> Daniel Davies has a contemptible debating style.
Hullo there. How d'you do? Me? Oh, fine thanks.
>He dragged in Brad
>DeLong's flattering and misleading statement about Hjalmar Schacht to
score a
>point, then complained that I had dragged in DeLong
For the purpose of slandering him, and accusing him of misleading his readers, let it not be forgotten. I simply think it's not right to expect Brad to spend any of his time defending himself against scurrilous attacks, particularly when Brad DeLong has actually pointed out on this thread that he himself disagrees with me and agrees with Doug.
> their shared need for Schacht's phony
>Waldheim-like resume, dished up by Schacht's American sponsors in the
teeth
>of two major convictions for his Nazi crimes in order to support his
postwar
>prominence in the Western powers' Cold War scheme,
ye gods.
> Both D and D
[henceforth corrected to D]
> seek to blame bad Nazis (such as Hermann Goering; Albert
>Speer's name will probably appear on this chalkboard in due course) for
the
>labor system that incarcerated the entire political voice of the working
>class and deliberately worked people to death and confiscated their
>property,
>while crediting the good Nazi Schacht for Nazi Germany's prosperity. This
is
>humbug history.
There were no good Nazis, Nazi Germany's prosperity was not a good thing, the person who engineered it was not a good person for doing so, and you are pretty contemptible yourself for trying to force so many words into my mouth.
> In the first place, the accumulation phase of capitalism is bountifully
>prosperous for capitalists (a "miracle" in Daniel's argot), based as it is
>on
>slavery and plunder (absolute surplus value) rather than free labor and
the
>market (relative surplus value).
I thought we'd got this one sorted out -- Ulhas corrected /me/ on this. Absolute/relative surplus value does not match up to unfree/free labour markets.
>For Daniel to argue otherwise would
>discredit him instantly, so he doesn't bother trying.
I always think of myself as being thoroughly discredited anyway, hence my relegation to the kindergarten of socialism. People in their right minds don't bother talking to me [hint]
> Instead, he acts as
>though the Nazis' ghoulishly methodical implementation of such a system of
>slavery and plunder in LATE capitalism, with Schacht as its architect,
Not actually true, and the Nuremberg trials agree with me. Of course, if one regards the Soviet prosecutors as more authoritative than the verdict, fair enough,
>was
>incidental to Schacht's monetary policies,
> I replied directly with two additional points, which Daniel has since
>sought to obscure.
Using the cunning obscurantist device of replying to them, I think.
> First, that Schacht's monetary interventions essentially duplicated
the
>ones he had implemented in December of 1923 (effectively repudiating the
>crushing Versailles debt long enough for domestic prices to stabilize, and
>isolating German currency from further speculative attack by introducing
the
>Rentenpfennig/Rentenmark), which had only temporarily salved the system.
>Therefore, attributing the Nazi economic "miracle" to such magic ten years
>later may be comforting to Daniel's bourgeois theology, but
>it cannot be accepted as an explanation by anyone who studies the prior
>result of that same central banker's genius.
Make a sentence out of these words --- Germany Gold Standard a was on Weimar era during the.
> Second, that a prominent economist within the Nazi agriculture
ministry,
>Alfred Sohn-Rethel (eventually forced to flee into exile when his left
>communist resistance activities were discovered) fully described the real
>basis of the recovery. Readers of Sohn-Rethel's book (published only in
>Britain, I think) will find that the shift to below-subsistence production
>was calculated and understood from the beginning by the central planners,
>including tabulated figures for each category of nutrient. Schacht secured
>the industrialists' financing for the Harzburg Front based on those plans.
>This means that workers were deliberately compensated below subsistence,
>less than the value of their labor power (the cost to produce and
reproduce
>labor). That is, they were deliberately worked to death. Daniel won't
trifle
>to study such texts; hurling insults at me is more efficient.
And, it seems, trying to insinuate that I was denying that the Nazis sent workers to concentration camps or worked them to death is more efficient than explaining how this resulted in a productivity improvement large enough to explain the change in GDP. Pure mud-throwing.
> Instead, Daniel retreated to obscurantism, seeking to brush off slave
>labor as pre-capitalist and therefore irrelevant. I replied by pointing
out
>the differences between pre-capitalist and capitalist slavery. (About 25
>years ago I wrote an exhaustive pamphlet on this subject, titled "Karl
Marx
>on American Slavery.") Daniel acknowledged the error,
Hey, it's knockabout stuff, this, isn't it? Much better than listening to the Tyson fight on the radio.
>then sought refuge in
>Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's book Time on the Cross. That study has
>been refuted as corrupt by every major historian of slavery. Herbert
Gutman
>wrote a book in refutation from a traditional historians' perspective.
>Herbert Aptheker, George Rawick, and others, including me, showed how
>evidence was faked. Econometricians Ransom and Sutch refuted F&E on their
>own
>turf. Though the Ku Klux Klan, the Wall Street Journal, and the Jackson
>Daily
>News loved Time on the Cross, historians condemned it with one voice, and
it
>is universally regarded as junk history.
No it isn't, and given your utter refusal to give any alternative quantitative assessment of the productivity of slavery, this looks like more mud-slinging.
>(Eugene Genovese physically
>assaulted me
an unassuming chap like yourself? really? Are you sure you weren't rude to him?
[snip yet more fire and brimstone on atrocities which I have never denied, and which are irrelevant to the matter we were talking about. ]
> But again, all Daniel does is to sputter.
> One could demonstrate the point that Daniel resists any number of
ways.
>Absolute surplus value has brought "miracles" to colonial masters over the
>centuries: to France in Saint Domingue; to Leopold in the Congo; to
England,
>as Cecil Rhodes promised, in Central and Southern Africa. And losses of
>those
>opportunities ended the respective miracles -- for example, costing
Napoleon
>all of Louisiana -- which could not have been reclaimed by acts of
monetary
>wizardry. Only in studying the society that Hitler's Nazis created on
>European soil do mountebanks protest, with monetarist doctrine as their
>occult explanation.
Hmmmmmm .... What do Saint Dominique, the Congo and Central and Southern Africa have in common?
Well, among other things, the fact that the material productive forces there were suitable for agriculture and mineral extraction.
What were the goods which the material productive forces of Nazi Germany were set up to produce?
Well, manufactures and factory-produced raw materials.
Which occult monetarist mountebank was it who made the claim that material productive forces centred on agriculture and mineral extraction made the production relation of slavery most productive, while productive forces centred on manufactures and factory-produced raw materials did not?
Which latter-day follower of said occult mountebank is wriggling like a worm on a hook, absurdly attempting to portray the difference between 19th century Africa and 1930s Germany as in some way a racist trifle, irrelevant to the universal, ahistorical fact of the superior productivity of slave labour? You're talking through your hat.
And in any case, the British economy grew over the hundred-plus years of the colonial imperialist period, but it still had regular business cycles -- busts and booms. Cecil Rhodes did not raise Britain out of recession in six years.
> Finally, monetarist "miracles," though of minor importance to economic
>recovery, whether in Hitler's Germany or Pinochet's Chile, could never
have
>been implemented without first imposing fascist rule and crushing all
>political opposition.
Fascist rule has not been implemented in the USA or UK, both of which are currently experiencing a money-fuelled "miracle".
>For all of Daniel's posturing, his postings are empty
>of facts,
While yours seem chock full of facts that ain't so.
> Oddly, the very academics such as Brad DeLong, who propose that
Hitler's
>economic "miracle" occurred independently of his political system, argue
>that
>Stalin's political and economic systems were inseparable and the
>consequences
>predetermined. The point for the rest of us is to discern the political
>motivation that underlies such sophistry.
I've left this reference to Brad in, to illustrate a point. Apparently I'm meant to have mugged up on an entire book which even its owner doesn't keep in the same time zone, two days after first having heard about it. Ken Lawrence, however, couldn't be bothered to visit a website (Brad's) on which he publishes drafts of his book. If he'd read that, he'd have seen that Brad DeLong says nothing of the sort about Stalin.
What was that phrase? Oh yes
>won't trifle
>to study such texts; hurling insults at me is more efficient.
It certainly is; fuck off.
dd
(who will no longer be using up one of his three posts a day on this discussion; it is quite clear that neither of us will have our mind changed)
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