On Mar 4, 2008, at 3:00 PM, Angelus Novus wrote:
>> Indeed. Parecon retains waged labor and money as the
>> general equivalent. How revolting.
>
> Eric, I could embrace you. The abolition of the
> general equivalent, aka money, aka abstract labor, is
> precondition number one for transcending capitalism.
> Unfortunately, only a handful of people, on this list
> myself, Carrol, and Yoshie, maintain this openly.
> Although I suspect Doug knows this too. I told
> Michael Heinrich a few weeks ago that there is a
> brilliant American financial journalist who actually
> managed to figure out in a book from 1998 the
> centrality of Marx's analysis of money and finance in
> the critique of political economy, and who managed to
> do so without reading Hans-Georg Backhaus and Helmut
> Reichelt! So I imagine it's not too hard to figure
> out for careful readers of Marx.
I'm always grateful to be characterized as brilliant, and yes I agree that money is the central organizing principle of capitalism and the abolition of capitalism means the abolition of money as we know it. (I see that comrade Cristobal never responded to my defense of the position that Marx [rightly] saw money as a social relation.) But but but...what does that mean in practice? I have no idea really. Does that mean no more colored pieces of paper in our pockets? Or does it mean the gradual erosion of the social power of money - e.g., the decommodification of basic needs? Say I want to acquire a bag of apples in our future ideal society. Do I go to a store where Fujis, Galas, and Granny Smiths are on display, I choose what I want, and I have some kind of transaction with a clerk before leaving the establishment involving a settling of accounts? Or do I just pick them up and leave because, de-alienated beings that we will be, I haven't shirked my responsibilities to my co-humans (as Martin Lukes liked to say) and I won't take more than I need? What if it requires more labor to produce the Granny Smiths than the Galas? Do I just take 2 Granny Smiths or 3 Galas and leave it at that? Or is there some sort of social accounting that would have to be recognized, for which money is our familiar and convenient shorthand?
Doug