Doug Henwood wrote:
> I'm very wary of any critique of "banks" that isn't part of a
> critique of capitalism, since it focuses on only the M-M' part of the
> M-C-M' formula, forgetting that the whole point of commodity
> production under capitalism is the prodcution of profits in monetary
> form. Keynes realized this, though he shied away from drawing the
> appropriate political conclusions.
I'm reminded of Jim O'Connor's reply, back in the '70s, to a long article by Oppenheimer & Fitch which argued that "banks" owned the corporations -- and on that basis argued for a real split between productive capitalists and financial capitalists. O'Connor's article, if I remember correctly, had a title which by itself gave the whole counter-argument: "Who owns the corporations? Capitalists own the corporations."
It probably isn't quite accurate, but one could put up a good argument to the effect that the only thing worse than a monopoly business is a competitive business. (The latter's whole purpose is to become the former, after all.)
Carrol