[lbo-talk] waiting for the quantitative to turn into the qualitative

[wrobert at uci.edu]

Julio, the danger of this analogy is that gold is able to function as
money due to its ability to operate as an empty signifier due to its
divisibility, its ability to be radically reshaped, and its permanence. 
This is linked to a fetishistic libidinal investment in its preciousness. 
I'm not sure this helps your case all that much.  At best you could say
that if there was a big social movement, gold equivalent Obama would mold
himself to it, which would mean you needed the movement before the
candidate.  robert wood


> I wish I could remember now that quotation by Marx where he suggests
> that the relationship between regular commodities and money is
> analogous to that between regular catholics and the Pope.  If gold as
> a use value hadn't had certain special characteristics, then it would
> not have emerged as the general equivalent.  On the other hand,
> outside of its relationship with those regular commodities, gold is
> just a prosaic silly thing -- without any of the magic properties that
> attach to it as money.
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