John Vertegaal wrote: > Could it be that you're missing the point? it's quite possible. I've never seen an analysis of this passage before. Note that it's from a manuscript that Marx never finished or edited or published, so we shouldn't take it too seriously as a statement of his opinions.
> Could it be that Sismondi > isn't criticizing the debt per se, but (not so?) simply saying that the > funds loaned to the government from a "surplus" are imaginary _after_ > having been disbursed by the government to government income earners? in Marx, wouldn't imaginary (which I assume means the same as "fictitious") capital refer to market price of the bonds that were sold to finance the government's deficit? The "capital" is truly fictitious if the money from the bonds does not go to produce surplus-value (or redistribute it from some other sector) which would allow payment of interest on it. > In > other words, as soon as the shortfall in direct spending, loaned to the > government, is directly spent by government income earners, _nothing_ is > left. From that point onwards, bondholders are periodically getting paid > from imaginary capital. I don't understand. Please explain. > You were right in emphasizing what you did though. It is crucial to > understand that the income disbursed during the creation of new wealth > _by work_, always suffices to distribute that wealth. If the moneys > aren't there, these can be created out of thin air. They aren't causal > in any way. In other words, accumulated funds are always bogus. They > were accumulated in the past through deprivation of some kind, and > should be treated as such by government fiscal policy. this is unclear to me. -- 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
