop out.  In my experience, there was one example of
a
socialist inspired car in the capitalist market:  the
Yugo.
Case closed.
---

This is totally untrue. The USSR exported automobiles
to Latin America and elsewhere. Russia and Belarus
export tractors to Australia to this day, where Ladas,
I am told, have a cult following.

Those vehicles break down a lot, but then again they
are easy to repair.



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Re: Economics and law

--- Kenneth Campbell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Just this eve, I was spending some time talking about
history with a
friend. She brought out a book with a variety of
graphs. The most
salient one, in this regard (thread), was the shift of
population from
agricultural workers to industrial workers. The
graph only measure
100 years, starting from 1860.

The curves that the UK and US generated with meagre
slopes in that time
frame. Those units had made that relocation much
earlier. Japan's
curve started around the 1880s. The USSR was around
1930. (There were
others, like Turkey, with similar steep relocation
curves.)

I mentioned to her, in talking about that, that the
one thing that I
found the most knee-jerk and unreflective about the
right is that they
make unsophisticated comparisons, usually assuming
from some mythical
ground zero that the US and Russia started on a
level playing field
and only socialism crippled Russia.


Ken.

---
Yeah. Look at communal apartments, which were always
adduced in anti-Soviet propaganda as evidence of the
evils of the latter system. In fact, communal
apartments were a response to massive and rapid
urbanization. People have to live somewhere. When
England industrialized, what happened to the people
who flooded into the cities -- they lived in
workhouses?

Anyway I think both sides of this debate are missing
the point of the Soviet experience (limiting the
discussion to the USSR). Soviet Union policy was
really not about socialism. The Soviet Union was
about modernizing an agrarian country in lickety-split
time. It succeeded.



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Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Charles Brown

by David B. Shemano


I knew my statement would cause a problem, but I think the point is valid.
You, Charles Brown, subjectively value safety in such a manner that you
think
the speed limit should be 40 and not 70.  I am not sure why your entirely
subjective opinion translates into a rule for everybody else.  It seems to
me
that cost/benefit analysis rule-making should ultimately be determined by
something other than one person's subjective opinion.


CB: What problem did your statement cause ?

I can't see where my subjective opinion has translated into a rule for
everybody else. The only way it would become a rule would be if a lot of
other people had the same opinion. You don't seem to be very much in touch
with reality if you think my subjective opinions are being translated into
rules for everybody else. Did you think I was on the supreme court or
something ?



^^

 Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society?  We have 75 years
of
 experience with socialist inspired economies.  Did they place a higher
value
 on
 safety compared to comparable capitalist societies?

 ^
 CB: Well, yea for automobile safety. The Soviet cars were like tanks,
which
 , Justin mentioned, would be the direction that you would go to have
safer
 cars. They had more mass transportation in the form of omnibuses, trains,
 trolleys than individualized units, as Melvin alluded to as a safer form,
 generally.
 Obviously, there can be train accidents too.

Has anybody ever done a comparison of transportation deaths among countries?

It might be interesting.

^^^

CB: Agree





 Were they able to
 implement safety concerns more economically than comparable capitalist
 societies?

 ^
 CB: Good question. I'm not sure how you would get a comparable capitalist
 society , but if you think my opinion on it is relevant, I'd say a
 comparable capitalist economy for the SU would be someplace like Brazil
in
 some senses at some periods.

 It's hard because the Soviet Union (and all socialist inspired economies)
 had to put so much economic emphasis on military defense because
capitalism
 was constantly invading them or threatening to nuke
 'em. This throws off all ability to measure from Soviet and socialist
 inspired history what might be the benefits of a peaceful socialist
 development  of a regime of safety from our own machines.

Cop out.  In my experience, there was one example of a socialist inspired
car
in the capitalist market:  the Yugo.  Case closed.

^^
CB: No, profound truth.

 Yugo was produced _for_ the capitalist market( a sort of redundancy). Case
closed.

^^^

 It seems to me that safety increases in value as a society becomes
 wealthier, and the value is not correlated to the economic system itself.

 ^
 CB What do you mean by safety increases in value ? I'm not sure human
life
 is valued more highly as society gets wealthier.


  Death and injury by automobile accidents is the main cause of premature
 death in the U.S., isn't it ?

Unless we live in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average,
something has to be the main cause of premature deaths, right?   What would
you
propose to be the main cause of premature deaths in lieu of auto accidents?

^
CB: Of course ,in the long run, we are all dead, but what a prima facie
anti-human attitude that says don't try to figure out a way to reduce auto
accident morbidity and mortality.

I'd like to see execution for leading imperialist wars, crimes against
peace, (as Goerring was executed) be the main cause of premature deaths.

Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Charles Brown

by Chris Doss


---
Yeah. Look at communal apartments, which were always
adduced in anti-Soviet propaganda as evidence of the
evils of the latter system. In fact, communal
apartments were a response to massive and rapid
urbanization. People have to live somewhere. When
England industrialized, what happened to the people
who flooded into the cities -- they lived in
workhouses?

Anyway I think both sides of this debate are missing
the point of the Soviet experience (limiting the
discussion to the USSR). Soviet Union policy was
really not about socialism. The Soviet Union was
about modernizing an agrarian country in lickety-split
time. It succeeded.

^^
CB: Are you saying the Soviet people did not think their policy was about
socialism or that they didn't know what they were really doing ?

Re: Economics and law

--- Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
^^
CB: Are you saying the Soviet people did not think
their policy was
about
socialism or that they didn't know what they were
really doing ?
---

Mainly that was me writing off the cuff while trying
to meet a deadline and working through a hangover. It
wiould be better to say something like the shape of
Soviet society was determined first and foremost by
the need to develop an agrarian country. It succeeded.
The rest of teh stuff is fluff.



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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Waistline2

Mainly that was me writing off the cuff while trying to meet a deadline and working through a hangover. It would be better to say something like "the shape of Soviet society was determined first and foremost by the need to develop an agrarian country. It succeeded. The rest of the stuff is fluff."

Comment

Soviet housing pattern - communal apartments, and the need to provide living quarters in the context of this massive and rapid industrialization of the country - the shift from agriculture to industry . . . has a roughequivalent to aspects of the housing pattern in America.

I believe it was in Detroit that the large government sponsored housing project called the Jefferson Projects . . . was created to meet the demand for housing under the Roosevelt administration. Eleanor Roosevelt officiated at the opening of this housing complex.

The Jefferson Project contained 14 story high rises - 6 stories and 3 stories, and met the demands for housing of a population shifting on the basis of the mechanization of agricultural and servicing the boom bust cycles of the auto industry. There were several such housing projects in Detroit, although not as massive as the Jefferies Project. In fact Cabrina Green in Chicago is such a projects and one can find such communal quarters in perhaps every major city in America.

In general housing pattern shapes itself on the basis of industrial centers and the working people providing the labor. A certain dispersal of industry and downsizing affects housing pattern under capitalism and socialism. The specific character of the housing pattern . . . meaning the pecking order . . . is another matter. The last "race riot" in Detroit during the Second Imperial World War era was actually ignited over housing . . . back in 1943 . . . if memory serves me correct.

Dad took us out of the Jefferies Project in the early 1960s when his employment with the Ford Motor Company stabilized. Interestingly . . . this same Project is being looked at today as luxury apartments for the wealthy.

I would pose the question as the housing pattern during the industrial era and the curve of its ascendency and decay . . . under capitalism and socialism. There is a growing and serious problem of homelessness in America but not a housing shortage as such with hundred of thousands on the waiting list for section 8 housing - welfare.

Oh . . . paying for water in America is the height of American bourgeois criminality. When the bourgeois mentality learns to effectively bottle fresh air and offer it for sell to the masses . . . in an affordable manner our ass is out. Did not a movie star . . . Woody Harrelson . . . open a fresh air bar . . . yep . . . you could come in and buy fresh air . . . a few years ago?

Melvin P.

Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Charles Brown

by Chris Doss



Mainly that was me writing off the cuff while trying
to meet a deadline and working through a hangover. It
wiould be better to say something like the shape of
Soviet society was determined first and foremost by
the need to develop an agrarian country. It succeeded.
The rest of teh stuff is fluff.

^^

CB: Why was there a need to develop the agrarian country ? People had been
surviving in agrarian societies for millenia.

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Kenneth Campbell

David wrote:

I was never good at geography.

That's apparent.

The argument was made that a socialist economy would put more
emphasis on transportation safety than a capitalist economy.
Seems plausible.  Silly me, I though one way to test that
thesis was to examine and compare the actual products produced
by the respective systems.

Yes, I like comparisons, too. You seem to be saying you are also one of
those people. Comparing things also involves the backstory and not
merely the object (and its immediate tools of creations -- themselves
being things).

How about West and East Germany?  Can't complain about
different historical development.

I think most might agree that there is a very different historical
development between the parts of Germany that were east and west. Check
it out. Pretty main stream.

And, after the war, the east had a different trajectory, as well, based
on need of the conquering powers. You seem to know history... help me
out here... Which one of the two countries that has US in its
acronym... which one lost about 25 million people in the war... and had
cities bombed, occupied, dismantled, bombed again...

I stand by the position that if you refuse to consider
historical evidence and insist on speculating about
what could happen in utopia:  cop out.

I say the same thing! Brother, we've found each other at last!

Ken.

--
To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
  -- Cicero (doing his Zen thing)

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Carrol Cox

Charles Brown wrote:



 CB: Why was there a need to develop the agrarian country ? People had been
 surviving in agrarian societies for millenia.

For one thing, the USSR existed in a capitalist sea,  as Stalin said in
1930, they had 10 years to catch up with the west industrially,
culturally, etc or they would be overrun. (This speech by Stalin was
quoted by Carl Oglesby in a book the title of which I now forget, and I
have never been able to run down the text in any of Stalin's works that
I possess.)

Secondly, the primary Marxist point about capitalism was that,
destructive of human life as capitalism had been from its very beginning
(the advances for the few from the beginning disguising the greater
horror for the many), it _had_ opened up the possibility of _real_
improvement of human life, a possibility that did not exist within
agrarian society (as superior as such societies had been for the the
vast majority in comparison with capitalism).

Carrol

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Louis Proyect

Carrol Cox wrote:
Secondly, the primary Marxist point about capitalism was that,
destructive of human life as capitalism had been from its very beginning
(the advances for the few from the beginning disguising the greater
horror for the many), it _had_ opened up the possibility of _real_
improvement of human life, a possibility that did not exist within
agrarian society (as superior as such societies had been for the the
vast majority in comparison with capitalism).
The antithesis of capitalism is not agrarian society; it is socialism
(looking forward), or feudalism and some variety of primitive communism
 (looking backwards). Capitalism is an advance over feudalism solely on
the basis of productivity of labor, etc. It might not even lead to a
higher standard of living if capitalist property relations go hand in
hand with colonialism. Primitive communism is another story altogether,
as should be obvious from my citations from Melville's Typee.
--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Economics and law

--- Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



 CB: Why was there a need to develop the agrarian
 country ? People had been
 surviving in agrarian societies for millenia.


Fend off the West? Russia's been doing this since
Peter the Great.



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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread David B. Shemano

Kenneth Campbell writes:

 How about West and East Germany?  Can't complain about
 different historical development.

 I think most might agree that there is a very different historical
 development between the parts of Germany that were east and west. Check
 it out. Pretty main stream.

 And, after the war, the east had a different trajectory, as well, based
 on need of the conquering powers. You seem to know history... help me
 out here... Which one of the two countries that has US in its
 acronym... which one lost about 25 million people in the war... and had
 cities bombed, occupied, dismantled, bombed again...

 I stand by the position that if you refuse to consider
 historical evidence and insist on speculating about
 what could happen in utopia:  cop out.

 I say the same thing! Brother, we've found each other at last!



Let's try one last time.  The suggestion was made that a socialist economy will more 
highly value transportation safety than a capitalist economy.  Every historical 
example I come up with to try and test the suggestion, you say is not an appropriate 
comparison.  For example, you imply there is apparently something in the historical 
development of East Germany, as compared to West Germany, that would cause East 
Germany auto manufacturers not to value safety as much as their West German 
counterparts, even though the East Germans had a socialist economy and West Germany 
had a capitalist economy, but such fact has no relevance for the validity of the 
suggestion that socialist economies value safety more than capitalist economies.  I am 
at a loss how to respond.

How do you propose to test the hypothesis?  Is there nothing relevant from 75 years of 
historical experience that will satisfy you?

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Kenneth Campbell

David the Savior is back and writes:

Let's try one last time.

Please do. We appreciate your altruism.

The suggestion was made that a socialist economy will
more highly value transportation safety than a
capitalist economy.

If you are trying to cite thread precedent, I applaud you.

Economics and law was my thread about space heaters. If you have a new
one about Yugos, try starting it under that thread name (sorry,
process is important to me, as a would-be lawyer, you understand that).

Nonetheless, you write (and you write well):

Every historical example I come up
with to try and test the suggestion, you say is not an
appropriate comparison.  For example, you imply there is
apparently something in the historical development of East
Germany, as compared to West Germany, that would cause East
Germany auto manufacturers not to value safety as much as
their West German counterparts, even though the East Germans
had a socialist economy and West Germany had a capitalist
economy, but such fact has no relevance for the validity of
the suggestion that socialist economies value safety more than
capitalist economies.  I am at a loss how to respond.

You are narrowing the issue. That is why you are at as loss.

But I will take the bait. Show me what you have learned about eastern
Germany and why that section of that country would be a tad less able
to produce cars. (You can do it!)

How do you propose to test the hypothesis?  Is there nothing
relevant from 75 years of historical experience that will satisfy you?

Sure. You are a kind of proof yourself.

Grin.

Ken.

--
When I look back on all the worries I remember
the story of he old man who said on his
deathbed that he had a lot of trouble
in his life, most of which never happened.
  -- Winston Churchill

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Daniel Davies

I drove a Lada for five years.  It was fourteen years old when I got it and
was still going just fine when I gave it away last month.  They were built
off the plans of old Fiats.

dd

-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Doss
Sent: 13 August 2004 07:42
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Economics and law

David:

Cop out.  In my experience, there was one example of
a
socialist inspired car in the capitalist market:  the
Yugo.
Case closed.
---

This is totally untrue. The USSR exported automobiles
to Latin America and elsewhere. Russia and Belarus
export tractors to Australia to this day, where Ladas,
I am told, have a cult following.

Those vehicles break down a lot, but then again they
are easy to repair.

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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread David B. Shemano

Kenneth Campbell writes

 But I will take the bait. Show me what you have learned about eastern
 Germany and why that section of that country would be a tad less able
 to produce cars. (You can do it!)

The issue is not whether East Germany, or any other socialist economy, was less able 
to produce a safe car.  The issue is whether a socialist economy would value safety 
more so than a capitalist economy and implement those values.  If true, I would assume 
that, at any level of development, there would be evidence that the finished product 
evidenced a relative level of safety concerns compared to other factors (style, cost, 
functionality, efficiency, etc.), and that relative importance compared to other 
factors could be compared to relative level of importance in a capitalist product.

In the United States, Volvos have excellent reputations for safety.  Let's assume that 
Volvos do reflect an increased importance of safety compared to other factors, as 
compared to other automobiles.  Would that be because of the social relations and 
means of production in Sweden?  Would that be because of a Swedish personality trait 
going back centuries?  Would that be because of a random occurrence?  If the former, 
it might support the argument.  However, I don't see how, for instance, the Yugo or 
the Trabant, support the argument.  I mean, is there any evidence that when the 
Trabants were being designed, the designers decided, based upon available resources, 
to sacrifice a certain level of functionality for safety, as compared to designers of 
a comparable car in a capitalist economy?  I am no expert, but I think the opposite 
was probably true.  And if so, why does that not refute the original hypothesis?

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-13 Thread Michael Perelman

Obviously, someone who is very poor  needs transportation will be unlikely to
purchase a Volvo  would be more likely to settle for a Yugo.


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-12 Thread David B. Shemano

Charles Brown writes:

 Why is your personal opinion relevant?  I mean, I am sure I can find
 somebody
 (Melvin P.?) who apparently highly values going 100.  Therefore, your
 opinion
 is cancelled out.  Now what do we do?

 ^

 CB: Well, it's like why vote ? Your vote is only one in millions. How can it
 be relevant ? David Shemano's vote is going to cancel yours , so why vote ?

 In general, all we have here on email is opinions ,no ? For example, you
 recognized that opinions are readily expressed in this mediuam when you said
 to Michael Perelman:

 I don't have a strong opinion on whether regulation should be done by
 legislation or litigation -- it seems like a peripheral issue.


 Would your opinion have been relevant if you had one ?

I knew my statement would cause a problem, but I think the point is valid.  You, 
Charles Brown, subjectively value safety in such a manner that you think the speed 
limit should be 40 and not 70.  I am not sure why your entirely subjective opinion 
translates into a rule for everybody else.  It seems to me that cost/benefit analysis 
rule-making should ultimately be determined by something other than one person's 
subjective opinion.

 Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society?  We have 75 years of
 experience with socialist inspired economies.  Did they place a higher value
 on
 safety compared to comparable capitalist societies?

 ^
 CB: Well, yea for automobile safety. The Soviet cars were like tanks, which
 , Justin mentioned, would be the direction that you would go to have safer
 cars. They had more mass transportation in the form of omnibuses, trains,
 trolleys than individualized units, as Melvin alluded to as a safer form,
 generally.
 Obviously, there can be train accidents too.

Has anybody ever done a comparison of transportation deaths among countries?  It might 
be interesting.

 Were they able to
 implement safety concerns more economically than comparable capitalist
 societies?

 ^
 CB: Good question. I'm not sure how you would get a comparable capitalist
 society , but if you think my opinion on it is relevant, I'd say a
 comparable capitalist economy for the SU would be someplace like Brazil in
 some senses at some periods.

 It's hard because the Soviet Union (and all socialist inspired economies)
 had to put so much economic emphasis on military defense because capitalism
 was constantly invading them or threatening to nuke
 'em. This throws off all ability to measure from Soviet and socialist
 inspired history what might be the benefits of a peaceful socialist
 development  of a regime of safety from our own machines.

Cop out.  In my experience, there was one example of a socialist inspired car in the 
capitalist market:  the Yugo.  Case closed.

 It seems to me that safety increases in value as a society becomes
 wealthier, and the value is not correlated to the economic system itself.

 ^
 CB What do you mean by safety increases in value ? I'm not sure human life
 is valued more highly as society gets wealthier.


  Death and injury by automobile accidents is the main cause of premature
 death in the U.S., isn't it ?

Unless we live in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, something 
has to be the main cause of premature deaths, right?   What would you propose to be 
the main cause of premature deaths in lieu of auto accidents?

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-12 Thread Kenneth Campbell

Charles wrote:

It's hard because the Soviet Union (and all socialist
inspired economies) had to put so much economic
emphasis on military defense because capitalism was
constantly invading them or threatening to nuke 'em.
This throws off all ability to measure from Soviet and
socialist inspired history what might be the benefits
of a peaceful socialist development of a regime of
safety from our own machines.

David:

Cop out.  In my experience, there was one example of a
socialist inspired car in the capitalist market:  the Yugo.
Case closed.

Respectfully, David, your response is itself a cop out. Yugo... you be
nice now.

Just this eve, I was spending some time talking about history with a
friend. She brought out a book with a variety of graphs. The most
salient one, in this regard (thread), was the shift of population from
agricultural workers to industrial workers. The graph only measure
100 years, starting from 1860.

The curves that the UK and US generated with meagre slopes in that time
frame. Those units had made that relocation much earlier. Japan's
curve started around the 1880s. The USSR was around 1930. (There were
others, like Turkey, with similar steep relocation curves.)

I mentioned to her, in talking about that, that the one thing that I
found the most knee-jerk and unreflective about the right is that they
make unsophisticated comparisons, usually assuming from some mythical
ground zero that the US and Russia started on a level playing field
and only socialism crippled Russia.

I think you may have done something similar by offering the Yugo as a
piece of evidence (case closed!) when it is really just a propaganda
symbol of something about the historical reality of two very different
cultures and economic developments.

Ken.

--
Hear how he clears the points o' Faith,
Wi' rattlin' an' thumpin'
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath
He's stampan an he's jumpan!
  -- Robert Burns
 The Holy Fair

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-12 Thread Perelman, Michael

David interprets the car as a capitalist commodity.  I partially agree
with him, but for different reasons since I don't like cars.

But the question would be how the automobile industry depended heavily
on the state -- to build roads, to dislodge street cars 


Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-12 Thread dshemano

Kenneth Campbell wrote:

Respectfully, David, your response is itself a cop out. Yugo... you be
nice now.

Just this eve, I was spending some time talking about history with a
friend. She brought out a book with a variety of graphs. The most
salient one, in this regard (thread), was the shift of population from
agricultural workers to industrial workers. The graph only measure
100 years, starting from 1860.

The curves that the UK and US generated with meagre slopes in that time
frame. Those units had made that relocation much earlier. Japan's
curve started around the 1880s. The USSR was around 1930. (There were
others, like Turkey, with similar steep relocation curves.)

I mentioned to her, in talking about that, that the one thing that I
found the most knee-jerk and unreflective about the right is that they
make unsophisticated comparisons, usually assuming from some mythical
ground zero that the US and Russia started on a level playing field
and only socialism crippled Russia.

I think you may have done something similar by offering the Yugo as a
piece of evidence (case closed!) when it is really just a propaganda
symbol of something about the historical reality of two very different
cultures and economic developments.

Was the Yugo made in Russia?  Was Yugoslavia part of Russia?  I was never good at 
geography.

The argument was made that a socialist economy would put more emphasis on 
transportation safety than a capitalist economy.  Seems plausible.  Silly me, I though 
one way to test that thesis was to examine and compare the actual products produced by 
the respective systems.  You don't like the Yugo as an example?  Fine.  How about West 
and East Germany?  Can't complain about different historical development.  What was 
safer on average, a Mercedes/BMW/VW, or a Trabant?

I stand by the position that if you refuse to consider historical evidence and insist 
on speculating about what could happen in utopia:  cop out.

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-11 Thread Yoshie Furuhashi

At 9:32 PM -0700 8/10/04, David B. Shemano wrote:
Even taking your example into consideration, let's imagine a lack of
economic coercion.  Actually, I can't imagine it.  In any event,
let's assume that the law requires every car have the safety of a
Lexus and everybody can afford a Lexus.  Fine.  But then a new car
comes on the market that is safer than a Lexus, but costs a lot
more.  Conceptually, you are right back where you are today, where
the poor can buy a used Pinto.
Right back where you are today, in terms of relative deprivation due
to the existence of classes (as more safety regulations do not
abolish classes as you note correctly), but in the hypothetical
scenario that you mention, at least the minimum standard of safety
for all have gone up, including for the rich who can now have
products of even higher safety standards than products of already
high standards that they had at their disposal before the advent of
stricter safety regulations.
That sounds like a virtuous spiral of progress of technology for all,
whether you take a capitalist or socialist point of view.
--
Yoshie
* Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/
* Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/
* Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html,
http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php,  http://www.cpanews.org/
* Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/
* Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio
* Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/

Economics and law

2004-08-11 Thread Charles Brown

by David B. Shemano


Why is your personal opinion relevant?  I mean, I am sure I can find
somebody
(Melvin P.?) who apparently highly values going 100.  Therefore, your
opinion
is cancelled out.  Now what do we do?

^

CB: Well, it's like why vote ? Your vote is only one in millions. How can it
be relevant ? David Shemano's vote is going to cancel yours , so why vote ?

In general, all we have here on email is opinions ,no ? For example, you
recognized that opinions are readily expressed in this mediuam when you said
to Michael Perelman:

I don't have a strong opinion on whether regulation should be done by
legislation or litigation -- it seems like a peripheral issue.


Would your opinion have been relevant if you had one ?

^



Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society?  We have 75 years of
experience with socialist inspired economies.  Did they place a higher value
on
safety compared to comparable capitalist societies?

^
CB: Well, yea for automobile safety. The Soviet cars were like tanks, which
, Justin mentioned, would be the direction that you would go to have safer
cars. They had more mass transportation in the form of omnibuses, trains,
trolleys than individualized units, as Melvin alluded to as a safer form,
generally.
Obviously, there can be train accidents too.

We have too much capitalism in the world to get a full socialist test of
more safety in general. Lets get rid of capitalism and find out what we can
really do as humans.

^^^

Were they able to
implement safety concerns more economically than comparable capitalist
societies?

^
CB: Good question. I'm not sure how you would get a comparable capitalist
society , but if you think my opinion on it is relevant, I'd say a
comparable capitalist economy for the SU would be someplace like Brazil in
some senses at some periods.

It's hard because the Soviet Union (and all socialist inspired economies)
had to put so much economic emphasis on military defense because capitalism
was constantly invading them or threatening to nuke
'em. This throws off all ability to measure from Soviet and socialist
inspired history what might be the benefits of a peaceful socialist
development  of a regime of safety from our own machines.

^^^


It seems to me that safety increases in value as a society becomes
wealthier, and the value is not correlated to the economic system itself.

^
CB What do you mean by safety increases in value ? I'm not sure human life
is valued more highly as society gets wealthier.


 Death and injury by automobile accidents is the main cause of premature
death in the U.S., isn't it ?

Economics and law

2004-08-11 Thread Charles Brown

Coincidently, here a news story today.

Charles

^


Road deaths fall to new low

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Image
http://www.detnews.com/pix/2004/08/11/0asec/081104-p1-nhtsa-fatality-ch.jpg



 http://www.detnews.com/pix/folios/dot.gif

Road deaths fall to new low

Seat-belt use, fewer drunk drivers cited, but SUV fatalities up

By Lisa Zagaroli / Detroit News Washington Bureau

See the reports

 http://www.detnews.com/pix/folios/general/redarrow.gif NHTSA
announcement, state-by-state fatality statistics for two years
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/announce/press/pressdisplay.cfm?year=2004fi
lename=pr35-04.html
 http://www.detnews.com/pix/folios/general/redarrow.gif NHTSA
summary, analysis and full report
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/PPT/2003AARelease.pdf




 http://www.detnews.com/pix/folios/dot.gif

WASHINGTON - Fewer people died on U.S. highways during 2003 in every
type of passenger vehicle except sport utility vehicles, according to new
data showing the lowest fatality rate since the government began tracking
it.

Safety officials said the decline - which ended a troubling rise in
highway deaths in recent years - was owed largely to better seat-belt use
and fewer drunken-driving accidents.

Last year, 42,643 people died and 2.89 million were injured in
crashes, compared to 43,005 deaths and 2.93 million injuries in 2002.

We're encouraging safer cars, safer roads and aggressively
discouraging impaired driving, said Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.


The report noted several positive trends:

* While Americans drove more miles last year, the death rate -
highway fatalities per 100 million miles traveled - fell to a record low of
1.48 from 1.51 in 2002.

* Only 56 percent of occupants who died in crashes weren't buckled
up, compared to about 60 percent in 2002, said Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

* Drunken-driving deaths dropped 3 percent, the first decline since
1999. Runge said it helped that 14 states adopted the tougher blood-alcohol
standard of 0.08 last year to avoid losing federal funds.

Local safe driving advocates cheered the news.

That's very encouraging, said Lee Landes of Farmington Hills, who
teamed up with his wife to found Wayne County Mothers Against Drunk Drivers
in 1982 after their son, George, was killed by a drunken driver. I'm
encouraged by the statistics, but it's also an incentive to keep up the work
we've been doing.

Jim Kress of Northville agrees that using seat belts saves lives and
said he used them long before the Michigan law requiring it took effect in
1999.

I've used seat belts ... because I personally think they're safer.
But I still don't think the government should be making people use them,
even if it does mean more safety.

NHTSA's report differs notably from a preliminary report issued in
April that suggested 2003 data would show another increase in highway
fatalities. Runge said the projections issued in April didn't take into
account the success of the agency's $25 million seat belt awareness campaign
and tougher enforcement efforts.

Fatalities in passenger cars dropped the most, by 5.4 percent to
19,460 deaths; followed by pickup trucks, by 3.2 percent to 2,066 deaths;
and vans, by 2 percent to 2,066 deaths.

SUV deaths increased 10 percent to 4,446, with rollovers linked to
59 percent of all SUV fatalities. Even so, Joan Williams-Cash of Southfield
said she feels safe in my SUV.

I feel better being a little more off the ground. When I'm driving
anything else any more, I feel like I'm dragging the ground, she said.

Rollover deaths in passenger cars fell 7.5 percent and in pickup
trucks 6.8 percent, but they rose 3.6 percent in vans and 6.8 percent in
SUVs.

There were actually fewer rollover deaths than would have been
predicted in SUVs by the (11 percent) increase in registrations, Runge
said. What we don't have are data to say whether that was due to more
people buckling up or whether there were fewer rollover crashes.

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said the death rate has gone
down steadily for 60 years, but the raw number of deaths has remained about
the same since 1995.

The reason they haven't gone down - even with the advent of air
bags - is an increase in SUVs and increase in rollovers, she said.

Runge said the number of serious crashes was down as well,
reflecting improvements in crash avoidance as well as crashworthiness.

Death rates among child occupants were slightly up through age 15,
although the number of children killed as pedestrians, for example, fell,
the report shows.

Other problem areas include motorcycle rider fatalities, which have
grown 73 percent to 3,661 deaths in six

Economics and law


by Kenneth Campbell

CB: Another infamous case of this was the exploding Pinto of Ford.

Thanks, CB. That was the 70s. May not apply to the original post I made,
in the time frame... but same principle.

Regardless... The notion that lives have worth based upon economic
evaluation is hated amongst normal working North Americans. I think
there is, in that, a chink in the armor that is worth a bit more than
mere postings about the conditions in South America. It is not to
diminish the rest of the world... more to recognize what is happening
here. Here.

Talk about your dialectical contradictions in the whole...

Ken.

^^
Yes, the whole moral thing of placing monetary value on human life stares
every law student in the face in torts class.

You are probably aware that many juries ( composed largely on North American
workers) have given such high awards often that the rightwing has been
carrying out tort reform for a while, whereby caps are put on the amounts.
A significant part of the leftwing bar in Michigan, National Lawyers
Guilders, have had their practices substantially done away with by recent
tort deform in Michigan. Left wing lawyers ( Maurice Sugar and others)
played a big role in developing products liability law.

Re: Economics and law

Charles wrote:

You are probably aware that many juries ( composed largely
on North American workers) have given such high awards
often that the rightwing has been carrying out tort
reform for a while, whereby caps are put on the amounts.

It was my understanding that many of these awards are severely reduced
on the appellate level... which does not involved juries (hence people
outside the law).

There is a buffer there, too, no?

(But you are right about the political agenda behind removing in the
initial awards.)

Left wing lawyers (Maurice Sugar and others) played a big
role in developing products liability law.

I do not currently know the development of product liability law. I
would imagine it came out of the early 1900s in the US. If you have any
more research, I would appreciate it. It would be helpful to put it in
context.

Ken.

--
The future is something which everyone reaches at
the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does,
whoever he is.
  -- C.S. Lewis

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread ken hanly

Actually I dont think that the Pinto Case was one of a straightforward
cost-benefit analysis and didnt even include matters such as the cost of
lawsuits per se except perhaps indirectly since it included the cost of
human lives and of injuries. The human life values were themselves based
upon government figures.

- Original Message -
From: Kenneth Campbell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Economics and law

 Charles wrote:

 You are probably aware that many juries ( composed largely
 on North American workers) have given such high awards
 often that the rightwing has been carrying out tort
 reform for a while, whereby caps are put on the amounts.

 It was my understanding that many of these awards are severely reduced
 on the appellate level... which does not involved juries (hence people
 outside the law).

 There is a buffer there, too, no?

 (But you are right about the political agenda behind removing in the
 initial awards.)

 Left wing lawyers (Maurice Sugar and others) played a big
 role in developing products liability law.

 I do not currently know the development of product liability law. I
 would imagine it came out of the early 1900s in the US. If you have any
 more research, I would appreciate it. It would be helpful to put it in
 context.

 Ken.

 --
 The future is something which everyone reaches at
 the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does,
 whoever he is.
   -- C.S. Lewis

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread ken hanly

I meant to incude this passage in the last message. Actually even less
costly improvements such as a bladder or a baffle in the gas tank would have
prevented most of the deaths and injuries. But even the original calculation
was not accurate as shown below. THere is nothing about legal costs either.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

http://www.fordpinto.com/blowup.htm
The financial analysis that Ford conducted on the Pinto concluded that it
was not cost-efficient to add an $11 per car cost in order to correct a
flaw. Benefits derived from spending this amount of money were estimated to
be $49.5 million. This estimate assumed that each death, which could be
avoided, would be worth $200,000, that each major burn injury that could be
avoided would be worth $67,000 and that an average repair cost of $700 per
car involved in a rear end accident would be avoided. It further assumed
that there would be 2,100 burned vehicles, 180 serious burn injuries, and
180 burn deaths in making this calculation. When the unit cost was spread
out over the number of cars and light trucks which would be affected by the
design change, at a cost of $11 per vehicle, the cost was calculated to be
$137 million, much greater then the $49.5 million benefit. These figures,
which describe the fatalities and injuries, are false. All independent
experts estimate that for each person who dies by an auto fire, many more
are left with charred hands, faces and limbs. This means that Fords 1:1
death to injury ratio is inaccurate and the costs for Fords settlements
would have been much closer to the cost of implementing a solution to the
problem. However, Fords cost-benefit analysis, which places a dollar
value on human life, said it wasn't profitable to make any changes to the
car.


- Original Message -
From: Kenneth Campbell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Economics and law


 Charles wrote:

 You are probably aware that many juries ( composed largely
 on North American workers) have given such high awards
 often that the rightwing has been carrying out tort
 reform for a while, whereby caps are put on the amounts.

 It was my understanding that many of these awards are severely reduced
 on the appellate level... which does not involved juries (hence people
 outside the law).

 There is a buffer there, too, no?

 (But you are right about the political agenda behind removing in the
 initial awards.)

 Left wing lawyers (Maurice Sugar and others) played a big
 role in developing products liability law.

 I do not currently know the development of product liability law. I
 would imagine it came out of the early 1900s in the US. If you have any
 more research, I would appreciate it. It would be helpful to put it in
 context.

 Ken.

 --
 The future is something which everyone reaches at
 the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does,
 whoever he is.
   -- C.S. Lewis

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread ken hanly

I meant I do think that it is a straightforward case of cb
analysis...sorry.. By the way a Pinto built in Canada and tested by the govt
in Arizona passed a crash test. Seems that the later models were built a bit
differently in Canada with a baffle that cost about a buck that made a lot
of difference in crash impact.


Cheers, Ken Hanly

Cheers, Ken Hanly
- Original Message -
From: ken hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Economics and law


 Actually I dont think that the Pinto Case was one of a straightforward
 cost-benefit analysis and didnt even include matters such as the cost of
 lawsuits per se except perhaps indirectly since it included the cost of
 human lives and of injuries. The human life values were themselves based
 upon government figures.

Economics and law

by Kenneth Campbell

Charles wrote:

You are probably aware that many juries ( composed largely
on North American workers) have given such high awards
often that the rightwing has been carrying out tort
reform for a while, whereby caps are put on the amounts.

It was my understanding that many of these awards are severely reduced
on the appellate level... which does not involved juries (hence people
outside the law).

^^
CB: Yes, appeals court judges, and in Michigan the legislature, led by
insurance companies , using the trial lawyers (not the victims obviously) as
the marketing target, changed the statutes to cap awards.


There is a buffer there, too, no?

^^
CB: Sorry, the appeals courts are a buffer , you mean ?

^

(But you are right about the political agenda behind removing in the
initial awards.)

Left wing lawyers (Maurice Sugar and others) played a big
role in developing products liability law.

I do not currently know the development of product liability law. I
would imagine it came out of the early 1900s in the US. If you have any
more research, I would appreciate it. It would be helpful to put it in
context.

^
CB: Yes, early 1900's exactly, with the rise of the automobile, as I was
taught in law school.

I don't have any specific research myself. However, products liability is a
standard category in tort law, so if you put the term in search engine ,
there would be tons of stuff.

Economics and law


by ken hanly

Actually I dont think that the Pinto Case was one of a straightforward
cost-benefit analysis and didn't even include matters such as the cost of
lawsuits per se except perhaps indirectly since it included the cost of
human lives and of injuries. The human life values were themselves based
upon government figures.

^
CB: Maybe I wasn't entirely clear on what Kenneth Campbell's original point
was.

In the Pinto case, not only was a human life given a dollar value, but it
was determined (maybe even erroneously from the second post you sent) that
because the cost of paying for a dead person's life in tort was less than
making a standard modification of the Pinto, that they would let the people
die , because the cost of paying for it was less !  That seems to have
something to do with what he was getting at. I think they had to use
approximate jury awards for wrongful death, as that would be what they would
be paying out in lieu of making the change in the tank.

Re: Economics and law

Regarding the Pinto, cost/benefit analysis, etc., what exactly is the issue?  I mean, 
we know with certainty that a certain number of people are going to die each year from 
auto accidents.  We also know that if we reduced the speed limit to 5 m.p.h.  required 
all passengers to wear helmets, required safety designs used for race cars, etc., the 
deaths would all be eliminated.  But we don't, because the costs of doing so would be 
astronomical, and most people seem prepared to assume certain risks in consideration 
for conveniences and benefits.  So is the problem the concept of cost/benefit 
analysis, the improper implementation of cost/benefit analysis, or disagreement about 
what are costs and benefits?  If you reject cost/benefit analysis, how could you ever 
decide whether any marginal rule should be accepted or rejected?  Why does this issue 
have anything to do with capitalism/socialism -- would not these issues have to be 
addressed no matter how the society is organized?

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread Perelman, Michael

David, the problem with the Pinto is that the government does not
adequately regulate safety -- not even to the extent of making relevant
information available --  so the regulation is left to the lawsuits -- a
very inefficient way of doing things.

A few bucks for a protective gasket would not have meant that much.  In
hindsight it was stupid, but very costly for a number of innocent
people.

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929


-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David B.
Shemano
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 12:55 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Economics and law

Regarding the Pinto, cost/benefit analysis, etc., what exactly is the
issue?  I mean, we know with certainty that a certain number of people
are going to die each year from auto accidents.  We also know that if we
reduced the speed limit to 5 m.p.h.  required all passengers to wear
helmets, required safety designs used for race cars, etc., the deaths
would all be eliminated.  But we don't, because the costs of doing so
would be astronomical, and most people seem prepared to assume certain
risks in consideration for conveniences and benefits.  So is the problem
the concept of cost/benefit analysis, the improper implementation of
cost/benefit analysis, or disagreement about what are costs and
benefits?  If you reject cost/benefit analysis, how could you ever
decide whether any marginal rule should be accepted or rejected?  Why
does this issue have anything to do with capitalism/socialism -- would
not these issues have to be addressed no matter how the society is
organized?

David Shemano

Economics and law

I think the thing with the Pinto is that Ford concluded that it would cost
them less to pay for wrongful death suits than to put something in the
Pintos that would stop them from exploding in rear end collisions.  I
suppose this is the issue in dispute, but the greater cost of the part to
prevent the explosions doesn't seem astronomical to me.

So, the problem is a difference of opinion  in the value figures we should
put in the cost/benefit slots, sort of .

Myself, I think the benefit of reducing the speed limit substantially (
maybe not to 5 miles per hour), and more safety features of the type you
mention would be worth it in the lives and injuries saved, and the cost
would not be astronomical given what would be saved. In other words, the
value of a human life _is_ astronomical, well, relative to the conveniences
that are had by being able to go 75 instead of 40.



I think you are right that the problem wouldn't just go away with socialism.
There might , in general, in socialism be more focus on some safety issues
when the decision would not depend upon how the  safer engineering impacted
an individual corporation's bottomline. I can see a socialism more readily
developing its transportation system with all the safety features you
suggest, and not experiencing them economically as astronomical. If there
was safety focus comprehensively and for a long time, it might be very
practical to do it better safety wise.


Charles

^^


by David B. Shemano

Regarding the Pinto, cost/benefit analysis, etc., what exactly is the issue?
I
mean, we know with certainty that a certain number of people are going to
die
each year from auto accidents.  We also know that if we reduced the speed
limit
to 5 m.p.h.  required all passengers to wear helmets, required safety
designs
used for race cars, etc., the deaths would all be eliminated.  But we don't,

because the costs of doing so would be astronomical, and most people seem
prepared to assume certain risks in consideration for conveniences and
benefits.  So is the problem the concept of cost/benefit analysis, the
improper
implementation of cost/benefit analysis, or disagreement about what are
costs
and benefits?  If you reject cost/benefit analysis, how could you ever
decide
whether any marginal rule should be accepted or rejected?  Why does this
issue
have anything to do with capitalism/socialism -- would not these issues have
to
be addressed no matter how the society is organized?

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread Shane Mage

CHARLES BROWN WROTE:
...Myself, I think the benefit of reducing the speed limit substantially (
maybe not to 5 miles per hour), and more safety features of the type you
mention would be worth it in the lives and injuries saved...
The French have reduced highway deaths by more than 25% over
the past year simply by enforcing existing speed limits (widespread
use of computer camera/radar automatic ticketing for speeding--
with very substantial fines)
Shane Mage
Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and does not
consent to be called
Zeus.
Herakleitos of Ephesos

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread andie nachgeborenen

" David, the problem with the Pinto is that the government does notadequately regulate safety -- not even to the extent of making relevantinformation available -- so the regulation is left to the lawsuits -- avery inefficient way of doing things.

Doesn't Richard Epstein (the Chicago LE extremist who argues that we shoukd destroy the administarive/welfare state withTakings Clause of the Constitution)argue, in Simple Rules For A Complex World, that regulation by lawsuits is the most efficient form of regulation? I can't recall how the argument goes though.
I don't know about auto safety, but the govt definitely goes overboard in safety regulations of other things -- drugs, for example. The FDA won't allwo lots drugs that have been proven OK are are widely available in other industrualized countries. I wonder why that is.Maybe taht raises the cost of drugs, thus providing larger profits for Big Pharma. That's pretty vulgar Maexist of me, of course. I think it depends on the area. A few bucks for a protective gasket would not have meant that much. Inhindsight it was stupid, but very costly for a number of innocentpeople.
Actually the Pinto case raises a very deep and extremely hard issue. What exactly whas it that Ford did that seems to terribly wrong? I don't dispute the idea that Ford did something bad, but what was it? As David says, we know as sure as God made little green apples that every design decision an automaker makes will cost lives. Even if the decision is to build every car to be a tank. Each individual choice may be small in terms of the cost, but of course if cars are made maximally safe they will be tanks,and very expensive.Which no one wants.What we don't know, unless we study it beforehand, is how many lives each decision will cost. Was wrong of Ford to calculate the cost in lives beforehand? Is ignorance better?
Well, Ford also calculated the cost in term of money, gave money values to the wrongful death and negligence lawsuits that might expected to occur as the result of making the decision, decided that it was worth it in terms of profitspaying that cost and letting the additional people die. That seems cold-blooded, it was the basis of the criminal prosecution that failed. But we also know that any design decision means deaths, lawsuits, effects on profits. Is it bad or wrong to think about those things in making the design decisions? Or to think about them too clearly on the basis of quantified estimates?It should rather be done vaguely, by guesses?
I am actually rather at a loss how to approach this one. As a socialist I am sort of inclined to say that in capitalism the problem is not that we get accurate information about the costs, including in lives, of our choices, but that the nature of the system is that considerations of profit tend to dominate the process. But even a socialist society would have to accept that its design decisions would lead to deaths. Safety is not free, and we are not willing or able to pay an infinite price for it.
jks
Michael PerelmanEconomics DepartmentCalifornia State UniversityChico, CA95929-Original Message-From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David B.ShemanoSent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 12:55 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Economics and lawRegarding the Pinto, cost/benefit analysis, etc., what exactly is theissue? I mean, we know with certainty that a certain number of peopleare going to die each year from auto accidents. We also know that if wereduced the speed limit to 5 m.p.h. required all passengers to wearhelmets, required safety designs used for race cars, etc., the deathswould all be eliminated. But we don't, because the costs of doing sowould be astronomical, and most people seem prepared to assume certainrisks in consideration for conveniences and benefits. So is the problemthe concept of cost/benefit analysis, the improper implementation
ofcost/benefit analysis, or disagreement about what are costs andbenefits? If you reject cost/benefit analysis, how could you everdecide whether any marginal rule should be accepted or rejected? Whydoes this issue have anything to do with capitalism/socialism -- wouldnot these issues have to be addressed no matter how the society isorganized?David Shemano
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Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread Daniel Davies




my 
understanding of the whole thing is that the popular revulsion to Ford in the 
Pinto case was basically Kantian; they didn't consider the people's deaths as a 
"cost" in themselves, but only in as much as some proportion of the deaths would 
probably give rise to lawsuits which would affect Ford's profits. This is 
of course a class-tilted way of looking at the costs; presumably there was an 
implicit assumption that since the Pinto was a cheap car, most of the deaths 
would be of poor people who'd be less likely to sue. But I think that the 
really revolting thing which caught the popular imagination was the idea that 
the only way that Ford looked at deaths of its customers was as a potential 
legal liability to Ford.

dd

  
  
Actually the Pinto case raises a very deep and extremely hard issue. What 
exactly whas it that Ford did that seems to terribly wrong? I don't dispute 
the idea that Ford did something bad, but what was it?

Re: Economics and law

2004-08-10 Thread Waistline2




David, the problem with the Pinto is that the government does not adequately regulate safety -- not even to the extent of making relevant information available -- so the regulation is left to the lawsuits -- a very inefficient way of doing things. 

A few bucks for a protective gasket would not have meant that much. In hindsight it was stupid, but very costly for a number of innocent people.  


Comment 

Ralph Nader was propelled to fame based on the issue of auto safety and "Unsafe At Any Speed" . . . at the time a furious attack on General Motors and the Corvair. Corvair's would turn over on your ass quicker than a Ford Navigator . . . and there is no such thing as a magic tire that can keep you on the road . . . traveling over 30 miles an hour making sharp turns. 

We would state . . . growing up in auto (Detroit) as a lifestyle . . . that Ford meant . . . Found On The Road Daily . . . FORD. And "Found On The Road Dead . . . Ford."

Chrysler's . . . Plymouth, had those whining starters that would not start when it rained and for 20 years refused to nickel plate the yoke on the transmission shaft so that the whole damn car would lurch forward when you shifted gears or was passing from 30 to 50 miles an hour. 

Everyone in the corporation knew this and the unofficial official word was that it cost to much to correct problems. The Japanese auto producers and litigation took the auto magnates back to school. They are pathetic and degenerate. 

And Pinto's were blowing mutherfuckers up like traveling bombs. Was it not the placement of the gas tank? General Motor's and Ford made a decision that the economic cost of not putting out these ill conceived vehicles was greater than the human cost and said to hell with how many people are maimed and murdered. 

This attitude revolutionized litigation. 

Documents were produced in the Pinto cases citing internal memo's from Ford pointing out that it would be cheaper to not correct defects . . . move the gas tank . . . than to correct them. I vaguely remember the trials. This period ushered in the "huge settlements" as a dis incentive to companies taking the "cost effective road" versus human lives. 

Auto safety is tricky from the standpoint of modern communism because what is at stake is not the safety of automobiles as an abstraction . . . driving 70 versus 40 . . . but the whole concept and material reality of individual transportation as a primary mode of travel. 

I personally love driving between 70 and 90 (on the interstate) . . . in a sturdy small car and between 80 and 110 miles per hour in a "wide track." I accelerate half way into turn on the interstate and the centrical forces works for you every single time. Inertia and shit holds you into the turn. But then I freaking love vehicles and driving in a way that is perhaps not normal. 

I left out of Houston Texas early Sunday morning at about 5:00 am and was in Detroit Monday at 7:00 PM and did all the driving and had stopped at a motel and slept for about six hours. Yep . . . and when younger really knew had to drive and had the physical stamina. 

Back in the early 1970s . . . me and the comrades did a run from Detroit to Atlanta in 10 and a half hours and we were pushing 90- 110 in a 1973 Pontiac Catalina. 

Even with our form of individual transportation . . and I favor mass transit as the primary mode of transporting human beings . . . and any one of age should be able to rent a car . . . it is the technological capability of the infrastructure that makes individual transportation excessively unsafe. 

For instance . . . the auto companies are not going to pay for an enhanced interstate infrastructure where private vehicles are automatically piloted along at 70 - 90 miles an hour. Who said that private vehicles have to have rubber tires? Electrical vehicles lost out in the market during the turn of the last century. What we call the private mode of transportation evolved from a mechanical military vehicle invented back in the later 1700's . . . and became the centerpiece of industrial bourgeois development during the turn of the last century. 

Communism solves the problem of safety in transportation by posing the question very differently. The issue of auto safety is not really an issue of the automobile as a private mode of transportation . . . but rather the safety issue dealing with the movement of masses of people. 

The idea that socialism cannot solve the question of safety is not really looking at the question at its root . . . which is posed as a private mode of transportation as the primary form of people moving versus mass transportation. 

Don't most vehicle accident take place within 25 miles of a person's residence? 

Isn't a basic question . . . where were these people going and why? Dig out the stats and see where the people were going. 

I don't know . . . I think we are still posing the question within the bounds of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology and economics. 

Aren't

Re: Economics and law

Michael Perelman writes:

 David, the problem with the Pinto is that the government does not
 adequately regulate safety -- not even to the extent of making relevant
 information available --  so the regulation is left to the lawsuits -- a
 very inefficient way of doing things.

 A few bucks for a protective gasket would not have meant that much.  In
 hindsight it was stupid, but very costly for a number of innocent
 people.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether regulation should be done by legislation or 
litigation -- it seems like a peripheral issue.  The fundamental issue is how the rule 
maker (whether bureaucrat, judge or jury) should determine whether the specific 
regulation/conduct is good/bad, and I don't see any rational alternative to 
cost/benefit analysis, because cost/benefit analysis is simply another way of saying 
there are competing values and tradeoffs in every decision that have to be addressed.  
 For instance, safety is not an absolute value that takes precedence overy 
everything else.  That is evidenced by how people actually live their lives, and that 
fact must be taken into consideration when determining appropriate rules.  I realize 
that many people react instinctively to a doctrine that assumes deaths, places a 
monetary value on human life, but instinctive distate is not a very compelling 
objection.

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

Charles Brown writes:

 Myself, I think the benefit of reducing the speed limit substantially (
 maybe not to 5 miles per hour), and more safety features of the type you
 mention would be worth it in the lives and injuries saved, and the cost
 would not be astronomical given what would be saved. In other words, the
 value of a human life _is_ astronomical, well, relative to the conveniences
 that are had by being able to go 75 instead of 40.

Why is your personal opinion relevant?  I mean, I am sure I can find somebody (Melvin 
P.?) who apparently highly values going 100.  Therefore, your opinion is cancelled 
out.  Now what do we do?

 I think you are right that the problem wouldn't just go away with socialism.
 There might , in general, in socialism be more focus on some safety issues
 when the decision would not depend upon how the  safer engineering impacted
 an individual corporation's bottomline. I can see a socialism more readily
 developing its transportation system with all the safety features you
 suggest, and not experiencing them economically as astronomical. If there
 was safety focus comprehensively and for a long time, it might be very
 practical to do it better safety wise.

Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society?  We have 75 years of experience 
with socialist inspired economies.  Did they place a higher value on safety compared 
to comparable capitalist societies?  Were they able to implement safety concerns more 
economically than comparable capitalist societies?  It seems to me that safety 
increases in value as a society becomes wealthier, and the value is not correlated to 
the economic system itself.

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

Charles wrote:

I think you are right that the problem wouldn't just go
away with socialism. There might , in general, in
socialism be more focus on some safety issues when the
decision would not depend upon how the  safer engineering
impacted an individual corporation's bottomline. I can
see a socialism more readily developing its
transportation system with all the safety features you
suggest, and not experiencing them economically as
astronomical. If there was safety focus comprehensively
and for a long time, it might be very practical to do it
better safety wise.

David Shemano wrote:

Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society?

Note that Charles uses his language with purpose. There do not seem to
be a lot of wasted words. There is the statement and for a long time
in that last sentence -- and it means something. Consider it.

We have 75 years of experience with socialist inspired
economies.

socialist inspired economies ... Grin. What the hell is that?

I think George Carlin once did a routine about truth in advertising.
He gave several examples of what the statements really meant on the
label... One I recall was chocolatey goodness... As Carlin noted, that
means, 'No fucking chocolate.'

Ken.

--
Wounded but they keep on climbing
Sleep by the side of the road.
  -- Tom Waits

Re: Economics and law

David writes:

I don't have a strong opinion on whether regulation should be
done by legislation or litigation -- it seems like a
peripheral issue.

I think that is a HUGE issue, not peripheral. But that's for another
thread and another day.

[...] safety is not an absolute value that takes
precedence overy everything else.  That is evidenced
by how people actually live their lives, and that
fact must be taken into consideration when determining
appropriate rules.

This is the heart of it.

To use your own words: how people actually live their lives.

The reason most of the people are on this list is that most of the
people (who are not on this list) do not have control of the way they
actually live their lives. Their lives are determined by economic
forces that are really more akin to weather. (Not controllable by
themselves. I can only buy a Pinto, not a Lexus. You call that free
will I call it economic coercion.)

Ken.

--
Ive been trying to show you over and over
Look at these, my child-bearing hips
Look at these, my ruby red ruby lips
Look at these, my work strong arms and
Youve got to see my bottle full of charm
  -- P.J. Harvey

Re: Economics and law

Kenneth Campbell writes:

 [...] safety is not an absolute value that takes
 precedence overy everything else.  That is evidenced
 by how people actually live their lives, and that
 fact must be taken into consideration when determining
 appropriate rules.

 This is the heart of it.

 To use your own words: how people actually live their lives.

 The reason most of the people are on this list is that most of the
 people (who are not on this list) do not have control of the way they
 actually live their lives. Their lives are determined by economic
 forces that are really more akin to weather. (Not controllable by
 themselves. I can only buy a Pinto, not a Lexus. You call that free
 will I call it economic coercion.)

I was thinking more along the lines of rich people who buy sports cars rather than 
Volvos, or who love riding motorcycles.  I was thinking about the following thought 
experiment.  Assume that taking a car from point A to point B would take 30 minutes, 
and the chance of dying during the ride was 1 in one million.  Assume that taking 
public transportation from point A to point B would take 60 minutes, and the chance of 
dying was 1 in ten million.  I am willing to bet quite a significant percentage of the 
population would take the car, and I just don't think you can blame that on bourgeois 
property relations.

Even taking your example into consideration, let's imagine a lack of economic 
coercion.  Actually, I can't imagine it.  In any event, let's assume that the law 
requires every car have the safety of a Lexus and everybody can afford a Lexus.  Fine. 
 But then a new car comes on the market that is safer than a Lexus, but costs a lot 
more.  Conceptually, you are right back where you are today, where the poor can buy a 
used Pinto.

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law

David wrote:

Conceptually, you are right back where you are
today, where the poor can buy a used Pinto.

David Shemano

My parents were not poor... they were working class... they did work to
make ends meet. Your mobile poverty metre is a tad chintzy.

To assume that they might have to buy a car destined for litigation
because it was a corporate decision seems contrary to the essential role
of law.

Ken.

--
No customer in a thousand ever read the conditions [on the back of a
parking lot ticket]. If he had stopped to do so, he would have missed
the train or the boat.
  -- Lord Denning
 Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking Ltd
 [1971] 1 All ER 686

Re: Economics and law

Kenneth Campbell rides to the rescue of Charles Brown:

 Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society?

 Note that Charles uses his language with purpose. There do not seem to
 be a lot of wasted words. There is the statement and for a long time
 in that last sentence -- and it means something. Consider it.

If I had considered it, I would have had to conclude that Charles had qualified his 
thought to irrelevancy or that he did not believe what he was saying.

 We have 75 years of experience with socialist inspired
 economies.

 socialist inspired economies ... Grin. What the hell is that?

Any economy in a country whose name had or has the words People's, Socialist or 
Sweden in it.  To call certain of those countries socialist would have invited 
charges of red-baiting, so I decided to be nice and call them socialist inspired.

David Shemano

Re: Economics and law