On 2/7/2011 2:18 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Schumpeter in 1939: "It is one of the most characteristic features of
> the financial side of capitalist evolution so to ‘mobilize’ all, even
> the longest, maturities as to make any commitment to a promise of
> future balances amenable to being in turn financed by any sort of
> funds and especially by funds available for short time, even
> overnight, only. This is not mere technique. This is part of the core
> of the capitalist process."
I'm not sure I fully grasped that (is he just saying bankers will finance anything they think is profitable and will search for the funding wherever they can find it?) But JS believed that lots of things that were "part of the core of the capitalist process" were on their way to the dustbin of history. It looked like he was right for a while, but then he was wrong. It takes a historian to figure out why.
SA