Paul Cockshott
University of Glasgow, Computing Science, Faculty Member
- Political Economy, Information Theory, Compilers, Computing Science, Econophysics, Limits of Computation, and 22 moreMathematics, Programming Languages, Complexity Theory, Data Compression, Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Socialisms, Value Theory, Computational Complexity, Computability Theory, Hayek, Socialist Economics, National Income and Product Accounts, Economic Planning, Economics, Political Science, Political Philosophy, Direct Democracy, Electronic Democracy, Socialism, Marxism, Parallel Computing, and Marxist Economicsedit
- Computer Scientist and Political Economistedit
Translation of book Der Sozialismus des 21. Jahrhunderts by Heinz Dieterich
Research Interests:
Chinese translation of the book Towards a New Socialism.
Research Interests:
This report describes an experimental database system developed at the University of Strathclyde which aims to achieve enhanced performance by the use of a combination of data compression and persistent programming techniques. Experience... more
This report describes an experimental database system developed at the University
of Strathclyde which aims to achieve enhanced performance by the use of a combination
of data compression and persistent programming techniques. Experience with the
system has indicated that very significant gains in database performance and significant
reductions in data volume become possible using these techniques.
of Strathclyde which aims to achieve enhanced performance by the use of a combination
of data compression and persistent programming techniques. Experience with the
system has indicated that very significant gains in database performance and significant
reductions in data volume become possible using these techniques.
Research Interests:
Spanish translation of the book Arguments for Socialism
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
"This manual describes the Glasgow Pascal Compiler which supports vector extensions similar to those developed by Turner and Formella, extensions introduced in ISO Extended Pascal and some new extensions. Vector Pascal is an... more
"This manual describes the Glasgow Pascal Compiler which supports
vector extensions similar to those developed by Turner and Formella,
extensions introduced in ISO Extended Pascal and
some new extensions.
Vector Pascal is an extended Pascal incorporating:
- Unicode support
- Vector Pascal extensions aimed at vector processing. These are derived from APL and similar to the extensions provided in Fortran90. These extensions translate to the SIMD instructions of the Sandybridge and P4 etc.
- New operator extensions to support SIMD programming
- Type system extensions to support scientific and image processing
- Many of the features of ISO extended Pascal (see http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/compilers/compilerindex/iso10206.ps ) in particular
- Turbo Pascal features: Units, Strings, Turbo Pascal style file operations
A comparison with other languages and implementation details are given in Vector Pascal an Array Language (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/compilers/compilerindex/vp-ver2.html)."
vector extensions similar to those developed by Turner and Formella,
extensions introduced in ISO Extended Pascal and
some new extensions.
Vector Pascal is an extended Pascal incorporating:
- Unicode support
- Vector Pascal extensions aimed at vector processing. These are derived from APL and similar to the extensions provided in Fortran90. These extensions translate to the SIMD instructions of the Sandybridge and P4 etc.
- New operator extensions to support SIMD programming
- Type system extensions to support scientific and image processing
- Many of the features of ISO extended Pascal (see http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/compilers/compilerindex/iso10206.ps ) in particular
- Turbo Pascal features: Units, Strings, Turbo Pascal style file operations
A comparison with other languages and implementation details are given in Vector Pascal an Array Language (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/compilers/compilerindex/vp-ver2.html)."
Research Interests:
Computation and its Limits is an innovative cross-disciplinary investigation of the relationship between computing and physical reality. It begins by exploring the mystery of why mathematics is so effective in science and seeks to explain... more
Computation and its Limits is an innovative cross-disciplinary investigation of the relationship between computing and physical reality. It begins by exploring the mystery of why mathematics is so effective in science and seeks to explain this in terms of the modelling of one part of physical reality by another. Going from the origins of counting to the most blue-skies proposals for novel methods of computation, the authors investigate the extent to which the laws of nature and oflogic constrain what we can compute. In the process they examine formal computability, the thermodynamics of computation and the promise of quantum computing.
Research Interests:
This e-book is made up of a collection of articles written by us over the period since the fall of ‘die Mauer’ and the crisis of the European socialist movement brought on in its wake. They record an attempt to argue through the... more
This e-book is made up of a collection of articles written by us over the period
since the fall of ‘die Mauer’ and the crisis of the European socialist movement brought on in
its wake. They record an attempt to argue through the theoretical challenges that this period
has posed:
● Why did both Leninist communism and social democracy come to crisis?
● What were the economic weaknesses of both and what economic policy should a
future socialist movement adopt to overcome these?
● How can the struggle for popular democracy be integrated into the goals of a new
movement?
The articles were written for a variety of publications or occasions. Rather than presenting
them in chronological order we have organised them into topics.
since the fall of ‘die Mauer’ and the crisis of the European socialist movement brought on in
its wake. They record an attempt to argue through the theoretical challenges that this period
has posed:
● Why did both Leninist communism and social democracy come to crisis?
● What were the economic weaknesses of both and what economic policy should a
future socialist movement adopt to overcome these?
● How can the struggle for popular democracy be integrated into the goals of a new
movement?
The articles were written for a variety of publications or occasions. Rather than presenting
them in chronological order we have organised them into topics.
Research Interests:
The systemic crisis is there. The world. Even those who say that they caused. They know no way out and still do so on as usual. On the other hand, there are quite a few who oppose it. They say: If you want to create a dry pond, should not... more
The systemic crisis is there. The world. Even those who say that they caused. They know no way out and still do so on as usual. On the other hand, there are quite a few who oppose it. They say: If you want to create a dry pond, should not you better ask the frogs. Among those who put the system in question and think about other solutions, are the authors of the texts assembled here. They live on different continents and bring different experiences and views. In this volume, they present their ideas that are stimulating and constructive. According to Prof. Heinz Dieterich, the guiding spirit of the International Association for Political Economy, these are at the first "scientifically-based transition model of a highly complex market economy to one based on work values, half-day society
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Denna bok, skriven av en nationalekonom och en datorforskare, visar inte bara att ett annat sätt är möjligt - den visar också hur det rent konkret kan förverkligas med hjälp av modern datakraft och det nätverksbyggande som brutit igenom i... more
Denna bok, skriven av en nationalekonom och en datorforskare, visar inte bara att ett annat sätt är möjligt - den visar också hur det rent konkret kan förverkligas med hjälp av modern datakraft och det nätverksbyggande som brutit igenom i vår tid.
A book defending the feasiblity of socialist planning with modern computer technology, and covering issues like price policy, income mechanisms and taxation in socialist economies
This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the methodologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science. This approach is used to re-examine the classical... more
This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the methodologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science. This approach is used to re-examine the classical subdivisions of political economy: production, exchange, distribution and finance. The book begins by examining the most basic feature of economic life–production–and asks what it is about physical laws that allows production to take place. How is it that human labour is able to ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Does socialism progress through stages? Is there a higher, or communist, stage? How can stages, as a manifestation of the objectivity of social evolution, be reconciled with the marshaling of will and consciousness necessary for building... more
Does socialism progress through stages? Is there a higher, or communist, stage? How can stages, as a manifestation of the objectivity of social evolution, be reconciled with the marshaling of will and consciousness necessary for building socialist society? What role does (or should) development of the productive forces play in a) socialist social evolution; b) socialist theory? How does socialism envision the evolution of democracy? the state?
... WP COCKSHOT, MP ATKINSON AND KJ CHISHOLM Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, May field Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK AND PJ BAILEY AND R ... In the example shown, the class 3j 3|| 20 CLAM POINT**'1 II* tl rid... more
... WP COCKSHOT, MP ATKINSON AND KJ CHISHOLM Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, May field Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK AND PJ BAILEY AND R ... In the example shown, the class 3j 3|| 20 CLAM POINT**'1 II* tl rid cons (P nt rt 1 val ; pnt rhd ; 1 nt ...
Abstract A class of processors is introduced with instruction sets that are specialised for parsing. The types of instructions required to parse regular expressions and context free grammars are identified. Possible implementations of... more
Abstract A class of processors is introduced with instruction sets that are specialised for parsing. The types of instructions required to parse regular expressions and context free grammars are identified. Possible implementations of parser instruction set computers in the implementation of transducers are discussed. Two experimental parsing instruction set computers intended for text retrieval are described.
Analysis of the Charlie Hebdo atrocity and the rise of armed islamism in the light of the political economy of the Gulf Monarchies.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
What is the ultimate grounding and historical justification for projecting a socialist society? Broadly conceptualized, what do socialists want? What are the defining qualities of socialism, and how do those qualities constitute a... more
What is the ultimate grounding and historical justification for projecting a socialist society? Broadly conceptualized, what do socialists want? What are the defining qualities of socialism, and how do those qualities constitute a decisive advance over capitalism and class-antagonistic societies in general?
Research Interests:
DAIS is a proposed processor incorporating hardware-based object addressing. By providing only the very minimum of support for objects, it allows efficient access via a novel caching system. Object addressing is supported at the... more
DAIS is a proposed processor incorporating hardware-based object addressing. By providing only the very minimum of support for objects, it allows efficient access via a novel caching system. Object addressing is supported at the instruction level, with virtually the same performance as a processor using virtual addressing. This paper begins with a justification of the method by which objects are accessed in the DAIS design, and then goes on to describe the hardware caching mechanisms to efficiently support it. Finally, some ...
Research Interests:
The main challenge of ground penetrating radar GPR) based foundation detection is to have an accurate image analysis method. In order to solve the detection problem a system level analysis of the issues involved with the recognition of... more
The main challenge of ground penetrating radar GPR) based foundation detection is to have an accurate image analysis method. In order to solve the detection problem a system level analysis of the issues involved with the recognition of foundations using image reconstruction is required. The SIMCA (’SIMulated Correlation Algorithm’) is a technique based on an area correlation between the trace that would be returned by an ideal point reflector in the soil conditions at the site and the actual trace. During an initialization phase, SIMCA carries out radar simulation using the design parameters of the radar and soil properties. Then SIMCA takes the raw data as the radar is scanned over the ground and in real-time uses a clutter removal technique to remove various clutter such as cross talk, initial ground reflection and antenna ringing. The trace which would be returned by a target under these conditions is then used to form a correlation kernel. The GPR b-scan is then correlated with the kernel using the Pearson correlation coefficient, resulting in a correlated image which is brightest at points most similar to the canonical target. This image is then raised to an odd power >2 to enhance the target/background separation. To validate and compare the algorithm, photographs of the building before it was demolished along with processed data using the REFLEXW package were used. The results produced by the SIMCA algorithm were very promising and were able to locate some features that the REFLEXW package were not able to identify.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Background / Purpose: There is currently a need for establishing a methodology allowing for reliable and quantitative volume analysis of the 3D reconstructions of nanostructures based on electron tomography (ET) for biological materials.... more
Background / Purpose: There is currently a need for establishing a methodology allowing for reliable and quantitative volume analysis of the 3D reconstructions of nanostructures based on electron tomography (ET) for biological materials. Main conclusion: This research argues that by careful consideration of the physical process involved in the formation of the electron microscopy images, it is possible by computer simulation to set bounds on the accuracy of the 3D algorithmic reconstruction produced by existing software from the tilt series in a way that improves the interpretation of the reconstructed tomographs produced by existing algorithms.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Vector Pascal is a dialect of Pascal designed as part of a research project that aims to make efficient use of the multi-media instructionsets of recent processors. It supports data parallel operations and saturated arithmetic. It was... more
Vector Pascal is a dialect of Pascal designed as part of a research project that aims to make efficient use of the multi-media instructionsets of recent processors. It supports data parallel operations and saturated arithmetic. It was developed at the Image and Graphics Lab at the Department of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. This lab is part of the Imaging Faraday Partnership and funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, having as its objective the transfer of research technology in the field of computer imaging to UK ...
Deseamos agradecer a María Black, Ron Buchanan y Greg Michaelson por la útil discusión de ideas en este libro. Allin Cottrell también desea reconocer la asistencia en la forma de becas de investigación por parte de la Universidad Elon, en... more
Deseamos agradecer a María Black, Ron Buchanan y Greg Michaelson por la útil discusión de ideas en este libro. Allin Cottrell también desea reconocer la asistencia en la forma de becas de investigación por parte de la Universidad Elon, en Carolina del Norte, y el Legado Kerr en la Universidad de Edimburgo.
Despite the widespread adoption of parallel operations in contemporary CPU designs, their use has been restricted by a lack of appropriate programming language abstractions and development environments. To fully exploit the SIMD model of... more
Despite the widespread adoption of parallel operations in contemporary CPU designs, their use has been restricted by a lack of appropriate programming language abstractions and development environments. To fully exploit the SIMD model of computation such operations offer, programmers depend on CPU specific machine code or implementation-dependent libraries. Here we present vector Pascal (VP), a language designed to enable the elegant and efficient expression of SIMD algorithms. VP imports into Pascal abstraction ...
Research Interests:
This article argues that the development of quantum computers lends support to objective, observer less interpretations of quantum theory.
Research Interests:
This is a critical examination of the Transitional Programme by Leon Trotsky. It argues that the document made grossly unrealistic assesments about the state of the world economy in the 1930s and that its conception of what a programme... more
This is a critical examination of the Transitional Programme by Leon Trotsky. It argues that the document made grossly unrealistic assesments about the state of the world economy in the 1930s and that its conception of what a programme should be was quite mistaken.
Research Interests:
A defence of the idea of abolishing exploitation against Diane Elsons proposals for merely mitigating it
Research Interests:
Sten Ljunggren is worried both by our general proposals for direct democracy and by our advocacy of a system of central planning. This response is in five sections. The first puts the debate into the context of what we see as the key... more
Sten Ljunggren is worried both by our general proposals for direct democracy and by our advocacy of a system of central planning. This response is in five sections. The first puts the debate into the context of what we see as the key features of the communist mode of production. The second deals with the question of control theory, and replies to Ljunggren's doubts about the use of computer models in planning. The third section puts forward our critique of market socialism and the fourth responds to Ljunggren's argument that a planning system cannot be as flexible as the market since it supposedly cannot replicate the horizontal links between enterprises found in market systems. The final section points out the differences between our conceptions and the planning mechanisms in the former Soviet Union, responding to Ljunggren's claim that there is not much new in our economic ideas. 1 Communism: direct democracy and planning It is well known that classical Marxism saw society as passing through historical stages characterized by different modes of production: slavery, feudalism, capitalism and communism. Less well remembered is Marx's account of what distinguishes these modes of production. He said that they were distinguished by the specific way in which they produced and appropriated surplus labour. In slavery the entire working day was carried out under the direction of the slave-owner, the entire product went directly to him, and the slaves were apparently unpaid for any of their work. In feudalism, the surplus and necessary labour times worked were openly demarcated, unpaid time on estate versus free time on the peasant's plot. Under capitalism, labour is apparently free, work done for the firm being paid for by the hour. Marx's greatest theoretical contribution to communism was his analysis of how apparently free paid labour hid the extraction of surplus labour in the form of surplus value. Marxists have had no compunction about examining surplus extraction in prop-ertarian societies like slavery and capitalism, but they have been more reticent about applying the same analytical tools to socialism or communism. In general they did not even think to ask the relevant question—how is the necessary surplus to be extracted? It was a question that presented itself immediately to the unprepared Bolsheviks on taking power, and they came up with a series of improvised responses—expropriations in the short run, a tax in kind on grain, manipulation of relative prices of industrial and agricultural goods in the mid 1920s—before settling on a turnover tax on state enterprises as the stable and workable solution. From the establishment of the planned economy in the USSR up to the time of Gorbachov, the turnover tax was the main the juridical form under which the state was financed. In capitalist language this was equivalent to meeting most state expenditure (new investment in infrastructure, education, welfare, defence, scientific research,
Research Interests:
Abstract Vector Pascal is a language designed to support elegant and efficient expression of algorithms using the SIMD model of computation. It imports into Pascal abstraction mechanisms derived from functional languages having their... more
Abstract Vector Pascal is a language designed to support elegant and efficient expression of algorithms using the SIMD model of computation. It imports into Pascal abstraction mechanisms derived from functional languages having their origins in APL. In particular it extends all operators to work on vectors of data. The type system is extended to handle pixels and dimensional analysis.
Covers the scientific method and the materialist theory of models.
Research Interests:
Evaluates the N Body problem on the Intel SCC 48 core chip, Intel Nehalem 8 core chip, Intel Sandy Bridge 4 core chip, IBM Cell 7 core chip, using 3 different translation systems Lino – tiling language,Glasgow Pascal Compiler (Vector... more
Evaluates the N Body problem on the Intel SCC 48 core chip, Intel Nehalem 8 core chip, Intel Sandy Bridge 4 core chip, IBM Cell 7 core chip, using 3 different translation systems Lino – tiling language,Glasgow Pascal Compiler (Vector Pascal ), Glasgow Fortran Compiler (E#)
Research Interests:
Slides based on a study done by Communist Formation economic study group 1977, later published as a research report by University of Strathclyde Dept of Computer Science
Research Interests:
Talk for a day school of the PTB, Brussels, 2018
Talk given in Hanoi in 2017
Talk given to the Escience Center in Edinburgh
Research Interests:
Seminar given at PTB day school March 2018
Research Interests:
Lecture notes for my compiler construction course
Research Interests:
A review of previous array Pascals leads on to a description the Glasgow Pascal compiler. The compiler is an ISO-Pascal superset with semantic extensions to translate data parallel statements to run on multiple SIMD cores. An appendix is... more
A review of previous array Pascals leads on to a description the
Glasgow Pascal compiler. The compiler is an ISO-Pascal superset
with semantic extensions to translate data parallel statements to
run on multiple SIMD cores. An appendix is given which includes
demonstrations of the tool.
Glasgow Pascal compiler. The compiler is an ISO-Pascal superset
with semantic extensions to translate data parallel statements to
run on multiple SIMD cores. An appendix is given which includes
demonstrations of the tool.
Research Interests:
In this talk I describe the support for Map/Reduce in the Glasgow
C Compiler for the Xeon Phi and Xeon. I describe both the syntax of
the language extension and the compiler architecture used to implement
it.
C Compiler for the Xeon Phi and Xeon. I describe both the syntax of
the language extension and the compiler architecture used to implement
it.
Research Interests:
Presentation sent to conference in Mexico on the economic consequence of robots.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Compilers and Parallelism
Research Interests: Compilers and Parallelism
Research Interests:
This looks ar the interaction of climate change, energy, food production, military conflict and politics in the dynamics of revolt on a world scale
This elucidates the circumstances under which the rate of profit falls in a capitalist economy and relates it to the theory of over accumulation of capital.
The talk will look at experiments on implementing the N-body problem on 4 different multi-core architectures, and using 3 different programming languages. The architectures are the 9 core Cell, the 8 core Nehalem, the 4 core Sandybridge,... more
The talk will look at experiments on implementing the N-body problem on 4 different multi-core architectures, and using 3 different programming languages. The architectures are the 9 core Cell, the 8 core Nehalem, the 4 core Sandybridge, and the 48 core SCC. The languages are a Glasgow Fortran Compiler (E#), a Glasgow Pascal Compiler (Vector extensions), and the Lino compiler developed jointly with Prof Michaelson at HW.
We will look at the compartive performance of different inter processor communications mechanisms and different parallelisation mechanisms.
We will look at the compartive performance of different inter processor communications mechanisms and different parallelisation mechanisms.
Talk looking at the role of algorithmic and thermodynamic information theory in the understanding of mass production technologies from Roman times to today.
We have in the past tended to avoid expressing criticisms of other socialist writers, prefering instead to concentrate our critical faculties on prominent conservative economists. For the French edition of this book the publishers have... more
We have in the past tended to avoid expressing criticisms of other socialist writers, prefering instead to concentrate our critical faculties on prominent conservative economists. For the French edition of this book the publishers have asked us to review several contemporary socialist authors in order to explain where we stand in relation to them. One should bear in mind that ideas developed independently by different writers may coincide on some points and differ on others. Some of these differences may, in the big picture, be relatively unimportant , reflecting as they do each individual author's journey to their current position from different cultural starting points. Other differences may be more significant insofar as they relate to substantive policy issues. One may have the most varied views of history withouth this causing dispute if one's views on what should be done in the future coincide. Thus, in our reviews that follow we attempt to distinguish what we consider to be essentially scholarly differences with others, from politically important differences. Parecon Parecon is both the title of a bookAlbert (2003), and a neologism that its author intends to replace the word socialism. He feels that the word socialism has become so encumbered by notions of 'market socialism' that it has become necessary to invent an entirely new word to designate the non-market post-capitalist system that he advocates. Parecon stands for Participatory Economics, and the concept is the joint work of Michael Albert and his frequent collaborator Robin Hahnel. Albert can be thought of as either a libertarian socialist or an anarchist, and we would consider ourselves in sympathy with a considerable portion of what he writes, particularly his critique of the market and of market socialism. We do have differences with him on some issues of policy and on his analysis of the causal mechanisms underlying problems both with capitalism and hithertoo existant socialisms. If below, we seem to be rather critical of him on these points, it should not obscure the point that in terms of the overall spectrum of modern politics we are very close neighbours. The points on which we agree in terms of general objectives are: • A payment system based on labour (he calls it one based on effort). The objectives here are broadly the same though there is some difference of emphasis. 177
Davis's critique of hypercomputation, alleging that it is a myth, is defended against Sundar and Bringsjord's rebuttal.
Research Interests:
This gives a number or examples of the use of Kantorovich's method applied to economic optimisation. The greater part of the document is a detailed literate programming presentation of a programme to implement Kantorovich's method using... more
This gives a number or examples of the use of Kantorovich's method applied to economic optimisation. The greater part of the document is a detailed literate programming presentation of a programme to implement Kantorovich's method using data in spreadsheet format. A number of improvements to Kantorovich's algorithm to make it more robust are given.
Version 2 of the file fixes errors in the formatting of the lp-solve examples ( the original had rendered spaces in them as ~ ).
Version 2 of the file fixes errors in the formatting of the lp-solve examples ( the original had rendered spaces in them as ~ ).
Research Interests:
1. He concedes that Cottrell and Cockshott's model is the only coherent intellectual opposition that the Austrian school face from the left 2. He concedes that we have demolished the argument that socialist calculation is too complex to... more
1. He concedes that Cottrell and Cockshott's model is the only coherent intellectual opposition that the Austrian school face from the left 2. He concedes that we have demolished the argument that socialist calculation is too complex to be feasible. 3. He has an argument that what we are doing is no longer socialist calculation because it is not independent of the market (because we allow a market for consumer goods), 4. Following on from 3 he argues that our labour values are no longer labour values because they are contaminated by market eects. We will reply mainly on points 3 and 4 which, we think, are very weak argument. Those that Hayek was arguing against like Lange and Dickinson allowed for markets in consumer goods, this did not lead Hayek to say : Oh you are not really arguing for socialism since you have conceded a market in consumer goods, he did not, because there remained huge policy dierences between him and Lange even if Lange accepted consumer goods markets. It is thus a very weak argument by Brewster to say that what we advocate is not really socialist calculation because it is contaminated in some way by market inuences. There still remains a huge policy dierence between us and him. If he wants to argue that what we advocate is not real socialist calculation, well he can do so, but this would be seen as quibbling over denitions of socialism. There remain substantive policy dierences and he has now to show that the policies we are advocating would be impossible in practice. He is wrong in saying that our labour values are no longer labour values since they are now inuenced by market prices. In Marxian economics there are three distinct concepts, value in use, value in exchange and labour value. Value in use is held to be non-comparable, it sets up no scale, and is a matter for technology and design study rather than political economy. Value in exchange, is, when represented in monetary prices, a scalar quantity. Labour value is another scalar quantity but is distinct from exchange value. Exchange value ratios closely approximate labour value ratios in capitalist economies[12, 10, 13, 3, 14, 15] but deviate from them under the inuence of imbalances in supply and demand. We continue to reproduce these distinctions in the consumer goods market.
Research Interests:
1. He concedes that Cottrell and Cockshott's model is the only coherent intellectual opposition that the Austrian school face from the left 2. He concedes that we have demolished the argument that socialist calculation is too complex to... more
1. He concedes that Cottrell and Cockshott's model is the only coherent intellectual opposition that the Austrian school face from the left 2. He concedes that we have demolished the argument that socialist calculation is too complex to be feasible. 3. He has an argument that what we are doing is no longer socialist calculation because it is not independent of the market (because we allow a market for consumer goods), 4. Following on from 3 he argues that our labour values are no longer labour values because they are contaminated by market eects. We will reply mainly on points 3 and 4 which, we think, are very weak argument. Those that Hayek was arguing against like Lange and Dickinson allowed for markets in consumer goods, this did not lead Hayek to say : Oh you are not really arguing for socialism since you have conceded a market in consumer goods, he did not, because there remained huge policy dierences between him and Lange even if Lange accepted consumer goods markets. It is thus a very weak argument by Brewster to say that what we advocate is not really socialist calculation because it is contaminated in some way by market inuences. There still remains a huge policy dierence between us and him. If he wants to argue that what we advocate is not real socialist calculation, well he can do so, but this would be seen as quibbling over denitions of socialism. There remain substantive policy dierences and he has now to show that the policies we are advocating would be impossible in practice. He is wrong in saying that our labour values are no longer labour values since they are now inuenced by market prices. In Marxian economics there are three distinct concepts, value in use, value in exchange and labour value. Value in use is held to be non-comparable, it sets up no scale, and is a matter for technology and design study rather than political economy. Value in exchange, is, when represented in monetary prices, a scalar quantity. Labour value is another scalar quantity but is distinct from exchange value. Exchange value ratios closely approximate labour value ratios in capitalist economies[12, 10, 13, 3, 14, 15] but deviate from them under the inuence of imbalances in supply and demand. We continue to reproduce these distinctions in the consumer goods market.
Research Interests:
These are notes I wrote in the middle of the Thatcher period to try and come to an understanding of the then current conjuncture. If I recall correctly they were prepared for discussion in the WPS.
Research Interests:
A working paper arguing for social control of investment written 21 years ago. It makes similar arguments about the social content of Keynesianism to those recently made by Alan Freeman.
Research Interests:
1987 Nothingsaid Mao,nothing is above the class struggle. Even cinders are touched with the mark of class, for the rich man's cinders are collected from his rubbish by the poor searching for scraps of coal. At the other end of the scale... more
1987 Nothingsaid Mao,nothing is above the class struggle. Even cinders are touched with the mark of class, for the rich man's cinders are collected from his rubbish by the poor searching for scraps of coal. At the other end of the scale the most elevated and abstract product of human enterprise-modern physics too bears the marks of class conflict. In one sense it is obvious that from the day when the forces from which the stars draw their fires were let loose over Hiroshima, physics lost its innocence. What had been apparently a pure search for truth was seen to have terrible consequences for humanity in a world rushing into a new cold war between capitalism and communism. With disconcerting suddeness a generation of scientists had to choose which side ot the class divide they stood on: with Teller 'high priest of the H-bomb' or with Fuchs " Stalins atom spy ". In the years since then similar moral dilemas have had to be faced by scientists working in a wide variety of disciplines as the anti soviet war drive has expanded to take up an ever growing part of the research community. Few of those entering into this Faustian contract prooved to have had the courage and moral strength of a Mordecai Vanunu. Vanunu was the brave Israeli technician who revealed to the world the hellish arsenal of 100-200 nuclear bombs built up beneath the Negev desert, who was then kidnapped from Britiain by Mossad with Thatcher's likely complicity and now faces the death penalty for high treason in Israel. Instead the great majority have been willing to take the money and the opportunity to do intellectually stimulating work whilst trying to think as little as possible about the implications of their work.
Research Interests:
Introductory lecture material on scientific methods as given to post graduate students by me
Research Interests:
The paper examines the debate in Ireland on Gay Marriage in 2015 and uses this as a pivot from which to examine the underlying political economy of Gay Marriage. We look at the weaknesses of the clerical arguments against Gay Marriage in... more
The paper examines the debate in Ireland on Gay Marriage in 2015 and uses this as a pivot from which to examine the underlying political economy of Gay Marriage. We look at the weaknesses of the clerical arguments against Gay Marriage in the social context of modern Ireland and against the background of the past social role of the Church there. We are critical of what we see as over-optimistic claims for the socially transformative role of the marriage reform. We examine the economic position of gay couples and show that they are relatively advantaged. We go on to relate gay marriage to demographics and the problem of secular stagnation.
Research Interests:
Looks at the idea of communism and how big data makes it more practi