From: David Graeber <david.graeber at me.com> Date: January 15, 2012 3:37:25 PM EST To: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Cc: "lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit.
Sent from my Magic Brain
On Jan 15, 2012, at 2:39 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
Yes but that's a straw man isn't it Doug? What I actually argued was nothing of the kind - in fact I don't even understand what "ritualistic" is supposed to mean here. Joint stock corporations as I'm sure you know _had_ been important in capitalism - or whatever you want to call it - before the industrial revolution, when the British economy especially shifted to small family firms. My own argument focuses not on "ritual, transhistoric" factors but the changing relation between credit, money, and military structures - a factor that Marx didn't really address. I hardly claimed to have a comprehensive analysis or to have resolved precisely how this related to forms of priduction at the time - but I was rather hoping Marxists would be inspired to help here.
Maybe "static strucuralist" seemed like fighting words and that's why the answer took the form not of an answer to the question but basically name-calling. I'm sorry if I seem to have started it. It wasn't my intention. I was asking a question and actually hoping to get an answer.
>> "Here we comer 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.
>
So that's your answer??? Speculation in tulips is another straw man. The financial forms I'm speaking of like the earliest corporate ones largely developed around overseas military and colonial ventures, they were all about the "real" economy. Just they had little role yet for free wage labor, and a lot more for various forms of slavery and debt peonage.
It strikes me that the realization that what we think of as capitalist forms of finance, speculation, investment, etc are not necessarily tied to wage-based industrial production is highly relevant to our times. I honestly don't know what the full implications are. But shouldn't we be thinking about them?
David
> Doug