On Jan 15, 2012, at 1:40 AM, nathan tankus wrote:
> it strikes me that this is what one would say from a static structural
> reading of Marx - that is, assume a total system modeled on industrial
> capitalism as it existed
> in Marx's Europe in the mid-19th century, contrast it with "past ages"
> each taken as a whole... But what I was trying to do in my book was
> take a more historical
> account, and from that perspective, there's a real problem. As I put
> it in the book:
I don't see that at all. Marx's comments on credit, as in Vol. 3 of Capital, are sketchy, suggestive, and mostly ahead of their time. The joint-stock company was a pretty small player in his day. Consumer credit didn't exist. But his main point, that credit is embedded in the system of production (and, I might add given my own obsession, the system of ownership and class formation) in ways different in capitalist societies from others is pretty important. In fact, that seems more "historical" than finding some kind of transhistoric, ritualistic aspect to credit.
> "Here we come face to face with a peculiar paradox. It would seem that
> almost all elements of financial apparatus that we've come to
> associate with capitalism-central banks, bond markets, short selling,
> brokerage houses, speculative bubbles, securization, annuities came
> into being not only before the science of economics (which is per
> haps not too surprising), but also before the rise of factories, and
> wage labor itself."
>
> It struck me that this was the challenge I was throwing out to Marxist
> theorists. I don't think Marxist theorists are beyond answering it,
> not by any means, but it's
> an interesting question and deserves addressing. A mere restatement of
> orthodoxy such as below doesn't seem to be much help
Actually, a lot of orthodox Marxists think that credit - or, more broadly, finance - is irrelevant, epiphenomenal to the real productive action.
Though there are plenty of similarities in the mob psychology, speculation in tulips is different from speculation in houses, fiber optic cables, Pets.com, etc. Tulips are curiosities - the others are deeply involved in the "real" economy.
Doug