[lbo-talk] The State and Capitalism

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Mar 11 16:58:55 PDT 2008


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.
>

Tickets which allow purchases from community warehouses AND CAN BE USED ONLY BY THE BEARER are not money. Those with 'expansive' notions of money and of exchange (more or less universalizing them) should reread Marx's discussion of money (keeping in mind that it is a social relation). They are not a universal solvent; they are not hoardable; they are not investable. They aren't good for _any_ of the uses of money. They merely entitle their possessor to goods & services which the community offers.

But as I said in my previous post, this sort of speculation (recipes for cook shops of the future) is mostly useful as a way of understanding the present. Those who want to participate in creating _any_ future at all must learn that keeping capitalism is not a choice -- unless one counts death as a choice.

CArrol



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