Hey, Brad! You're speaking on a radio in a spider-infested little shed in
New South Wales's southern highlands! You're rhetorically scratching your
head at the empirical demise of homo economicus as I tap away (he may still
be autonomous, acquisitive and competitive - but he ain't being
It has been some time now since I have seen anything remotely touching
on economics here on the list. Maybe you're like me and don't exactly
know what's going on in the economy.
Will this series of interest rate hikes cut into the economy before the
election?
Naah. The lags are too long for
G'day Carrol,
Yes. I believe some other poster tried to confuse issues by
claiming that when originally coined the word was intended
to mean "split mind," but the claim is pointless. There is no
significant sense in which schizophrenia is characterized
by a "split mind," and the use of the term
Later, he writes that "Lowered interest rates [in the 1990s] driven
in part by the shrinking of annual budget deficits..."
According to the usual sources on interest rates, the 1990s real
interest rates were high, not low.
I wrote "lower*ed*" for a reason...
Brad DeLong
Both of the quotes-- deficits crowd out private investment and deficits
cause high interest rates (more specifically there that lowering deficits
cause lower interest rates) are pure Summers, but you are right that
"pre-Keynesian" is the correct general label.
Nah. In the context of the 1980s
(BTW, before I start my diatribe, notice that higher interest rates
(Brad's topic) are not the same thing as "crowding out" of private
investment (Mat's topic). This is especially true because government
deficits encourage private spending via the accelerator effect.)
Very true...
In the
A Marxist sociologist Steve Rosenthal replies to those who think
that there is no problem
with studying genome.
Mine Aysen Doyran
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 1
Because of these sharp
Brad,can you please read the rest of Steve's post, or the sentence that
prior to the sentence you cite? since Steve is not here, I can not talk
on behalf of him, but his work is an excellent piece in Marxian sociology.
Steve wrote:
Because of these sharp
critiques, Wilson reinvented himself
Brad,can you please read the rest of Steve's post, or the sentence that
prior to the sentence you cite? since Steve is not here, I can not talk
on behalf of him, but his work is an excellent piece in Marxian sociology.
Here's a precious snippet from this nitwit (Steve Rosenthal)
from a couple
I dont know if this is a work of "total genius" but it is certainly a
masterful explanation for the differing patterns of development of
the continents of the world. But what is so troubling for many in the
left about this book is that it proves beyond a doubt that Africa's
backwardness was a
I do know that Jim Blaut makes a few dismissive comments in Diamond's
direction. Myself, I have yet to see anything in the reviews that would
make me want to delve into his book. I first stumbled across Diamond about
ten years ago, when reviews portrayed him as a sociobiologist in the Robert
I don't know, West Africa was "more advanced" than Europe during the
European Middle Ages, the 500 years before 1500. The ecology didn't
change in the interim.
I tend to think of Europe's leap forward over the rest of the world
(not just Africa) in the last 500 years, as an expression of a
Because, he would say, that region is not Africa, that is, Black
Africa.
__
CB: What does being BLACK Africa have to do with "ecological/geographical
conditions" ? Sounds like Diamond has an inconsistent and racist theory.
Simply saying that one can, as Diamond does, draw
At 02:35 PM 4/11/00 -0500, you wrote:
Dornbusch was just on Talk of the Nation on NPR. Just disgraceful.
Spoke of the "poor IMF," it's working people's fault for electing
bad governments, etc.
one of his main enemies is something called "populism," which refers
to any kind of effort to
Logically, therefore, scholars and intellectuals of color
militantly critique books, lectures and other intellectual
expressions that express and reflect this white supremacy or racism.
Even liberal scholars can reflect white supremacy, such that one
part of their work is anti-racist, but
Jim Blaut in his book *The Colonizer's Model of the World* gives a
partial list
of what he takes to be core eurocentric theories. I hope he doesn't mind
me reproducing it here.
1. The Neolithic Revolution-- the invention of agriculture and the
beginnings of a settled way of life
very true. plus Luxemburg..
Lenin and Trotsky were both champions of arguments against the Second
International-Menshevik claim that socialism couldn't take root in
'backward' places.
Bill Burgess
And on all the evidence, all three of them were wrong, and Martov and
company were right...
In the NY TIMES, April 19, Paul Krugman writes: When Seattle Man
[sic] went to Washington, his activities were coordinated in large
part by a Web site, www.a16.org. Browsing the site, I was struck by
the critique of the World Bank, written by Robert Naiman -- the
activist who threw a pie in
Brad DeLong wrote:
A strong bias against relatively small-scale rural producers has been
one of the worst things about African state-led development over the
past generation (see Robert Bates's _Markets and States in Tropical
Africa_, or Dumont's _False Start in Africa_). And it does look like
Brad, you are not missing anything! I was making a critical comment on
Bates' approach to development. I am assuming we are talking about the same
Bates here (Robert). Regarding his _Markets and States_, I don't completely
disagree with the fact that state-led development had biases towards small
I don't think it's worth my time forwarding the articles on
Mozambican cashews to Krugman, since he's already staked his
reputation on the cashew question in the NY TIMES and is unlikely to
back down.
But we have someone who's a pretty orthodox economist on pen-l.
Brad, what do you think of
I have seen summaries of a Deloitte and Touche report supporting the
Mozambique cashew-nut producers, described as saying:
The new study was carried out by international consultants Deloitte
Touche and the World Bank's previous policy "should be abandoned"
[because]:
1) Indian subsidies to
BUT IS IT TOO LATE?
But is it all too late? The export tax was cut to 14%
this year and more than half of Mozambican raw nuts
were exported to India. Factories ran out of nuts and
by mid-year began to shed staff. Most of the 14
factories are now closed; 7000 of the 9000 workers
(most women) are
Poor in US more likely to face tax audits
By Shannon Jones
22 April 2000
Another side of this issue is that the General Accounting
Office did a report to follow up on the infamous Roth hearings
that ventilated citizen tales of IRS abuses. GAO found that
none of the anti-IRS charges
Jim Devine:
the author, Scott Shuger, was simply asking questions about these issues. I
was hoping for answers to these questions rather than name-calling based on
a partial reading.
first, let me decompose the neo-liberal journalist Mr.Shuger's
Hey! Shuger is not a neo-liberal. I'm a
is there any indication at all that cabdrivers are paid more in
order to compensate them for the riskiness of their jobs? To my
mind, this lack of a wage premium seems a nail in the coffin of Adam
Smith's "compensating differences" theory.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Once again, American workers at the lower rungs of the pay
scale are being asked to sacrifice their jobs and wages on the altar of
"free trade," so that the poorer countries of the world might pursue
an economic development strategy that offers little hope for the vast
majority of their own
Has anyone else here read R.P. Wolff's lovely litearry appreciation
of Capital, Moneybags Should be So Lucky?
Yes...
If Wolff is correct in his assessment of what Marx is trying to do in
chapter 1, volume 1, then all I can say is that Marx failed--that
Wolff is perhaps the first and only
Since capital is so much more mobile than labor, the free movement of
capital will give far more advantages to the employers then the employees.
Part of the story is also the opening up of agriculture to free trade so
that people will be swept off the land and forced into low-wage jobs which
Besides the problems with the article (which i have not read in details),
the fact that Indians make "commercial movies" should not lead you to
normalize the brutality of western imperialism and epidemic violence done
to third world people. did you ever attempt to think why Indian directors
shift
Much of the poverty of Africa has to do with the devastation imposed by Europe
and North America. Yes, they have been plauged by corrupt leaders also, but
that was probably also fostered by the same powers.
Now, the idea is to intergrate more closely into the global economy with a
minimum of
At 09:09 AM 5/8/00 -0700, you wrote:
Once again, American workers at the lower rungs of the pay
scale are being asked to sacrifice their jobs and wages on the altar of
"free trade," so that the poorer countries of the world might pursue
an economic development strategy that offers little hope
Michael P writes:
Roger M. will do ok either way. Just because it is in his interest
to oppose such arrangements does not make the opposition irrational.
it's important to avoid Brad's style of argument here, which seems
similar to guilt-by-association: If Roger Milliken (boo, hiss) is
for
if the (neo)liberals in government (a group that included Brad
awhile ago) would push to adequately compensate workers who lose
their jobs due to trade-related problems (not to mention capital
flight), then you would see many fewer unions and pro-union folks
siding with slimy folks like
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c106:5:./temp/~c106uyCI0L:e76497:
SEC. 402. TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE FOR TEXTILE AND APPAREL WORKERS.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, workers in textile and apparel
firms who lose their jobs or are threatened with job loss as a result of
In a message dated 00-05-08 18:36:14 EDT, you write:
No more unknown governors from small southern states...
What about relatively well known ex-Senators from small Southern states,
Brad? --jks
Better than unknown governors from *large* southern states...
Brad DeLong
Also, I'm not defending a romantisized version of the traditional
farm. I would
like to see progress, but I do not believe that the sweat shop is
the appropriate
agency for development. As long as the choice is between the traditional farm
and the sweat shop, the case for the sweat shop will
The actual sweatshop employees will have to build their own
struggles from within their own conditions -- and what we
think about sweatshops is irrelevant. So to some extent this
whole debate, on both sides, as been academic trivializing.
Carrol
Oh not at all. It is very real. Whether or not
I agree with Micheal. Workers earning their livings in sweatshops do not
even get a living wage. Let's not make the situation look better.
Particulary, women workers are more vulnerable to exploitation in this
process.It is true that most of the women in this part of the world come
to cities to
Title: Re: [PEN-L:18928] Re: Re: Re: Sowing Dragons
(fwd)
How much of the legislation relates to
tariffs?
Brad De Long wrote:
And this is supposed to be an argument that U.S. restrictions
on
imports of African textiles are for Africans' own good?
--
Michael Perelman
Title:
An act
Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/13/00 09:31AM
"Technology always ends up putting some other industry 'out of
business.' The automobile replaced the carriage; the airplane
replaced the train (if you're looking for socialism, look at how the
U.S. government props up Amtrak); the Internet is
CB: If you are looking for faux socialism ( state monopoly
capitalism) look at how the U.S. government, the Federal Reserve
Bank, bailed out that giant hedge fund when it failed. Or Chrysler
, before it was Daimler.
How much money did the U.S. government commit to Long Term Capital
At 07:57 PM 05/15/2000 -0700, you wrote:
CB: If you are looking for faux socialism ( state monopoly
capitalism) look at how the U.S. government, the Federal Reserve
Bank, bailed out that giant hedge fund when it failed. Or
Chrysler , before it was Daimler.
How much money did the U.S.
The answer is that this fight should not be made our fight. The problem
is that many progressive groups are making this a top priority. We should
be putting our energy into and mobilizing people around other issues and
struggles.
Marty
You're right: trying to keep China poorer is not a
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote:
Max previously quoted a labor publication which opposed giving China PNTR
based on a variety of arguments including that the country was communist,
that the government did not follow free market policies, that workers were
repressed, and that China's entrance into
Very nice article, Max. Brad tended to write about the Africa bill as if it
were choice between helping Africa or helping the United States. In fact, as
the article from the Progressive showed, the effect of the bill would be to
transform both Africa and United States to be more to the liking
Jim, from what I see, Marge Piercy is not a Marxist feminist. Thus, it is
difficult for me to understand what her relevance to leftism is, because
she evidently suffers from biological essentialism. Feminists like Marge
Piercy belongs to what we know as radical feminist tradition. The big
problem
Brad, we're arguing at cross purposes. If the bill with were merely lower
tariffs, you would be correct. If the bill is going to be used to impose
neoliberal policies, then I would strenuously oppose it.
Shoddy argument.
As written, the bill offers countries a choice: do whatever is
required
What was the problem with Jesse Jackson's bill?
No problem with Jesse Jackson's bill--save that 218 representatives
wouldn't vote for it.
No one seems to be arguing the U.S.'s trade policy can be used as
significant leverage to improve Chinese government treatment of its
own people. The argument against PNTR seems to be that it is a move
in a symbolic card game, an implicit approval of China's anti-human
policies.
Actually
Yes, African countries should be offered a better menu of choices
than the bill offers them. But whether the principal effect is to aid
or harm African development--and whether they ought to accept or
reject their package--ought to be *their* choice. You want to make
that choice for
At 02:39 PM 05/16/2000 -0700, you wrote:
What was the problem with Jesse Jackson's bill?
No problem with Jesse Jackson's bill--save that 218 representatives
wouldn't vote for it.
so might makes right?
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Say rather that
At 02:38 PM 05/16/2000 -0700, you wrote:
Brad, we're arguing at cross purposes. If the bill with were merely lower
tariffs, you would be correct. If the bill is going to be used to impose
neoliberal policies, then I would strenuously oppose it.
Brad writes:
Shoddy argument.
As written, the
It would be "essentialist" to reduce men to that characteristic...
It is also "essentialist" to speak of "men" as a category that a
single thought can "reduce"...
It is also "essentialist" to speak of "essentialism" as a
single intellectual move that has common effects in a
If one really wants the world to improve, one has to make an effort
to _change_ the balance of power. That involves _organizing_ people
to counteract the powers that be.
It does not mean that we say "oh, there's only one choice: a bogus
'free trade' bill that forces African countries to toe
At 10:48 AM 05/17/2000 -0400, you wrote:
Second, the claim that forcing people to be free is OK does not
follow from malleability, if if Marx held the malleability thesis.
Rousseau used the seemingly sinister saying about forcing people to
be free. But one of his points, I believe, is that
Listen, I have a small jar of vanilla essence in my kitchen, what does that
make me? Vanilla or essential?
Mark Jones
You cannot have such a jar. The critique of essentialism has finally,
totally, and completely demonstrated that the "essence" of vanilla
does not exist.
since those who regularly employ the term "essentialism" are
anti-Enlightenment, should it be a surprise that their discussion isn't
enlightening?
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
ROFLOL...
yea, and why do you stop the citation in the comma? I am well
aware that there are two Marxes, the one who tends to be
democratic and the one who tends to be dictatorial.
A kinder, gentler way to put it is that there are two Marxes, the one
who believes in the free development of each and the
Not contradictory. As Draper has shown, the Dictatorship of the P. is a
temporary waystation to allow the future free development.
Brad De Long wrote:
yea, and why do you stop the citation in the comma? I am well
aware that there are two Marxes, the one who tends to be
democratic
Brad De Long wrote:
I think that removing quotas on U.S. imports of African-made textiles
will make the world a better place: more better jobs at better wages
for Africans. It isn't "bogus."
If there are going to be better jobs at better wages in Africa, where
are the folk
Jim,
Hi. I'm back, at least for a few weeks.
Guess I'll side with Brad D. on this one, although only
slightly. I agree that the first Marx is clearly the dominant
one in most of his writings, the one for free development of
people. But he did at certain points issue some rather
Like NAFTA, the debate came down him to a question of the tariffs for
textile producers. As I understand the bill, the reduction of tariffs is
certainly the least objectionable aspect of the package. Along with the
tariff reduction, come all sort of demands for the imposition of
neoliberal
Brad,
I also noticed that the bill was concerned about the elimination of
corruption. What is the record of United States regarding corruption?
Our political campaigns are nothing more than organized bribery. Is it
possible for a non-corrupt politicians to get elected to anything higher
than
Brad De Long wrote:
So why, then, is the first Marx so weak in post-Marxian Marxism?
Why was the world afflicted with, say, Paul Sweezy's claim that
"One need not have a specific idea of a... beautiful musical
composition, to recognize that the... the rock-and-roll that blares
K
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
on 19/5/00 4:16 am, Brad De Long at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Brad De Long wrote:
So why, then, is the first Marx so weak in post-Marxian Marxism?
Why was the world afflicted with, say, Paul Swee
On Fri, 12 May 2000, Louis Proyect wrote:
very often of a seasonal nature. If you read Juliette Schor's "The
Overworked American", you will discover that the average peasant worked
half as many hours as the average proletarian during the rise of the
industrial revolution. That is the
Louis Proyect wrote:
Either that or people actually *liked* having their teeth fall out...
Brad DeLong
I don't think the discussion is about dental hygeine. It is about the right
of a Vietnamese in the 60s or a Colombian peasant today to not have napalm
dropped on them because they
Michael Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/12/00 05:48PM btw:
Michael Parenti has noted that policy of containing spread of
slavery was promptly reversed following death of President Zachary
Taylor (southern slaveowner opposed to extension of slavery and
secession) death. Parenti's article "The
If the U.S. were really concerned about mass
slaughter, it would have done something about the mass slaughter in Rwanda
and the Sudan. It didn't - in part because the dead are African, and in
part because there's no pressing imperial interest there.
Doug
Just what is the impressive imperial
http://www.afr.com.au/content/990308/world/wtokyo.html
"Kenichi Ohmae . . . believes Japan is being
'micro-managed' by the United States.
"In particular, he says it is being run by the 'Committee of
Three' - Federal Treasury heads Robert Rubin and Larry
Summers and Federal Reserve chairman Alan
Barkley,
I have some difficulty with your whole discussion and comparison of
the situation in Turkey and Kosovo. The reason is fairly
straightforward.
First, there was no genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced removal,
denial of language rights, etc. etc. in Kosovo prior to the bombing.
... [O]n
All complaints about Clinton Administration policy and the Democratic Party
may be directed to Nathan Newman and Prof. Brad DeLong.
...
Regards,
mbs
Complaints about the Democratic Party--the only true hope for human
progress over the next quarter century--I will be glad to receive and deal
Mine,
The monarchy had already been overthrown by
December 1917. The Duma Lenin shut down was
not "under the patronage of the monarchy." The
electoral winners, were socialists and revolutionary
ones. Just a different brand than Lenin's Bolsheviks.
Marx praised the direct election
The sheer extent of Marx's despair at the end, his absolute repudiation of
events as they'd turned out, his remorseless cynicism about the everyday
world of labour-bureaucracies, with their time-serving placemen and greasy
little deals -- this is something we barely know and can hardly guess at,
Charles Brown wrote:
CB: This sounds like you think like it would be better if you were
somewhere near state power. Holier than she is , are you ?
Nope, I'm an infidel, suspected of bourgeois tendencies even.
Doug ...who goes to parties with the Treasury Secretary.
I heard that as far as
OK, if Lou wants to
think of me as an anticommunist cold-warrior in the neighorhood of the
Reaganites, that is his right.
--Justin
Don't take it too hard. He thinks I'm a libertarian troll...
:-)
Brad DeLong
There has been an epidemic of airliners falling "mysteriously" from the sky
in recent years...
All these problems are related to "deregulation", a policy that has been
applied across the board to the trucking, railroad and airline industry. It
has produced harried operator and maintenance crews.
Louis Proyect wrote:
One of the most forceful advocates is Ted Kennedy, who
believed that Joe Six-Pack was getting cheated out of affordable air
travel. I guess neglect and stupidity about air travel runs in the Kennedy
family.
But Joe Sixpack *was* getting cheated out of
G'day Brad,
And we have gone from having one serious commercial aviation accident
per 140 million miles flown in 1970 to having one serious commercial
aviation accident per 1.4 billion miles flown today. You can indict
capitalism for many reasons, but an increased likelihood of dying in
an
Don't fly to Chico from San Francisco. Going to New York is
cheaper. It wasn't
before dereg. So it was not beneficial to all consumers.
But there are a lot more of us who want to fly from San Francisco to
New York. Bentham would approve...
Brad DeLong
Hi again, Brad,
Seems to me that air safety is one place where the market gives
airline executives and airplane manufacturing and maintenance
executives exactly the right incentives: people aren't going to fly
airplanes or airlines that crash regularly...
They only have to make sure they don't
A while ago the _JEP_ had a short symposium on "Austrian" economics:
Harvey Rosen wrote a sympathetic critique of the Austrian school, and
Leland Yeager responded. This seemed to work: communication was
accomplished. The selection of Harvey as someone definitely in the
establishment but not
It seems to me that "radical economics" does not denote a coherent entity
the way "Austrian economics" does. There are too many perspectives and
methodologies.
"Post-Marxist economics" then?
Brad DeLong
Jim Devine wrote:
I read some stats in LBO awhile back that indicated that price-deregulation
didn't really lead to lower airline ticket prices. Doug?
Yup, this is a long-standing LBO obsession. See other post. The dereg
partisans like to quote real fares per seat-mile, which are down
since
I think Brad De Long's idea of a JEP mini-symposium on "radical
economics" is an excellent one, which I appreciate.
One possibility to consider: I edited a book published in 1995 entitled
*Heterodox Economic Theories: True or False* (the title was a take-off on
one of Mark Blaug's books). One
Radicals tend to agree on objectives (loosely) and they
share a dislike for the status quo in both the economics profession and
the wider universe, but that's about it.
You can't just be against something. You have to be for something. Or
there's no there there...
Brad DeLong, peering out his
Some time ago, I spoke with Tim Taylor, editor of the Journal of Economic
Perspectives, about the possibility of a survey of radical economics.
I, at least, am somewhat allergic to the word "survey." "Survey"
calls up the image of an article for the _Journal of Economic
Literature_ or the
Or maybe he should set up
a sociologist versus economist shoot-out. I'm
confident the former would love the opportunity.
One of them told me once, "you economists have
totally screwed up policy debate. You
individualize everything."
mbs
Reminds me of a week that I went to two meetings, both
It looks like Brad has emulated the goddess Eris, who (in the myth)
spawned the Trojan War by setting up a contest about which goddess
was prettiest. In our context, this has set up a conflict about
who's "really" radical or "really" Marxist, along with
characterizations of what kind of work
Let's make it fun. Get Krugman to do the review of lefty economics and
William Greider to respond.
Tom Walker
I like Paul a lot. Paul has been very good to me. Paul can't do a
sympathetic critique of *anyone*. I don't think it would accomplish
my educational objectives...
But you are right:
It looks like Brad has emulated the goddess Eris...
Well, Discordianism is the dominant religion of the internet. (Just
as Librarianism is the dominant political philosophy of the internet.)
Brad DeLong
Anyway, its' time to stop the 1930s analogies. Haider is not Hitler, Austria
is not Germany, and we don't have the Comintern to kick around any more.
Let's get serious. Nathan isn't going to fess up--when the Democarts nominate
Pat Buchanan and David Duke, he will be talking about how they are
Again we see the old Keynes quote out of context. The original sense was
that if we waited for the economy to work itself out of an depression,
"in the long run" as was advocated by the right, we would all be dead by
the time it happened, i.e., it wouldn't happen.
The rest of the article,
I haven't had so much fun since a bunch of latter-day Anarcho-Pagans
called me provocateur and police agent. O.K., O.K. I can see I'm not
welcome here. Unless I get positive feedback from other subscribers, Pen-l
won't have me to kick it around anymore. *That's* my gambit. I'm not in it
for the
Brad De Long wrote:
Why is there this extraordinary--eager--desire to take Keynes's
quote out of context?
Remarkable, isn't it? Didn't Hayek offer the charming interpretation
that Keynes's queerness made him not care about the future?
Doug
I missed this. Where?
Brad DeLong
Max writes: If you think the state is the executive committee of
the bourgeoisie, than you are a public choice theorist too.
*Sigh*
Marx did not write in the _Manifesto_ that the state is the executive
committee of the bourgeoisie.
He wrote that the executive of the modern state is a
I was recently thinking about Robinson's call for reparations. Suppose
that United States was called upon to pay reparations for what they
imposed on the slaves, what they took from the indigenous people, the
damage that they caused through imperialism. How many years of gross
domestic product
Microsoft Timeline
Business @ the Speed of Thought
Remarks by Bill Gates
Georgetown University School of Business
March 24, 1999
QUESTION: During the course of the presentation, you mentioned job
reduction a number of times. While, as business students, we can all
Max:
At some point, however, going back in time becomes
an exercise in political rhetoric rather than one
of social justice. How far back is appropriate?
Its not about going back in time. It is about political power. Zionism was
a joint project of Jewish ruling-class figures and Anglo-American
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