[lbo-talk] The State and Capitalism

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Mar 11 16:02:17 PDT 2008


On Mar 11, 2008, at 6:37 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:


> I have faith that other people, living under different social
> conditions, will be much more creative and flexible than you and I
> will
> ever be. In my view, our inability to "theorize a moneyless
> society" is
> a result of our own enculturation into a capitalist society; thus it's
> not a coherent argument against the possibility of a moneyless
> society.

The reason I brought up the last several thousand years is that money became necessary as soon as people weren't feeding and clothing their immediate selves - i.e., as soon as any kind of trade was introduced. Money arises in exchange, as they say. And though there's a diff between the capitalist commodity and other kinds, it's very very hard to imagine how you can have some kind of trade without money. What moneyless social relations involving complex trade can you imagine?



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