Re: new thread: PKT and ecology

["schulte-baeuminghaus" <cresscourt@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stephen,

That's a very good piece.
May I just add one point.

>Only good theory contradicts that and in so doing in
> strengthens arguments for full employment,...

It's not only good theory that contradicts, it's good history.
Just look back to the period between 1945 and 1969.
Think of all the things we did then.
Full employment means employing everyone to the full extent of which
they're capable.
You get full employment when you have high rates of real investment -
encouraged by low rates of interest.
When you have high rates of real investment, you get rapidly improving
productivity.
Put all these things together and you get just about the optimum
output - of services, of course, as well as goods - to meet the
economy's and the society's purposes.
Just look back at what that quarter century after the war achieved -
in material living levels, in education, in health services, even in
protection of the environment. We ruined everything by cramping the
economy with high interest rates from 1969 onwards and by adopting
generally policies restricting investment, productivity and production
and we still haven't fully appreciated just how we went wrong and the
extent to which it damaged the hopes of all of us - the developing as
well as the developed communities all around the world.
We have of course pursued Cold War policies long after the Cold War
was supposed to have ended. The arms trade - conventional as well as
nuclear and other more "advanced" systems - is an obscenity as great
as - perhaps even greater than - the neglect of the environment and
the abominable drugs trade. It is keeping huge corporations going,
especially in the United States, but elsewhere as well, in a way that
is even more obscene than the privatising of prisons and their
management and the locking away of the - mostly racially
underprivileged - underclass.
If we can afford this massive expenditure on so-called "defence" even
during periods of large and chronic unemployment and underemployment,
surely if we can get back to something like the 1945-69 period - with
adjustments to take account of developments since, of course - then
we'll be able to do a huge amount for the environment - and other
things - and still all be better off even in terms of washing-machines
and laptops.
I don't need to remind you that, even in the 1945-69 period we already
had a big and bustling Cold War and even a Korean and Vietnam War and
still were able to do all those other things.
Realisation of the truth of the above will come to the great mass of
the policymakers as well as the great mass of the people only when the
imperatives are irresistible.
That's sad.
Perhaps - and I don't relish it - the catastrophe of compulsion might
be on our threshold right now.


James Cumes


----------
>From: Stephen Block <stephenb@xxxxxxxx>
>To: "'pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: new thread: PKT and ecology
>Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2001, 7:48 pm
>

>
>
>  Timothy,
>
> I share your sentiments, and believe they should be expressed baldly. But I
> assumed that it was Keynesians who normally are the ones to draw attention
> to underemployment, not anyone else. But even if that is not true, I think
> you're wrong in drawing this dichotomy between ecology and progressive
> economics. I teach a course on the social environment, but come up short
> when I want to go into some detail in the area of sound economic-ecological
> policy. This is not about tree-hugging, and it's not as if one has abandoned
> humans in favour of trees.  Part of my concern, in fact, is that some
> environmentalists may be convinced that jobs ought to be and need to be
> sacrificed to aid the environment. Although in general, I find ecology
> students pretty savvy and on the whole very progressive. They tend to see
> through corporate tactics more clearly than most (including the ruse to
> divide an rule on issues of jobs vs. the economy). But the point is, if
> there is a threat to the environment, and if at the same time we wish to
> maintain full levels of employment, not phoney and fictitious fictions of
> full employment, how do we square PK theory with it? That is why I asked the
> question. Technical answers are potentially quite important here!! It is
> neither impossible nor improbable, nor does one concern necessarily
> undermine the other. Well, it shouldn't at all.
>
> We also do not want the population in general to develop any more of a
> reactionary view of the social environment (than they already have) in
> attempting to defend the physical environment. Industry has become very good
> at strategically inserting that wedge into the discussion. I don't think we
> should fall for the ruse by criticizing people who are environmentally
> concerned, any more that we, say, should allow people, such as yourself, who
> are concerned with social justice issues in relation to the justice system,
> the unnecessary war on drugs, etc, to be condemned as a bleating (sic) heart
> liberals. I also don't think it is necessary to abandon abstract economic
> theory in favour of something "more relevant" or "concrete", because
> Keynesianism, unfortunately, requires vigilance on many fronts at the same
> time. One is in the area of competing in economic policy theory and another
> is in the area of maintaining academic credibility, as losing as those
> causes may seem today. The bigger the tent the better. It is unfortunate
> that you see some PKers as selling out or abandoning the cause.
>
> I think the climate today in the US is very much about proclaiming full
> employment where, as you say,  none exists. It becomes an embarrassment,
> which we should all be willing to endure, to contradict such claims. But it
> ain't that easy because publicized tales of unemployment in the US have gone
> the way of the Dodo, even while real wage levels have not risen in a couple
> of decades.
>
> So I think you are right to decry PKers if/when they fail to argue that the
> claims of full employment are a bit of a ruse, but it does not follow that
> we then chase any other discussions away if they do not _evidently_ bear on
> full employment questions. Your example of the war on drugs is a case in
> point. We can say, "what does this have to do with full employment? It's a
> question of law and order and not corrupting our youth." Or we can also draw
> attention to the fact, if we're looking for a Keynesian thread, that many of
> the same people attacking the "welfare" state, attack "welfare" mothers on
> crack, and "welfare" fathers who sell crack, etc. And while big tobacco is
> content to see soft drugs remain underground, they likely prepare for the
> day it is not. Etc., etc.
>
> As we also "know", the US has no class issues left, eh? They have all been
> resolved. So, all questions must be ones of race? And it becomes very easy
> to start mixing up race and class issues. But the obvious point is that both
> are important, just as full employment and the environment are both
> important, even if we might wish to give one more weight than the other, in
> general. On this one day, I gave the nod to the environment. But not a day
> passes that I would wish to overlook the fact of underemployment, and its
> effects.
>
> I commend you on your involvement. But I see that same sense of
> responsibility in my environmental students, many of whom seek more
> understanding of progressive economics and are, by bent, suspicious and
> dismissive of orthodoxy in matters of economy, even while they are
> relatively unschooled in the area. They have pretty good sniffers, and
> deserve some respect as well. That's why I try to find a way of linking
> Keynesianism and ecology, because, from the outside, it is very easy to
> assume that full employment requires growth and growth is bad news for the
> environment. Only good theory contradicts that and in so doing in
> strengthens arguments for full employment, if we eliminate the wedge issues
> conservatives wish to insert, rather than undermining them.
>
> Stephen Block
> Vanier College
> Montreal
> 514 744 7135
> Efax: 954 212 5736
>
>
>
>
>>
>> it would be nice to see PKT adopt a more expansive view of ecology.  the
>> environment should include more than the physical environment, also the
>> social environment.  doesn't Keynesian economics have anything at all to
> say
>> about the fact that 2 million Americans are now behind bars, many because
> of
>> a lack of decent job opportunities and the utter fiction of a 4 percent
>> unemployment rate.  instead there are PKTers who have accepted the fiction
>> that the US has been at full employment for the past few years.  that's a
>> stretch -- only when compared to the basket cases of the world, like Japan.
>>
>> it's a vicious cycle:  the economy underperforms and social programs (job
>> training, education, public sector job programs) are underfunded.  the Drug
>> War is applied in a racially disparate manner, locking up
> disproportionately
>> large numbers of African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans.  many of
>> those "felons" then lose the right to vote under state felony
>> disenfranchisement laws.  as a result, Democrats lose close elections and
>> anti-Keynesian policies are adopted by Republicans and "new Democrats."
>>
>> before PKTers go overboard waxing eloquent on ecology, maybe we should have
>> something to say about the fictitous full employment economy, the booming
>> prison population, yes even the Drug War and of course felony
>> disenfranchisement.  the political and social environment has been
> neglected
>> for too long by PKTers.  hug some victims of this bubble economy and the
>> Drug War before hugging trees.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Timothy A. Canova
>> Assistant Professor of Law
>> University of New Mexico School of Law
>> 1117 Stanford Drive N.E.
>> Albuquerque, New Mexico  87131
>>
>> Tel:  (505) 277-5654
>> Fax:  (505) 277-0068
>> e-mail:  canova@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>
>