Marx examined the credit system only, as he said, insofar as it impacted directly on the capitalist mode of production, and from the point of view of the operations of the capitalist mode of production.
>From the point of view of the materialist interpretation of history, production ultimately determines circulation, but to the vulgar Marxists it looks like the evil bankers have production by the balls. In a sense, I suppose, the financial sector does dominate production to an extent, through its issue of credit, and through its large shareholdings in publicly listed companies, but as soon as output growth falters, a lot of the financial claims staked on that growth are worth less or worthless too - and so, the financial sector is still dependent on real production growth for its income. The vulgar Marxist term "financialization" does not really refer to a big qualitative structural change in the capitalist economy as a whole, but to a big quantitative change in the role and power of the financial sector with the capitalist economy. Most simply put, a much greater proportion of new value produced takes the form of interest and rent, plus there is a much larger trade in already existing assets providing income in the form of capital gains (profit upon alienation). J.
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
