>I deliberately constructed my example that way though. Replace the >word "land" with the word "bond". Buying a bond is no different than >renting your land for use. When you buy a bond, you are basically >renting your money for use. The interest on the bond is paid out of >surplus value of course if money is lent to a corporation. But what if >you lent your money to the US Treasury, which pays the interest simply >by issuing more bonds (I don't take this Republican threat regarding >the ceiling seriously)?
I agree with the sense of the parallel you draw between renting money for use and renting land for use, subject to the caveat mentioned in my previous e-mail: the social conditions making it possible for someone to receive interest for money lent are arguably different than that the social conditions making it possible to receive rent for land (Marx certainly thought so; see his story about "The General Law of Capital Accumulation" in V.I, e.g.). If you lend your money to a corporation and it uses the money to finance the purchase of means of commodity production, the interest you receive corresponds to surplus value, by Marx's definition. If you lent your money to the US treasury, and they pay the interest "simply by issuing more bonds", then it depends on whom they sell the bonds to. As for the Republican threat, I'm thinking that you should take it seriously if that threat induces Obama to accept trillions of dollars in spending cuts as the quid pro quo for their vote. Gil _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
