Young Master Smeet
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ALB is right, it's not about empirical study, but perception. The claim that the banks whistle the money out of thin air can be countered that the capitalist who borrows the money is in fact the one doing the magic, since they are effectively handing the bank an IOU (which will be legally enforceable, and thus constitutes an asset to the bank). The bank is then just validating and guaranteeing the IOU (so that not everyone who does business with the firm has to do due dilligence, the banks have done that for them). This would agree with our perspective that the key economic indicator is not interest rates, but rate of profit.For Marx, interest rates have no natural rate, they are simply a subdivision of profit, and the only limit is the rate of profit itself (since if the banks take all the profit as interest, the capitalist has no incentive to play). Obviously, banks also want to make the typical rate of profit on the capital they invest, so they need to turn it over frequently, and attract depositors to help them achieve those profit rates. No matter how you shake it, their business depends on the difference between the interest rate they can charge borrowers and the interest they pay their lenders.Also of note is Marx' contention that Money Capital acquires a use value. If, say, the rate of profit is 10% then £100 has a useful value of producing an income of £10 (and vice versa, say, the copyright income on a book can be sold as representing a capital sum imagined from its real income value).So, the IOU from a capitalist can be seen as a capitalisation of the repayment schedule (itself the subset of the whole income stream of the firm), the gross sum need never exist, likewise the bank doesn't have to cover the whole gross, just cover the actual payments made out by the capitalist to other firms, etc. The bank must, though, notionally be able to cover the whole of the loan, hence its need to balance its books.TL;DR : controlling interest rats doesn't control the economy, interest is a dependent variable, like employment, of profitability, and that in turn depends upon the succesful turn-over and expansion of capital. Banks don't create wealth, they simply charge for a service in co-ordinating transactions.
OK, Varoufakis' new book is very much a primer, he steers clear of theoretical detail:[Varoufakis]Let us recall how this magical power of bankers to create money and the overall demands of a market society generate an urgent need for public debt […] that provides bankers with their 'most liquid of assetts'[/quote] He then argues that tax rates, public debt and private debt are dependent variables based on this money supply. The public debt is there to hold things together when the bankers get carried away.As he notes, though
Varoufakis wrote:In bad times, when bankers pick up the phone to the government and demand that thestate's central bank bail them out, it does so not just by creating new money […] but also by issuing more bonds and using them to borrow more money from otehr bankers, often froeign ones, to pass on to the local bankers.Much of his new book is about keynsian animal spirits, very little Marxism. Ultimately, beneath his astonishment that banks 'magic money out of thin air' is the fact that the central bank exists and regulates the whole process: the state creates money.
Of course, the problem is that anyone can whistle an IOU out of thin air,a nd that IOU can circulate. I could write one today, and it would be accepted as long as the people it was passed around reasonably believed that if they presented it to me, I would honour it. I wouldn't even have to have the money on my person, as long as I had a reasonable expectation that I would soon have the funds to be able to honour it (or could find them at a pinch).The great story of fractional reserve banking works just as well for a shoe shop as it does for a bank: if the shop sells on credit, you can play the same story through (so does that mean shoe shops create money?).Varoufakis does state that banks create loans out of thin auir, but suggests they are 'borrowing from the future' i.e. based on the assumption of actual production. That does pick up the key point, banks don't create wealth, and one way or another their loans need to be covered by wealth from somewhere else, either through savers or through repayments.
The feasibility can be looked at, particularly via Varoufakis' version (that listed companies must vest a portion of shares in a sovreign wealth fund that distributed the dividends to the population at large, i.e. the basic income is not guaranteed).So, according to a quick goodle search:http://economia.icaew.com/en/news/october-2017/record-dividends-paid-to-uk-investors-in-q3
Quote:Dividends being paid to UK investors have risen by 14.3% to £28.5bn this quarter, new research has foundThis was the largest third quarter on record and the third-largest quarterly total ever paid, which was driven by a 262% jump in payouts in the mining sector, totalling £3.3bn.Capita Asset Services explained that commodity prices began to rebound a year ago, driving mining profits higher, with dividends following suit.Now, currently, a lot of those dividends go to pension funds and institutional investors. £28.5 billion sounds a lot, but that, evan if it was taken in its entirety to distribute, would only be £400 per head (assuming 70 million UK souls, if we restrict the sum to >18's we can get to about £500).If we abolish corporation tax, to throw directly into this pot: last year the UK raised, on a quick search, £56 billion, that can get us £1,600 per head per year (>18's).A quick estimate of VAT receipts from the government is £120 billion, throw this into the pot, and finally we reach about £70 per week per person.The bottom line is, this can work, but we have to basically dismantle the welfare state to do it, and people would have to redirect some of their income into insurance and friendly society cover to make up for lost state services.
I missed any media coverage of this speech.http://press.labour.org.uk/post/166388921439/jeremy-corbyn-speech-to-cooperative-party
Quote:So when we talk about taking natural monopolies into public ownership we’re not inspired by the centralised and remote models of the 1940s and 1950s. We’re determined to create models of ownership that involve workers and consumers based on Co-operative principles, whether that’s at community, regional or national level.Last year the profit margins at the big six energy firms hit their highest level on record, falling wholesale costs were not passed on, and since then providers like British Gas have hiked prices again by 12.5%.and
Quote:Digital platforms are opening up huge opportunities for horizontal, more democratic, forms of organisation to flourish.Imagine an Uber run co-operatively by their drivers, collectively controlling their futures, agreeing their own pay and conditions, with profits shared or re-invested. The next Labour Government, working with you, can make that a reality.The biggest obstacle to this is not technological but ourselves. We must have the confidence and organisational skill to make it happen. That’s why we commissioned our report on Alternative Models of Ownership. To start asking fundamental questions about who should own our economy in the digital age, and how to ensure that it’s enormous potential benefits serve the many, not the few.[…]To prevent just the few benefiting from the “rise of the robots” the report suggests we consider higher minimum wages, a shorter working week, profit sharing schemes, or putting the ownership and control of the robots in the hands of those who work with them and come to rely on them.There are plenty of free web based devices we can use, ranging from Blockchain and Ethereum:https://ethereum.org/daoThe Ethereum model is based on Liquid Democracy, or delegable proxy voting: we looked at this some years backas an option. It could be one way to preserve the branch structure informally, as it would encourage groups of members to meet to decide how to pick their delegate: certainly, we could replace the EC with delagate meetings, and move toward having delegate boards directly appointed instead of departments. Computers are useful for this, but not essential.https://liqd.net/en/software/Or more basic online voting machines are freely available:http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/Condorcet voting is a real power tool.Or, in the context of our current difficulty witha admin:http://www.spliddit.org/apps/tasksSome tasks can't be moved from HO easily (banking the cheques and cash, for one), they will always need a postal address. However, if we broke down some of the roles we're trying to fill into specific operations, that could make the work less onerous, we might be able to get more volunteers: but I slightly fear this might lead to a roata (shudders).
The Spanish need to rad up what happened in ireland. This is not smart:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41523250
Quote:The "sedition" hearing is taking place at the national criminal court in Madrid. The defendants are accused of failing to help Guardia Civil police tackle thousands of pro-independence protesters outside the Catalan Economy Department in Barcelona on 20 September.Along with commander Trapero, another Catalan police officer and two leading independence activists are also being questioned in Madrid.Leading newspaper El Pais says the accusation against the Mossos is extraordinary in post-Franco democratic Spain.The crime of sedition has been in every Spanish penal code since 1822 and carries a potential prison term of up to 15 years. It amounts to rebellion against state decisions or national security forces.The Catalan parliament plans to meet despite a court order banning it, they'll probably be arrested, and on to civil war, but lets hope not.
To play evil's advocate a second. Imagine if in say, Alabama, a eferendum were called to restore Jim Crowe law, and a federal court ruled the referendum illegal, then police action to prevent the act of violence that was the referendum itself may be legitimate. If Sunderland City council called an independence referendum, then it's likely that the councillors could be surcharged, and a court order staying the referendum would mean that the vote could not go ahead. This is utterly fantastic, as it assumes that Mackems could learn to read.
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-09-26/jeremy-corbyn-labour-conference-pound-brexit/
Quote:Asked if he was worried about the possibility of a run on the pound, Mr Corbyn said it was an "historical problem" and investors should not fear his plans.He said: "We are going to raise taxation, corporate taxation, they know that. We're going to invest in our economy and we do want a mixed economy."Does it mean everything is going to be taken to public ownership? No. Does it mean we want you to be investing here, in industries? Yes, we do."Mr Corbyn added: "We will invest, we will develop and this is our economic offer and our economic model. We'll be a stronger society, a more equal society and a much more productive society."Pressed on joining the EEA, Mr Corbyn said: "We will do the job we've said we would, which is a tariff-free trade relationship with Europe."Alan Kerr,the substantive point is that accounting for the cost in labour time of abstract time embodied in capital just reproduces the logic of the market, so you might as well use the market, and save yourself the effort: all labour time can tell us is how easy it is to achieve things under current conmditions, we need to take a broader look.Crusoe be buggered. HIs stock-book can only deal with him as the immediate consumer of the invested labour time, not as intermediate goods in eexchange. I don't even know how/why he cept into a discussion of Air Kilns.
Alan Kerr wrote:Sorry but what’s Crusoe’s “invested” labour which he fails to take account of? http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#anchor_n38It’s not possible to argue that money and markets are actually better on Crusoe’s island. I mean how could money and markets work at all on Crusoe’s island? It’s only possible to argue that money and markets are actually better for one time and place but not for another time and place. If you like let’s discuss Karl Kaustky. He’s a good writer.But first let’s discuss small-scale.Should Crusoe waste his labour time?Why?Why shouldn't Crusoe waste his time? He might want to achieve his ends beautifully, he might want to kill some spare time and take his while, he might just want to take it easy. What matters is he achieves his ends he sets himself.Crusoe might well have built himself an archimedes screw : lets say for now he does that for shits and giggles, but it would mean forever more, so long as it lasts, it means it is easier for him to draw water from a well, than from the stream. Labour time accounting would say, then draw the water from the well (but ignore the time previously spent on building the screw, maybe). Despite the fact that this could diminish the well faster than occasionally provisioning water from the stream from time to time.Now, if we are taking into account the time involved in the screw, well, for rusoe it doesn't matter, but ifhe starts to exchange water with Friday, we're basically back to capitalist accounting, so we might as well use money and save us the time spent in the time accounting.
Alan Kerr #408 wrote:To inform their choice the people need to know and to compare human labour hour cost. Only then, is choice clear. The Socialist Preamble says that capitalist ownership is a hindrance to production. The boards cost the new society a lot of human labour hours. People choose to work in the easiest way. Any new society, if it is to be a step forwards, must save on rather than waste human labour hours. And any society needs a way shift total labour around in a way which keeps producer alive.I'm afraid labour time calculation is insufficient, as it fails to tak into account invested labour time. What (abstract) labour time measures is the ease of performing a task under current productive conditions : for instance, using petroleum based products is labour cheap at the moment, because of the vast oil extraction investment over the past century (plus externalities associated with that). To make a rational decision we need to examine the whole in itself.As Kautsky notes, labour calculation is an inefficient way of doing this, and money and markets are actually better at performing under this capitalist logic.Also, I would dispute that saving labour time is the social metric of activity. I would argue, instead, that we are setting out to achieve definite social ends, and what matters is that we achieve those ends, not that we go around trying to do them in the most efficient way. Socialism could, and should, solve problems by chucking labour at them.
Alan Kerr #386 wrote:This question is to everyone.Let’s say that we have got rid of capitalist society.Let’s say that new society needs some wood.New society must fell and cut trees into boards.Next new society must dry boards.The new society must choose.Will they 1) air dry or 2) kiln dry?How will they choose?There’s no need to answer that they will choose by votes.In that case, I will just need to ask how voter will choose.I do not ask if they will choose 1 or 2.But I do ask how they choose.1) in Engineering these sort of trade ffs are called for all the time, and sometimes thee is simply not clear cut method of deciding, and any choice is arbitrary. Using pricing mechanisms involves trade offs with invisible xternalities.2) A future socialist society would be transparent, so we can assume:a)Full knowledge (to a reasonable degree of accuracy) of all stores.b)A reasonable knowledge of all current demand on inventories (as well as detailed historical knowledge of demand).So, we wuld know:a) the absolute avaialbility of the goods required for each techniqueb) The relative demand fr goods using each technique.c) the amount of effort it takes to obtain those goods.d) th different qualities and effects of using the different processes. The mythic solid gold bicycle doesn't appear.
LBird wrote:You keep separating the two. You're opposing 'material' to 'ideal'.Nope, no I'm not, I am saying they are one thing, the stuff of the universe.We are thinking rocks, but not all rocks think.
LBird wrote:You show me a 'social' which doesn't have 'mind', and I'll show you a liar. Or a bourgeois academic fantasist, determined to 'prove' that we can't have democratic production, but we must rely on bourgeois experts, an 'elite who know reality'.FFS, 'social' and 'conscious' tell you what Marx is talking about. It's not fuckin' 'matter'. It's 'activity'. Labour. Production.I entuirely agree, the mind is entirely material, and exists in material processes. The actuality (what is rational is actual, what is actual is rational, and all that) – with the emphasis on the act – is what counts.To refer to the question of automation: can a submarine swim? Of course, it doesn't, it doesn't have that degree of intentionality, per Serle's chinese box, the meat machine of the human mind does. Ideas do not exist separetly from humans and human production, and humans actively – with the emphasis on the act – exist within nature. We are of the stuff of nature.Our machines are thus the stuff f nature, and the way in which we transform the world by acting in it, as concrete individuals.
