critique of loon theories around banking/money creation/the federal reserve

[phildwyer]

What's demonstrably false? (Your go). That the mullahocracy are not part of an owning class?

No, what I thought was the racist aspersion, but maybe I was mistaken.

Anyway, I daresay there's plenty of corruption among the mullahs, though it's still significant that usury is ethically condemned, even if hypocrisy abounds.

I'm saying that there is also a Westernized, secular bourgeoisie that opposes the regime.

 

[phildwyer]

Anyone can see the financial sector has not taken over the Western (very interlinked to the global) economy, nor has it taken over Western society as a whole - assuming this means the industrial and service sector. Ludicrous claims.

Think about them.

 

[phildwyer]

We're to understand that what's driving the worldwide economy is this moral degeneration that is emerging at around 200 years (guess what the same time as the rise of organised secularism), which means that usury just becomes more tolerated from this point onwards whereas it was apparently not tolerated before. Who tolerated it least? the feudal and religious systems. Money is our main enemy!

Usury is our main enemy.

It's becoming increasingly difficult not to see this. I don't know how you manage it.

Also, it has been recognized as our main enemy in every era other than the modern, and in every place other than the West.

 

[phildwyer]

Don't you get it, he doesn't mean literally, he means..... symbolically. Witches. Usury. Witches. Satan. GOD

Silence, fool. The last thing this thread needs is more of your babbling.

 

[phildwyer]

(((( people who use every aspect of international Jewry finance conspiracism for pointless ends, but change the Jewish financiers to all financiers usurers, to deepen the pool of conspiracist ideas - the pool from which 'anti-International Jewry' ideas mutate and grow ))))

Stop it.

Stop identifying anti-capitalism with anti-semitism.

Yes you are.

 

[TruXta]

Silence, fool. The last thing this thread needs is more of your babbling.

My babble is as a gentle brook to your mighty river of bullshit. Do carry on, it's kinda heartwarming to see a dead horse being so remorselessly flogged.

 

[sihhi]

Let's take Ayatollah Ali Rafsanjani, the former President, his personal wealth is estimated at least 10 trillion rial $1.2billion - wealth from banking (Lord! No!) aswell as farming aswell as oil and gas. Take a figure like Ayatollah Mohamed Ali Taskhiri. He is Islamic Culture and Communications Organization - doing stuff like textbooks. Forbes estimated him at over $300mil back in 2003. It has grown now. Individual moral weakness a fiddled account here or there is not really relevant to the case of their being the bourgeoisie. The so-called 'secular' bourgeoisie only wants to transform this wholly capitalist regime so that it allows more interaction with the West, more options for women to enter the workforce, and to stop pointless policing of non-issues (officers handing roses for dressing fully modestly, WTF?), wants to stop Iranian students prefering to study abroad so they can do things that are considered illegal in Iran.
It's significant that usury in Iran is ethically condemned in Iran.
Fight aspersions of racism! Don't fight things that directly allow racism to breed!

 

[phildwyer]

The lies and exaggeration just know no end. We're now at 'contemptuous, pre-Dawkinsite scorn' - this was a crime of the left throughout the 1970s throughout the world.

Billions, literally billions of people who would otherwise have supported the Left have been needlessly alienated by (most of) its militant, doctrinaire materialism and secularism, throughout the world, since the French Revolution.

Think about what that means for a second.

 

[phildwyer]

Let's take Ayatollah Ali Rafsanjani, the former President, his personal wealth is estimated at least 10 trillion rial $1.2billion - wealth from banking (Lord! No!) aswell as farming aswell as oil and gas. Take a figure like Ayatollah Mohamed Ali Taskhiri. He is Islamic Culture and Communications Organization - doing stuff like textbooks. Forbes estimated him at over $300mil back in 2003. It has grown now. Individual moral weakness a fiddled account here or there is not really relevant to the case of their being the bourgeoisie. The so-called 'secular' bourgeoisie only wants to transform this wholly capitalist regime so that it allows more interaction with the West, more options for women to enter the workforce, and to stop pointless policing of non-issues (officers handing roses for dressing fully modestly, WTF?), wants to stop Iranian students prefering to study abroad so they can do things that are considered illegal in Iran.

What makes you think I'd disagree with any of this, or find it remotely surprising news?

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Billions, literally billions of people who would otherwise have supported the Left have been needlessly alienated by (most of) its militant, doctrinaire materialism and secularism, throughout the world, since the French Revolution.

Think about what that means for a second.

A second is worthwhile. Longer would be a waste of time.

 

[phildwyer]

It's significant that usury in Iran is ethically condemned in Iran.

Why don't you think that's significant?

It's one thing to hypocritically tolerate usury, quite another to openly encourage it.

Because the former acknowledges the logic of the ethical objection.

 

[frogwoman]

No, what I thought was the racist aspersion, but maybe I was mistaken.

Anyway, I daresay there's plenty of corruption among the mullahs, though it's still significant that usury is ethically condemned, even if hypocrisy abounds.

I'm saying that there is also a Westernized, secular bourgeoisie that opposes the regime.

the religious section of the bourgeoisie might be religious, but they're still part of the bourgeoisie. In terms of their relationship to the means of production what they believe is neither here nor there frankly.

thats my point, not that the secular bourgeoisie don't exist. And they were hardly the ones being massacred in the streets were they?

 

[TruXta]

the religious section of the bourgeoisie might be religious, but they're still part of the bourgeoisie. In terms of their relationship to the means of production what they believe is neither here nor there frankly.

Doesn't explain the many w/c religious folks who vote for "bourgeoisie" parties.

 

[SpineyNorman]

the religious section of the bourgeoisie might be religious, but they're still part of the bourgeoisie. In terms of their relationship to the means of production what they believe is neither here nor there frankly.

Phil's an idealist though - what they believe is all that matters. I suspect he's also a closet post-modernist.

 

[frogwoman]

Doesn't explain the many w/c religious folks who vote for "bourgeoisie" parties.

I'm not trying to explain it, I'm pointing out that somebody's relationship to the means of production doesn't change because of what beliefs they had.

Engels owned a factory ffs

 

[SpineyNorman]

Doesn't explain the many w/c religious folks who vote for "bourgeoisie" parties.

Are there any other parties to vote for? (Genuine question, I know sod all about these countries)

 

[TruXta]

I'm not trying to explain it, I'm pointing out that somebody's relationship to the means of production doesn't change because of what beliefs they had.

Engels owned a factory ffs

You might not think you are, but that statement imply several causal relationships, one of which is that class trumps religious belief overall. In my reading at least.

 

[frogwoman]

You might not think you are, but that statement imply several causal relationships, one of which is that class trumps religious belief overall. In my reading at least.

I'm not implying anything, phil's argument was that the Iranian government can't be part of the bourgeois class because of their religious views, I'm pointing out that they can.

That's saying nothing about what individuals may or may not do - their religious beliefs clearly do in some cases inform their social policies (within the constraints of capital)

 

[phildwyer]

I suspect he's also a closet post-modernist.

I think postmodernists like Baudrillard and Lyotard give a basically accurate description of a situation they originally deplored, but came to accept as natural, rather than cultural, when they saw the revolutionary aspirations of their youth so cruelly dashed against the rocks of history.

The problem isn't with the accuracy of their description, but with the ethics of their response to it.

 

[TruXta]

Are there any other parties to vote for? (Genuine question, I know sod all about these countries)

What countries? I was talking about modern European contexts btw. Not sure what the story is elsewhere, suspect there's a global tendency for religiosity and voting less lefty to be correlated.

 

[TruXta]

I'm not implying anything, phil's argument was that the Iranian government can't be part of the bourgeois class because of their religious views, I'm pointing out that they can.

Sorry, I see your point, you were on about Iran specifically.

 

[phildwyer]

Engels owned a factory ffs

The profits of which he used to support Marx while he wrote Capital. Talk about producing your own gravedigger.

 

[frogwoman]

Sorry, I see your point, you were on about Iran specifically.

And clearly within the constraints of the capitalist state their religious beliefs do inform their agendas for that state. There's also a section of the ruling class that are opposed to it, but plenty that aren't.

 

[Delroy Booth]

why is this pseud getting indulged? he's talking through his arse.

 

[frogwoman]

The profits of which he used to support Marx while he wrote Capital. Talk about producing your own gravedigger.

My point is he didn't stop being a member of that class just because of his beliefs tho.

 

[J Ed]

I don't know about the Middle-East, but there is definitely a degree of truth to what phildwyer is saying about the left squandering opportunities with militant anti-clericalism during the 2nd Spanish Republic. Still, militant anti-cleircalism was a trap that, considering the behaviour of the Catholic Church and the popular reaction of much of the working-class to that behaviour, it would have been very difficult for them not to fall into. While I think that state atheism was a historic mistake, it didn't come out of nowhere, and the harshness of revolutionary anti-clericalism more often than not was dependent on the extent to which religion was used as a tool of repression by the previous regime.

 

[sihhi]

Can someone remind me who separated out and asserted: "The bourgeoisie who took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran?"


No one openly encourages 'usury' because 'usury' as a meaningful concept it doesn't make sense in most places and certainly not for a twenty-first century industrial, capitalist state like Iran.

But Iran has every nut and bolt in Western capitalism - although some parts might be smaller/larger compared to others - because of various historical developments. Insurance markets, free-trade zones with different financial arrangements (like Jersey say), a series of state-capitalised banks (like our RBS say), a series of private banks, credit default swaps, a newly developing mortgage sector (just like Turkey in that respect), an extensive stock exchange, an Iran Mercantile Exchange a futures exchange that organises purchases and sales of primary products including agriculture, minerals as well as oil and gas.

Islamic points - 1 some of the state banks and private banks do Islamic finance - they provide interest by re-investment so that it is not termed interest, all the financial products are basically classed as shariah-acceptable and Islamic by being rubber stamped by the regulator. 2 Friday is the holiday day because of custom. That's pretty much it.

Is insurance a form of 'usury'? What a meaningless concept usury is in 2013.

 

[phildwyer]

My point is he didn't stop being a member of that class just because of his beliefs tho.

Which proves that political beliefs are not determined by class.

There is after all no logical contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The logical contradiction is between capital and labor, and those powers are not necessarily incarnated in social classes.

 

[phildwyer]

No one openly encourages 'usury' because 'usury' as a meaningful concept it doesn't make sense in most places and certainly not for a twenty-first century industrial, capitalist state like Iran.

The condemnation of usury makes ethical sense in Iran, that's why they do it. It may not make pragmatic sense, but then they are conditioned to perceive ethics and pragmatics as contradictory, unlike Westerners, who cannot as a rule differentiate between the two.

 

[8den]

Silence, fool. The last thing this thread needs is more of your babbling.

It helps you read this in a Ming the Merciless voice.