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

[littlebabyjesus]

Y
Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest men who ever lived. Your assertion is simply preposterous, so much so that I am persuaded there is nothing to be gained by the furtherance of our acquaintance. Good day Sir.

And there was me thinking you were having one of your sensible days. Lincoln was, at best, a conflicted, flawed man. There are many others far more deserving of credit for the ending of slavery in the US, for instance. And aside from that ending of slavery, Lincoln was full-square behind the concept of the US as a country in which private property is king.

 

[phildwyer]

It's not as widespread or developed as Phil would have us believe but there is an increasing tendency for class antagonisms/struggle to become internalised within individuals that just didn't exist 150 years or so ago.

It may not yet be as advanced as I have suggested, but the process is proliferating. And few psychologists or economists are taking account of it.

 

[love detective]

Although if neo-class analysis worked you'd expect the working class to be more enthusiastic about the solutions flowing from it.

I wouldn't say it's neo-class analysis - it's still the same fundamental marxian analysis of capital & labour, and what the antagonism between the two leads to

 

[phildwyer]

There are many others far more deserving of credit for the ending of slavery in the US, for instance.

Like who? John Brown? Now there was a man without any internal conflicts.

He also failed to end slavery. Lincoln succeeded, which was quite amazing really, the smart money would have been on the South, or at least the expanionist-slavery policy of the South, to prevail before an actual shooting war broke out.

Of course, Brown does really deserve the credit for ensuring that war broke out, so if that is a good thing to be remembered for may his soul go marching on. I suppose it is dialectically speaking.

 

[andysays]

You are the one who thinks we should boycott people for quoting Abraham Lincoln:
Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest men who ever lived. Your assertion is simply preposterous, so much so that I am persuaded there is nothing to be gained by the furtherance of our acquaintance. Good day Sir.

It wasn't because he was quoting Lincoln, it was the ironic appropriateness of the quote to his own performance.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt"
Abraham Lincoln

Still, I suppose your faux outrage means you can wriggle out of having to attempt to justify your bullshit assertion:

But since the Second World War, the vast majority of people in the post-industrial West do both.

What a couple of muppets you two are...

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Butchers - I've been non urbany somewhat of late, so not continued to talk about Max Keiser here, another regular was asking too and took me less credibly for lack of response, for which I apologise.

You asked me what I had learned from D Harvey and M Keiser.

The former made some of the more technical aspects of Marx more accessible to me, just as Wheen made him more human to me.

The latter gives, in great detail (often not so accessible, but get-able with patience) the exact specifics of the crimes under discussion.

I think you derided MK for the voices he uses in broadcasting. I don't think personal style need preclude him being a good communicator of the info he imparts. He is attention grabbing and bombastic, not to everyone's tastes but certainly to some people.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Like who? John Brown? Now there was a man without any internal conflicts.

He also failed to end slavery. Lincoln succeeded, which was quite amazing really, the smart money would have been on the South, or at least the expanionist-slavery policy of the South, to prevail before an actual shooting war broke out.

Of course, Brown does really deserve the credit for ensuring that war broke out, so if that is a good thing to be remembered for may his soul go marching on. I suppose it is dialectically speaking.

For Lincoln and his class of rich northerners, the primary driver behind opposition to the spread of slavery to the west was economic. To the extent that the end of slavery was a product of economic pressures, he represents the drive towards ending slavery.

But the ending of slavery wasn't just an economic question. It was also a moral one. And in this, I'm with Chomsky, when he spoke of the real heroes of the civil rights movement being those black people who suffered for not submitting, the real heroes of the anti-Vietnam War movement being those young men who went into exile for their refusal to fight in it, not him. The real heroes of the story are those whose names have been forgotten to history. The escaped slaves who made their way north. Every black person who refused to be ground down. And that's before we come on to the white people like Thoreau who made the moral case against slavery.

 

[phildwyer]

Although if neo-class analysis worked you'd expect the working class to be more enthusiastic about the solutions flowing from it.

You mean if traditional class analysis worked, right?

 

[phildwyer]

For Lincoln and his class of rich northerners, the primary driver behind opposition to the spread of slavery to the west was economic. To the extent that the end of slavery was a product of economic pressures, he represents the drive towards ending slavery.

No, he "represents the drive towards ending slavery" to the extent that he ended slavery.

But the ending of slavery wasn't just an economic question. It was also a moral one. And in this, I'm with Chomsky. The real heroes of the story are those whose names have been forgotten to history. The escaped slaves who made their way north. Every black person who refused to be ground down. And that's before we come on to the white people like Thoreau who made the moral case against slavery.

Agreed, but John Brown has to be up there by anyone's estimation. The (or a) main street in Port-au-Prince (capital of the only-ever successful slave revolution) is named "Avenue John Brown." And when Malcolm X was asked if he'd allow white people to join the Organization of Afro-American Unity he answered "if John Brown were still alive we might accept him." That's pretty good street cred.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Lincoln, on his own, did not end slavery.

And yes, of course, John Brown is up there. Precisely because his objection to slavery was a moral one. And his commitment was total. Yes, he's right up there.

The failure of Malcolm X to recognise that white people could be on his side too was his biggest mistake, imo.

 

[ayatollah]

You are the one who thinks we should boycott people for quoting Abraham Lincoln:



Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest men who ever lived. Your assertion is simply preposterous, so much so that I am persuaded there is nothing to be gained by the furtherance of our acquaintance. Good day Sir.

Is that a joke ? Abraham Lincoln was a vicious racist (constantly cracking racist jokes) , opposing the extension of slavery beyond the Southern slave states as a political convenience, only because it riled up the White working class voters that they would be undercut by Black slave labour, as was the case in the South. Even after becoming convinced (largely because of the scale of Black struggle against their slaveowners in the South) that Black emanciption would be necessary as a Northern War aim late in the Civil War, Lincoln made it quite clear that after achieving liberation from slavery he saw the best place for the freed slaves as being .....sent right back to Africa ! As far away from the White folks as possible. Lincoln was a total bigotted bastard, dwyer, as were most of your slave owning Founding Fathers. You are obviously a dupe of the US "National creation myth" industry.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I can only presume that it's a poor troll, ayatollah. He's already backtracked from espousing the greatness of Lincoln to talking about John Brown.

Dwyer, I don't believe that you believe in this 'great men' of history balls.

 

[phildwyer]

Is that a joke ? Abraham Lincoln was a vicious racist (constantly cracking racist jokes) , opposing the extension of slavery beyond the Southern slave states as a political convenience, only because it riled up the White working class voters that they would be undercut by Black slave labour, as was the case in the South. Even after becoming convinced (largely because of the scale of Black struggle against their slaveowners in the South) that Black emanciption would be necessary as a Northern War aim late in the Civil War, Lincoln made it quite clear that after achieving liberation from slavery he saw the best place for the freed slaves as being .....sent right back to Africa ! As far away from the White folks as possible. Lincoln was a total bigotted bastard, dwyer, as were most of your slave owning Founding Fathers. You are obviously a dupe of the US "National creation myth" industry.

You have to evaluate people by the standards of their time, not ours.

If you evaluate the past by our standards then everyone before the C20th, including Marx, Bakunin etc. is a " total bigoted bastard."

 

[andysays]

I guess this discussion of American History 101 means I can forget about my calling phil out on his nonsense about us all being capitalists now, then...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You have to evaluate people by the standards of their time, not ours.

And evaluated by the standards of his time, Lincoln falls a very long way short of greatness. Conventionally ignorant for his class and time might be more accurate.

 

[phildwyer]

I guess this discussion of American History 101 means I can forget about my calling phil out on his nonsense about us all being capitalists now, then...

Well LBJ pretty much explained it with regard to home ownership, but any pension plan or savings account would have the same effect... not to say that some people don't own more capital than others, or work harder than others, just that the opposition is no longer manifested in the objective form of class conflict in the post-industrial world to the same extent as it was circa 1750-1950....

... and the capital/labor contradiction was arguably never accurately or absolutely identified with the bourgeois/proletariat class conflict even then... hence (arguably) the failure of political parties, armed revolutions, institutions of civil societies and even states and blocs of states based around class conflict after 1950....

 

[ayatollah]

As I say, the logical contradiction is between capital and labor. There can be no peace, no reconciliation, no long-term co-existence of capital and labor, because they are opposites.

In the late C18th, C19th and early C20th, in the industrialized world, capital and labor were approximately incarnated in two social classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat. The bourgeois lived from capital, the proletarian lived by labor.

But since the Second World War, the vast majority of people in the post-industrial West do both. The opposition between capital and labor is therefore internalized.

This is utter crap Dwyer - as if the participation of workers, mainly solely via minimal participation in their private pension schemes,and thus , passively in the investment processes of capitalism negates their primary objective identitity as "proletarians". You claim "The opposition between capital and labour is therefore internalised". Sorry Dwyer, but there is actually a Big Bourgeoisie of real people out there in globalised capitalism who really do pretty much own everything. And what they don't directly own, they control. They really are the 1% who the Occupy Movement have rightly identified as the human personification of the power of Capital. Yes, yes, there are nowadays all sorts of extra graduations of incredibly well paid capitalist hirelings atop the big corporations/banks who whilst earning millions are not quite the equivalent of the pure 19th century bourgeoisie. Maybe they are conflicted by their nominally (proletarian ?) wage-earning combined with massive shareholding social status ? I'd say they were pretty clearly just a more recent subset of the bourgeoisie in the era of Joint Stock companies myself. Are the mass of the population really , objectively, "internally conflicted" by a dual identity as part proletarians and part capitalists just because they participate in private pension funds or hold a few shares ? Of course they bloody well aren't. They might be ideologcally confused, and think they are "middle class" because of this, but the key social relationship most wage earning citizens have in reality is still a proletarian relationship with the overwhelming social power of capital. All the gobbledegook about "internalised capital/labour" conflicts at the level of the typical individual replacing the Bourgeois/Proletariat social class divide is pure ideological smoke - feeding the US myth of the "middle class" , aimed at persuading the mass of people with an absolutely negligable stake in the capitalist system to identify with capital's interests against their real proletarian interests.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You're a dupe of the propaganda, dwyer. Let's face facts.

I totally agree with ayatollah on this. And I think it is a powerful message - most of us, even those who self-identify as middle class, have the same fundamental interests at heart. There's a huge scope for a broad-based movement against capitalism here, I think. It isn't happening, but there is scope for it.

 

[phildwyer]

Conventionally ignorant for his class

You wot? This is the same A. Lincoln, the most famous autodidact in history?

And evaluated by the standards of his time

I'd say he was considerably ahead of his time. Not as far ahead as John Brown, but then Brown was so far ahead that everyone thought he was bonkers.

More to the point, it woz Lincoln wot won it. More than any other single individual he is responsible for ending slavery.

And it was a close-run thing, as I said before. With a different man in charge, slavery might easily never have ended.

 

[phildwyer]

You're a dupe of the propaganda, dwyer

I read this just after reading Ayatollah's post, and I honestly saw that as "dupe of the paragraph..."

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I read this just after reading Ayatollah's post, and I honestly saw that as "dupe of the paragraph..."

It takes commitment to read ayatollah's posts.

 

[phildwyer]

Sorry Dwyer, but there is actually a Big Bourgeoisie of real people out there in globalised capitalism who really do pretty much own everything. And what they don't directly own, they control.

They don't control it. It controls them. Their actions are designed to maximize profit: that is the only logic they know. They obey no human logic or reason.

Economically speaking that is. But of course they are not solely economic creatures. Some of them are even us, if we have pension plans, savings, own a home, even live in a Western society...

... it's not like the 1840s, when the proletariat owned nothing, gained nothing from society, and would have been better off smashing it to bits....

... not yet...

 

[andysays]

Well LBJ pretty much explained it with regard to home ownership, but any pension plan or savings account would have the same effect... not to say that some people don't own more capital than others, or work harder than others, just that the opposition is no longer manifested in the objective form of class conflict in the post-industrial world to the same extent as it was circa 1750-1950....

... and the capital/labor contradiction was arguably never accurately or absolutely identified with the bourgeois/proletariat class conflict even then... hence (arguably) the failure of political parties, armed revolutions, institutions of civil societies and even states and blocs of states based around class conflict after 1950....

So having a few grand in a savings account in the bank makes me a capitalist?

Thanks for your contribution, but the thread title is "critique of loon theories..." not an invitation to post your own

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And it was a close-run thing, as I said before. With a different man in charge, slavery might easily never have ended.

Oh, it would have ended, just not then and like that.

The ending of slavery in the US is a very difficult topic for me. The way that ending slavery was imposed on the South had massive repercussions that are still being played out today. And the fact that it was ended by a Republican whose primary interests were the interests of business also had repercussions, not least that the freed slaves were then more or less abandoned. But then there is no ex-slavery society in the world in which the descendants of the slaves are not still, by and large, at the bottom of society. The ending of slavery was just the start of a movement towards social justice that is still very much on the go.

 

[phildwyer]

So having a few grand in a savings account in the bank makes me a capitalist?

To an extent. A small extent perhaps, but that's something very different from no extent at all.

And that's not to mention the benefits you (presumably) enjoy simply by virtue of living in an imperialist nation.

 

[Pickman's model]

I can only presume that it's a poor troll, ayatollah. He's already backtracked from espousing the greatness of Lincoln to talking about John Brown.

Dwyer, I don't believe that you believe in this 'great men' of history balls.

Not only does he believe it, he thinks he is one of the great men of history.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

More concrete example might be the social engineering intent behind Thatcher's introduction of council house sales.

 

[phildwyer]

Oh, it would have ended, just not then and like that.

Some would say it hasn't ended yet.

It's true that ever since Reconstruction, the prison system has been used as a surrogate for slavery. And that wage slavery can be materially worse than chattel slavery. But still, there was something uniquely evil about the CSA... one case which really is comparable only to Nazi Germany...

... and they could have gotten away with it too, at least forced a peaceful co-existence on the North, if it hadn't been for that pesky Lincoln, who seized the chance of abolishing slavery by insisting on the complete destruction of the South... gone with the wind and all that...

 

[phildwyer]

More concrete example might be the social engineering intent behind Thatcher's introduction of council house sales.

Or the mass sell-offs of shares that attended privatization... significant if only as propaganda, or maybe as revealing the Thatcherite self-image...

 

[yield]

Some would say it hasn't ended yet.

It's true that ever since Reconstruction, the prison system has been used as a surrogate for slavery. And that wage slavery can be materially worse than slavery. But still, there was something uniquely evil about the CSA... one case which really is comparable only to Nazi Germany...

The Child Support Agency isn't that bad.

Ok I'll get my coat.