[lbo-talk] Behind The Drums Of War With Iran: Weapons of Compound Interest

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Nov 14 13:45:18 PST 2007


No one talked about shielding it from criticism; the objection is to singling it out for special criticism. Why was J.P. Morgan any worse than Andrew Carnegie?

^^^^^ CB: Those who single out finance capital for special criticism may be making some valid criticisms of finance capital, even when they don't make criticisms of other sectors of capital. And there is this pattern ( for example, when this came up on PEN-L) of rejecting their criticisms of finance capital out of hand , because they don't criticize non-finance capital. Just because they don't knock profit doesn't mean they are wrong that interest should be abolished. We can fill in the anti-profit half, while cheering their anti-interest half. If they can get interest abolished, we have a much better chance of abolishing profit. Abolishing interest is an interesting reform demand.

When somebody says "abolish interest" ! It's a dodge to respond, "no don't abolish interest , because you aren't also saying abolish profit as well. " The best answer is " You are right: abolish interest. And abolish profit, too"

Also, I'm not sure all those who single out interest for criticism are anti-semitic. Has somebody shown a one-to-one correspondence between anti-semitism and anti-interest theory ? The anti-semitism charge is used to squash discussion of anti-interest theories.

I seem to hear a lot more singling out of profit over interest for criticism by the left.

Also, isn't there some sense in which finance capital does dominate industrial capital today ? Isn't finance capital topdog ? Didn't Carnegie or his progeny become a banker - Carnegie-Mellon ? Shouldn't there be special criticism of finance capital in the era of finance capital ?



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