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40966 Euro sails through -- rank: 1000

Chris Burford wrote: >But the question I want to pose here to Doug and others is what is the >significance for world economics of the succesful launch of the Euro? To be >more specific, what will be different one year after the launch of the >Euro, what five years afterwards? If it "works," a serious rival to the dollar's role as world reserve currency. Also, domestically speaking, an almost certain Americanization of European financial and corporate structures, meaning a g ...

Document Size:	5249
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue May 5 09:04:07 PDT 1998

40967 cultural politics/"real" politics -- rank: 1000

Catherine Driscoll wrote: >Are all hierachies formed by the exactly the same forces? Hmm, no, but not completely different forces either. That's the sort of thing I'm trying to figure out. >That is, in order >to imagine that some dominant hierarhcies within sexual practices were >being questioned would you have to be able to see a comparable process in >'the welfare state'. Not just the welfare state, but the process of appropriation on local, national, and international scales. T ...

Document Size:	5281
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 19:07:26 PDT 1998

40968 discretion -- rank: 1000

MScoleman wrote: >I must third this emotionmotion. It took me 20 minutes just now to delete the >PAGES of messages unread because I simply don't have time, If this keeps up I >will have to delete myself alltogether as a participant. For those of you with message fatigue, there is a digest option: lbo-talk-digest, also available from majordomo at panix.com. Doug

Document Size:	4759
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 15:40:24 PDT 1998

40969 discretion -- rank: 1000

Jamie Owen Daniel wrote: >can I second this "motion" (and emotion)? The repetition that has flooded >my account since I subscribed to lbo yesterday is ridiculous, and Mark is >right--McDonaldization has killed many a list that could/should have >stayed more focused. Yes, me three. I don't want to adopt formal posting limits, but can we adopt a Leninist theory of posting - better fewer but better? And no forwards from the LABOR-L, Cde Rodwell. Doug

Document Size:	4848
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 12:29:57 PDT 1998

40970 Replies: "Better times" cannot sustain stock prices -- rank: 1000

Patrick Bond wrote: >Right, but we're distinguishing, I hope, between a "profit-maximizing >strategy" and an accumulation process, right? The former a bank can >do in the context of control over productive processes during a >vicious round of devaluation; the latter the productive capitalists >do with or without the support of banks. I don't want to claim a >totally distinct set of fractions of capital since we all know about >interpenetration and the Hilferding &q ...

Document Size:	8755
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 10:29:41 PDT 1998

40971 cultural politics/"real" politics -- rank: 1000

Jim heartfield wrote: >What I am reacting against is the mood that sees working class >consumption as profligacy and waste, but middle class consumption as an >earnest and imaginative investigation of desire. > >Hence my attitude to the car. I'm not sure how you're class-angling the car Jim. "Middle class" people, whoever they are exactly, drive more vehicle miles than poor people. All those suburbanites in their sport utility vehicles - suburban assault vehicles, as the ...

Document Size:	5166
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 10:16:29 PDT 1998

40972 cultural politics/"real" politics -- rank: 1000

Catherine Driscoll wrote: >On Mon, 4 May 1998, Thomas Kruse wrote: > >> Is it always only a priviledge? I would be the last to distract attention >> from the all too real contstraints, which you rightly note many identity >> theorists just gloss over. > >Well I've only just joined >Hi Doug, Hi Tom, Hi Catherine. >but I'd like to know who's being thrown around as exemplifying this >failing of "identity theorists". If you don't mind back tracking a ...

Document Size:	6497
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 08:49:55 PDT 1998

40973 cultural politics/"real" politics -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >I think I was born just in time for mass production/democratization of SM. Just why is that happening now? Is it just a generally greater openness about sexual practices not approved of by the Bible, or is there something about the eroticization of power in a world where hierarchies are steepening? >Seriously, I think that the number of those who are given the privilege of >fucking-with-identity may be on the decline, with the welfare state, public >education ...

Document Size:	5314
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon May 4 07:53:53 PDT 1998

40974 cultural politics/"real" politics -- rank: 1000

Jim heartfield wrote: >But the defining characteristic of all of these relations is that they >are forged in the realm of consumption. The relationship that cannot be >so challenged in this theoretical approach is the relationship that >underpins all the others, the relationship of Capital itself. > >We can see this blind spot in the writings of Judith Butler. For Butler >identities are always unstable, never fixed: > >"If there is, as it were, always a compulsi ...

Document Size:	7453
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun May 3 15:50:46 PDT 1998

40975 "Better times" cannot sustain stock prices -- rank: 1000

Jordan Hayes wrote: >I think it's hard to imagine it reversing; can you share your >imagination a little? Gradual decline leading to disappointment and growing anxiety among pros, who sell; the public, relying only on new savings (since there's not much juice left in the allocation switch), is only a weak net buyer; market drifts in a generally lower direction; bad news - from higher interest rates to mass unrest in China - leads to a sharp selloff and a weak recovery; process resumes from ...

Document Size:	5630
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun May 3 10:34:45 PDT 1998

40976 "Better times" cannot sustain stock prices -- rank: 1000

Jordan Hayes wrote: >Interestingly, the current bull has attempted to change this, though >I'm not sure it's in a way that you'd like to see. The Official >Sources (NYT/WSJ) love to run stories about Wal-Mart cashiers who >have six digits in a retirement fund; the "ownership" aspect of this >has got to have an impact. People who have worked their whole lives >and used to look forward to the government 'taking care of them' are >now watching mutual fund quotes to ...

Document Size:	5970
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun May 3 09:46:51 PDT 1998

40977 "Better times" cannot sustain stock prices -- rank: 1000

Patrick Bond wrote: >As overaccumulation begins to set in, as structural >bottlenecks emerge, and as profit rates fall in the >productive sectors of an economy, capitalists begin to >shift their investable funds out of reinvestment in >plant, equipment and labour power, and instead seek >refuge in financial assets. Hmm, two things. First, finance is also a way through which the big bourgies force profit-maximizing strategies on fat governments and lazy managers - bond-driven f ...

Document Size:	6660
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun May 3 09:38:24 PDT 1998

40978 "Better times" cannot sustain stock prices -- rank: 1000

Dennis R Redmond wrote: >Said the cyberbroker to the fly. US stocks are way, way overvalued >relative to their historical averages. And sooner or later, financial >manias which aren't supported by a real economic boom (and for all the >fireworks of the US stock market, real investment in America has pretty >much stagnated throughout the 1990s, and growth rates have been miserable) >come to a grievous end. This isn't to say there aren't good buys in the >market -- just not in ...

Document Size:	6294
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun May 3 09:05:51 PDT 1998

40979 list ecology -- rank: 1000

I see Hyman Blumenstock slipped in here unnoticed. Folks wishing to keep up with his foodist theories of political economy are invited to do so on Post Keynesian Thought. I also see that my favorite British Morenoite in Swedish exile, Hugh Rodwell, is sounding off in his usual catechistic manner. As Carrol Cox pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Hugh is sometimes a useful foil. But I want this list to be open to people other than adherent to High Church Marxism, Trotskyist Branch, and there's not ...

Document Size:	4908
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun May 3 08:39:54 PDT 1998

40980 cultural politics/"real" politics -- rank: 1000

Jim heartfield wrote: >Consequently the revolutionising rhetoric of identity theory must stop >short at the realm of production. To call into question the >exploitative social relation that lays the basis for cultural identity >would be to call into question the whole project of identity theory. >There can be no deconstruction of exploitation. Instead the creation of >a surplus - and therefore the social relation that gives rise to it - >must be assumed as a natural given. ...

Document Size:	5178
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat May 2 12:56:15 PDT 1998