From farmelantj at juno.com Fri May 1 20:22:53 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 22:22:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Review of Ron Aronson's *Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided* Message-ID: <20090501.222253.9628.4.farmelantj@juno.com> http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/farmelant010509.html ____________________________________________________________ Earn a degree in Criminal Justice and work as a Police officer. Click here for more info. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTEe1WfiepfMwKkuntWXE4f2eqW8EFhIzdEWDaj1XA461rdent6f7a/ From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun May 3 13:29:01 2009 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 15:29:01 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Chrysler Message-ID: In a message dated 5/3/2009 2:18:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, _dhenwood at panix.com_ (mailto:dhenwood at panix.com) writes: More on the UAW, its murky finances, and its self-screwing: _http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/uaw-revisited/_ (http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/uaw-revisited/) >> A word on the UAW itself: this is not a poor union. As of 2006, it had assets of almost $1.3 billion, and annual receipts of $304 million. (I wish I could provide a link to the UAW?s own financial statements, but if they? re on their website, I can?t find them. I had to go to the anti-union site, UnionFacts.com, to find this basic financial info. And I learned that there that the AFL-CIO had successfully lobbied the Obama administration to loosen financial disclosure requirements for unions.) It could have easily financed serious research into a better strategic direction for the auto industry than the idiot management has been able to?cleaner cars, better modes of work organization. Its PAC spent $13 million on campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle; it could have spent a few mil of that on campaigning for national health insurance. But they didn?t. And now they?re pretty well screwed. << Comment Yea, today is worse than 1979 when Chrysler went belly up. The UAW is better understood if looked at from the standpoint of a "business model." The UAW is all of its members, that to one degree or another elect its leaders. The uppermost leaders of the union are elected on the basis of something akin to an electoral college. That is to say, President Gettlefinger and heads of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors divisions are not directly elected by the membership. The UAW President is elected at the Constitutional Convention. Gettlefinger is akin to a CEO. The reason the union has not made national health care a national social cause of the working class, which includes UAW members is its business model and lack of foresight. Bill Gates success in the market was bound up with IBM's lack of foresight. Cisco systems success in the market is its foresight and anticipation of new markets. The UAW's uppermost leaders lack foresight and without an abrupt change in its business model have roughly 48 - 96 months of life left in it as a significant union in the life of America. The unions lack of foresight is not reducible to a personal problem. Gettlefinger is the person that manifest the social problem of change within the union. To the degree that General Motors could not and did not change its business model to keep pace with a changing market is the same degree to which the UAW is stuck in the old business model of industrial unionism. On the other hand the UAW could not exceed the boundary that is the understanding and striving of the working class as a whole. The working class as a whole is being swung around to the need for a single - government, payer health system. Huge sections of the working class are in the process of rejecting anti-communism and anti-socialism. The slow and growing rejection of anti-communism in America is very important. The fact of the matter is that no one . . . and I mean no one . . . other than the communists and socialists of all stripes and character, have the passion, imagination and fire in their belly to inspire and push our working class. This has been the case since 1890. The era of an anti-communist democratic left in America is over. The union has to be pushed from within and especially from without to change and such change will involved splitting and restructuring of the union. The odds are such that the UAW will be destroyed - as it exists, in the marketplace along the same lines that General Motors is being destroyed in the domestic market. The United Automobile Workers - UAW, needs to become "Unite All Workers" regardless of industry or economic status. And the union needs to fund a party of labor that can champion issues like national health care. Today is a great time for such a party with the Republican Party in absolute decay. WL. **************The Average US Credit Score is 692. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222376998x1201454298/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=M ay5309AvgfooterNO62) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun May 3 14:04:55 2009 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 16:04:55 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Chrysler: decay of industrial uionism Message-ID: Comment/Reply No problem. An earlier version of the material was written in anger and was not balanced enough in its treatment of UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. However, Gettlefinger and the heads of the Chrysler and General Motors division are heading in a direction where history is going to record them as leading the UAW into its final destruction. On the continuum of American history, with the larger content world history riveted to the rise of the industrial system, we are at a point of transition not very different from the passage from craft unionism to industrial unionism, only at a much higher level. At this level - May 2009, we have the accumulated knowledge of the better part of 150 years to lean upon. What creates and drives the impulse for qualitative change in the organization of the working class are changes in the machinery of society and its corresponding shape in the organization of deployed labor. Classes and new forms of class are created and shaped by the introduction of new productive equipment. Craft labor is a form of laboring corresponding to a definite moment in the development of the productive forces. When changes in the productive forces are underway, everything dependent upon the productive forces must in turn change. Not all at one time, but a change wave is the inevitable social consequence of fundamental change. This materialist approach is how many Marxist describe the underlying impulse driving the transition from craft unionism to industrial unionism. The transition from craft unionism to industrial unionism was a long drawn out historical period/curve. The period of transition lasted from roughly 1895 to the formation of the CIO - 1936/37, as the organization of the unskilled workers in heavy industry. At the front of this curve the old Knights of Labor passed unto history and the American Federal of Labor, the Socialist Labor Party, the first American Communist Party and then the CIO came into existence answering the call for organization of the workers on a new industrial basis. Although the CIO was actually the organization of the unskilled white workers, its historical act was that it got the unskilled workers into the process of organization and collective defense of an important segment of labor. The blacks came later and worked their way through the system and finally the women won more than less legal status and treatment within the unionized workforce and the union itself. What is not so obvious about this entire historical period is the internal splitting of labor and regrouping of labor. The most skilled workers could not protect themselves without drawing the mass of unskilled into the union process, despite their internal tendency to fight to preserve the value and form of their own laboring process. What unfolding was a long drawn out process with changing political sides, but the end result was the organization of the unskilled in heavy industry. John L. Lewis story is a case study in changing sides and complexity. _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Lewis_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Lewis) The UAW is aware that it must further shatter its own existing trade union form of organizations and complete its leap - transition, from being an organization based on an industry to an organization cutting across all trade and industry lines, reaching down into the semi-employed, under employed and permanently employed. It is this awareness that made Bob King a preferable candidate for UAW President for many of the insurgent activists in the union. King openly advocated pouring huge amounts of union funds into intense unionization campaigns and waging the struggle for unionization as a survival battle. Here is an example of the complexity: Although Gettelfinger supports a single payer health care system, this support is expressed 100% within the framework of the Democratic Party rather than as a survival fight the union has to wage independent of who ever might jump on and off the bandwagon. Gettelfinger?s vision is limited to what he personally thinks is acceptable to the company and he is without working class principles. Gettelfinger?s principles are industrial trade union principles bounded by the relation between employer and employee. Even the damn capitalists - a huge section, are supporting single payer health care reform as a way to increase profits and lighten the burden on their capital. General Motors and Chrysler seek to push health cost off their books and into the lap of the Union, rather than the government. Gettelfinger ?s is limited by what he thinks is acceptable to the Democratic Party as he understand politics. In this sense my criticism of Mr. Gettelfinger is not personal on any level. I do not know the man, only his impact on the union which is experienced by how the social forces represented by the union are released. Everyone in the world agrees that we are sliding into deep economic, social and political crisis. The agreements end there. An important part of crisis is the fighting that takes place between classes. No less important is the fighting that takes place within the same class. In this regard the fighting taking place within the ruling capitalist class means that various sectarian interests of the rulers compels them to appeal to the voters - workers, for support of their programs and their political base. This in turn creates a tendency for intersection of varying class interest. The workers and their organizations are given a chance to put forth their survival issues demanding resolution, but we are never required to limit ourselves to what is acceptable to the capitalists. A single payer system of health care is such an issue. As various segments of capital appeal to our members for support to defeat their political opponents we should be mature enough to independently fight out our issues and clearly express our needs, rather than simply following whoever may be the ?new flavor of the month.? Independence means preserving our own organizations and programs independent and outside that of the capitalist even while taking part in the electoral process. Rather than simple relying on Democrats to pass legislation making it less difficult to organize new members, (legislation deserving of organized labors support) this is an area where we need out own independent voice; independent campaigns and investment of millions of dollars to achieve our goal of survival and transformation. To the degree that we represent the workers interest as they are employed by capital, we can never be truly independent of capital. Our Emancipation from all forms of capital only comes with the destruction of the value producing system. Yet, there is no compelling law that says we have to ride together in the same car with the representative of capital, even if on specific issues there is a mutual desire to achieve the same goal as in the case of health care. Nor is there a compelling reason to be chauffeurs for the capitalist, who generally prefer their own reliable drivers. An early leader of American labor dubbed such "chauffeur drivers of capital," Labor Lieutenants of the Capitalist Class. One can represent labor in its organized and unorganized dimensions, and unity and strife with capital without being a Labor Lieutenants of the Capital. One can shake hands with the representatives of capital to open negotiations. One suppose to take their hand back after the handshake. At any rate, when the book roughly titled ?The Rise and Fall of the UAW? is written by the new generation, Gettelfinger and ?others? will be charged with doing nothing to prevent the destruction of the UAW. In this regard, ?they? act no different than company CEO?s who refuse to change their product line when the market changes and end up going out of business. Gettelfinger does not deserve any support by those around him. The UAW is rapidly going out of business and must complete its leap to a non-trade basis of unionism. WL. **************The Average US Credit Score is 692. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222376998x1201454298/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=M ay5309AvgfooterNO62) From farmelantj at juno.com Mon May 11 19:21:46 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 21:21:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Article on the Scottish roots of historical materialism Message-ID: <20090511.212146.5012.0.farmelantj@juno.com> Courtesty of Rosa Lichtenstein. Readers might be interested in an article that attempts trace the roots of Marx's materialist conception of history back to the Scottish Enlightenment. http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/3/339 It is the first detailed study of the links between Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith and Marx (re the division of labour and alienation), and it's currently free to download. Jim F. ____________________________________________________________ Digital Photography - Click Now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTDvmSRGjnpkCkuKDdWZEcCHdHPFEU3LqXKoNyzvfiqT0U0WHvb8Fi/ From gerdowning at btinternet.com Tue May 12 06:58:01 2009 From: gerdowning at btinternet.com (GERALD DOWNING) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 12:58:01 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Return after 10 years Message-ID: <655324.52057.qm@web86503.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Comrades,This is a return after about ten years. Here is a post from that time? (2000) and an add for my WRP Explosion going online Comradely Gerry DowningAnd That's Dialectical! GD: I am with Charles Brown 100% (almost) in this dispute. __________ Charles: Thanks for that, comrade. _____ Charles: I think you are making fundamentally helpful points in emphasizing the usual aspects of materialism. It's funny but we have been discussing mainly dialectics and comes the charge from Andy that Engels and Lenin are idealists in their position. I have been arguing against this without going into the usual fundamentals of materialism to combat Andy's charge of idealism. As you point out, it usually means that oneself is the real idealist when one tries to say Engels is an idealist. ________ GD: The turning point in this argument was the Giraffe debate where the evolution of the long neck was accepted as (partially) dialectical. None could say what _______ Charles: Oops I cut off some. I think the giraffe example, which I only skimmed is dialectics in a natural example. It seems like the discussion of Lewontin and Levins in _The Dialectical Biologist_ ; animals have some subjectivity vis-a-vis their environments. The whole is prior to the parts. These are dialectical principles. But Darwinism is dialectical too. Did you see the letter in which Marx called Darwin's work "our (Marx AND Engels'_ method in natural history ? GD: There are no universal, absolute laws we are told. Then comes the current, very good debate, on Marx and the particular and the general. But Charles Brawn must be aware the there is an even more *general* statement of the general. _______ Charles: Yes ! That quote was rattling around in the back of my mind and I was going to find it and post it. This is the fullest statement of the principle I am getting at. Thanks. This will help to concentrate the argument. GD: I refer to Engels famous passage an Anti-Duhring (Gerry Healy*s favourite to enrage the anti-diamets): " When we consider and reflect on nature at large or the history of mankind or our own intellectual activity, at first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations, in which nothing remains what where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, comes into being and passes away. [We see therefore at first the picture as a whole, with its individual parts still kept more or less in the background.; we observe the movement, transition, connections, rather than the things that move, combine and are connected.] This primitive, na?ve, but intrinsically correct conception of the world is that of ancient Greek philosophy, and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus: everything is and is not, for everything is fluid, is constantly coming into being and passing away. 2. But this conception, correct as it expresses the General character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and as long as we do not understand these we cannot have a clear ideal of the whole picture. In order to understand these details we must detach them from their natural or historical connection and examine each one separately, its nature, specific causes, etc. * The analysis of nature into its individual parts, the groupi8ng of the different natural processes and objectives in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms - these were the fundamental conditions for the gigantic strides in our knowledge during the last four hundred years. But this method of work also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constants not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century." AND THATS DIALECTICAL ________ Charles: Yes indeedy ! Gerry Downing Charles Brown The WRP Explosion (1990) by Gerry Downing is now available online at: http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/1544314-gerald-j-downing It is 90,692 words in 13 chapters plus an intro and chronology. It deals with the Implosion of the WRP in 1985 and follows the developments both internal and in international relations up to 1990 when the Preparatory Committee collapsed, the LIT departed and the Slaughter WRP linked up with M Varga and others to form the Stalinophobic Workers International to Refound the Fourth International (WIRFI). I was in the RIL/ITC at the time so naturally the account reflects their politics; nevertheless I have little to retract from this political document. I hope it will assist in current regroupment efforts. Comradely Gerry Downing 6 May 2009 ? These are the chapter heads: WRPIntro The WRP explosion in October 1985 had a profound impact on all those who regard themselves as Trotskyists throughout the world. The fragmentation of the international committee of the Fourth International, one of the main claimants, historically, to the ?continuity of Trotskyism? was a dramatic event, whose repercussions are still being felt. This is my political evaluation of the WRP (Workers Press) in the period after it split with and subsequently expelled its founder and long time British Trotskyist and International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI or IC)(1) leader, Gerry Healy... WRPBreak-up1 The Break-up ?The Devil can cite scriptures for his purpose. An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart 0, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!? Shakespeare; Merchant of Venice, Act 1 Scene 3 Or how the ?goodly apple rotten at the heart? that was the WRP split asunder. The Split with Gerry Healy and the WRP (News Line) in October 1985 The miners? strike of 1984-85 had a profound effect on the WRP as it did on all left groups. A number of left groups like the Socialist League and the WRI? underwent splits under pressure from... WRPImplosion 2 The Implosion Continues ?The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see such quantities Of sand: ?If this were only cleared away,? they said, ?it would be grand? ?If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year, Do you suppose?, the Walrus said, ?That they could get it clear?? ?I doubt it? said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear, Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass. Or how the leaden of the old ICFI, North and Banda, and later Banda and Slaughter sought, and failed to escape the legacy of Healy. The Split with the ICFI and the IC... WRPInterregnum3 Interregnum & ?Glasnost? 1986 ?Macavity, Macavity, there?s no one like Macavity, There never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity. Re always has an alibi, and one or two to spare: At whatever time the deed took place -MACAVITY WASN?T THERE!? T S Eliot, Macavity: The Mystery Cat Or how the old WRP leadership (and Cliff Slaughter in particular) survived the period of reassessment and re-examination. During 1986 the political discussions with other groups got under way in earnest. A new Central Committee was elected at the Eight Congress session of 15 March and Simon Pirani, Dave Bruce and... WRPPhilosophy 4 Problems of Philosophy I don?t know what you mean by ?glory? Alice said. HumptyDumpty smiled contemptuously. ?Of course you don?t -till I tell you. I meant, ?There?s a nice knock-down argument for you!?? ?But ?Glory? doesn?t mean a nice knockdown argument Alice objected. ?When I use a word,? Humpty-Dumpty add in a rather scornful tone, ?it means just what I want it to mean - neither more nor less.? ?The question is,? said Alice, ?whether you can make words mean so many different things?? ?The question is,? said Humpty-Dumpty, ?which is to be master - that?s all, Lewis Carroll, Alice Through t... WRPExplosion5 Chauvinism on the Irish Question "History has turned its backside on these gentlemen and the inscriptions they read there have become their programme. An island position wealth, success in world politics, all this cemented by Puritanism, the religion of the ?chosen people', has turned into an arrogant contempt for every- thing continental and generally un-British. Britain?s middle classes have long been convinced that the language, science, technology and culture of other nations do not merit study. All this has been completely taken over by the Philistines currently heading the Labour party."... WRPIrish6 Break with the Irish Workers League The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and that changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing forgets that it is men that change circumstances and that the educator himself needs educating. Hence this doctrine necessarily arrived at dividing society into two parts of which one is superior to society (in Robert Owen, for example). The coincidence of changing circumstances and of human activity can be rationally understood as revolutionary practice.? Marx, Theses on Feuerbach. Or how Cliff Slaughter rationalise... WRPSocRel 7 Social Relations of the WRP ?When you say attacks on lesbians and gays are a civil liberties issue, I hope you don?t hold the view that normal working class people aren?t homosexual anyway... So, are attacks on lesbians and gays not of immediate interest to working class lesbians and gays? A point to ponder ... Hope to see you at the Gay Pride march next week?. (Needless to say he didn?t. GD) Brian Dempsey, letter to Geoff Pilling, 16 June 1987. Or how the WRP leaders revealed their reactionary positions on social issues. The McGoldrick Affair in Brent To demonstrate the new ideology in the as... WRPStalinism 8 THE DEBATE ON STALINISM ?But in Eastern Europe it was the working class which mobilised to push aside the capitalist stabilisation and the bourgeois property in 1945-47. The Stalinist bureaucracy?s role was to control, discipline and suppress the working class, and to impose the bureaucratic-police regime.? Cliff Slaughter?s reply to the IF, 28 July 1987, explaining that the Stalinists did not (or did, depending on how you read it) overthrow capitalist property relations in Eastern Europe. DIAMETRICAILY OPPOSED Positions ON STALINISM A Stalinophobic trajectory is the gel that holds together th... WRPLIT9 THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LIT ?Alas the storm is come again! My best bet is to creep underneath his gabardine; there is no other shelter hereabouts: misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.? Shakespeare; The Tempest, Act 2 Scene 2. Or how the WRP leaders found shelter beneath Moreno?s gabardine. EXTRAORDINARY REACTION The extraordinary reaction to Chris Bailey?s report on his US trip did not initially get support from the entire CC. There were many doubters and even five votes against the majority axis of the academics... WRPStrange 10 Strange Bedfellows ?Your accusations are vile slanders and frame-ups - my slanders are justifiable retribution against the enemy for their crimes.? Paddy Collins, Spark, Australia, An Open Letter to Cliff Slaughter (on the Ten Points). Or how the WRP leaders lied and dissimulated to facilitate an unprincipled fusion. THE U.S. OPEN Trotskyist CONFERENCES The initial 7 point call of the WRI) Conference of 1-2 November 1986 and the subsequent 10 point call as prepared by Slaughter and sanctioned by the CC caused a great stir world-wide. The 7 points of the call of the conference were amended in... WRPWasted 11 Wasted Journeys ?There?s plenty of boys that will come hankering and gruvelling around you when you?ve got an apple, and beg the core off you; but when they?ve got one and you beg for the core and remind them how you gave them a core one time, they make a mouth at you and say thank you ?most to death, but their ain?t-a-going to be no core.? Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad. Or how the WRP leaders took advantage of the sympathy and co-operation of groups from all over the world to reinstate themselves politically in the eyes of their membership and then cynically rejected their former friends for... WRPPrinciple12 No Question of Principle ?However that impact will be a thousand times Intensified if the forces of the Fourth International are able to foster the development of a ?Trotskyist party which plays a significant role? (in the coming South African revolution GD). The view of Bronwen Handyside (editor Workers Press 1989-1990) on the world historical role of Trotskyism, Or how WRP leaders showed their contempt for Trotskyism. In the aftermath of the April Congress and the first meeting of the PreC events seemed to be developing rapidly for the LIT/WRP fusion. On 22 April Pirani sent a letter to the... WPRExplosionLIT 13 End Game for the LIT and the WRP "But this ?philosophy? Ignored reality, as Pirani and Smith admit above. Rather a serious ?error?, one would have thought, which would undoubtedly have consigned us to the camp of revisionism but for the fact that we possessed the Holy Grail of Trotskyist Continuity, which vessel has the power of the confessional in forgiving political sin" GD, On ?The WRP and the Crisis of the Fourth International? below . Or how the WRP reproduced the image of the past in the WIRFI When Chris Bailey, Dave Bruce and I were allowed back on the CC in September it was on the cond... WRPCHRONOLOGY 14 CHRONOLOGY 1984-90 1984 October & December: Seventh Party Congress of the WRP 1985: June: March to Free the Jailed Miners, 30th; Alexander Pavilion Rally July 1st; Aileen Jennings' letter to the Political Committee. September: Bournemouth demonstration against the Labour Party Conference. October: WRP split Gerry Healy expelled, Special Congress on 26/27th November: First post split public meeting on 27th. December; ICFI suspends the WRP. Workers Press is launched. 1986 January: Series of public meetings begun. February: 8th Party Congress, first session, split with the followers of Dave Hyland... From farmelantj at juno.com Sun May 24 19:37:44 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 21:37:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate Message-ID: <20090524.213745.5688.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Paul Cockshott on how the Soviet economist and mathematician, Leonid Kantorovich (who was the only Soviet economist to ever win the Nobel Prize in economics), used his work on linear programming to answer the arguments of economists like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek who argued that rational socialist economic planning was, even in theory, impossible. "Calculation in-Natura, from Neurath to Kantorovich" http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/standalonearticle.pdf ____________________________________________________________ Digital Photography - Click Now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTDvmTqvznh7BlUhIJXY6nvybwjk7OyITFDi2MJJGvY9xh5noyKous/ From jannuzi at gmail.com Tue May 26 01:57:46 2009 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 16:57:46 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist > calculation debate Message-ID: If Cockshott had waited a bit more, he might not look the complete fool he does here. This is still largely an argument based on the idea that logistics is economics turned into a hard science. That would be logistics on a macro-economic scale. That may be, but it is no more a science of political economy than econometrics. CJ -- Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ We are Feral Cats http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/ From jannuzi at gmail.com Tue May 26 04:20:25 2009 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 19:20:25 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist > calculation debate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Also, it might interesting to note here that Koopmans won the prize the same year (1975), and the work of Koopmans and Kantorovich really follows from the first winner of the prize, Tinbergen. And Frisch btw won it at the same time as Tinbergen. Although Kantorovich may be the only 'Soviet' here, he is not at all anathema to the likes of Koopmans, Tinbergen, or Myrdal, the guy who won it the same year as von Hayek (1974). Austrian economics is often heterodox to other forms of economics emanating from both sides of the political spectrum. That is because counter 20th century trends, it eschews quantification (stats, maths), induction and experimental induction. So you can put the Austrians in counterpoint with just about any mainstream economist of distinction. Conservatives, I think, tended to 'cherry-pick' ideas from the Austrians to serve their ideological purposes. BTW, the prize in economics is a very strange prize, with a very complex and changing title. See this take: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text172_p.html excerpt: But by then the debate had moved to its real subject matter. Some members of the Swedish Academy were doubtful if economics was a genuine science and disliked the whole idea of awarding the prize. In the end the prize for Nash, jointly with two other winners, was approved, but after a majority vote -- something which learned and established bodies hate to have. The aftermath was an inquiry into the future of the prize. It was decided to broaden it into a general prize for social sciences and to bring two non-economists onto the awarding committee. Some changes have been evident as a result. For instance in 2002 the award was shared by one experimental economist whose findings favoured the Austrian type of neo-classical theory and a psychologist who disputed most of the usual economic assumptions. Nevertheless the majority have still been given for research into mainstream topics. The joint 2003 prizes were awarded for innovatory statistical analysis of time series. The dispute about the value of the prize is still running. A former Swedish finance minister, Kjell Olof Feldt, who himself subsequently became head of the Riksbank, has advocated abolishing the economics prize. Some members of the present generation of the Nobel family have done the same. One is reminded of the disputes among the descendants of the composer Richard Wagner, who still claim the right to decide the future of the Festival Theatre he established in Bayreuth. Indeed a few of the economics prize winners themselves expressed reservations, Friedrich Hayek, the free market political economist who won the prize jointly with the Swedish socialist Gunnar Myrdal in 1974, was grateful that the prize rescued him from a long period of personal depression and had relaunched his ideas - well before Margaret Thatcher started to publicise his name. Yet he admitted that if he had been consulted on whether to establish the prize he would "have decidedly advised against it." Myrdal rather less graciously wanted the prize abolished because it had been given to such reactionaries as Hayek (and afterwards Milton Friedman). How does the matter look now? A glance at the correspondence columns for the FT will show that mainstream academic economics is far from being the only source of ideas on the subject. Business school theorists, contemporary historians, engineers with an interest in policy and opinionated businessmen all weigh in. It is the Nobel Prize which gives some kind of imprimatur to mainstream academic ideas, which combine an emphasis on individual utility maximisation and the role of markets, with advanced statistical techniques. It has not however in the least increased the willingness of policy makers to accept international free trade or reject the "lump of labour" fallacy - matters on which most academic theorists are agreed. An insight indeed comes from comparing two very recent books on Hayek. The first by Alan Ebenstein is simply called Friedrich Hayek, a Biography, (Palgrave 2001). The second is Bruce Caldwell's Hayek's Challenge, (University of Chicago Press, 2003.) While both books are sympathetic their interpretations are very different. Ebenstein follows Milton Friedman in treating Hayek as a distinguished political philosopher whose views on economic methods were antediluvian. He accepts Friedman's view of economics as science like any other and thus implicitly endorses the Nobel Prize. Caldwell on the other hand steers as clear as he can of the political debate but shares Hayek's own scepticism about modern economics and its ability to make specific refutable predictions. (Hayek's Nobel Lecture was entitled The Pretence of Knowledge.) He asks whether there really has been steady cumulative progress as economic laws are discovered and improved empirical methods introduced. His own work on micro economics makes him extremely doubtful. And I would endorse this from the macro side. We know that an excess of purchasing power will lead to runaway inflation and that a deficiency will induce deflation and unemployment. We also know that a country cannot have an independent monetary policy if it is on a rigidly fixed exchange rate. But beyond such basics, forecasts are mainly ways of encapsulating what is already happening. The real drivers are so-called "shocks" which by definition are unpredictable. Caldwell echoes Hayek in believing that the most that economists, like other social scientists, can hope to achieve is pattern predictions. Such consensus as exists among economists - for instance that demand curves slope downwards - is based much more on the way they have been brought up to think than any decisive empirical tests. If Caldwell is right then the Nobel Prize for economics was a mistake as the subject could not expect the kind of steady incremental progress achievable in the physical sciences - or for that matter in ancillary studies such as statistical theory. But having the Prize we are now stuck with it. To abolish would simply increase the influence of the kind of anti-economics which embraces for instance rent controls, minimum wages and arms promotion "for the sake of jobs". The best way forward would be to follow the tentative gropings of the Swedish Academy of the mid-1990s and extend the Prize to the social sciences in general and really mean it. From farmelantj at juno.com Tue May 26 05:35:56 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 11:35:56 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the soci alist > calculation debate Message-ID: <20090526.073556.2832.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> The Nobel Prize in Economics is arguably not a "real" Nobel Prize since Alfred Nobel made no provision for such a prize in his will. It was instead established by the Bank of Sweden in the late 1960s as a Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. And they arguably did this for ideological reasons since conventional mainstream economics was coming under fire in the wake of the upheavals of the 1960s. Anyway,concerning the Nobel Prize in economics. There is the strange case of Joan Robinson, and why she didn't get the Nobel Prize in economics. She was widely expected to get the Prize in 1975. Indeed, Business Week published a profile on her, precisely because they, along with just about everybody else was expecting her to win the Prize, but the Nobel committee, instead, at the last moment, awarded it to Leonid Kantorovich, and the American, Tjalling C. Koopmans, for their work in creating linear programming. Apparently, Robinson despite her contributions in such areas as the analysis of imperfect competition and capital theory (work which was of at least the same caliber as that of other economists who did win the Prize) was denied it because of her outspoken leftist, even Maoist, politics, and many say, because she was after all a woman. No woman has ever won the Prize in economics. It was also said that the Nobel Committee was fearful that she might "pull a Sartre" and turn down the prize, possibly following that up with a denunciation of the economics profession in general. In fact it is reported that she went out of her way to reassure the Committee that she had no intentions of doing any such thing, but they never awarded her the Prize anyway. And of course a man like Paul Sweezy, who was the dean of American Marxist economics was never in the running for such a prize, even though he had made contributions to technical economics (such as his "kinked edge" demand curve under conditions of oligopoly) which would have normally merited the Prize if that work had been done by someone else. Jim F. ---------- Original Message ---------- From: CeJ To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist > calculation debate Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 19:20:25 +0900 Also, it might interesting to note here that Koopmans won the prize the same year (1975), and the work of Koopmans and Kantorovich really follows from the first winner of the prize, Tinbergen. And Frisch btw won it at the same time as Tinbergen. Although Kantorovich may be the only 'Soviet' here, he is not at all anathema to the likes of Koopmans, Tinbergen, or Myrdal, the guy who won it the same year as von Hayek (1974). Austrian economics is often heterodox to other forms of economics emanating from both sides of the political spectrum. That is because counter 20th century trends, it eschews quantification (stats, maths), induction and experimental induction. So you can put the Austrians in counterpoint with just about any mainstream economist of distinction. Conservatives, I think, tended to 'cherry-pick' ideas from the Austrians to serve their ideological purposes. BTW, the prize in economics is a very strange prize, with a very complex and changing title. See this take: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text172_p.html ____________________________________________________________ Protect your investment. Click here to find the homeowner insurance policy that you need. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTIoQHDtrclOMCC5BNhFhOABiGUTdiZTlCUoOcOaBPlrosPpTYsLqo/ From jannuzi at gmail.com Tue May 26 20:02:10 2009 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 11:02:10 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate Message-ID: > The Nobel Prize in Economics is arguably > not a "real" Nobel Prize since Alfred Nobel > made no provision for such a prize in his > will. ?It was instead established by the > Bank of Sweden in the late 1960s as a Prize > in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Yeah most people don't recall that it was first awarded in 1969! > And they arguably did this for ideological > reasons since conventional mainstream > economics was coming under fire in the > wake of the upheavals of the 1960s. Do you think it was still yet another time when the liberal-conservative spectrum was afraid of the success of some form of socialism (while both liberals and conservatives have long cherry-picked the weirdo Austrians and other various heterodoxists and libertarians) ? OTOH, if you wanted to approach mainstream economics' failure at basic epistemology, you might start with how their theories failed to account for what really happened, for example, at the European Coal and Steel Community (I suppose at the outset people like Tinbergen thought it would be a laboratory for testing ideas about centralized planning). In terms of think tanks, public policy advocacy, ideological arguments in the political systems and in actual decisions in government, the controversies in economics in the US, UK and what is now the EU were and are often still quite different. > > Anyway,concerning the Nobel Prize in economics. > There is the strange case of Joan Robinson, > and why she didn't get the Nobel Prize in economics. > She was widely expected to get the Prize in 1975. > Indeed, Business Week published a profile on her, > precisely because they, along with just about > everybody else was expecting her to win the Prize, > but the Nobel committee, instead, at the last moment, > awarded it to Leonid Kantorovich, and the American, > Tjalling C. Koopmans, for their work in creating > linear programming. What is BW's track record in predicting anything? You might think that in a Greek sense that fate doomed her. Still, I hadn't known--or at least don't remember-- that about Robinson. > > Apparently, Robinson despite her contributions in > such areas as the analysis of imperfect competition > and capital theory (work which was of at least the > same caliber as that of other economists who did > win the Prize) was denied it because of her outspoken > leftist, even Maoist, politics, and many say, because > she was after all a woman. Given her research areas mentioned here, it looks like there might have been an issue with her preceding some of those GUYS who did get it in the 1970s, awards which to quite an extent were in recognition of work done long before the 1970s (although some would later go on to make their reputations in terms of popular ideas with arguments they developed AFTER they won the award). >No woman has ever won the > ?Prize in economics. It was also said that the Nobel > Committee was fearful that she might "pull a Sartre" > and turn down the prize, possibly following that up with a denunciation of the economics profession in general. > In fact it is reported that she went out of her way > to reassure the Committee that she had no intentions > of doing any such thing, but they never awarded her > the Prize anyway. I almost think Larry Summers was thinking economics was on the same footing as other logicized, algebraicized, otherwise quantified, statisticized and probalisticized fields when he stuck his own limb in his mouth about 'gender differences'. > > And of course a man like Paul Sweezy, who was the dean > of American Marxist economics was never in the running > for such a prize, even though he had made contributions > to technical economics (such as his "kinked edge" demand > curve under conditions of oligopoly) which would have > normally merited the Prize if that work had been > done by someone else. > Which means that 'important' work is still done in clusters, groups and networks of people linked to the various institutions of the establishment. Of course the 'establishment' is both good at ignoring good ideas or just stealing them and giving credit to someone else. From jannuzi at gmail.com Tue May 26 20:31:36 2009 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 11:31:36 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's a question. How many Cambridge Keynesians have ever won the economic prize? Robinson seems to have got herself on the WRONG side of a major argument/controversy with Samuelson and Solow. To the personal level. She even came up with new cateogrical descriptors for Samuelson (while Solow was econometrically incomprehensible). I don't know if it messed up her chances in 1975, but it might have hurt her in later years. But then again she was really at the end of her career by the 1970s, and died in 1983. Perhaps a combination of the book on China (praising the Cultural Revolution--hey, many western intellectuals lose thier heads after getting the Cook's tour of an Asian country) and her arguments with Samuelson and Solow doomed her bid. From farmelantj at juno.com Sun May 31 09:29:41 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 11:29:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Translation history of Das Kapital Message-ID: <20090531.112942.6080.3.farmelantj@juno.com> A friend of mine is working on a bibliography of books read by Mahatma Gandhi. Among the works read by Gandhi was the English translation of Das Kapital by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. It is my understanding that Moore & Aveling only translated volume I, and that volumes II and III were only first translated into English later on by Ernest Untermann for an American edition that was published by Charles H. Kerr & Co. of Chicago. Is that correct, or am I in error on that point? Thanks in advance. Jim Farmelant ____________________________________________________________ You're never too old to date. Senior Dating. Click Here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTQbQWOfkQKQvfAq3Yy8qksKyGd53R95smf8SxKk7KkBGJHUQTgJAs/ From andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com Sun May 31 14:04:48 2009 From: andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com (andie nachgeborenen) Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 13:04:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Translation history of Das Kapital Message-ID: <748277.77173.qm@web50403.mail.re2.yahoo.com> You are correct. FYI the present IP edition of Vol. II "makes extensive use" of the 1893 Kerr edition but names no translator. The MECWE identifies the translator as Charles Untermann. MECW uses the Moore and Aveling translation of vol I (approved by Engels, Aveling was his son-in-law) but notes the many "extensive textual divergences" from the German incorporated to make the book easier (ha!) for an English audience. And I thank you for this question because it call to my atttention that I seem to have overloked purchasing Vol. III in the MECW, a failing that I will rectify. --- On Sun, 5/31/09, Jim Farmelant wrote: > From: Jim Farmelant > Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Translation history of Das Kapital > To: marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu, marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > Date: Sunday, May 31, 2009, 10:29 AM > > > A friend of mine is working on a bibliography > of books read by Mahatma Gandhi. > > Among the works read by Gandhi > was the English translation of > Das Kapital by Samuel Moore > and Edward Aveling.? It is my > understanding that Moore & Aveling > only translated volume I, and that > volumes II and III were only > first translated into English later > on by Ernest Untermann > for an American edition that was published > by Charles H. Kerr & Co. of Chicago. > Is that correct, or am I in error on that point? > > Thanks in advance. > > Jim Farmelant > ____________________________________________________________ > You're never too old to date. Senior Dating. Click Here. > http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTQbQWOfkQKQvfAq3Yy8qksKyGd53R95smf8SxKk7KkBGJHUQTgJAs/ > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis >