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1186 Volume and value -- rank: 1000

5/31/98 -0400, Andrew Kliman quoted Doug: > Real communication, and >real thought, take time; what can be done in an instant is only to pay >homage to received ideas. At the risk of paying homage to received ideas, I want to say I am pleased to see Andrew's name on this list, even to comment on the limitations of the form. At the very least the success of the list has demonstrated that there are a considerable number of serious if not over earnest people who were not being catered for b ...

Document Size:	6150
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun May 31 10:25:06 PDT 1998

1187 UNCTAD -- rank: 1000

At 11:47 AM 5/24/98 +0000, Patrick wrote: >I'll unite with Hank on this. I attended the 1996 Unctad meetings in >the Johannesburg suburb of Midrand, which was presided over by our >Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, a leading member of the >SA Communist Party and former lead Congress of SA Trade Unions >strategist. Alec couldn't get anything vaguely progressive together, >and the delegates there fell over themselves saying they'd promoted >neo-liberalism in their ne ...

Document Size:	17215
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon May 25 07:06:42 PDT 1998

1188 rich get richer -- rank: 1000

(BTW I admire how Doug is using short items with new thread titles to move the collective debate on. This approach really seems to be coming into its own, and I suspect may be an answer to the problem of lists not only making a good start but being sustainable. Anyway this item caught my eye and made a serendipitous connection.) Coincidentally this Saturday the Guardian (daily UK paper) has an apparently flippant but perhaps not so flippant article on this theme. It did not support the theory t ...

Document Size:	7659
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon May 25 00:28:56 PDT 1998

1189 Jessie Helms and Tobin Tax -- rank: 1000

At 04:20 PM 5/23/98 -0500, Carrol wrote: >> Why aren't we fighting for it? > >Chris, in your very first post on this subject you announced in advance >that the only possible grounds for disagreeing with you on the subject was >some form of extreme sectarian purity. This was especially galling to me >as I had not the slightest idea what you were talking about, and when I >confessed as much on list, you responded with an explanatory post that was >unintelligible unless t ...

Document Size:	9114
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat May 23 23:47:15 PDT 1998

1190 Statements on Suharto Resignation -- rank: 1000

At 10:57 AM 5/23/98 -0400, Doug wrote: The opposition movement, such as >it is, has no leadership and no program. They seem to have fractured for >now, now that Suharto is out of office, though not necessarily out of power. I wonder if that is really so. My impression is that a lot of very effective networking is going on, across the islands, between religious groups, and classes, and into the army. Now perhaps that can take place without one single democratic centralist marxist organisati ...

Document Size:	5113
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat May 23 13:16:38 PDT 1998

1191 Jessie Helms and Tobin Tax -- rank: 1000

At 10:02 AM 5/23/98 +0000, Hank Sims wrote: A useful update certainly as far as I was concerned, on how progressive opinion has been forced to shift around within the UN. What I wonder are the more positive foci of thinking in international bodies? But thanks especially for ... > By the way, UNCTAD had promoted the Tobin tax, until Jesse Helms >and his colleagues passed a budget rider that prohibited payment to >any international organization studying any sort of international >t ...

Document Size:	5046
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat May 23 14:06:10 PDT 1998

1192 The Tax that Dare Not Speak... -- rank: 1000

At 03:55 PM 5/22/98 +0000, Patrick Bond wrote: >Really, Chris. > >The temerity is partly, and for good reason, over whether we really >want to do advocacy in support of the embryonic global State, namely >the UN which is meant to be the beneficiary of the Tobin Tax. > >So, make the case why the Left should support the UN, given its >ongoing role as good cop for neo-liberalism. > >> From: Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> >> Subject: ...

Document Size:	7620
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri May 22 15:20:08 PDT 1998

1193 The Tax that Dare Not Speak... -- rank: 1000

At 07:17 PM 5/21/98 -0500, Carrol wrote: >Did I miss a post? Has someone mentioned what the "Tobin Tax" is? I have >never heard of it and the discussion I've read so far gives no clue. Some time ago I picked up a one-off copy of the 1996 UNCTAD Review which had two articles reviewing these proposals. UNCTAD has been a focus within the rambling UN structures for those with third world perspectives, which of course tend not to get very far. It is the sort of body liable to cuts whe ...

Document Size:	5442
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu May 21 23:41:23 PDT 1998

1194 The Tax that Dare Not Speak... -- rank: 1000

The Tobin Tax would be, and will be, a revolutionary global reform. The timidity about discussing it by marxists, is indicative of the prevailing levels of sectarianism towards reforms. Chris Burford London. At 10:38 AM 5/20/98 +0000, Hank Sims wrote: > > Its Name. > > Folks: > > What about the Tobin Tax? > Is it, as it seems, a simple, ingenious solution to the ravages >of currency speculation, bubble economies, non-productive investment, >etc.? Or at ...

Document Size:	6363
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu May 21 16:19:00 PDT 1998

1195 On the status of the pen-l list -- rank: 1000

At 10:26 AM 5/18/98 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: >[I am cross posting this message to pen-l, lbo-talk and marxism because >pen-l has been incommunicado for a while. Please post any responses to >pen-l and do not clutter the other lists with this thread] <etc> Well I am going to clutter at least one of the other lists by saying please continue pen-l. As someone who has never subscribed to it because I thought I did not have sufficient specialist economic knowledge, I am still aw ...

Document Size:	5593
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon May 18 15:13:07 PDT 1998

1196 Eurobond market -- rank: 1000

A clipping I kept from the International Herald Tribune of 24.3.98: "A fear has been that heavy obligations in one or more countries could weaken the overall value of the euro. The Italian debt alone is 28% of the total debt of all 11 candidate countries. Each country is responsible for its own obligations, but participants in the single currency will switch most of their public debt to euros Jan 1, instantly creating a bond market to rival that of the United States." So although there ...

Document Size:	5630
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon May 18 12:08:15 PDT 1998

1197 "Civil Society" -- rank: 1000

In Britain where we also almost have a government pretending to be a government of national unity, we seem to be going in a similar direction. Active embracing of global neo-liberalism. Decentralization of social control into many competing agencies which at best are supposed to come together in a pluralist civil society. The theoreticians of New Labour know their stuff. But despite the positive emphasis given to the concept of civil society in the Gramscian tradition, it is worth remembering th ...

Document Size:	5450
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed May 13 00:01:15 PDT 1998

1198 Euro sails through -- rank: 1000

Ysterday the dog did not bark. The currency markets in London were not in turmoil despite the blatant fudge about the presidency of the new Central European Bank between the candidates favoured by Germany and France. The speculation was that either the pound would rise to an even more unacceptable level because of the blow to the credibility of the Euro, or it would fall. The prebriefings that must have taken place were well-informed, no doubt as the result of deliberate policy by the New Labour ...

Document Size:	6019
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon May 4 23:30:07 PDT 1998

1199 Manifesto's publication date -- rank: 1000

At 10:06 PM 5/2/98 +0100, Lew wrote: >In article <3.0.32.19980502153421.00702e50 at mail.miningco.com>, Jacob >Levich <jake at miningco.com> writes >>Does anyone know the precise publication date of the original (English) >>edition of the Communist Manifesto? The best I can do is narrow it down to >>February, 1848. >> >>Jake > >The original edition of the Manifesto was published in German in London. >Its cover page just has the date Februa ...

Document Size:	6287
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun May 3 09:59:41 PDT 1998

1200 Value -- rank: 1000

I would like to come back on the concept of value being wider than exchange value, which Andrew Kliman has argued. This appears to me to be important but from Andrew's post of 2nd June, there is an issue about whether Marx should be interpreted as regarding that wider concept of value as limited to capitalist or existing in all human societies. I have looked at the reference Andrew gave to Capital Volume 1, the last pages of the last section of Chapter 1 ("The fetishism of the commodity and ...

Document Size:	10907
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Jun 23 23:10:28 PDT 1998