I didn't finish this missive, sending it out before its time. Sandwichman wrote: >> By the same token (and I use the word 'token' advisedly), you should >> discount exchanges other than barter because money is a _symbol_ of value >> and thus a kind of quantitative 'mere' talk.
I wrote: > I disagree with the common institutionalist idea that money is only a > symbol of value. There's an important reason why people latch on to > the (currently-established) money. It's not just a matter of the > state's fiat: it's scarce and there's an agency of the state (the > central bank) which has the job of maintaining its scarcity. That is, > the positive value of money is based on _state power_ (to collect > taxes, etc.) It's true that the state's power is helped a lot by its > authority (legitimacy). But in the end that authority is based on its > coercive power: not only does the state threaten to use power against > deviants, trouble-makers, and assorted riffraff who threaten the > state's existence and that of the capitalist system it maintains, but > it regularly lives up to that threat. If it did not do so, its > authority and power would fade: suddenly more and more of the > non-deviants, non-trouble-makers, and non-riffraff would see that it's > okay to break the laws, leading to progressive undermining of law and > order. > In short, some people are killed or jailed to maintain the state's > power, the persistence of capitalism, and with it, fiat money. Money > might be seen as a "symbol of state power," but that power is real. > "Symptom" seems a more apt word than "symbol" here. Tom: >> If you say "the check is in the >> mail" when it isn't, that's fraud, which is an action. > Of course, it's an action when one says "the check is in the mail" > when it isn't, it's usually interpreted as fraud. However, I was using that cliché phrase as most people do, i.e., to represent the large number of promises that people make that they do not keep (along with "This will hurt me more than it hurts you" and the like). Many of these broken promises are simply ignored or quickly forgotten, seen as minor social _faux pas_. Whether or not such promises are counted as "fraud" depends on the legal system, which is a human-made institution that is based on the coercive power of the state (see above). At least in the US but likely everywhere else, the legal system ignores many types of fraud. (I've heard, for example, that a lot of banks are really bankrupt and therefore only banks in a fraudulent way but are being allowed to act as banks anyway.) Whether or not one's failure to actually send the check _really_ counts as fraud depends on the official law, how it's interpreted by the courts, and how it's enforced by the police. If it's not enforced by the police, it's not _really_ fraud. That is, actual action by people is needed to make it fraud, not just the absence of action by the person who promised to send the check. By the way, institutions are not just "habits of thought" (as Veblen put it). These habits of thought must be put into action -- or at least people must act in a way that does not contradict the habits of thought. If there's a conflict between the way people think and speak and what is actually done, that slowly leads to the undermining of the institution. It loses its legitimacy and then its power... Anyway, like so much else in empirical life (the so-called "real world"), the issues of thought, speech, and action should be understood as being on a _spectrum_ or continuum. At one end of the spectrum there's pure thought (I think of punching someone in the nose, without saying anything or doing anything about it), while on the other there's thought put into action (actual punching). Saying that I'm going to punch someone in the nose is in-between. Thinking only affects the lives of people in society and the process of history if it can be put into action in some way. This usually involves speaking, but mere speaking (such as giving orders) has no effect if individual does not have the power to put the orders into action directly and there is no institution to turn those orders into actions by others. >> Anyway, my point was that Kenneth Burke -- who some might want to call a >> literary critic because he discusses literature -- could better be thought >> of as a social philosopher, more akin to Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen or >> Karl Marx. I don't know his work. Social philosophy rejects the false division between various social sciences and the humanities. It's a good thing. Tom, why did you call him a "lit critter"? that's hardly respectful. >> Attitudes towards History situates "naive capitalism" within a >> progression of "frames" for motivating collective behavior. What does that mean? Is that saying that ideology can motivate collective behavior? That does not seem controversial. (Is "naive capitalism" a synonym for "laissez-faire" beliefs?) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
