tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359Fri, 17 May 2013 22:44:12 +0000The Work Less Institute of Technology: Because Working Less IS a Technology!http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)Blogger394125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-5703996487350554148Fri, 17 May 2013 22:44:00 +00002013-05-17T15:44:12.162-07:00(Cross posted from the Economics and the Common Conference communication platform.) The great green panacea for salvaging the market/state economic growth model from its own environmental consequences is that it may somehow be possible to "decouple" GDP growth from resource consumption. The rationale for decoupling GDP is summarized in the 2011 United Nations Environmental Programme report, http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-odd-coupling-asking-wrong-questions.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-5288749863065912402Thu, 16 May 2013 20:20:00 +00002013-05-16T15:39:48.304-07:00At his blog today, Paul Krugman cited Michael Kalecki's 1943 essay, "Political Aspects of Full Employment": Two and a half years ago Mike Konczal reminded us of a classic 1943 (!) essay by Michal Kalecki, who suggested that business interests hate Keynesian economics because they fear that it might work — and in so doing mean that politicians would no longer have to abase themselves before http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/wild-things-question-mark-and-austerians.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-9132717269185406781Mon, 13 May 2013 18:00:00 +00002013-05-13T11:00:26.290-07:00This is a title placeholder for an upcoming post. Having done a Google search, it astonishes me that this play on C. Wright Mills's 1943 article title hasn't been used yet.http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-social-pathology-of-professional.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-6642772161953519365Mon, 13 May 2013 01:13:00 +00002013-05-12T19:01:47.224-07:00"As a general rule economists are not very good at economics." -- Dean Baker As a general rule economists are not very good at accountability. The rules of evidence in Anglo-American common law disallow the raising of allegations without a basis in provable fact. The rules of evidence in Anglo-American economics... well, there are no rules of evidence. It's hard to think of another field (http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/peer-review-economists-and-rhetoric-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-2924323582790365323Fri, 10 May 2013 18:36:00 +00002013-05-10T11:36:52.860-07:00It's nice to see that Casey Mulligan and Paul Krugman agree on something, even if it's only their shared unquestioning credulity toward a 233-year old zombie mind-reading hoax. Dean Baker calls attention to an Economix blog post at the New York Times in which Mulligan discussed "What Job-Sharing Brings." Mulligan opens his remarks with a classic paraphrase of the lump-of-labor fallacy canard, http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/lumps-of-mulligan-and-specter-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-5202625526236293418Wed, 08 May 2013 22:38:00 +00002013-05-08T21:18:38.441-07:00Nick Rowe thinks he's a clever economist. He builds "really weird models" and relishes the totally weird results he gets from them. Nick's weird models contain words like "goods," "prices," "wages," "costs," "employment" and "labour." But those words are just signposts on the way to curves, slopes, elasticities and equilibria. All that really matters is the behaviors of the latter abstractions. http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-worthwhile-canadian-enterprise.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-6762443439761528630Mon, 06 May 2013 06:04:00 +00002013-05-05T23:11:23.427-07:00DAVID LEONHARDT wrote, in "The Idled Young Americans," NY Times May 3, 2013: And while the American economy has come back more robustly than some of its global rivals in terms of overall production, the recovery has been strangely light on new jobs, even after Friday’s better-than-expected unemployment report. American companies are doing more with less. "This still is a very big puzzle," http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-very-big-puzzle-how-many-ways-to-skin.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-357740686736932760Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:52:00 +00002013-04-22T14:25:03.879-07:00At Left Foot Forward, James Bloodworth  wrote: The first misunderstanding here is that the economy has a fixed number of jobs, sometimes known as the "lump of labour" fallacy.  In reality, just as immigration may increase competition for jobs it can also create new jobs. Mr. Bloodworth is perhaps not aware that this fallacy claim is the dumbed-down version of Say's Law -- that supply creates http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/04/left-foot-forward-two-feet-rightward.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-1481103364920475680Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:49:00 +00002013-04-16T11:49:52.746-07:00Reposted from last October in light of revelations of certain miscalculations by the Emperor:  Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics begins his King Ludd is Still Dead essay thus: Since the dawn of the industrial age, a recurrent http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/04/ned-ludd-emperor-rogoff-is-still-naked.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-3719623291029630535Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:09:00 +00002013-04-14T21:21:55.515-07:00In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke affirmed, "I do not question but that human knowledge, under the present circumstances of our beings and constitutions, may be carried much farther than it hitherto has been, if men would sincerely, and with freedom of mind, employ all that industry and labour of thought, in improving the means of discovering truth, which they do for the http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/04/piestein.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-5022547194450085445Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:53:00 +00002013-04-11T19:28:21.414-07:00 "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/04/of-property-and-mercantilist-fallacy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-3477624761165440061Thu, 04 Apr 2013 05:13:00 +00002013-04-03T22:16:31.065-07:00He would give his nuts for a piece of metal,exchange his sheep for shellsor wool for a sparkling pebble,and keep those by him all his life.He might heap up as much of these things as he pleasedthe bounds of his just propertynot lying in the largeness of his possession,but the perishing of anything uselessly in it.http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/04/sheep-for-shells.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-5595651933654509077Mon, 25 Mar 2013 02:29:00 +00002013-03-26T08:24:58.253-07:00Dorning Rasbotham, Esq., was a friend of the poor. Nay, from the bottom of his heart, he was a friend of the poor! He felt tenderly for the poor man and his family. After all, what would become of the rich if there were no poor people to till their fields, pay their rents and manufacture their goods? Squire Rasbotham laid down the following principle in a pamphlet he published in 1780: "A cheap http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-moon-belongs-to-everyone.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-3763576692609639554Sat, 23 Mar 2013 02:01:00 +00002013-03-22T19:01:43.516-07:00A few years ago, the Sandwichman started wondering why nobody paid attention to the energy intensity of employment. People talk about "decoupling" GDP from energy consumption but not about decoupling work. I guess the explanation for that is that there are no half-full hourglasses there to crow about -- they're all more than half empty and getting emptier. Just yesterday I was headed to work andhttp://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/hours-and-gases.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-5697931945935766523Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:12:00 +00002013-03-19T18:12:36.348-07:00The last time I saw Jonathan Rowe was in October, 2010. I was on a writer's retreat at the Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes, California and Jonathan dropped by to borrow the pick-up truck. We got into one of those intense conversations you can only have with someone who has cared and thought long and deep about the things you have cared and thought long and deep about. Jonathan died on March 20th of http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/income-growth-and-double-counting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-7498856205044743210Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:03:00 +00002013-03-13T19:03:19.830-07:00Those who have followed the Sandwichman for these past dozen or 14 years will know that he is an inveterate critic of those who falsely accuse advocates of shorter working time of the dreaded lump-of-labor fallacy. This is not to say, however, that it is not possible to commit the fallacy. Lo and behold, Bryan Caplan, a self-professed libertarian and disciple of Ayn Rand, no less, commits in http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/bryan-caplans-libertarian-lump-of-labor.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-6790514455395548160Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:55:00 +00002013-03-05T11:55:03.071-08:00Fuck me. Here I've wasted years of my life reading analyses by the likes of Peter Victor, Bill Rees, Tim Jackson, Joan Martinez-Alier, Roefie Hueting, Stefano Bartolini, Herman Daly, Robert Costanza, Robert Ayres, Alf Hornborg and even myself only to discover that we're a "crowd" who "really doesn't get it." Now I even waste undergraduates' time teaching this stuff under the pretext that one has http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-anti-growth-crowd-really-doesnt-get.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-437300702701715613Sun, 03 Mar 2013 19:05:00 +00002013-03-03T12:02:00.435-08:00   "R.A." at the Economist yaps about "robots". Can you say "fetish"? The Sandwichman has been all over this robot fetish for a while. Thoughts and Dreams about Machines: The New Robot Economist Pop-up Theatre The Robots, the Rift and the Rebound Origin of the Design for a Machine to Influence the Working of the Economic System Robots, Anyone? Production of Robots by means of http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-real-robot-menace.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-1585955778028964396Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:12:00 +00002013-02-26T18:12:54.484-08:00The Image below is NOT the old "Charter of Industrial Freedom." It is instead an editorial by Samuel Gompers that appeared in the A.F. of L. Federationist lauding the labor provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act as the Charter of Industrial Freedom -- an "industrial Magna Carta," no less! As Charters go, the memorable part was the proclamation in Section 6, "That the labor of a human being is http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-new-charter-of-industrial-freedom.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-1042948013171178833Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:11:00 +00002013-02-26T18:11:32.401-08:00"The revolution in spinning deprived agricultural labourers of this part of their subsistence at the very time when enclosure was making them more dependent on wages and diminishing the demand for agricultural labour." "el que no obra por el bien de todos sino por el suyo" liturgy: forms of public worship worship: "worth ship" worth value (labour theory of) labour power common-pool resource "http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/02/give-us-back-our-commons-and-you-can.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-9057235646497495854Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:08:00 +00002013-03-01T10:18:38.277-08:00 "Labour is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls according to the demand." – Edmund Burke "Labour is not a commodity." – International Labour Organization, Declaration of Philadelphia "We must now examine more closely this peculiar commodity, labour-power." – Karl Marx Organized labor’s millennium lasted exactly six years, two months, two weeks and five days. On October 15, 1914, U.Shttp://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/02/labor-is-not-commodity_18.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-565895354875813783Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:48:00 +00002013-02-15T11:48:29.403-08:00The New Republic, December 2, 1916: THE threat of the American Federation of Labor, at its annual meeting last week, to disregard any injunction based upon the conception that labor is property indicates a frame of mind that may well become alarming if it is not met with sympathy and understanding. The emotion behind the ringing report adopted by the convention is a noble one, one that appealshttp://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/02/labor-is-not-commodity.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-2757835919262698998Mon, 11 Feb 2013 01:04:00 +00002013-02-10T17:05:29.433-08:00[Not from the Christian Lady's Magazine: "What is needed above all is a confession, and nothing more than that. To obtain forgiveness for its sins, mankind needs only to declare them for what they are." Marx to Arnold Ruge, September 1843.] ON THE SERVICES OF THE CHURCH, No. II: ON THE GENERAL CONFESSION. Every word here is so simple, and goes so straight to the heart, that http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/02/from-christian-ladys-magazine-oct-1846.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-2122185302737241448Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:21:00 +00002013-02-05T12:44:49.813-08:00 Testimony of Walter Reuther to the 1955 Joint Congressional Subcommittee Hearings on Automation and Technological Change (p. 124): "Every tool on every operation has a green light, a yellow light, and a red light; and when all the green lights are on, it means that all the tools at each work station are operating up to standard. When a yellow light comes on, on tool No. 38, it means that the http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/02/robots.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3839095285321791359.post-2543925693797561590Wed, 16 Jan 2013 04:25:00 +00002013-01-15T20:25:52.988-08:00 http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/01/daily-bugle-robot-will-do-work-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sandwichman)1