Generally Discrediting David Harvey
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https://www.argentina.gob.ar/economia/sello-manuel-belgrano/silvio-gesell. Silvio Gesell is Argentinean, he was an economist mentioned by Keynes. He is named as non Marxist socialist
https://www.naturalmoney.org/NaturalEconomicOrder.pdfhttps://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/51275/1/67178983X.pdf
https://cooperative-individualism.org/onken-werner_political-economy-of-silvio-gesell-2000.pdf
Another fact about Gesell is that, although he made his money in Argentina, he was born in St. Vith which was then part of the German Empire. After the defeat of Germany in WW1 it was transferred to Belgium and is in the small German-speaking part of that country. Not a lot of people know that or that they speak German in a part of Belgium where it is an official language. Certainly the makers of the film The Battle of the Bulge didn’t as they have the locals wearing berets and carrying a baguette under their arms, as if they were stage Frenchmen (but I don’t think they had them selling onions hanging from their bike). In fact they would have been Germans as Germany took the area back in WW2.
Of course this doesn’t make Gesell’s idea on how to reform capitalism any more relevant. But it does allow you to answer the pub quiz question: Which famous currency crank was born in the German-speaking part of present-day Belgium?
His books were also published in German
This article written in Spanish said that as an economist he is more reliable than Karl Marx and that he was an anti Marxist and anti communist, and he was also one of the favorite economist of Domingo Peron, and Peron supported the German Nazis, and in Argentina he implemented measures similar to the Nazis. There is nothing for real socialists on his works, he is just another economist of the free market system, or a bourgeois economist
Sorting out some old leaflets I came across one from the Labour Land Campaign which campaigns within the Labour Party and trade unions for a Land Value Tax. They say that it is “a fair and just tax” because
“It recognises that every individual helps create land values through their work, their community activities and their spending — so why should it be only owners of land who reap the financial reward.”
and that it is
“part of the solution to the inequalities in life that exist because of a fundamental flaw in our economy; a denial of the importance of land in the economy, the undeserved and unjust power in its ‘ownership’ and the acceptance of land wealth being given as unearned income to owners of land rather than being returned to those that create it — that is all of us !”
I suppose you could be right, PeterFrank, that in arguing with someone with this approach we could point out that increases in land value in not the only source of “unearned income” or that gives “undeserved and unjust power to ‘ownership’”. So does the ownership of ‘capital’ with its unearned income in the form of profits derived from the unpaid labour of those who produce wealth.
Hey, sorry for the long silence. Too much work and stress. I have to catch up on all your messages.
Yes, my strategy when talking to people has been to start with rent and then proceed to all private ownership of property and so forth. I actually don’t believe anymore that arguing for socialism will work. I’m very depressed. I don’t have much hope.
Just in case, I’ll mention it again: I’m not a Georgist. At all. I think they are right wingers. The SPGB is my ideal. I understand why Marxist-Leninists take the stance that they do, as well as why anarchists take the stance they do. I would call myself an anarchist outright, but I don’t think they understand how powerful capital is. The ML’s do. There is a YouTuber named Viki1999 that I think most closely resembles me. She calls herself an anarcho-tankie.
Corporations like Chiquita Bananas, Puerto Rican Sugar Company and other made excessive profits from the use of the land and they never paid taxes from the use of the land, but they also produced surplus value thru industrial production. There is book titled Over written by Marrero Aristy that explains that process, the writer was assassinated. The concept of Banana Republic comes from the exclusive ownership of land by one corporation in one single country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic The person that created the concept he called state capitalism based on the land, but there were two countries that their currency was in equal value of the dollars and sometimes it was above the value of the dollars and peoples did not want dollars, and they were Cuba and the Dominican Republic and the divisas in the banks were exchanged without any fees, and sometimes peoples were getting more pesos than dollars
Here is quite a good summary of Gesell’s views, from which it is clear that he had nothing in common with socialism. He wants “stamped money” while we envisage a social system in which money would be redundant.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/08/27/754323652/the-strange-unduly-neglected-prophet
ps PeterFrank, we ourselves are not “Marxist-Leninists” (which we regard as a contradiction in terms as the two had quite different views about politics). We are, if you like, simply “Marxists” who don’t accept Lenin’s “additions” to Marx such as the need for a “vanguard party” and the conclusions he drew from his particular theory of imperialism.
Wow. Thank you for that book recommendation. I’m so disgusted by Americans. They are zombies. I don’t see how change is possible to make. I fear it has to just happen via a total collapse.
You don’t need to tell me that you aren’t Marxist-Leninists. I know that.
What is the prognosis, regarding the “we” in the world socialism movement? Strategy? Tactics?
Wow. Thank you for that book recommendation. I’m so disgusted by Americans. They are zombies. I don’t see how change is possible to make. I fear it has to just happen via a total collapse.
I don’t think ‘American ” ( USAers ) are zombies, they have been earned by the capitalist ideology, in past epoch they were very discontent with the capitalist system, even more, workers were the ones who pushed Roosevelt for the reforms created by the New Deal, they did not support wars, most workers branches had their own workers union, and international union was also formed in the USA, and real socialists concepts reached the USA, but it did not expand toward Latin America
The Tankies ( CPGB ) supported Stalinism ( Leninism ) and state capitalism, and the invasion of the soviets ( Tankies come from tanks )
Gesell wanted the creation of a new monetary system, but Cuba and Venezuela are the champions creating new monetary formats, almost every year or every crisis they make a new one trying to resolve their internal crisis and the crisis goes deeper
https://www.reuters.com/article/cuba-economy-reform-explainer-idINKBN28L2AD
Now they have unified both
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/venezuela-unveils-new-currency-6-fewer-zeros-rcna2515
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