I teach at California State University, Chico, which might make me Chico Marx. Anyway, the following URL might tell you something about my work.
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/my-intellectual-biography/
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Who Is Michael Perelman
Most of us have already introduced ourselves. I will try to do so. Actually, I will take the easy way out and point you to something I posted elsewhere.
I teach at California State University, Chico, which might make me Chico Marx. Anyway, the following URL might tell you something about my work.
I teach at California State University, Chico, which might make me Chico Marx. Anyway, the following URL might tell you something about my work.
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4 comments:
I apologize for having mistakenly identified Fresno as where michael p. is at rather than Chico.
Barkley
Nice to meet you Michael Perelman (Perilman?). I gather you don't like capitalism. ....er, I feel comfortable with that.
Since you brought up the topic of 'The Corporate Confiscation of Creativity' here's the latest example in Tasmania, Australia. Our lovely forest angel. Hah!
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/police-state-angel-sued/
How do you feel about the work of the ecological economists like Herman Daly and Robert Costanza?
They've been off in the wilderness for 40 years, but their rather obvious conclusion that one can't have continual growth in a finite system is starting to take hold.
They recognize the need for a steady-state society where consumption is at a level where resources can be replenished, but are short on specifics of how to get there from here, and what type of economic system it would be.
I haven't read your books, so, perhaps, its unfair to remark on them, but you did summarize them on your blog, so...
It seems that your focus is on the impossibility of capitalism to work optimally. I don't think anyone disagrees (except for wealthy plutocrats and their lackeys), but I don't think the fault is with economic structure, it's with the feedback mechanism.
Marx thought that workers would never get more rights as long as capitalists controlled things, but he turned out to be wrong. All this proves is that having too narrow a focus can limit ones ability to see other factors.
Do people get any more intelligent when they manage a private firm as the libertarians believe? Do they get any dumber when they manage the same enterprise in a state-owned setting?
I don't think it's who owns the means of production that is the problem, its that power corrupts and the feedback mechanisms are too weak. Many think democracy is supposed to provide the feedback, but as we see from current conditions, democracy can slip into plutocracy without much notice and then all the checks stop working.
I think that Herman Daly did wonderful work in showing the need to address the environment in the context of economics. Like most people who stray from the orthodoxy, he never got much credit.
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