Presented to the Left Labor Forum on January 18, 2011 in New York City.
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
[video of discussion, and incomplete transcript after the break]
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Montgomery- Fall of the House of Labor (1987) DIGEST
THE CRISIS OF COMPETITVE CAPITALISM, 1870-1900
by David Montgomery
Excerpted from The Fall of the House of Labor (Cambridge 1987) p. 44-57
DIGEST PRODUCED FOR TUSG.ORG
The long upswing of American industrial growth in the nineteenth century had different characteristics before and after the depression of the 1870s. Before that decade lay the formative years of the American working class. The ranks of wage laborers had grown hand in hand with rapid accumulation of capital for more than half a century to the point that they represented more than half of those counted by the census of 1870 as gainfully employed. Per capita output had also grown steadily, at least since the 1830s. The 1850s had represented something of a nodal point in this growth: along with the iron ship, the telegraph, and the consolidation of railroad trunk lines, that decade had brought aggressive working-class activity in both economic and political life and had closed with America's achievement of second place in manufacturing output among the nations of the world and a genuine industrial depression.
by David Montgomery
Excerpted from The Fall of the House of Labor (Cambridge 1987) p. 44-57
DIGEST PRODUCED FOR TUSG.ORG
The long upswing of American industrial growth in the nineteenth century had different characteristics before and after the depression of the 1870s. Before that decade lay the formative years of the American working class. The ranks of wage laborers had grown hand in hand with rapid accumulation of capital for more than half a century to the point that they represented more than half of those counted by the census of 1870 as gainfully employed. Per capita output had also grown steadily, at least since the 1830s. The 1850s had represented something of a nodal point in this growth: along with the iron ship, the telegraph, and the consolidation of railroad trunk lines, that decade had brought aggressive working-class activity in both economic and political life and had closed with America's achievement of second place in manufacturing output among the nations of the world and a genuine industrial depression.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Harvey- Enigma of Capital DIGEST
THE ENIGMA OF CAPITAL by David Harvey (Oxford 2010)
DIGEST PRODUCED FOR TUSG.ORG
Capital is the lifeblood that flows through the body politic of all those societies we call capitalist. Understanding capital flow, its winding pathways and the strange logic of its behavior is therefore crucial to our understanding of the conditions under which we live.
My early seventeenth-century namesake William Harvey is generally credited with being the first person to show correctly and systematically how blood circulated through the human body. It was on this basis that medical research went on to establish how heart attacks and other ailments could seriously impair, if not terminate, the life force within the human body.
In trying to deal with serious tremors in the heart of the body politic, our economists, business leaders and political policy makers have, in the absence of any conception of the systematic nature of capital flow, either revived ancient practices or applied postmodern conceptions and sophisticated mathematical models.
In this book, I attempt to restore some understanding of what the flow of capital is all about. If we can achieve a better understanding of the disruptions and destruction to which we are all now exposed, we might begin to know what to do about it.
DIGEST PRODUCED FOR TUSG.ORG
Capital is the lifeblood that flows through the body politic of all those societies we call capitalist. Understanding capital flow, its winding pathways and the strange logic of its behavior is therefore crucial to our understanding of the conditions under which we live.
My early seventeenth-century namesake William Harvey is generally credited with being the first person to show correctly and systematically how blood circulated through the human body. It was on this basis that medical research went on to establish how heart attacks and other ailments could seriously impair, if not terminate, the life force within the human body.
In trying to deal with serious tremors in the heart of the body politic, our economists, business leaders and political policy makers have, in the absence of any conception of the systematic nature of capital flow, either revived ancient practices or applied postmodern conceptions and sophisticated mathematical models.
In this book, I attempt to restore some understanding of what the flow of capital is all about. If we can achieve a better understanding of the disruptions and destruction to which we are all now exposed, we might begin to know what to do about it.
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