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"Conversations with Harold Hudson Channer" Upcoming Cable Television/Web Show: For details of airing see bottom of page _______________________________________________________________________________________ Guests For MONDAY MARCH 1, 2010 (Originally aired: 02-20-84) LOUIS O. KELSO Lawyer / Economic Theorist / Investment Banker Author (With Mortimer Adler):
"The Capitalist Manifesto (1958)"
Louis O. Kelso
and Patricia Hetter Kelso estimates of the relative real inputs to production in
the American economy of Labor (Physical and Intellectual) and Capital over time
assuming reasonably competitive markets. So ingrained is the “ethic” of the
“Labor Theory of Value” that they thought it best to refer to Capital Owners as
“Capital Workers” in keeping with their understanding that Capital instruments
do “Work” - as surely as the most diligent human surrogate worker – and that
indeed the observable trend is for Capital Instruments to do ever more of the
Worlds “Work”. The reflexive prevalent attitude of equating “Economic” man with
Essential Human Values including the whole vast array of values around the “Work
Ethic” all contribute to camouflage and maintain the fundamental miss-match
between the way goods and services are produced and distributed and particularly
their trends projected into the future. Cybernetic contributions (now almost
exponential) are only adding to the much longer Historical trend. Represents US
Economy but applies to World trending. HHC
Chart of concentration of capital ownership in the U.S. over time. The same general pattern applies to virtually all economies of and the World Economy as a whole – Plutocratic ownership and control of the real means of production. With “The Labor Theory of Value” it only worsens. HHC - Below Quotes @ www.kelsoinstitute.org
"Conventional wisdom says there is only one way to earn a living,
and that's to work. Conventional wisdom effectively treats capital (land,
structures, machines, and the like) as though it were a kind of holy water that,
sprinkled on or about labor, makes it more productive. Thus, if you have a
thousand people working in a factory and you increase the design and power of
the machinery so that one hundred men can now do what a thousand did before,
conventional wisdom says, 'Voila! The productivity of the labor has gone up 900
percent!' I say 'hogwash.' All you've done is wipe out 90 percent of the jobs,
and even the remaining ten percent are probably sitting around pushing buttons.
What the economy needs is a way of legitimately getting capital ownership into
the hands of the people who now don't have it."
"The trouble with today's techniques of finance is that they're
designed to make the rich richer. None are designed to make the poor richer.
That's why the poor are poor. Because they're not rich."
"The Roman arena was technically a level playing field. But on one
side were the lions with all the weapons, and on the other the Christians with
all the blood. That's not a level playing field. That's a slaughter. And so is
putting people into the economy without equipping them with capital, while
equipping a tiny handful of people with hundreds and thousands of times more
than they can use."
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Charles Handy citing the 1930 reference by Lord John Maynard Keynes projecting “Technological Unemployment” for the future world of his grandchildren. That would be right about now as technological advancement not only provides the possible means for Humanity’s collective “Transcendence of Scarcity” but poses the problem to progressives by their commitment (along with virtually all economic theorizing) to the “Labor Theory of Value” currently informing virtually all National Economies on Planet Earth & the International System as well. HHC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist ... It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil" The General Theory - 1936 "We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not have heard the name but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come - namely technological unemployment" Letter to our grandchildren - 1930 (Lord John Maynard Keynes) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- & A.H. RASKIN Reporter & Columnist for over 40 Years - New York Times A Leading Expert on Labor Policy Issues -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The program can be viewed in its entirety by clicking the you tube link below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prM_0kiuE2o - LOUIS KELSO & A.H. RASKIN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More about: LOUIS O. KELSO & A.H. RASKIN
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Louis O. Kelso From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search Louis O. Kelso (1913-1991) was a lawyer and economic thinker who sought to find a way to preserve capitalism from the competition of communism as an alternative within the context of the early Cold War. His non-conformist "capitalism" might be compared to the peoples' capitalism ideas of G. K. Chesterton in which ownership is distributed to as many people as possible within the economy. Kelso developed the idea of Binary Economics to explain the need for expanded capital ownership in light of industrial production and the dominance of capital instead of labor. In 1956 Louis Kelso invented the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) to put his ideas into practice. In 1958 he collaborated with the philosopher Mortimer Adler to write The Capitalist Manifesto that is considered the primary source of his economic theories. Kelso and Adler followed this book with The New Capitalists (Random House, New York: 1961). Both books are readable online from the Kelso Institute. Louis O. Kelso had significant discussions concerning a Basic Income Guarantee with Russell B. Long and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.[1] Kelso has inspired many economic thinkers including James S. Albus, Robert Ashford, and Norman Kurland. [edit] Publications
WRITINGS BY LOUIS O. KELSO
WRITINGS BY LOUIS O. KELSO AND PATRICIA HETTER KELSO
George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty, The Great Ideas Today, Encyclopœdia Britannica, Inc., Chicago: 1982.
ALSO RECOMMENDED - BOOKS
[edit] Quote "The Roman arena was technically a level playing field. But on one side were the lions with all the weapons, and on the other the Christians with all the blood. That's not a level playing field. That's a slaughter. And so is putting people into the economy without equipping them with capital, while equipping a tiny handful of people with hundreds and thousands of times more than they can use." --Louis O. Kelso in Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas, (1990) [edit] External links Includes Kelso books in PDF format.
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December 23, 1993 A. H. Raskin, 82, Times Reporter and Editor, Dies By RICHARD SEVERO A. H. Raskin, an authority on labor whose articles and editorials ran in The New York Times for more than four decades, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 82. The cause of death was cancer, said his wife, Marge. Mr. Raskin served The Times as a reporter, editorial writer and as assistant editor of the editorial page. Informative but never strident or accusatory, Mr. Raskin was noted both for the thoroughness of his research and for the clarity with which he presented his findings, even when they concerned complex economic issues that many readers might find arcane. Some said they believed he was especially searching when writing about inflation. A Remembered Lesson On one occasion, Mr. Raskin explained why. In 1924, he said, while his family was living in Seattle, his father, Henry Raskin, a fur trader, decided to spend some time in Russia so that he could buy Siberian furs. Thus, the Raskin family temporarily relocated in Berlin to await visas. When they reached that city, an American dollar was worth 1,000 German marks. A few months later, with postwar Germany suffering under runaway inflation and badgered by its World War I enemies to pay reparations, the Raskins found that a dollar could fetch 4.2 trillion marks. The family never forgot it. "Never in my later career as a labor writer and analyst," he said, "could I accept with equanimity the notion that 'a little inflation can be a good thing.' " Mr. Raskin covered, among other things, the travails of desperate people who sought work during the Great Depression and, after World War II, the emergence of labor unions and leaders who had the strength and sophistication to make the American labor movement a formidable force. He also described some of labor's darkest problems. In 1952 his articles about wrongdoers encouraged the American Federation of Labor to set up a special antiracketeering committee. For his work in this period he won the George Polk Memorial Award, a Page One Award from the Newspaper Guild and an award from the Society of Silurians, a group of professional journalists. A Quip From Hoffa But not everyone was always pleased by what he wrote. James R. Hoffa, the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, told him, "Abe, you're going to scratch yourself on your typewriter one day and die of blood poisoning." John B. Oakes, editor of The Times's editorial page from 1961 through 1976, recalled that in his editorial writing Mr. Raskin dealt with everything affecting labor in the broadest sense, as well as with a wide range of international and domestic affairs. Mr. Raskin, he said, was the first person he had asked to join his staff as his deputy. He was, Mr. Oakes said yesterday, not only The Times's expert but also a nationally recognized voice in the field of labor and industrial relations. Mr. Raskin's ability as a reporter to coax stories out of his sources was legend. Stanley Levey, a colleague who also wrote about labor for The Times, called Mr. Raskin "one of the most amazing telephone manipulators since Alexander Graham Bell." Born in Canada Abraham Henry Raskin was born on April 26, 1911, in Edmonton, Alberta. After the Berlin adventure, he settled with his family in New York, where he received his secondary-school education at Townsend Harris Hall. In 1927 he entered City College and majored in education and government. He became interested in journalism and edited the student newspaper, yearbook and literary magazine. He was elected president of his senior class and was graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, in the class of 1931. He remained at City College for a time doing graduate work, mostly because he was unconvinced that any jobs were available, at least jobs that he might want. He furthered his interest in journalism by working as a campus correspondent for The New York Times. In March of 1934 he joined The Times as a reporter. He was assigned to cover unemployment and the work-relief agencies set up by the Government to see the nation through the Depression. His editors took note of his aggressiveness, and his first byline did not come easily. But almost from the start copy editors noted that Mr. Raskin was usually very accurate, seldom made the same mistake twice and produced copy that required almost no editing. A rarity among reporters of his generation, he even typed well. In 1940 he filed an exclusive account of David Dubinsky's being assaulted by Joseph S. Fay at a convention of the American Federation of Labor in New Orleans. Mr. Raskin did not see the assault, but his sources within the labor movement were such that he received an accurate account of it. At the time, Mr. Dubinsky was head of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; Mr. Fay ran the Union of Operating Engineers. Mr. Dubinsky had said some things about labor racketeers that Mr. Fay thought uncharitable. Mr. Raskin's article made page 1 of The Times. In 1977 he wrote with Mr. Dubinsky a memoir called "David Dubinsky: A Life With Labor." In World War II, Mr. Raskin served as chief of the industrial services division of the Pentagon, a job in which there was one memorable episode. In April 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was vexed with Sewell Avery, who was president and chairman of Montgomery Ward, the retail merchandising corporation. Mr. Roosevelt wanted Mr. Avery to make peace with a union, as ordered by the War Labor Board. When Mr. Avery proved intractible, two soldiers under Mr. Raskin's command appeared at his Chicago office and picked him up, still in his chair, and removed him. The Government seized all of Montgomery Ward's offices, held them briefly, then returned them to the company. In 1946 Mr. Raskin was discharged from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. After returning to The Times he also acted as a consultant to President Harry S. Truman on universal training, a program the President proposed that would have organized a citizen reserve to reinforce professional armed forces. The plan, which called not for drafting young men but for training them as civilians, was never adopted by Congress. In those same postwar years, Mr. Raskin also helped organize the Defense Department's Division of Industrial Relations. Assessing a Newspaper Strike In 1961 he joined the editorial board of The Times and three years later became assistant editor of the editorial page. One of his most notable performances in the 1960's was his lengthy account of the 114-day New York newspaper strike of 1962-63, which appeared in the news pages of The Times in its first issue after the strike ended. The effort was a journalistic tour de force that provided New Yorkers with a candid appraisal of what the strike had been all about. And although it was critical, in some respects, of some Times executives, it was printed without editorial deletions of sensitive material. Soon after it was printed, the chief negotiator for The Times resigned. The article was hailed by, among others, James A. Wechsler, who wrote in The New York Post: "It was a remarkable exercise in many ways -- but perhaps most remarkable because it suggested that not all virtue was on one side in the long struggle and that, in the view of men who had lived through the long days and nights," The Times's management negotiator "had not been a flawless figure." Mr. Raskin retired from The Times in 1977 but continued to write. For a time, he served as editor of The Journal of International Labor Affairs, published by the Department of Labor. In the autumn of 1990 he had a stroke. A Change in Vocation He endured the disabilites that followed with a determination to overcome them, but speech remained difficult if not impossible. In September 1992 the Op-Ed page of The Times carried excerpts from a piece he had written for Martha's Vineyard magazine. He wrote: "I now realize that my vocation in life has changed. Now I represent the one million Americans who cannot speak for themselves. My plight and theirs are one: to inform the public that those of us who have lost the ability to invent fluent phrases or sentences have not lost the ability to think. We retain the skill to communicate our thoughts and feelings, whether through writing, picture boards, pantomine or facial expression. We can still speak! We hope that you will listen with your ears, with your eyes and always with your heart." In addition to his wife, Marge, Mr. Raskin is survived by two children from his earlier marriage to Rose Samrock, who died in 1989. They are a son, Donald, and a daughter, Jane Brown. He is also survived by a brother, Bernard Raskin; three stepchildren, Mary Lou Frankel, Jill Isaacs and Geoffrey Campe; three grandchildren, David Raskin, Carolyn Raskin and Sarah Verneuille, and two great-grandchildren. A service will be held at 11:30 tomorrow morning at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home at 81st Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Correction: December 24, 1993, Friday Because of an editing error, an obituary yesterday about A. H. Raskin, an authority on labor whose articles and editorials ran in The New York Times for more than four decades, misstated his source of information about an assault by Joseph S. Fay on the garment union leader David Dubinsky at a 1940 convention in New Orleans. Mr. Raskin was present and witnessed the attack. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday March 1, 2010 11:00 AM - NOON Channel 34 of the Time/Warner, Channel 83 of the RCN, & Channel 33 of the Verizon FiOS Cable Television Systems in Manhattan, New York. The Program can now also be viewed on the internet at time of cable casting at:
www.mnn.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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241 West 36th StreetNew York,N.Y. 10018 Phone: 212-695-6351 E-Mail: HHC@NYC.RR.COM
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