Chris: > Helpful statement, which I wanted to track back to.
Chris said this about Julio's following statement: > For money to be essentially infinite, the (commodified) wealth > in the global economy would have to be essentially infinite, which > would entail that the productivity of labor is essentially infinite as well. I disagree: Firstly, money has never been infinite and will never be. Because it can be destroyed as easily as it can be created, and given the complex financial system we are surrounded by, this has nothing to do with the labor productivity. By lending and borrowing, Chris and I can create money between the two of us with no difficulty, as long as the debtor between the two of us is credible, that is, it is believed that the debtor can make good on his debt, so that the creditor can use the debt he owns to buy other stuff. Notice that I am talking about beliefs, not realities. Labor and productivity are about realities, not about beliefs. When beliefs change and credibility is lost, money gets destroyed. Do you know how much money has been destroyed in the past two weeks? An economic theory which does not take finance in its heart cannot explain the instabilities we are experiencing in this system and I am not the one who claimed this for the first time, not even Keynes nor Minsky nor Hudson. This has been the case for thousands of years and many looking eyes saw this, including Hamurrabi. Sabri _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
