On 2/7/2011 2:54 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> There's no such thing as long-term, patient capital. Borrowing short
> to lend long is almost foundational to the capitalist system. Which is
> a way of saying that regulated finance is the anomaly in need of
> explanation, not the modern deregulated kind.
Well, maybe in a meta-historical sense. But that doesn't really constitute a historical explanation. Besides, many things have at one time or another been thought to be "foundational to the capitalist system."
Elie Halevy:
> I remember that, when I was fifteen [in 1885], the demand for the
> eight-hour day seemed one of the most striking utopias of
> revolutionary socialism; the great war of 1914 made a reality of that
> utopia.
Unlimited maturity transformation may or may not be "more" foundational, but it seems anti-historical to say one set of regulations requires explanation and another doesn't.
SA