SA
> But I don't see the Marx in your analysis.
> Looks like you've gone "beyond" Marx , and
> dropped Marx. That's why you need it
> explained to you which resources finance
> has drained from the "real" economy.
>
So what exactly was Marx's position on the expansion of the financial sector in the early twenty-first century, which is what we were talking about just now?
^^^^ CB: Finance became dominant in capitalism at the end of the 19th Century, as Hobson, Hilferding and Lenin essayed in the early 20th Century. Lenin points out in _Imperialism_, that it becomes finance capitalism, monopoly or great concentrations of wealth especially in the financial monopolies, a merger of finance and industrial capital with finance dominant, parasiticism of finance capital. Today finance's dominance has moved up a qualitative notch. I mean look how GM ,once the largest corp. gets the third degree trying to get a 25 billion dollar loan, while the Wall Street banks get $8 trillion no questions asked. Now that super finance capitalism, Hobson-Hilferding-Lenin PLUS ! There are a lot of Marxist political economists who extend this perspective to the present. Some of them are on this list responding on this thread. Then Fitch and Brenner are Marxists. Michael Hudson on superimperialism, financialization. Read some of the economic analysis in the various Marxist party literature. Haven't you been doing that ?
Anyway, from this thread you already have an ear full of Marx's ideas on the present. It just doesn't seem to sink in. Why don't you stop and think about it a little more ?
^^^^^
If you want more Marx in my posts, maybe someone on the list could write me software that would randomly paste quotes from Capital into my emails. Sometimes I get the feeling you've been using that program, actually.
^^^^ CB: Ah but not random, rather cogently and logically applied to the subject at hand. You seem to be oblivious to the fact that Marx's political economy is quite pertinent today. Haven't you noticed the relative surplus population and reserved army of the unemployed, mass poverty ,immiseration right now
in the "early 21st Century "? That's a demonstration of Marx' absolute general law of capitalist accumulation, and it's not randomly applied. It's real. right here, right now. What do you live in a bubble or something ? Haven't you seen the demonstrations of the increased inequality of wealth ? That's relevant to what you are talking about: parasiticism of finance capital and concentration of wealth in the beneficiaries of the finance monopoly profits.
Lots of non-Marxists are noticing it to the extent that the _Manifesto of the Communist Party_ was an item for coffee tables among marketeers a few years back, cause what they were experiencing in the market of 2000 or so reminded them of 1848 Marx. This year and last, lots of journalists in the mainstream press are writing on the revived relevance of Marxist to the crisis at hand.
Cramer the television market guru said Marx is right . Where have you been ?