Doug Henwood wrote,
>>On Mar 31, 2008, at 11:31 AM, B. quoted :
>>
>>> "The credit system appears as the main lever of
>>> overproduction and overspeculation in commerce solely
>>> because the reproduction process, which is elastic by
>>> nature, is here forced to its extreme limits, and is
>>> so forced because a large part of the social capital
>>> is employed by people who do not own it and who
>>> consequently tackle things quite differently than the
>>> owner, who anxiously weighs the limitations of his
>>> private capital in so far as he handles it himself."
>>>
>>> -Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 3
>>
>>Don't forget what follows that passage:
>>
>>"This only goes to show how the valorization of capital founded on
>>the antithetical character of capitalist production permits actual
>>free development only up to a certain point, which is constantly
>>broken through by the credit system. The credit system hence
>>accelerates the material development of the productive forces and the
>>creation of the world market, which it is the historical task of the
>>cpitalist mode of production to bring to a certain level of
>>development, as material foundations for new forms of production. At
>>the same time, credit accelerates the violent outbreaks of this
>>contradiction, crises, and with these the elements of dissolution of
>>the old mode of production... The credit system has a dual character
>>immanent in it: on the one hand it develops the motive of capitalist
>>production, enrichment by the exploitation of others' labour, into
>>the purest and most colossal system of gambling and swindling, and
>>restricts ever more the already small number of the exploiters of
>>social wealth; on the other hand however it constitutes the form of
>>transition towards a new mode of production. It is this dual
>>character that gives the principal spokesmen for credit, from Law
>>through to Isaac Péreire, their nicley mixed character of swindler
>>and prophet."
Let's also not forget Engels' discussion of his trouble editing the finance and banking chapters. For me this really brings home how Capital is not a unified piece of work and much of its genius is in only half-connected observations, not in being a totally worked-out system. Most of Marx's most interesting stuff on how the financial system works is in these fragments.
"The real difficulty began with Chapter 30. From here on it was not only the illustrative material that needed correct arrangement, but also a train of thought that was interrupted continuously by digressions, asides, etc., and later pursued further in other places, often simply in passing. There then followed, in the manuscript, a long section headed 'The Confusion', consisting simply of extracts from the parliamentary reports on the crises of 1848 and 1857, in which the statements of some twenty-three businessmen and economic writers, particularly on the subjects of money and capital, the drain of gold, over-speculation, etc., were collected, with the occasional addition of brief humorous comments. Here, in one way or another, more or less all views then current on the relationship between money and capital were represented, and Marx intended to deal in a critical and satirical manner with the ensuing 'confusion' about what was money on the money market and what was capital. After several attempts, I cam to the conclusion that it was impossible to produce this chapter; the material in question has been put in where the context provided the opportunity, especially the material with Marx's own comments."
In Engels' Preface to Capital Vol. 3
Cheers, Mike scandalum.wordpress.com