Tag Archives: economics

Division of Labour: September 2011 Archives

21 Sep

The new Economic Freedom of the World report, coauthored with Josh Hall and Jim Gwartney, is released today. The big news is the continuing decline of the United States. Since 2000, the overall rating (out of 10) has fallen from 8.45 to 7.58 in 2009. This decline is among the largest in the world during the period putting us in the company of countries like Venezuela and Argentina. The overall decline is accounted for by changes in three areas: Spending, Property Rights, and Regulations.

via Division of Labour: September 2011 Archives.

H/t Tyler Cowan.

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The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive

7 Sep

Follow the link to download a free copy of the book. We have.

Conservatives rely on the government all the time, most importantly in structuring the market in ways that ensure that income flows upwards. The framing that conservatives like the market while liberals like the government puts liberals in the position of seeming to want to tax the winners to help the losers.

This “loser liberalism” is bad policy and horrible politics. Progressives would be better off fighting battles over the structure of markets so that they don’t redistribute income upward. This book describes some of the key areas where progressives can focus their efforts in restructuring market so that more income flows to the bulk of the working population rather than just a small elite.

via The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive.

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Who Runs the World ? – Network Analysis Reveals ‘Super Entity’ of Global Corporate Control | Planetsave

4 Sep

In the first such analysis ever conducted, Swiss economic researchers have conducted a global network analysis of the most powerful transnational corporations (TNCs). Their results have revealed a core of 787 firms with control of 80% of this network, and a “super entity” comprised of 147 corporations that have a controlling interest in 40% of the network’s TNCs.

via Who Runs the World ? – Network Analysis Reveals ‘Super Entity’ of Global Corporate Control | Planetsave.

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Worker Cooperatives Reduce “Hard-Core” Unemployment | Truthout

1 Sep

The income-generation initiatives that mushroomed in Argentina in response to the severe 2002-2003 crisis have come together in the National Confederation of Worker Cooperatives (CNCT).

Among the various models that sprang up, in addition to the state-promoted cooperatives, are worker-run factories that were salvaged by the employees after the owners declared bankruptcy – and, in many instances, actually fled.

José Sancha, the head of CNCT, told IPS that the cooperative federation is working with the ministry of social development to offer training courses for workers new to the cooperative movement who are entering the Argentina Works programme.

via Worker Cooperatives Reduce “Hard-Core” Unemployment | Truthout.

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What is Debt? – An Interview with Economic Anthropologist David Graeber « naked capitalism

31 Aug

Tell this to the Republicrats:

In fact, the first recorded word for ‘freedom’ in any human language is the Sumerian amargi, a word for debt-freedom, and by extension freedom more generally, which literally means ‘return to mother,’ since when they declared a clean slate, all the debt peons would get to go home.

Is ‘wage slavery’ a mere metaphor? Perhaps not. Read the following paragraphs (I bolded the last one, the ‘money graph, as it were):

What’s been happening since Nixon went off the gold standard in 1971 has just been another turn of the wheel – though of course it never happens the same way twice. However, in one sense, I think we’ve been going about things backwards. In the past, periods dominated by virtual credit money have also been periods where there have been social protections for debtors. Once you recognize that money is just a social construct, a credit, an IOU, then first of all what is to stop people from generating it endlessly? And how do you prevent the poor from falling into debt traps and becoming effectively enslaved to the rich? That’s why you had Mesopotamian clean slates, Biblical Jubilees, Medieval laws against usury in both Christianity and Islam and so on and so forth.

Since antiquity the worst-case scenario that everyone felt would lead to total social breakdown was a major debt crisis; ordinary people would become so indebted to the top one or two percent of the population that they would start selling family members into slavery, or eventually, even themselves.

Well, what happened this time around? Instead of creating some sort of overarching institution to protect debtors, they create these grandiose, world-scale institutions like the IMF or S&P to protect creditors. They essentially declare (in defiance of all traditional economic logic) that no debtor should ever be allowed to default. Needless to say the result is catastrophic. We are experiencing something that to me, at least, looks exactly like what the ancients were most afraid of: a population of debtors skating at the edge of disaster.

And, I might add, if Aristotle were around today, I very much doubt he would think that the distinction between renting yourself or members of your family out to work and selling yourself or members of your family to work was more than a legal nicety. He’d probably conclude that most Americans were, for all intents and purposes, slaves.

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Where Pay for Chief Executives Tops the Company Tax Burden – NYTimes.com

31 Aug

“We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises,” the study concluded. “On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.”

The study comes at a time when business leaders have been lobbying for a cut in corporate taxes and Congress and the Obama administration are considering an overhaul of the tax code to reduce the federal budget deficit.

via Where Pay for Chief Executives Tops the Company Tax Burden – NYTimes.com.

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Warren Buffet: Tax the Rich

29 Aug

And Buffet should know. He’s among the richest of the rich. This is an hour-long conversation with Charlie Rose.

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Is economics a science?

27 Mar

From my buddy John Emerson:

For about five years now I’ve been asking whether economics is a science at all, and not just a weakly systematized area of policy studies and advocacy dazzling laymen with complex math. People seemed to be getting tired of my ranting and trollery and I retired from the field for awhile. But gradually the question became a hot issue in the field  (Google, DeLong 1, DeLong 2, Thoma), mostly because economic true believers had succeeded in throwing us into the worst recession since 1937.  So I’ve collected the more amusing and presentable of my rants below. . . .

There’s probably some kind of congruence between excessive formalization in economics, fraudulent claims to scientific power, ideological claims surreptitiously sneaked in, and mercenary dirty work done for the market. Once detached from the execrescent growths that seem to have taken over, much of the empirical part is probably OK.

What’s really at stake here is the surplus authority economics claimed based on its scientific status. That was fraud and mystification. Economics is not nothing — there are a lot of things there that you need to know. Think of it as a useful craft or art, or as a form of knowledgeable advocacy like law. There are times when you need the best economists you can afford, because otherwise you’ll be at the mercy of the bad guys’ economists.

Here’s a link to his post. Check it out. He’s a scrappy kind of guy with a good head on his shoulders.

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The Wholeness of Life: Beyond Three Eras of Techno-Scrambling

18 Mar

In 1976 the economist Fritz Schumacher spoke at Findhorn in Northern Scotland in an address as relevant today as it was then for everyone [1]. It shapes the foundations of Transition Party USA.

Historically he noted that we are at the end of three distinct but overlapped eras:

  • 300 years of a Descartian worldview which valued mind over matter, established mind/body dualism (mind good/body bad) and advocated humans controlling Nature;
  • 200 years of a socio-economic-political system shaped by the industrial revolution’s division of labor which led to the devaluation of the whole human being; and
  • 100 years of technocratic and money idolatry, driven by a belief in infinite resources and quick technological fixes — resulting in a ravaged eco-system. [2]

As these old eras draw to a close, bankrupt, we need to regain a traditional understanding of what is good, true, and beautiful and so inform our actions to build a new era that acknowledges the wholeness of life. It is not a single-issue crisis that we face — not just an energy crisis, not just a nuclear crisis, not just an ecological crisis or sociological or political or cultural or economic crisis — our whole “way of life” has become a death-trip: species diversity and cultural diversity are both disappearing faster and faster. Solutions must be nurtured and implemented simultaneously at many levels. Schumacher calls on the audience to first work to foster a new world view in themselves, diagnose what can be done, see if others are already engaged in that rebuilding work and support them, and then act themselves, if even in a small way.

doing a few minutes or an hour each day

communicating for Transition Party USA

circulating insights that show the Path or a Local Way

encourage each child to play, play! PLAY!!!

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Local Currency: The Totnes Pound

8 Mar

I was leafing through Rob Hopkins’ Transition Handbook (thanks! CK) and came across a discussion of the Totnes Pound, local currency established in Totnes, UK, the first town to undertake the Transition. But you don’t have to have the handbook to read about it. You can google it and finds lots of stuff on the web.

And, of course, the Transition Town Totnes has its own write-up. According to that write-up, they started the Totnes Pound in 2007:

  • To build resilience in the local economy by keeping money circulating in the community and building new relationships
  • To get people thinking and talking about how they spend their money
  • To encourage more local trade and thus reduce food and trade miles
  • To encourage tourists to use local businesses

The basic idea is simple: “Totnes Pounds enter circulation when people choose to exchange their sterling currency into Totnes pounds at one of four places around Totnes. At present the exchange rate is 1TP for £1.” People can then use the Totnes Pounds at local businesses that accept them (roughly 70).

Such local currency does well during a recession:

As the country heads into recession the benefits of local currencies can really be felt. Keeping money within the community becomes even more important at making the local economy resilient. Most local currencies around the world have been successful mainly in times of wider economic recession. Here in Totnes we are lucky to have an established local currency already in place, making us well prepared for the difficult economic times unfolding.

Check it out. Nothing like your own local currency to create a sense of local sufficiency.

EDIT: Here’s a link to local currency they’ve been using in the Berkshires (USA) for a few years. It’s called BerkShares.

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