G'day John,
Haven't got my *C* with me ...
My understanding of the way things are today is that banks create over 90%
of the money in circulation through the provision of credit. It exists
only as digits, and represents a faith in the near-to-mid term old crisis
theorists like me don't think is justified. In other words, the huge
majority of monies represents value not yet extracted, and not particularly
likely to be within the period it'll be needed to square the accounts. In
that event, we either reallocate social wealth to bail out the banks or
generate new loan contracts to keep the finance system afloat (we've done
that before, but it obviously ain't a structural fix as much as a
short-term 'socialism-for-the-rich' band-aid that effectively exacerbates
the credit-dependence of the system), or we let the financiers hit the wall
and find ourselves with a depression of (by my simple arithmetic)
absolutely unprecedented intensity.
We depend upon our yoke most profoundly ...
Anyway, no relationship pertains in 1999 between minted money and the
amount in circulation (capitalism survives each day on an ever deeper-mined
future - the only bolt-hole it has), and none with gold - which enjoys only
a discursive status - as Australia's and Britain's decisions to sell while
the going's good suggests.
Controlling credit is not only a self-professed socialist's aim, it really
should be any capitalist's aim, too.
Everyone's so urgently talking up productivity projections not so much
because of the improved living standards they should promise, but because
it's desperately needed to square today's accounts. It might be said that
the tendency of the rate of profit to fall encourages ameliorating bites
into the future, which ultimately promises only systemic fragility, as the
pressure to service that debt is increased by more of said tendency.
The 'information economy' seemed to offer those who don't believe in
systemic crisis a way out (an index to this optimism is to be seen in stock
values among info-monopolists). But those numbers are already softening,
it seems. After that, only massive capital destruction is left as a way
back to profitability - and that would have the effects we've been watching
in SE Asia. Regional devastation and the laying waste of 200 million lives
in sudden intense depressions that go all but ignored in the core
economies. Too much of that, and you've solved an excess capacity problem
only to introduce an underconsumption crisis. Then the depression nails us
...
If that's hilariously untenable, Doug'll be quick enough to chime in.
Won't you, Doug?
Cheers,
Rob.
>To readers of Das Kapital,
>
>Here is a theoretical question on Marx's most important work which I
>hope someone can help me with.
>
>There is a group of us here in Manchester slowly going through Das
>Kapital and although we can get to grips with most of the first few
>chapters, one problenm we cannot resolve is the relationship between
>the amount of gold and the amount of paper money, coins, credit, etc.
>
>Is the value of the coin money equal the amount of gold, is it
>proportional or is there any direct relation? o they just have to
>have some Gold?
>
>In the exchange C-M-C does M = the amount of concretised labour in an
>amount of gold equal to that required to make C ?
>
>This question is rather confused, but if anyone has any idea what it
>is I am still struggling to understand could youn please help.
>
>Many thanks,
>
>John Walker
>Manchester, UK.
>
>
>
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