> An interesting summary of observed factual material, but it would be
> more interesting to see some serious attempt to analyze the meaning of
> those facts. By themselves they are meaningless. (See Grunmdrisse on
> facts & relations.)
A crude, partial summary:
Those facts matter because the past is irrevocable, the future is uncertain*, and capitalism requires credit. Credit provides a means for investment before the revenue comes in. Today's obligations were created with yesterday's expectations and will be exposed to tomorrow's reality. The expectations of the past will never perfectly and eternally align with the realizations of the future.
But some debt structures are more vulnerability to the misalignment than others. The frailest are those that cannot meet their obligations out of current income, which increases their exposure to financial markets. Severely debt-addled structures are liable to self-destruct from sell-offs where the more debtors pay, the more they owe**.
Over prolonged expansions, financial structures tend toward frailty. The pressure comes from banks seeking profit, human beings falling short of omniscience, and our derivation of expectations about the future from the recent past and what contemporaries expect.
Somewhere, someone compared the role of credit in capitalism to the use of engine oil in your car: it ain't everything, but don't expect to run either without it. The self-destruction of finance matters to the left because it threatens, in Orwell's words, the "haunting terror of unemployment." Prolonged unemployment can shatter lives, and depression levels of unemployment can decimate societies.
Shane
* - <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2008/2008-December/021168.html> ** - <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2008/2008-November/019929.html>