c b wrote: > CB: Is the concept of ficticious capital involved in the concept of > interest rate ?
As far as I can tell, Marx uses the phrase "fictitious capital" to refer to the present value of expected future incomes (in Marx, usually surplus-value but also tax revenues). These expected income flows are "discounted" using the interest rate, since (all else constant) current income is worth more to a decision-maker than is future income: current income can be put into the bank or bonds to earn interest, while we have to wait until the future to use future income that way. (Bringing in inflation and uncertainty doesn't change things.) The fictitious capital may or may not correspond to actual flows of income when the future comes around. Some of it is more fictitious than others. In the case of purely speculative investments, it's more than likely that the perceived fictitious capital is less than the actual capital reaped at the end of the game. > Tangentially or parenthetically, there is still realization > problems for producers of means of personal consumption and > subsistence with "full-employment" as the surplus value exploited is > mostly not spent on means of personal consumption and subsistence by > 1%. if there's inadequate demand for consumer goods (from the capitalist point of view) that prevents capitalists from putting a lot of their capital into the production of consumer goods. Thus, when the surplus-products of the consumer-goods industries are put on the market, inadequate demand for them is already taken into account (though not exactly, of course). Thus, there's no reason why there would be a realization crisis in that sector (though it could happen). In any event, my hypothetical case referred to the situation where the government or the Federal Reserve artificially boosted demand so that all of existing fixed capital in all sectors (not just consumer goods industries) could be utilized -- despite the inadequate profit rates earned on that fixed capital (again, inadequate from the capitalist p.o.v.) We also should remember that the 1% also buy consumer goods. You should see the estates on the Palos Verde peninsula near where I live. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
