From: Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar at econ.utah.edu>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: Marshall Plan for Balkans?
>>>>> Doug Henwood wrote, responding to Chris Burford:
> Chris Burford wrote:
>> All money is funny. It has fetishistic power. Whatever its units, its
>> exchange value is a proportion of the total social labour of the economy,
>> in this case the global economy.
> So if there's only an issuance of SDRs, and nothing else changes - no
> alterations in the structure of social labor - in Africa, then you've just
> printed money. No you haven't even done that, since SDRs are purely
> notional, and lack the substantiality of printed currency even.
> Doug
Quite on the contrary, Doug. As a world money, the US dollar is the funny one, not the SDR. It is known as the Triffin paradox: any national currency which serves as world money will be needed in such great quantities that it will eventually lose its trustworthiness. A transnational credit money along the lines of the SDR or Keynes's bancor would be a much more appropriate world money for the capitalist system today. The expanding world economy needs a constant influx of new purchasing power, and Chris's proposal would make this new purchasing power available to Africa, instead of squandering it on US arms expenditures or Wall Street speculators. Granted, this is a reform of the system; but it is not a reform which the system is able to undergo at the present time, and I see at least three reasons why the Left should fight for it:
(1) It would alleviate untold suffering in Africa and elsewhere.
(2) To an increasing degree, the US working class is going to come under pressure from two sides: (1) from the general pressures of the capitalist system, as always, but (2) it will also come under pressures due to a loss of US hegemony. The reform proposed by Chris repudiates the goodies coming from US hegemony and therefore clears away a big obstacle so that the US working class can join the fight against the capitalist system in general.
(3) The US establishment is vehemently opposed to any overhaul of the international monetary system in favor of a transnational credit money. The US can no longer afford giving up the privileges coming with its "funny" dollar as world money, and since the economics profession is very obedient, very few economists are speaking of a transnational credit money even as a possibility. Right now, the US elites are not only defending capitalism, but a capitalist system which is seriously distorted even in capitalist terms. Like a wounded animal, the USA will continue to be dangerous and ugly in the times of its fading hegemony. The reform Chis is proposing shows that there is an alternative, and if the Left takes the leadership in fighting for this reform, they are well positioned to go on from there to the even better alternative of dismantling capitalism altogether.
Hans Ehrbar.
-- Hans G. Ehrbar ehrbar at econ.utah.edu Economics Department, University of Utah (801) 581 7797 (my office) 1645 E. Central Campus Dr. Front (801) 581 7481 (econ office) Salt Lake City UT 84112-9300 (801) 585 5649 (FAX)