During my time in the Obama administration at the Department of Commerce, I was impressed with the collaboration between local government, academia, the labs and private industry that defines the Tri Valley.
I became convinced the Tri-Valley is a model for our nation in helping drive innovation and economic growth.
I have a good frame of reference. In my job, I was privileged to travel to more than 30 states. I can say without hesitation that the Tri Valley is one of the best innovation clusters in our nation, rivaling Wichita's aerospace hub and Northeast Ohio's plastics cluster.
That is why I was proud to join the boards of Innovation Tri-Valley and I-Gate when I returned home to the East Bay.
The challenge for the Tri Valley is greater visibility on Sand Hill Road and in San Jose. Just this morning, I was talking to a prominent leader from Pleasanton who observed that we need to do more to collaborate with Silicon Valley. I could not agree more.
I am privileged to work now at Wilson Sonsini, a Silicon Valley based law firm. But, the reality is that not enough Silicon Valley venture capitalists, technologists or intellectual property attorneys know of the extraordinary resources in the Tri Valley. We should do a better job at marketing the strengths of the Tri-Valley. Innovation Tri Valley and I-Gate are doing precisely that.
In fact, Innovation Tri Valley is hosting a forum on July 26th in Pleasanton in which Carl Guardino, president of Silicon Valley Leadership Group will be participating. The details are below.
My hope is that forums like this will increase the dialogue and partnership between the Tri Valley and Silicon Valley. Tri Valley has an extraordinarily educated and skilled workforce, available land, great schools and responsive elected officials -- all assets that should appeal to leaders in Silicon Valley.
In turn, Silicon Valley can provide access to capital and knowledge that can help the Tri Valley's growth. If leaders from both regions come togeher, they can also help shape policies that will strengthen American competitiveness and help us build manufacturing capacity in the Bay Area.
Our nation faces extraordinary competition from China, Brazil and Japan when it comes to innovation. We will only stay ahead by breaking past silos and building strong regional partnerships.
A great place to start is by building the links between Tri Valley and Silicon Valley. If we succeed locally, we can be an example for the country in how to create high paying jobs and an environment for manufacturing to flourish. We can show that California can still lead the way for the country.
I hope many folks will come to the forum on the 26th to share your ideas about such a partnership.
The Fourth Annual Tri-Valley Innovation Forum
http://www.innovationtrivalley.org/events.aspx
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Casa Real at Ruby Hill Winery
410 Vineyard Avenue, Pleasanton
I read your profile and have not had to occasion before to discuss with someone serious about Socialism/Marxist. Many people share Socialist and Marxist ideas but don't recognize themselves as Socialists and much less Marxists (at least in my experience). You have an interesting background as well. Hopefully our exchange can be a good one. While I am a Classical Liberal (Libertarian) I think you would bring up interesting points that would enlarge my understanding on the subject from both perspectives. > Workers work over and above, under direction of the capitalist, the time during which they produce the value of their wages, So what they produce during this time is free for the capitalist. This is the labor theory of value. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value I assume you are aware of the subjective value theory? If so what are you objections to it? (please explain) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value > This system is kept alive through coercion. In a voluntary system there is no coercion but voluntary cooperation and contract. It is true that State intervention into the economy is coercion but this is contrary to the liberal plan of a Free Economy, but it seems that by recognizing victories or concessions from the state in the form of social services, you don't have an issue with state coercion. Is this correct?
This answer stems from a labor value theory. Your second answer is better. The wage is lower because there are more janitors than surgeons, Also the surgeons work is more valued. >The price of a surgeon's labor power, like a janitor's is determined by supply and demand. This is the complete answer actually. One reason why I believe the labor theory is false, is because it would lead to fixed prices since the amount of labor in products is fixed once complete. Yet prices are variable for completed products. For example, Home prices have gone up and down considerably regardless of how much labor it took to build them. Often some products are sold at a loss, below production costs, simply because they are no longer desired or have been superceded in the market. Supply and demand. Another example, identical homes (same labor) in different locations get different prices. A small cheap home in Palo Alto may get $1M, in Manteca, only $100k. The explanation has nothing to do with labor costs. Consider hard drives. When floods disrupted production, the price doubled overnight without any labor being added to the unsold hard drives. Identical new harddrives being produced with no added labor now command a much higher price. As more labor is used to produce still more drives on the market, the prices fall.
I'm actually not at all saying the same thing. The labor theory of value was held by Marx and the early economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo. I don't dismiss Marx, but no economists really holds this view anymore. This is only an historical description and not an argument.
http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value "The subjective theory of value was partly motivated by the need to solve the so-called value-paradox which had puzzled many classical economists. Also called the diamond-water paradox, it arose when value was attributed to things such as the amount of labor that went into the production of a good or to an objective measure of the usefulness of a good. Based on these measures how could a diamond be valued greater than water? The measure of uselfulness or "utility" failed to solve the paradox because water is obviously more useful to an individual than are diamonds. But the theory that it was the amount of labor that went into producing a good that determined its value proved equally futile because someone could easily stumble upon the discovery of a diamond while out for a hike, for example, with minimal labor, but yet the diamond could still be valued higher than water. The subjective theory of value was able to solve this paradox by realizing that value is not determined by individuals choosing between entire abstract classes of goods such as all the water in the world versus all the diamonds in the world. Rather an acting individual is faced with the choice between definite quantities of goods, and the choice is determined by which good of a specified quantity will satisfy the individuals highest subjectively ranked preference, or most desired end."
"For a long time men failed to realize that the transition from the classical [labor] theory of value to the subjective theory of value was much more than the substitution of a more satisfactory theory of market exchange for a less satisfactory one. The general theory of choice and preference goes far beyond the horizon which encompassed the scope of economic problems as circumscribed by the economists from Cantillon, Hume, and Adam Smith down to John Stuart Mill. It is much more than merely a theory of the "economic side" of human endeavors and of man's striving for commodities and an improvement in his material well-being. It is the science of every kind of human action. Choosing determines all human decisions. All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference. The modern theory of value widens the scientific horizon and enlarges the field of economic studies. Out of the political economy of the classical school emerges the general theory of human action, praxeology. No treatment of economic problems proper can avoid starting from acts of choice; economics becomes a part of a more universal science, praxeology."
There is a restriction on the number of medical schools in the US by the American Medical Association that Milton Friedman once described as “The strongest trade Union in the United States”. Mark J Perry writes: “The Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the AMA approves both medical schools and hospitals. By restricting the number of approved medical schools and the number of applicants to those schools, the AMA limits the supply of physicians. In the same way that OPEC was able to quadruple the price of oil in the 1970s by restricting output, the AMA has increased their fees by restricting the supply of physicians.” * But I agree, the same would apply with electricians. *http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high
Milton Friedman - Curing American Health Care http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdcaLReCG3Y [simplified] "In my opinion the only right cure is no government regulation, subsidation, and what is more shocking to most, no licensure of physicisians. if I say to you, do you favor the kind of monopolistic practices which the medical association has followed over the past 50+ years? the majority of physicians would say, no, I am opposed. If I ask, do you favor the unlicensed practice of medicine? they would say no, I am not in favor. But they cannot believe both. To believe in both is to say two and two are five."
people can read up on it and work it out for themselves.
I don't personally know nor assert an answer. I also doubt if anyone really knows. It is driven often by simplified beliefs which I hold suspect on both sides. It has become more a political issue than a scientific one and that makes it more difficult to ascertain. I can reason about it however, without knowing if it is scientifically true or not. I am aware that Global Warming advocates are almost exclusively Anti-Capitalists. This is a serious and systematic intellectual flaw which I can and do argue against. I accept global warming (if it is happening) as a fact of nature, and I advocate the voluntary and free market (and an increase of freedom) and not coercive government as the most effective response. In the cases of man's alleged activities that contribute significantly to global warming, I believe application of private ownership around the world and personal rights would help to mitigate the problem and bring about more peace.
But lets revue history. In feudal society it was common belief that the king was king by gods will, by "divine right". They called it the "Divine right of Kings". Well who dreamt that up? It surely wasn't the exploited class of the time, the peasant or the serf. No, it was the king. It benefited the feudal ruling elite to perpetuate this myth that they were gods emissaries on earth. The same with the capitalists that govern our society. They argue for instance that prices are organically linked to wages which is nonsense. I remember a co-worker saying to me as many did, that he was a "capitalist". He meant that he supported capitalism as he was a wage worker not as capitalist. At the time, Detroit was producing about a million too many cars a year (another problem of a capitalist economy) and I mentioned this to him. "That's good" says he, "Prices will come down". "That's not what the capitalist says" I reply. "They say, that's bad, prices will come down." Two opposing points of view based in their social role in production.
>Another thing, Albert confuses value with price. I agree and hold they are different. I was arguing against what I saw as your viewpoint when you said: "Workers work over and above, under direction of the capitalist, the time during which they produce the value of their wages, or the price of their labor power." Here, you equated value of wages with the price of labor power. Hence, you equate value with at least some price. >Prices are determined by supply and demand in a market economy. They fluctuate below and above the actual value of a commodity. A commodity might be realize then a price above or below it's real value. Again, you assert a price above and below a real value. If a value exists between two prices, then it must exist as a price. It must be logically concluded that you hold there is a price which matches all "real values." I maintain objective value prices or labor value is incoherent. I assert there is no equation between price and value because prices can be measured, but values cannot. Furthemore, each person has a different estimate of value, even when they pay the same price. Here is the refutation: Since prices are from supply and demand (agreed) and prices fluctuate above and below a "real value" then real values are of no consequence in the market. If "real value" is not measurable, realizable or of consequence in the market, in what sense is it real? I conclude it is not.
>Albert adopts the ideology of the capitalist class...what he does is simply repeat the wold view of the class that rules and their theoreticians like Mises. 1. I am a Capitalist, but i do not recognize any Capitalist class. 2. Is quoting Mises a fallacy? I do not object to your repeating the anti-capitalist sentiments of James Connolly on your profile. I encourage quoting people who have articulated ideas best. Lastly, A Capitalist is someone who believes in the science of Economics to define Capitalism, a Classical Liberal. It is erroneous to say Capitalists govern the society. It is erroneous to equate businessmen as Capitalist. I would say most often they are not! > "That's good" says he, "Prices will come down". "That's not what the capitalist says" I reply. "They say, that's bad, prices will come down." Two opposing points of view based in their social role in production." Not so. All such valuations are personal and not theoretical: "economics is a theoretical science and as such abstains from any judgment of value. It is not its task to tell people what ends they should aim at. It is a science of the means to be applied for the attainment of ends chosen, not, to be sure, a science of the choosing of ends. Ultimate decisions, the valuations and the choosing of ends, are beyond the scope of any science. Science never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends." - Mises
Was this directed at me? >It's amazing how people simply repeat what they read in the big business mass media and claim it's reality simply by asserting it. Is it possible to discuss propositions without disparaging assumptions? Can you argue the point without reference to how stupid you think I or others are who disagree? The proposition that the minimum wage increases unemployment does not originate with the media but economists. So the proposition is false because in the 90's there was a market driven wage boom at the bottom rungs of the wage scale? Do you think this is a proper and sufficient refutation?
When the price of labor goes up, is there more or less use of labor?