Identity Politics in Pictures.

Have a good, detailed look at that picture. It represents capitalist society as a pyramid. Think critically about what you see. Take your time.

Workers’ Mail: “We Are Not Going Away”.

It ain’t over until it’s over, for Australian workers and for kids fighting for climate change action. Yep, we got knocked down. But we get up again. As that old Chumbawamba song says: They’re never gonna keep us down.

First, Sally McManus’ message to us, workers and trade union members:

Unfrequently Asked Questions: What’s the Lumpenproletariat?

Reading Marx and Engels one sometimes find the terms “Lumpenproletariat” and “Aristocracy of Labour”. In some ways the mirror image of each other, those concepts seem to be much more prominent in the writings of later Marxists than in those of Marx and Engels.

But what are they? We’ll leave Aristocracy of Labour for another opportunity. So, what is the Lumpenproletariat?

Evans: the Unwelcome Revival of “Race Science”.

This post is about an oldie but goodie, of which I only learned last week.

“The Unwelcome Revival of ‘Race Science’”, by Gavin Evans appeared last March. Unfortunately, he published it in The Guardian. To recognise his article forces me to acknowledge something positive in that filthy rag, traditionally considered “the foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners”.

I’m no expert in evolutionary biology or psychology, but I think those in similar position would benefit from reading Evans’ piece. It deals with the biggest names associated to “race science” and their arguments. The article seems well researched and thoughtful.

It’s because I think highly of that article that I must point to its weaknesses, which subtract from its virtues. Charitably, one can say Evans was dealing only with “race science” and that’s why similar attitudes, which many in the centre-right and centre-left (of the anti-Marxist variety) entertain go unmentioned: they aren’t founded on “race science”.

That omission, however, leaves readers with the erroneous impression that bigotry is a preserve of the alt-right.

Bits and Pieces: You're Grounded!

Qui-Gon Jinn: Don't center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.

A thing about these old debates is that they absorb your attention. The past, it seems, may be as addictive as the future. One, however, must try to stay grounded in the present moment, as Qui-Gon said.

Lorenz Curve: Hunting Wolves.

“Seek, and ye shall find.” Matthew 7:7, KJV.

Surfing the net is a peculiar pastime. Often you find absolute crap (just take my word for it). But every now and again, out of sheer serendipity, you do find genuine gems. Maybe it’s something educative or interesting; it may just make you smile.

I learned of Max Otto Lorenz (1876-1959) by chance. I don’t expect his name should ring a bell with most readers (Marxist readers least of all, but no-frills lefties aren’t exempt). That’s for several reasons; one of them is that (and I mean no disrespect to Lorenz) what little I found about him suggests he was a rather obscure American economist.

Stephen Hawkings on Robots: It's the Distribution, Stupid.

I’ve seldom experienced déjà vu as strongly as I did reading Alexander C. Kaufman’s recent note on Stephen Hawkings’ brief Reddit AMA (h/t David Ruccio).

A member of the public asked:

1. "Have you thought about the possibility of technological unemployment, where we develop automated processes that ultimately cause large unemployment by performing jobs faster and/or cheaper than people can perform them?
2. "In particular, do you foresee a world where people work less because so much work is automated?
3. "Do you think people will always either find work or manufacture more work to be done?"

See “technological unemployment” there?

Whither Inequality?

Inequality (size and functional: labour shares) has been a matter of increasing interest for a while. The work of Thomas Piketty and associates, popularised in the aftermath of the Occupy Wall Street global movement, only added impetus to that trend.

Incidentally, living in a capitalist world, one would have thought that concern not only reasonable, but obviously so. After all, the question of who gets what seems clearly vital.

Unequal Representations.

I'm not a professional statistician. In a previous life, as an undergraduate, I did study some statistics but that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Since then, I've kept well clear from statistics. Readers should keep that in mind.

Whatever my limitations and foibles, however, I'm a curious bloke and the data set below (scroll to the very bottom) caught my attention when I found it. Have a look at it.

Bits and Pieces: Slums, Red Rosa, and Ruccio.

Writing for Jacobin, Colette Shade comments on the BBC series "Victorian Slum House", presented by Michael Mosley, broadcast in Australia by SBS as "Queen Victoria's Slum".

She seemed fairly positive about the show, so I reluctantly decided to give it a go: I'm not much of a TV watcher.

Is Inequality Entering Australian Politics?

These, Scott Morrison, are the facts (source)

"Nothing was given from above by the elites and the powerful. It was only ever gained from below." Jeremy Corbyn.

According to Leigh Sales, ABC News TV 7.30 presenter, inequality is finally bound to enter Australian political discourse. Next year is federal election time and the Australian Labor Party,  following in the footsteps of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, could be positioning itself to focus their campaign on inequality.

As an Australian Marxist worker, I should be elated. Wages are set in stone, profits are over the roof, inequality rising: we hear that even from the most unlikely experts.

However, I'm skeptic. I'll tell you why.

Australian Wages: Theory and Reality.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. The picture below -- courtesy of the ABC News' Andrew Probyn/Reserve Bank of Australia -- shows how wage growth forecasts made by the RBA (skinny colourful lines) compare to actual wage growth (fat black line):

(source)

The Missing Second Comment.

I was puzzled (was, no longer am) why one of my comments recently submitted and re submitted to Blogger for inclusion in the comments thread of a blog post invariably failed to appear: Error 200 or something was Blogger's constant and not too helpful reply. It was supposed to follow this and precede this.

I checked html tags, length in characters, links, the works. Nothing: Error 200, whatever that means.

Oh well. Shit happens, I suppose.

So, just for the record and for posterity, here is the second and missing part of my comment:

The Poverty of the Liberal "Left".

I started writing this as a comment to an Australian friend's post. I decided to publish it here, too, so as to share it with other readers. It's slightly edited.

Since the Trump victory I've been trying to hear all the sides of the controversy. I claim no expertise on the issues involved. I'm just a foreigner curious about all the hullabaloo. It took me some effort, because I've never had much interest in American politics. I don't have too much time to research that, either. However, in spite of limitations, this is an exercise we all should try.

A few things I've found seem to me symptomatic of the political, intellectual, and moral bankruptcy of the American "left" and its identity politics.

Bits and Pieces (ix)

(source)

Julia Baird (above) writes that educated, qualified and experienced professional women lacking self-confidence should follow the example of much more confident, but less educated, less qualified and less experienced white male colleagues:

"Capitalism is the Legitimate Racket of the Ruling Class".

"Scarface" Al Capone [A]

Somehow I missed an equally titled post at David Ruccio's "Occasional Links & Commentary".

Prof. Ruccio makes a good case linking the increase in inequality with capitalism.

But what really impressed me is the origin of that line in the title.

It was uttered by Al Capone.

Question & Answer.

A few days ago Nigel O. left the following comment:

"Okay, you say Post-Keynesians don't have a theory of price.

Why should anyone care about a theory of prices? Or a theory of value, for that matter?"

Union Power and Inequality: Australia.

Florence Jaumotte and Carolina Osorio Buitron (both from the Research Department, IMF) consider the influence of declining union density (union membership) on income inequality in the 20 top economies (here).

For Jaumotte and Osorio Buitron (J/OB, in what follows), research on the increase in economic inequality has traditionally neglected the relationship between labour market institutions and inequality.

In contrast, in a recent research paper, the authors find that:

"The most novel aspect of our paper is the discovery of a strong negative relationship between unionisation and top earners’ income shares (Figure 2). Although causality is always difficult to establish, the influence of union density on top income shares appears to be largely causal, as evidenced by our instrumental variable estimates."

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From their Vox summary:

(right-click for a larger version in a separate tab)

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What is the causal relationship between a declining union membership and an increasing incomes share for the top 10%?

For one, J/OB find that "the decline in union density has been strongly associated with less income redistribution, likely through unions’ reduced influence on public policy."

But there's another link, one for which J/OB lack a specific technical term, but which Marxists call exploitation:

"Our finding of a strong negative relationship between union density and top earners’ income share challenges preconceptions about the channels through which union density affects the distribution of incomes. Indeed, the widely held view is that changes in labour market institutions affect low- and middle-wage workers but are unlikely to have a direct impact on top income earners. Our finding highlights the interconnectedness between what happens to the middle class and top income shares. If de-unionisation weakens earnings of middle- and low-income workers, the income share of corporate managers and shareholders necessarily increases.

"There are several channels through which weaker unions could lead to higher top income shares. In the workplace, the weakening of unions reduces the bargaining power of average wage earners relative to capital owners and top executives. Channels include the positive effect of weaker unions on the share of capital income – which tends to be more concentrated than labour income – and the fact that lower union density may reduce workers’ influence on corporate decisions, including those related to top executive compensation".

In other words, weaker unions are less able to reclaim a higher proportion of the surplus workers produced, which high executives and capitalists expropriate, exactly as Marx (and others) explained.

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This research comes barely a month after the 7-Eleven Australia wages scam was exposed (here) and at a time when Australians are witnessing an unprecedented effort to lower wages and destroy unions, and union organisers are bullied and persecuted by the Australian police for the crime of bargaining wages for union affiliates: see here.

Does Mitchell Accept the Labour Theory of Value?

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18. KJV)

MMTers will need little background on Prof. Bill Mitchell.

For those outside Post-Keynesian economics: Mitchell is professor of economics at the University of Newcastle, director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity -- CofFEE -- and a notable proponent of Modern Monetary Theory.

In a recent post ("The Existential Crisis of Labour-Type Political Parties", May 12, 2015), he writes (the long quote is fully justified):

"What this story tells us is that traditional notions of class conflict between Labour and Capital within the Capitalism production system are alive and well.
"Workers still want more for less and bosses want more for less. No matter how many people become self-employed as an act of desperation in economies starving for adequate spending, the principle remains the same – there has to be a surplus created and expropriated by the owners of capital.
"Capitalism hasn’t gone away no matter how it has morphed into some international global morass with financial capital now dominating over industrial capital.
"The fact remains that the dynamics of capital still drive the show. Every day, there is something happening that tells us how the struggle is ongoing.
"The desire for individual freedom to do what we want does not undermine the centrality of the state being our vehicle to discipline capital and prepare for some sort of post-capitalism evolution.
"Please read my blogs – We need to read Karl Marx and When the left became lost – Part 1 – for more discussion on this point.
"The idea that the ‘left’ and ‘right’ dichotomy, or working class versus capital etc are obsolete is rejected by the evidence.
"It is an idea that is propagated by those with a vested interest in developing the ‘free market’ myth where we are all, essentially, free traders and own-producers at heart who agree (aided by market forces) to specialise into labour suppliers or capital providers.
"The myth continues that we are all free traders – everything is voluntary and all exchanges are mediated by market prices which deliver equalised use values to each exchanger to be enjoyed upon completion of the same.
"The reality is different. Workers do not sell labour – they rather sell labour power (the capacity to work). That immediately invokes a managerial imperative.
"Why? Answer: because the use-value of the labour power is enjoyed (extracted) within the actual exchange (that is, while the workers are still at work). The use-value – the source of profit – is uncertain and a control function is indicated.
"Bosses have to control the realisation of that use value as production in an environment where the majority of workers would rather not be there. That is a very different dynamic environment to one where we go into a shop and buy a trinket to be enjoyed later.
"There are clearly complex layers over the basic capital-worker distinction and certainly these layers are exploited by the power elites to obscure them further (for example, gender, sexuality, race etc) but when push-comes-to-shove the struggle over the distribution of income arising from production is still highly significant."

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Could you imagine the horrified look in the face of the Lord Keyneses of the world (both, the real one, and his amateurish "reincarnation") reading that? "We need to read Karl Marx"? Wasn't him, according to the real Lord Keynes, the author of an "an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world"?

To add insult to injury, Mitchell's Wikipedia entry states:

"Mitchell was born to working class parents in Glen Huntly, Australia, in March 1952. The family moved to Ashwood, a new Housing Commission suburb in Melbourne, soon after."

Life has a way of humiliating the vacuously ignorant, to prove him wrong, whether he be dead or alive.

RELATED READING:
"Does Wray Accept the Labour Theory of Value?" July 17, 2014.

Climate Change at Davos.

The 1% rides to the planet's rescue … on 1,700 private jets! (yes, that's not a typo: SEVENTEEN HUNDRED!)

source

Whoever said the "bourgeois and the intelligentsia" don't "carry the seeds of all human advancement"?