I shall be delivering and videotaping a series of lectures this semester on The Thought of Karl Marx. The lectures will take place on Mondays in the same room where I lectured on The First Critique. As before, the lectures will be posted each week several days after they are videotaped. I am hoping to start on Monday, January 19th, but that is not yet definite. I would imagine there will be perhaps eight or nine lectures in all, maybe more.
Stay tuned.
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I'm looking forward to them.
OFF TOPIC
S. Wallerstein: I asked a friend who is a former World Bank employee what he thought of the report of gamed data concerning Chile. Here's his reply:
"As to the snippet you sent about the Bank, it both surprises me and yet it doesn't. Surprising in that the Bank, by and large, has pretty good internal controls and this sort of thing should have been caught. Unsurprising in that the units that deal with external publications are usually very small and it's not difficult to imagine intimidation by the boss visited upon vulnerable subordinates. A high proportion of the staff are on visas where, if they lose their jobs, they have to leave the country within a month. In these circumstances it's difficult to find whistle-blowers. A boss could, quite easily I think, alter data on it's way to the print shop and then threaten the poor Research Assistant with unpleasant consequences if he or she reveals the lie. But I suppose I'm jaundiced for I think for years now the Bank's internal culture has been corrupt. There's far too much looking-the-other-way that goes on, and the bosses form a self-protection racket that quite effectively smothers dissent and squelches accusations of wrongdoing."
David Palmeter,
Thanks. The Chilean government has requested an investigation (which means that they've studied what occurred and feel that there is good evidence that the data were manipulated).
The World Bank itself has sent confused signals, denying that there was a deliberate manipulation and at the same time promising an independent investigation.
Romer, who is the Chief Economist and a Senior Vice-President at the bank, has released more data showing that the original data about Chile were manipulated.
Professor Wolff,
I await your lectures on Marx with great interest.
Thank you for going to the trouble to prepare and deliver them.
Thanks Professor - what a treat!
David Palmeter,
Romer now retracts his earlier statements that the data were manipulated to discredit Bachelet.
That is, almost a week after his original statement he realizes that he was mistaken.
This is very strange. Does the Chief Economist in the World Bank make a public accusation against his own organization without checking the date carefully? I'd think not.
Or was an offer made to Romer that he could not refuse?
Off topic but somewhat relevant to earlier discussion here of M.L. King:
A syllabus and exam for a course King taught at Morehouse in the early 60s, a seminar on political philosophy. Also see the comments, incl. one by Prof. Pigden:
http://dailynous.com/2018/01/16/martin-luther-king-jr-s-social-philosophy-course/
The traditional big names are on his syllabus but -- gasp! -- no Marx. Maybe the syllabus would have been different several years later; that's pure speculation, obviously.
Thank you for putting up these great resources professor! I've found your lectures on both Freud and Kant to be very useful. Let's hope you get a chance to put up lectures on Hume sometime later on ;)
So will locals/students be invited to sit in, in person?
If so, a small suggestion may be to allow a few minutes near the end of the lecture for Q&A, as I imagine people will have questions (or maybe just me), and that could add yet another dimension to the online videos that we'd all benefit from.
Looking forward to these either way !
Very much looking forward to the Marx lectures.
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