ALB
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We have now received an invitation (belatedly, it seems) to a hustings in Putney (in the constituency of Merton & Wandsworth, so for Bill) on Thursday 19 April at 7.30 in The Brewer Building, St Mary’s Church, Putney Bridge, Putney High St, SW15 1SN.Details on the website of the Putney Society here.
Krugman seems to be on the ball here, but even his opponents accept that if a bank made a loan without already having the money to lend then it would immediately have to borrow that money (a point crankier currency cranks miss)This quote from Krugman which you cite (from the New York Times of 30 March) is worth adding to the collection (I like his title too “Banking Mysticism”):
Quote:As I read various stuff on banking — comments here, but also various writings here and there — I often see the view that banks can create credit out of thin air. There are vehement denials of the proposition that banks’ lending is limited by their deposits, or that the monetary base plays any important role; banks, we’re told, hold hardly any reserves (which is true), so the Fed’s creation or destruction of reserves has no effect.This is all wrong, and if you think about how the people in your story are assumed to behave — as opposed to getting bogged down in abstract algebra — it should be obvious that it’s all wrong.First of all, any individual bank does, in fact, have to lend out the money it receives in deposits. Bank loan officers can’t just issue checks out of thin air; like employees of any financial intermediary, they must buy assets with funds they have on hand. I hope this isn’t controversial, although given what usually happens when we discuss banks, I assume that even this proposition will spur outrage.Of course we talking about “overproduction” of commodities as articles produced for sale in relation to the market for them, not of products in relation to people’s needs. As Marx pointed out (in Volume 2 of Theories of Surplus Value:
Quote:The word over-production in itself leads to error. So long as the most urgent needs of a large part of society are not satisfied, or only the most immediate needs are satisfied, there can of course be absolutely no talk of an over-production of products— in the sense that the amount of products is excessive in relation to the need for them. On the contrary, it must be said that on the basis of capitalist production, there is constant under-production in this sense. The limits to production are set by the profit of the capitalist and in no way by the needs of the producers. But over-production of products and over-production of commodities are two entirely different things.Comrade Browne, introducing the item on behalf of Lancaster Branch, argued that the present crisis, as previous ones, had been caused by overproduction and that the only way out would be the destruction of the overproduced surplus through a war as had happened with the crisis of the 1930s. He suggested that this war would be between China and the rest of the world over the resources of the Middle East.Other delegates expressed scepticism about this, arguing that a more likely way out of the crisis would be when wages had fallen enough and assets had devalued (not necessarily physically destroyed) enough to restore the rate of profit, however long this might take.
I’m still not convinced. They were obviously asked to sign up to the idea of a “participatory society” (a vague enough term that could even embrace what we mean by socialism), perhaps without realising that Michael Albert would use it to publicise his detailed blueprint for an ideal economic system — which I don’t think those I mentioned would go along with.
Another one. Today’s Times reports a speech by the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, calling for an end to the banking monopoly of the big Chinese state banks. Taking for granted that banks are essentially financial intermediaries between lenders and borrowers, the report says:
Quote:The monopoly in question refers to the dominance of China’s four largest banks — hugely profitable, state-owned entities that include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China and get away with offering feeble interest rates on deposits. Three of China’s big four number among the top ten banks in the world. Because the Government sets deposit rates and minimum lending rates, the banks are guaranteed profit margins of 3.5 per cent.This compares to a current “net interest margin” of 2.0 to 2.2 percent in UK banks.
They sent us this directly too. Here’s some on the list of those on their “Interim Consultative Committee”.
Quote:The Interim Consultative Committee helping to guide that activity and which will remain operational until there is a founding convention is: Noam Chomsky – United States David Graeber – US/England David Harvey – United States John Pilger – EnglandI can’t believe that any of these believe in the Parecon blueprint for an ideal society. It looks as if they’ve signed up to something without checking first. What do you think Stuart? Ask David Graeber?
ALB wrote:Something to please Stuart (and us?):http://gothamist.com/2012/03/28/did_you_get_a_free_ride_on_the_subw.phpMore on this:
Quote:TWU Leader Won’t Disown ‘Occupy’ for Fare-BeatingBy SARAH DORSEY | Posted: Monday, April 2, 2012 5:00 pm John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, said March 29 he was “not in any way critical” of the illegal actions of Occupy Wall Street members and dissidents in his own union who, without his knowledge, chained open gates at numerous subway stations a day earlier during the morning rush hour, giving straphangers a free ride.By April 2, however, the union leader added, “They could’ve taken more precautions to make sure [Subway Station Agents] weren’t put in harm’s way.”The protesters, who said anonymous Local 100 and Amalgamated Transit Union members calling themselves the “Rank and File Initiative” told them which stations to target and tipped off their co-workers so they didn’t interfere, said they were angry at the lack of funding for transit.‘Money into Bankers’ Pockets’“Instead of using our tax money to properly fund transit, Albany and City Hall have intentionally starved transit of public funds for over twenty years,” the activists said in a press release. “The MTA must resort to bonds (loans from Wall Street) to pay for projects and costs,” they added, calling the agency “a virtual ATM for the super-rich.”They pointed out that the MTA spends more than $2 billion a year to pay off its debt.“This means Wall Street bondholders receive a huge share of what we put into the system through the Metrocards we buy and the taxes we pay,” they concluded.Local 100 was the first New York local to officially endorse Occupy Wall Street last fall, and has held several rallies with the movement; Mr. Samuelsen spoke at Zuccotti Park when his members marched there after a November contract rally.When asked if last Wednesday’s actions made him think twice about working with Occupy Wall Street, he initially said not at all.“If these types of actions…bring attention to the injustices that have been doled out to New York State working families, then so be it,” he said.‘On the Same Page’While union officials had no prior knowledge of the protests, “we are on the same page with the Occupy movement when it comes to recognizing the facts that the banks are getting rich off of New York’s transit system,” he said, adding that “if it’s true that members of my union are participating in the protests, that’s their business; this is America. They’re not doing it as a member of Local 100.”MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz declined to comment on Mr. Samuelsen’s response, but said, “We take Wednesday’s theft-of-service activity very seriously and we are working with the NYPD on ways to prevent it from happening again. If and when an employee is implicated, we will respond appropriately.”A One-Time Stunt?The protesters, who created realistic-looking MTA-style fliers that read, “Free Entry—No Fares Collected” told a Village Voice reporter the events had been planned months in advance, and that they were unlikely to repeat the same tactic in the future, though they’d hold other actions.Ken Margolies, a labor specialist on the extension faculty at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said that although the protests took place during contract negotiations, it was unlikely the union would be punished under the Taylor Law for the actions of a few anonymous members.“They’d have to show that this was being done with the union’s knowledge and that the union could stop it and didn’t,” he said. “It would be hard to enforce. They’d have to show that this was really a ruse.”Mr. Margolies said these kinds of wildcat actions were often “unnerving” for management during negotiations.“It could be a form of pressure on the MTA to settle because to the extent that they think this might spread, they will be looking for ways to prevent it,” he said. “If you know the union is doing this, you can get them to stop. But if there’s an elusive group that you can’t identify…it’s a real wildcard for them.”A California Precedent?He pointed to a December Occupy protest that shut down the port of Oakland, California during International Longshore Workers Union contract negotiations; the union said the action, which it didn’t back, was a ‘critical element’ in getting a favorable pact settled.But conditions in Oakland were much different than they are for a public-sector union in New York right now, where a strong Governor successfully pressured two state-employee unions into accepting three years of wage freezes last year and is now pushing the MTA to follow suit. Local 100 is also bound by the Taylor Law, which limits its options by imposing hefty fines on public-sector unions and their members that strike.So that’s where the table and banner went ! Hope Kent & Sussex are not going to expropriate them permanently as we’ll need in London for Saturdays in April …..
I know that when a few years ago we did a Survey of Socialist Standard readers we were surprised to find that about 25% of them had voted Labour at the previous election (which might have been the 1997 one when the Tories were kicked out), but those would have been sympathisers and maybe even why they remained sympathisers and didn’t become members.As to members voting for other parties, I’ve heard of resigning members and recently ex-members voting for the Green Party, Scargill’s SLP or Respect (and they was a member who was expelled for voting for the SDP). But of course that goes against the Lesser Evil argument as doing this, under the present election system, risks splitting the anti-Greater Evil vote and letting them in. I don’t think Chomsky would have approved either.If it’s not an impertinent question, when you and Dave Flynn resigned the previous time, you (plural) said that one of you had voted Labour and the other had voted Respect. Which way did Dave Flynn vote? And what do you recommend I do in my part of the world where the Labour Party is a non-starter and it’s a 19th scenario between Liberals and Tories (at the last election the effective choice was between a millionaire Liberal and a billionaire Tory)? Vote Liberal to keep the Tories out?
Yes, just the music for a socialist to have played at their funeral instead of “I did it my way” ! But I doubt if Lennon was influenced by us. I think he composed it at a time (1971) when he was strongly influenced by Tariq Ali and his paper Red Dwarf (an influence also shown by Lennon’s support for the IRA). Ali was then a Trotskyist in the “International Marxist Group”. He definitely knew us and that we wanted a society with no religion, no countries, no possessions and no money. I’ve got a letter from him dated 1968 in which he says that he doesn’t think he could give “a vary illuminating talk on abolition of money to SPGB comrades” and asking if we had a pamphlet on the subject.
I’ve now finished reading that book on “Anarchist Economics” and am pleased to report that there are 2 chapters, by writers describing themselves as “libertarian communists” (Deric Shannon and Scott Nappalos), making the same criticism as us of both “market anarchism” (derived from Proudhon and propagated today by modern “mutualists” such as Kevin Carson) and of Michael Albert’s “parecon” — one of them even refers to our pamphlet Socialism As A Practical Alternative. Both writers advocate instead “from each according to ability, to each according to need”Nappalos criticises Albert’s blueprint for proposing a modified wages system (by linking people’s consumption to the amount of work effort they put in). He also makes the same critcism as us of having your fellow workers judge how hard you work:
Quote:Having coworkers judge each other’s work would turn the gossip and infighting at work presently from an annoyance into a system of power over wages.Yes, it would be worse than now when this is judged by management !
Something to please Stuart (and us?):http://gothamist.com/2012/03/28/did_you_get_a_free_ride_on_the_subw.php
