"I really don't like this strident new tone of yours, Sandwichman/Walker. What's with all the hostility?" -- Peter H.Don't even think of coming around the campfire when I'm roastin' marshmallows, Peter H.!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Peter H." Is A Weiner!
New Thinking With A Blunt Edge
The first round of research grants will be made before the end of the year to cutting-edge scholars working with leading universities around the world. INET’s Executive Director will be Robert Johnson, an economist with long experience in government, academia, and the private sector.Isn't that an oxymoron? "Cutting-edge"... "leading univerities"? Any way, why not get in on the ground floor? Five million bucks is $5,000,000.00. Age before beauty; pearls before swine.
Dear Robert Johnson,
Love your Mississippi Delta blues guitar-playing, Robert!
Seriously, though, I'm a non-economist who has been doing "new economic thinking" since an over-a-year-long spell of unemployment during the "jobless recovery" of the 1990s. Or, I should say I've been looking at old economic thinking -- pre-World War II and noticing that extremely important parts of the picture that were known at least to some economists in the 1930s -- Keynes, for example -- were simply "assumed" away in the rush to mathematical model building. Post-war "Keynesians" decided to make do with only one of three pillars of Keynes's intellectual theorem.The other two didn't fit in the equation. Robert Skidelsky can tell you more about this. At any rate, I just happen to be finishing up a manuscript that looks at over 200 years of what, for want of a better term, I will call "worktime thought". Some of it is heretical economics, some the masters, Smith, Marx, Keynes. But woven through the whole narrative is the outline of an "economic subject" quite distinct from the Homo economicus or rational economic actor of conventional modern economic analysis.
I guess the issue I want to raise with you has to do with the fragility, artificiality, perhaps even vanity of the idea of "new thinking". There is, as the preacher in Ecclesiastes tells us, "nothing new under the sun." But there is great value in making new again what was already old. In other words, what I have in mind is innovation and improvisation on the basis of a fine tradition that may have been forgotten, set aside and even scorned. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on this matter. I will of course be reading the Institute for New Economic Thinking's website and looking to see if there are any programs or grants that might be suitable for the theme in my manuscript.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Walker
Seven ways to be wise in our time and place
THERE HAS COME a time when it is clear that many Australian citizens have lost sight of the essential nature of things. Where our patterns of thought and behaviour – our everyday social ‘norms’ – are inevitably leading us to an apocalyptical future of deprivation and long-lasting ruin.
In the hills and valleys of Tasmania I see a merger of humans with machine. Where minds have become twisted and adapted to the dreadful logic and form of industrial tools. The vast destruction of our native forests and the attendant poisoning of our natural environment, the overfished seas, and the now vast weed-and-vermin-filled lands of absentee corporate owners, are merely the physical manifestations of a system of laws and inherent structural rules that have trespassed way beyond human ‘morals’ or concerns for community.
It is an automatic momentum that denies recognition of nature and natural processes.
The moving out of our self-imposed subjugation will not require the piling up of facts. Rather it will require the simple anticipation of consequences. To be wise in our time is to: Read more here.
In the hills and valleys of Tasmania I see a merger of humans with machine. Where minds have become twisted and adapted to the dreadful logic and form of industrial tools. The vast destruction of our native forests and the attendant poisoning of our natural environment, the overfished seas, and the now vast weed-and-vermin-filled lands of absentee corporate owners, are merely the physical manifestations of a system of laws and inherent structural rules that have trespassed way beyond human ‘morals’ or concerns for community.
It is an automatic momentum that denies recognition of nature and natural processes.
The moving out of our self-imposed subjugation will not require the piling up of facts. Rather it will require the simple anticipation of consequences. To be wise in our time is to: Read more here.
Transcript from the Future
by Tom Walker
A source who has asked to remain anonymous has just handed me a transcript of tomorrow's panel discussion at UC Berkeley on Global Unemployment, featuring Brad DeLong, John Quigley, David Card and Andy Rose. As a courtesy to the participants, I have taken the liberty of concealing who will have said what by substituting pseudonyms for the names of the participants. Similarly, the panelists themselves have taken the wise precaution of using the more genteel euphemism "your daughter's illness" to refer to mass unemployment, lest the latter term unleash widespread lamentations and gnashing of teeth among the unwashed and untenured.
A source who has asked to remain anonymous has just handed me a transcript of tomorrow's panel discussion at UC Berkeley on Global Unemployment, featuring Brad DeLong, John Quigley, David Card and Andy Rose. As a courtesy to the participants, I have taken the liberty of concealing who will have said what by substituting pseudonyms for the names of the participants. Similarly, the panelists themselves have taken the wise precaution of using the more genteel euphemism "your daughter's illness" to refer to mass unemployment, lest the latter term unleash widespread lamentations and gnashing of teeth among the unwashed and untenured.
DR TOMÉS. Sir, we have been discussing your daughter's illness, and my own view is that it arises from overheating of the blood. My advice is therefore--bleeding as early as possible.
DR DES-FONANDRÉS. In my opinion the trouble is a putrefaction of humours caused by a surfeit of er--er--something or other. My view is that she should be given an emetic.
DR TOMÉS. In my opinion an emetic would kill her.
DR DES-FONANDRÉS. On the contrary, I maintain that to bleed her now would be fatal.
DR TOMÉS. You would try to be clever!
DR DES-FONANDRÉS. I know what I'm talking about. I can give you points on any professional question.
DR TOMÉS. Don't forget how you cooked that fellow's goose the other day.
DR DES-FONANDRÉS. What about the woman you sent to glory only three days ago?
DR TOMÉS [to THE UNEMPLOYED]. You have my opinion.
DR DES-FONANDRÉS [to THE UNEMPLOYED]. You know what I think.
DR TOMÉS. If you don't have your daughter bled without delay, you can take it she's done for. [Exit.]
DR DES-FONANDRÉS. If you do have her bled, she won't last a quarter of an hour. [Exit.]
THE UNEMPLOYED. Which am I to believe? What's to be done when you get two such different opinions? Gentlemen, I implore you, set my mind at rest, give me an unprejudiced opinion as to which treatment will save my daughter.
DR MACROTIN [drawling]. Sir! On these oc-cas-ions one must pro-ceed with cir-cum-spec-tion and do nothing, as one might say, in pre-cip-it-a-tion, for mis-takes thus commit-ted may well, as our Master Hippocrates observes-have dan-ger-ous cons-equences!
DR BAHYS [in a quick stammering voice]. Yes, one n.n.needs to be cccareful. Th.th.there's no ch.ch.child's play about such c.c.c.cases as th.th.this. And it it's no.no.not an easy m.m.m.matter to p.put th.things right if.if.if. you m.m.make a m.m.m.mistake. Expcrimentump.p.p.p.p.periculosum,y.you n.need to l.l.look before you l.l.l.leap and weigh th.things w.w.warily, consider the c.c.constitution of the p.p.patient, c.c.cause of the m.m.malady, and the nature of the c.c.c.cure.
THE UNEMPLOYED [aside]. One's as slow as a funeral, t'other c.c.can't s.s.spit it out fast enough!
Professor Randall "Sting" Wray's Non-Reply
by Tom Walker
Previously, Tim Bartik posted a comment in response to the Sandwichman's post about the Last Taboo in employment policy. Jamie Galbraith replied by email and gave permission to post his comment. I regret that although Randall Wray replied by email, he refused permission to publish his reply.
The gist of Professor Wray's position, though, would seem to be, roughly, "when I say something three times with the third time in ALL CAPS, it's true." My asking for evidence only makes it obvious that I cannot listen to reason. Apparently, I have offended Professor Wray by insisting on substance rather than mere assertion. I most humbly apologize for that offense. I don't know where I could have gotten the impression that there is some sort of obstinacy and defensiveness about this issue. As B. Traven might have rewritten it:
Previously, Tim Bartik posted a comment in response to the Sandwichman's post about the Last Taboo in employment policy. Jamie Galbraith replied by email and gave permission to post his comment. I regret that although Randall Wray replied by email, he refused permission to publish his reply.
The gist of Professor Wray's position, though, would seem to be, roughly, "when I say something three times with the third time in ALL CAPS, it's true." My asking for evidence only makes it obvious that I cannot listen to reason. Apparently, I have offended Professor Wray by insisting on substance rather than mere assertion. I most humbly apologize for that offense. I don't know where I could have gotten the impression that there is some sort of obstinacy and defensiveness about this issue. As B. Traven might have rewritten it:
"Evidence? To god-damned hell with evidence! We have no evidence. In fact, we don't need evidence. I don't have to show you any stinking evidence, you god-damned cabrón and ching' tu madre! Go back into that shit-hole of yours. I don't want to speak to you."
Some Questions on Unemployment for Economists
by Tom Walker
1. Over the last decade, in how many months have you a) had no income from employment? and b) were unsure how long it would be before you would again receive a paycheck?
2. How many times in your working life have you had to "change careers" because there were meager prospects in the field of work you had become proficient at?
3. How likely do you believe it is that you will be laid off as a professor in a) the next six months? b) the next year? c) the next five years?
4. How many of your fellow tenured economics professors do you know of who are currently laid off from their positions?
5. What do you think of the Pope's views on birth control?
EconoSpeak readers, please contribute your suggestions to this list of questions for economists on unemployment.
1. Over the last decade, in how many months have you a) had no income from employment? and b) were unsure how long it would be before you would again receive a paycheck?
2. How many times in your working life have you had to "change careers" because there were meager prospects in the field of work you had become proficient at?
3. How likely do you believe it is that you will be laid off as a professor in a) the next six months? b) the next year? c) the next five years?
4. How many of your fellow tenured economics professors do you know of who are currently laid off from their positions?
5. What do you think of the Pope's views on birth control?
EconoSpeak readers, please contribute your suggestions to this list of questions for economists on unemployment.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Happy Motoring
All I can say is thank God for James Howard Kunstler.
Like a lot of other observer-interlocutors, I'd like to know what folks imagine we are recovering to. To a renewed orgy of credit-card spending? To yet another round of suburban expansion, with the boys in the yellow hard-hats driving stakes out in the sagebrush for another new thousand-unit pop-up "community?" For a next generation of super-cars built to look like medieval war wagons? That's the "hope" that our officials seem to pretend to offer. It's completely inconsistent with any reality-based trend-lines, by the way.
Hurrah! Jobs Crisis Averted!
"Governments have known how to 'stimulate' sickly economies -- usually by war -- as long as they have known anything." -- SkidelskyHappy Days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So lets sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again...
Any resemblance between the ways that governments have always known how to stimulate economies and policies proposed by big-hearted progressives for perpetually stimulating the economy is purely accidental. Trust us.
Note to Self
If an Austrian or a libertarian ever happens to observe that the sky is blue, it would be best to deny it, lest confirmation should backfire or do political damage.
Quote for the Day
by Tom Walker
"For reasons which will become clearer as the book goes on, I have come to see economics as a fundamentally regressive discipline, its regressive nature disguised by increasingly sophisticated mathematics and statistics." -- Robert Skidelsy, Keynes: The Return of the MasterThe only quibble I would have with Skidelsky's formulation is that the "disguise" also functions as a screen and turnstile. The way that these "increasingly sophisticated" mathematics and statistics are held together precludes the most salient critical analysis. At the very foundation of the "math" program are a set of ideological assumptions about welfare and "revealed preferences." Remove those patently unwarranted assumptions and the whole edifice comes tumbling down. Oh, but "relax" them cleverly and you might win a dissertation and even an assistant professorship. It is this phony game of provisional relaxation and perpetual restoration that demarcates the bounds of acceptable dissent in the discipline.
Against Oreodoxy!
by Tom Walker
Among tenured economists who fancy themselves heterodox are a considerable number who might better be described as "oreodox". That is to say, they are hetero with regard to method but ortho to the core when it comes to the economic imperative of growth. Post-Keynesians, traditional Marxists, Institutionalists, Minskyites and what have you. Have they never heard of Herman Daly?
I understand the pressures of "fitting in" to the academy, where most colleagues are more concerned with climbing the career ladder (or at least not falling entirely off it) than with the "fate of the planet" or the unemployed. On the other hand, unemployment and/or environmental externalities are always good topics for a seminar, a journal article or an op-ed piece in the local paper. It would be a pity if they could be too easily banished, throwing scores of marginalized, oreodox economists out of a job.
Degrees of orthodoxy can best be gaged by the economist's position on unemployment.
Among tenured economists who fancy themselves heterodox are a considerable number who might better be described as "oreodox". That is to say, they are hetero with regard to method but ortho to the core when it comes to the economic imperative of growth. Post-Keynesians, traditional Marxists, Institutionalists, Minskyites and what have you. Have they never heard of Herman Daly?
I understand the pressures of "fitting in" to the academy, where most colleagues are more concerned with climbing the career ladder (or at least not falling entirely off it) than with the "fate of the planet" or the unemployed. On the other hand, unemployment and/or environmental externalities are always good topics for a seminar, a journal article or an op-ed piece in the local paper. It would be a pity if they could be too easily banished, throwing scores of marginalized, oreodox economists out of a job.
Degrees of orthodoxy can best be gaged by the economist's position on unemployment.
Ultra-orthodox: there is no such thing as unemployment
Orthodox: there is unemployment; it is regrettable but unavoidable
Oreodox: there is unemployment but it can be eliminated by State policy
Reality: unemployment IS the State's policy
Sunday, October 25, 2009
(Berlin) Wall to Wall (Street)
by Tom Walker
Twenty years ago next month, the Berlin Wall fell. One year ago last month, Lehman Brothers collapsed -- the "second shoe" dropped. Just as the dismantling of the wall was the symbolic climax of a long process of disintegration that had begun in the 1970s and was not completed until several years after November 1989, the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 had deep historical roots and it will not be resolved with a recovery to business as usual. At this point it would be prudent to banish the word "recovery" from the analytical vocabulary. This is not a recession. Nor is it a depression. It is the systemic collapse of a system that has rotted from the inside out.
America's Stalin and the new New Deal
In popular mythology, the Soviet system and Western capitalism were polar opposites: communism on the one-hand and free enterprise on the other. In reality, they were very distinctive variations of what Burnham called "managerial society" or, in Galbraith's terminology, "the new industrial state". The Western version may have been more durable than the Soviet one but, on the other hand, it may have lasted longer just because it had a head start in the accumulation of material wealth, which enabled it to "coast" longer on its momentum.
The now largely forgotten corporate accounting scandals of 2001-2002 -- Enron, Arthur Anderson, WorldCom, Adelphia, Dynergy, Duke Energy, Tyco International, etc., etc. -- clearly demonstrated that the accounting system in place in the U.S. was no less prone to manipulation and gaming than had been the account for Soviet state-owned enterprises. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 has shown that the corruption is endemic and not accidental.
None of this, of course, would be of any interest to top rank economists, who operate on phantasmagorical models that bear no resemblance to the actual world where money changes hands. For thirty years, an ideological fig leaf of markets and competition, free trade and tax cuts has covered up for a system of brokered privilege that has little to do with any of those things. Many people believed these fantasies, though, simply because they wanted to believe. Certainly not because the veneer was all that convincing. The alternative was too bleak to acknowledge. But the jig is up. The genie is out of the bottle. The shit has hit the fan.
Since it is clear to too many people that a return to business as usual is not going to happen, what's the alternative? Some folks are putting their faith in the idea of a new New Deal. This involves, first, projecting an old New Deal significantly different from the real deal and, second, dreaming that we can somehow use the fictional successes of that fairy tail New Deal as a guide to future policies.
Similarly, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, there was a fair-sized constituency who looked back on the Stalin period as a time of stability and patriotic victory. Imagine how well a return to Stalinist five-year plans would have worked for Russia in the 1990s. That's the prognosis for a new New Deal in the 2010s. With FDR as the American Stalin. A kinder, gentler Stalin no doubt. But a Stalin in the pure, unadulterated sense of anachronism. In the sense, that is, that a time traveling 1930s American would feel more alien in 2010 America than he or she would in 1930s Russia.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we've already just lived through a pretend nostalgic return to an earlier, "more authentic" era. Hayek, Thatcher and Reagan choreographed a promenade through a Disneyfied 19th century gilded age where laissez faire, rugged individualism, robber barons and that old time religion prevailed. A phonier crock of horse piss you couldn't imagine -- unless it's the wished-for new New Deal.
The oligarchy would prefer to go back to the heyday of neo-liberalism, but they'll settle for a new New Deal because, for one thing, it won't be a real New Deal but only New Deal lite. More importantly, the new New Deal will start from a baseline of the compromises and concessions ironed out during the old one. There will be no Black-Connery Bill or GM Flint factory occupations to threaten a more radical outcome on the horizon. How's that for a negotiating strategy, then? Make your opening offer the absolute worst settlement that you can imagine living with. Then hope for the other side to offer you more than you've asked for.
Twenty years ago next month, the Berlin Wall fell. One year ago last month, Lehman Brothers collapsed -- the "second shoe" dropped. Just as the dismantling of the wall was the symbolic climax of a long process of disintegration that had begun in the 1970s and was not completed until several years after November 1989, the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 had deep historical roots and it will not be resolved with a recovery to business as usual. At this point it would be prudent to banish the word "recovery" from the analytical vocabulary. This is not a recession. Nor is it a depression. It is the systemic collapse of a system that has rotted from the inside out.
America's Stalin and the new New Deal
In popular mythology, the Soviet system and Western capitalism were polar opposites: communism on the one-hand and free enterprise on the other. In reality, they were very distinctive variations of what Burnham called "managerial society" or, in Galbraith's terminology, "the new industrial state". The Western version may have been more durable than the Soviet one but, on the other hand, it may have lasted longer just because it had a head start in the accumulation of material wealth, which enabled it to "coast" longer on its momentum.
The now largely forgotten corporate accounting scandals of 2001-2002 -- Enron, Arthur Anderson, WorldCom, Adelphia, Dynergy, Duke Energy, Tyco International, etc., etc. -- clearly demonstrated that the accounting system in place in the U.S. was no less prone to manipulation and gaming than had been the account for Soviet state-owned enterprises. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 has shown that the corruption is endemic and not accidental.
None of this, of course, would be of any interest to top rank economists, who operate on phantasmagorical models that bear no resemblance to the actual world where money changes hands. For thirty years, an ideological fig leaf of markets and competition, free trade and tax cuts has covered up for a system of brokered privilege that has little to do with any of those things. Many people believed these fantasies, though, simply because they wanted to believe. Certainly not because the veneer was all that convincing. The alternative was too bleak to acknowledge. But the jig is up. The genie is out of the bottle. The shit has hit the fan.
Since it is clear to too many people that a return to business as usual is not going to happen, what's the alternative? Some folks are putting their faith in the idea of a new New Deal. This involves, first, projecting an old New Deal significantly different from the real deal and, second, dreaming that we can somehow use the fictional successes of that fairy tail New Deal as a guide to future policies.
Similarly, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, there was a fair-sized constituency who looked back on the Stalin period as a time of stability and patriotic victory. Imagine how well a return to Stalinist five-year plans would have worked for Russia in the 1990s. That's the prognosis for a new New Deal in the 2010s. With FDR as the American Stalin. A kinder, gentler Stalin no doubt. But a Stalin in the pure, unadulterated sense of anachronism. In the sense, that is, that a time traveling 1930s American would feel more alien in 2010 America than he or she would in 1930s Russia.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we've already just lived through a pretend nostalgic return to an earlier, "more authentic" era. Hayek, Thatcher and Reagan choreographed a promenade through a Disneyfied 19th century gilded age where laissez faire, rugged individualism, robber barons and that old time religion prevailed. A phonier crock of horse piss you couldn't imagine -- unless it's the wished-for new New Deal.
The oligarchy would prefer to go back to the heyday of neo-liberalism, but they'll settle for a new New Deal because, for one thing, it won't be a real New Deal but only New Deal lite. More importantly, the new New Deal will start from a baseline of the compromises and concessions ironed out during the old one. There will be no Black-Connery Bill or GM Flint factory occupations to threaten a more radical outcome on the horizon. How's that for a negotiating strategy, then? Make your opening offer the absolute worst settlement that you can imagine living with. Then hope for the other side to offer you more than you've asked for.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Sandwichman's Obituary
by Tom Walker
Yesterday -- in response to defamatory allegations from Barkley Rosser that he had "stepped over the line", engaged in "indefensible personal attacks" and "meretricious name calling," was "seriously misrepresentating" reported research and should "clean up your act" -- the Sandwichman asked for a vote of confidence from his EconoSpeak colleagues. So far, the response has been a resounding abstention. Even the plaintiff, Rosser, has expressed his wish that the matter be resolved without any drastic resolution.
Ever feisty but non-litigious, the Sandwichman confided to me that to drink the Hemlock now seemed sweeter to him than swallowing the bile of his colleagues' "impartiality". With that, the Sandwichman began reciting (a tad too melodramatically for my taste) verse from Dante's Inferno:
Sandwichman, July 11, 2000 - October 24, 2009?
Sandwichman's remit -- believe it or not -- was never about the reduction of working time as "the answer" for unemployment. It was, from the moment of his virgin birth, concerned with discourse about working time. More specifically about how dialogue about the potential benefits of work time reduction has been vigorously and mendaciously suppressed by economists. For centuries. One of the perennial tactics of that suppression has been to ridicule advocates as kooks, quacks and monomaniacal cranks.
Alas, this latter tactic also works when defenders of the exclusion want to change the subject from censorship to some alleged personality disorders of those who document the censorship. But the Sandwichman was not "obsessed", it was his job to carry the prophetic, end-is-'nigh signs he bore. On the Sandwichman's front board was the quote (not from Mark Twain) "'Taint what a man don't know that hurts him; it's what he knows that just ain't so." and on the back, the lines by Bertolt Brecht:
In the days before his execution, the Sandwichman posted a critique of policy proposals for dealing with unemployment put forward by Jamie Galbraith, Randall Wray and Tim Bartik for the New America Foundation. The substance of the critique hinged on a paradoxical statement by Jamie Galbraith that job guarantees were "the last taboo". The paradox was that two of the three contributors proposed this "last taboo" policy while none of them so much as mentioned work sharing or work time reduction. Sandwichman argued that the real last taboo must be that policy idea on which the contributors remained silent.
As if to vindicate the Sandwichman's snarky complaint, Tim Bartik of the Upjohn Institute responded with a comment that called Dean Baker's policy brief to offer tax credits for work time reduction "interesting" and called attention to an article on short time compensation in the Upjohn Institute newsletter for July. The article, by Katharine Abraham and Susan Houseman argued that "The absence of STC benefits is a significant gap in U.S. social insurance policy that should be plugged." So Tim Bartik obviously knew about Dean's interesting policy brief and the significant gap in policy but still there was no mention of work time policy proposals in the policy roundtable background paper. None. Which of course was the Sandwichman's point.
I must leave off at this point and see if I can revive my friend and avatar...
Yesterday -- in response to defamatory allegations from Barkley Rosser that he had "stepped over the line", engaged in "indefensible personal attacks" and "meretricious name calling," was "seriously misrepresentating" reported research and should "clean up your act" -- the Sandwichman asked for a vote of confidence from his EconoSpeak colleagues. So far, the response has been a resounding abstention. Even the plaintiff, Rosser, has expressed his wish that the matter be resolved without any drastic resolution.
Ever feisty but non-litigious, the Sandwichman confided to me that to drink the Hemlock now seemed sweeter to him than swallowing the bile of his colleagues' "impartiality". With that, the Sandwichman began reciting (a tad too melodramatically for my taste) verse from Dante's Inferno:
All of these made a tumult whose presenceIn the past, I confess I've been tempted at times to kill off Sandwichman just so I could write his obituary. That's how it is with personae and noms de plume. Brendan Behan once claimed there's no such thing as bad publicity, unless it's your obituary. Michael Jackson proved him wrong by cashing in on his. Given the dank limbo of abstentiousness, it seems reasonable, in a kind of Through the Looking Glass, way to publish Sandwichman's obituary -- or at least the first draft of his obituary -- in advance of the verdict and the execution. Sandwichman can always come back and say that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. Or maybe not.
Whirled darkly through the timeless air like grains
Of sand in permanent turbulence.
And I, seeking to ease my brain's
Horror, said, " Master, what am I listening to?
Who are these people so defeated by their pains?"
And he to me: " The dismal souls who
Suffer this condition had lives neither odious
Nor commendable; having embraced neither of the two,
They mingle now with that chorus
Of cowardly, self–serving angels who were
Neither faithful to God nor rebellious.
To preserve its beauty heaven kicked them down here,
While deep Hell refused to take them,
Lest they be scapegoats for the wicked there."
Sandwichman, July 11, 2000 - October 24, 2009?
Sandwichman's remit -- believe it or not -- was never about the reduction of working time as "the answer" for unemployment. It was, from the moment of his virgin birth, concerned with discourse about working time. More specifically about how dialogue about the potential benefits of work time reduction has been vigorously and mendaciously suppressed by economists. For centuries. One of the perennial tactics of that suppression has been to ridicule advocates as kooks, quacks and monomaniacal cranks.
Alas, this latter tactic also works when defenders of the exclusion want to change the subject from censorship to some alleged personality disorders of those who document the censorship. But the Sandwichman was not "obsessed", it was his job to carry the prophetic, end-is-'nigh signs he bore. On the Sandwichman's front board was the quote (not from Mark Twain) "'Taint what a man don't know that hurts him; it's what he knows that just ain't so." and on the back, the lines by Bertolt Brecht:
In your houseThat, not Mary Steward's doggerel about decreasing the hours and increasing the pay, was the Sandwichman's motto.
Lies are roared aloud.
But the truth
Must be silent.
Is it so?
In the days before his execution, the Sandwichman posted a critique of policy proposals for dealing with unemployment put forward by Jamie Galbraith, Randall Wray and Tim Bartik for the New America Foundation. The substance of the critique hinged on a paradoxical statement by Jamie Galbraith that job guarantees were "the last taboo". The paradox was that two of the three contributors proposed this "last taboo" policy while none of them so much as mentioned work sharing or work time reduction. Sandwichman argued that the real last taboo must be that policy idea on which the contributors remained silent.
As if to vindicate the Sandwichman's snarky complaint, Tim Bartik of the Upjohn Institute responded with a comment that called Dean Baker's policy brief to offer tax credits for work time reduction "interesting" and called attention to an article on short time compensation in the Upjohn Institute newsletter for July. The article, by Katharine Abraham and Susan Houseman argued that "The absence of STC benefits is a significant gap in U.S. social insurance policy that should be plugged." So Tim Bartik obviously knew about Dean's interesting policy brief and the significant gap in policy but still there was no mention of work time policy proposals in the policy roundtable background paper. None. Which of course was the Sandwichman's point.
Job guarantees are roared aloud.As I was writing this obituary, I noticed a new comment appeared on the last taboo post containing an apology of sorts from Barkley Rosser, "I also apologize to anyone who has found my recent tone overdone or inappropriate." What the semanticists call a "no-fault apology." I turned to tell Sandwichman the goods news but was alarmed to see him slumped over in his armchair, the fatal drained cup lying on its side on the floor, just out of reach of his limp hand.
But work sharing
Must be silent.
Which, then, is the last taboo?
I must leave off at this point and see if I can revive my friend and avatar...
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