Doug Henwood quotes Marx in response to my note:
> "The monetary system is essentially Catholic, the credit system
essentially
> Protestant. 'The Scotch hate gold.' As paper, the monetary existence of
> commodities has a purely social existence. It is faith that brings
> salvation. Faith in money value as the immanent spirit of commodities,
> faith in the mode of production and its predestined disposition, faith in
> the individual agents of production as mere personifications of
> self-valorizing capital. But the credit system is no more emancipated
from
> the monetary system as its basis than Protestantism is from the
foundations
> of Catholicism."
> - Marx, Capital vol. 3 (p. 727 in the Vintage edition)
-and it's a lovely quote, not terribly responsive, but lovely. Perhaps C. Henwood had in mind one of the great religious transformations of the late 20th century in mind: that being the movement of Latin America away from Catholicism and towards Protestantism, but I don't think so. While what he had in mind may not be clear, I'll use his post to suggest a point that might be. Faith, a human good, does underlie the credit money system. To Marxists, as to fundamentalist Christians, a flawed faith - like in science - can never lead to a good or valid result. The capitalist system stays up because of a belief, a faith, in the things that Marx described here, to be sure. However, it may be that the capitalists are simply mislabeling that which they have faith in, in order to make themselves look good. It may be, that capitalism is actually based on the faith that, despite the withering effects of exploitation and alienation, human ingenuity, industry and a general sense of decency will push the economy forward despite how hard the capitalists apply the yoke or over-apply the lash. It may be that the most advanced capitalists have learned that it is wise to gamble on this progressive force, even if it costs a little more in vigorish.
If, once again, we posit a model of the economy that is structurally starved for credit, the capitalists that can push their fellow loansharking, bookmaking scum to forward the most credit, so long as it is done in an orderly way, can reap the most reward. It goes against the equillibirist, neo-classical training we all received, but it may be that the economy is a growing thing by its nature and unduly restrained by the capitalist. For example, the capitalist can stop lending and borrowing and hiring and just generally scare the pants off consumers even in a mighty economy like, say, Japan's. That might case even more capitalists to pick up their ball and go home (that "home" being U.S. Treasuries, apparently) and even more consumers to keep their yen tucked under pillows and postal-service savings accounts as their sham, noblesse-oblige welfare state slips into the sea.
peace