DJP
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I’m talking about a single bank, not the banking system as a whole. What is true for the system as a whole is not true for an individual bank. Perhaps that’s where the confusion comes in? Haven’t read all the previous posts properly.
Hud955 wrote:Well, not really. I doubt it. Demonstrating it is a different matter.The problem I have with your reply (and all the replies I’ve been getting here and elsewhere) is that the evidence you give will support both the ‘intemediary’ scenario AND Positive Money’s. I still haven’t seen anything yet that shows conclusively that Positive Money is wrong about this and the ‘intemediary’ claim is correct.Wouldn’t a cursory glance at a Banks balance sheet do this? If there assetts (loans) and liabilities (deposists) are equal we are right, if there assetts are 90% greater than there liabilties then they are right. Not sure where you’d get the data, maybe here http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html
Normally I would be game but right now and for the next few weeks I’m having to write “The link between wages and productivity – an econometric comparison of different industries” set to be a bestseller for sure!
davidgraeber wrote:The Beginning of History where he notes among other things that thinking there even _could_ be a theory of prices based exclusively on the LTV means you’re ignoring the role of political struggle at every point in the process.The rate of surplus value is determined by the struggle between labour and capital; and how this is distributed amongst the various capitals is the result of a struggle between competing capitals. The form of the struggle can take many different guises. So yes it would seem I agree with that.I haven’t read any of the ‘autonomous’ Marxists and aside from a critique I read many years ago in the journal Aufheben don’t know that much about them. Do you suggest something similar to Rosa Luxemburg, that without constant appropriation from outside the sphere of capitalism the system would collapse?
ALB wrote:Socialist Party Head Office wrote:Among other things Lanchester claims that Marx never used the word “capitalism”:I’m not sure how significant this is. After all, language like everything else changes, but I suppose it could tell us what Marx would have meant by the word had he used it rather than the term he did use, i.e. the capitalist mode of production. In other words, capitalism is a way of producing things, based, as he explained, on the production of commodities by wage-labour.
I don’t think it’s that significant, the word wasn’t in common use at the time he was writing. The only difference I can think of is that the word capitalism could refer to an ideology as well as a mode of production.With regards to Marx and ‘the labour theory of value’. I’m beginning to suspect that this was first used by the neo-classical economists so that they could lump Marx, Ricardo and Smith together then attempt to trash Marx by critiquing Ricardo.Just to be clear I’m not saying that Marx did not have a theory of value, but when it is (mis)understood as a theory of the prices of individual commodities (i.e price=value) it doesn’t add up properly.
Socialist Party Head Office wrote:A reader has drawn our attention to an article “Marx at 193” that appeared in the London Review of Books by John Lancester on 5 April and asked for our comments. Among other things Lanchester claims that Marx never used the word “capitalism”:Quote:Marx doesn’t use the word ‘capitalism’. The term never occurs in the finished first part of Das Kapital. (I checked this by doing a word search and found it three times, every time an apparent mistranslation or loose use of the German plural Kapitals – in German he never talks of Kapitalismus.)Indeed.The same seems to hold for the phrase “labour theory of value” Doing a search on Marxists.org I can only find it referenced to in notes by editors etc. Or have I missed it somewhere?
robbo203 wrote:The issue is not whether merchant capital played a role in the genesis of capitalism but rather whether there was such a thing as mercantile capitalism. I think Graeber is right to question this…I’m still a little confused as to who it is that is supposed to have said there was such a thing anyhow. Though I guess some ideas on the origins of capitalism (the ones Brenner, Meiksins Wood etc criticized) could be interpreted this way.
davidgraeber wrote:But saying that capitalism is wage labor and wage labor emerged from British rural society and therefore capitalism emerged from British rural society is just a circular argument that doesn’t resolve the questions I raised. It just comes up with a rhetorical way to sidestep it.By the 17th century trade, mercantilism & money lending had grown and developed in Europe but these by themselves did not undermine the foundations of feudal society. The mere existence of commodity production, wage labour, merchants capital and money lenders capital are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the full development of capitalism. ‘Or else ancient Rome, Byzantium etc. would have ended their history with free labour and capital’ (Marx, Grundrisse p 506 )So it becomes a question of looking at what specific historical factors come together to create a rupture with the old social relations.Capitalism is a system where human activity is dominated by the law of value (abstract labour) and the last time I checked it still is. The structure and composition of classes may change over time but the basic relation has not been altered, as far as I’m aware.I have not read Mr Graeber’s book; it’s on my wish list though!
robbo203 wrote:It is difficult to deny that David Graeber does make a valid point. I refer to this comment of his”The whole idea of “merchant capitalism” which is supposed to characterize the period from roughly 1500 to 1750 (or even 1800 in most of Europe) has always been a puzzle.Graeber and anyone else interested would do well to read Ellen Meiskins Wood “The Origins of Capitalism”The genesis of capitalism is not in merchants capital but in property relations in the English countryside.Seems to me Graeber is just another sloppy reader of ‘Capital’….
Hud955 wrote:They can do it because every loan creates a deposit.In Walter Leaf’s ‘Banking’ there are some tables which disprove the empirical validity of this claim, how true this is in the present day I don’t know, but the data is certainly out there.
Quote:Thus, all money in a fiat money system is created out of nothing. Nothing backs it. It is the joint product of the commercial banks and the central bank, acting together.Isn’t state created money ultimately backed up by the fact that the state has never defaulted on gilt and bond payments? This is why board game money or hand written IOUs do not circulate as currency.To really understand what’s going on I think you need to be talking about assetts, liabilities, credit etc.
SussexSocialist wrote:I have been and accepted and ratified………..out of date it seems to be then…..I suggest you contact the general secretary to get your email address added to the list. Then you’ll be properly in the loop.
Not read it myself but there’s a brief comment on it here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/books-and-pamphlets-marxian-economicsSo probably a miss.For me the best introduction is Ben Fine’s and Alfredo Sadd-Filho’s “Marx’s Capital”
