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

[frogwoman]

Exhibit C. Far from a Delbert, even far from a Leader of Delberts, has some limited potential, a striver but not there yet.

I'll accept some of the stuff you say about money phil, what I won't accept is the idea that this means that the problem is banks and usury and not capitalism itself, and I don't think that "usury" is the same as capitalism. this may sound a bit thick, but I think the number of pawnbrokers, loan sharks or whatever in a place (which is basically what usury is) is often a symptom (not a cause) of economic decline, in many parts of the former soviet block there are tonnes of them on every street corner, you don't tend to see them so much in places where the economy was booming, until the recession there were a few but hardly any compared to what there are now around my way until a few years ago.

 

[phildwyer]

I was too scared to mention it

Not bad.

 

[frogwoman]

You forgot the rational proof of God's existence. Because symbols usury.

and witches. don't forget the witches.

 

[TruXta]

and witches. don't forget the witches.

The witches made me forget

 

[phildwyer]

I'll accept some of the stuff you say about money phil, what I won't accept is the idea that this means that the problem is banks and usury and not capitalism itself, and I don't think that "usury" is the same as capitalism. this may sound a bit thick, but I think the number of pawnbrokers, loan sharks or whatever in a place (which is basically what usury is) is often a symptom (not a cause) of economic decline, in many parts of the former soviet block there are tonnes of them on every street corner, you don't tend to see them so much in places where the economy was booming, until the recession there were a few but hardly any until a few years ago.

"Usury" just means lending money at interest, the rate doesn't matter.

 

[frogwoman]

"Usury" just means lending money at interest, the rate doesn't matter.

It's not the same as capitalism though is it? It's one aspect of capitalism that's also taken place in other modes of production. And to me usury suggests loan sharks and stuff, you're right that it's lending money at any type of interest but as you say they often tend to operate in extra legal ways and were historically done by (but not exclusively) "pariah groups".

 

[Delroy Booth]

It's not the same as capitalism though is it? It's one aspect of capitalism that's also taken place in other modes of production.

Clowns are for laughing at, not for arguing with.

 

[phildwyer]

It's not the same as capitalism though is it? It's one aspect of capitalism that's also taken place in other modes of production.

No, industrial wage-slavery is one phase, now over, through which capitalism has passed.

 

[Delroy Booth]

No, industrial wage-slavery is one phase, now over, through which capitalism has passed.

Finished. Over. Done with.

Industrial wage-slavery no longer exists.

 

[frogwoman]

No, industrial wage-slavery is one phase, now over, through which capitalism has passed.

It's not over and I wouldn't say it's "passed through" that stage.

 

[phildwyer]

Clowns are for laughing at, not for arguing with.

Give us a break Delbert. You've had your fun, now please to go away Sir.

 

[phildwyer]

It's not over and I wouldn't say it's "passed through" that stage.

In the West it has ceased to be the primary generator of capital, has it not?

 

[TruXta]

No, industrial wage-slavery is one phase, now over, through which capitalism has passed.

Tell that to the Chinese factory workers slaves.

 

[phildwyer]

Tell that to the Chinese factory workers slaves.

In the West, for the third time. Read the thread.

 

[frogwoman]

In the West it has ceased to be the primary generator of capital, has it not?

That doesn't mean it is "over" and we live in a globalised world, it's not like we can ignore the rest of the world. Western multinationals operate industrial capitalism in other states.

And re: usury: It looks as though I was right.

Usury

(pron.: /ˈjuːʒəri/[1][2]) is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans. Depending on the local laws or social mores, a loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates. According to some jurisdictions and customs, simply charging any interest at all can be considered usury.[3][4][5] Other terms used for usury or usurers include loan shark, as well as Shylock which is sometimes used with an antisemitic connotation.

 

[TruXta]

In the West, for the third time. Read the thread.

Oh please. A late backtrack won't save your pasty white arse.

 

[frogwoman]

In the West, for the third time. Read the thread.

you didn't say the west though did you?

 

[phildwyer]

That doesn't mean it is "over" and we live in a globalised world, it's not like we can ignore the rest of the world. Western multinationals operate industrial capitalism in other states.

And re: usury: It looks as though I was right.

No it doesn't, you're quoting Wikipedia, get a grip.

 

[TruXta]

No, industrial wage-slavery is one phase, now over, through which capitalism has passed.

you didn't say the west though did you?

No he didn't.

 

[phildwyer]

you didn't say the west though did you?

Yes I did. Are you mad?

The point is that capitalism has mutated from an industrial to a financial form, in the West that is.

 

[phildwyer]

No he didn't.

Yes I did. Read the thread.

The point is that capitalism has mutated from an industrial to a financial form, in the West that is.

 

[frogwoman]

No, industrial wage-slavery is one phase, now over, through which capitalism has passed.

this is what you said.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Usury existed before industrial capitalism. But there's no significant difference between what the banks do today and what a usurer would have done in ancient Athens or medieval Florence. Well, the only significant difference is that they do a hell of a lot more of it today.



Not really. They get round the ban in various ways, but it still makes their brand of capitalism less toxic than ours.

And here Phil outs himself as a complete ignoramus who doesn't even know what capitalism is.

 

[phildwyer]

this is what you said.

Yes. Having held the evidently futile and presumptuous opinion that my audience would have sufficient capacity of mind to recall that I had just said this:

The point is that capitalism has mutated from an industrial to a financial form, in the West that is.

Do you see my point?

 

[SpineyNorman]

We've been through this before, but just to remind newer readers that Jazzz is no anti-semite, as he has often said, and indeed is a Jew himself.

It is very important, really very important indeed, to separate the critique of money-lending from anti-semitism. Threads like this have the opposite effect.

You won't have read them, but there are plenty of Americans who'll argue that any critique of capitalism--not usury, but capitalism--is inherently anti-semitic. That's the road you're heading down here.

Again, you don't know what capitalism is. Do you really want to lose this argument yet again?

 

[phildwyer]

And here Phil outs himself as a complete ignoramus who doesn't even know what capitalism is.

Oh Christ, the gang's all here now.

Bunch of loons that you are.

 

[ayatollah]

I think that's exactly what's happening.

But the development of quantitative into qualitative change is a Hegelian, idealist piece of logic, and nothing to do with "Dialectical Materialism."

Indeed, the aufhebung to which you allude consists precisely in the renewed bestowal of practical power on non-material entities.

I’m afraid you are completely and utterly wrong there phildwer. Re-read your sources. (Though let me make my position clear. I think "Dialectical Materialism" is a complete load of bollocks - imported into Marxism by Engels as a direct steal from Hegel . Marx never referred to it , EVER, It is Not the same concept at all as his perfectly straightforward “Historical Materialism”). All the Stalinist "philosophers" loved Dialectical Materialism - just the sort of mumbo jumbo that could be used to justify every policy shift and "contradiction" ! "Quantity into Quality" is an absoluitely fundamental component of the bollocks of Dialectical Materialism, just as it is with the Hegelian Dialectic.

As mentioned above, Engels postulated three laws of dialectics from his reading of Hegel's Science of Logic Engels elucidated these laws in his work Dialectics of Nature:

1. The law of the unity and conflict of opposites;
2. The law of the passage of quantitative changes into qualitative changes;
3. The law of the negation of the negation

Lenin and lots of other Marxists ran with it too. It's still utter bollocks. A bad day for marxism, and rational socialist theory, when Engels decided to "sex up the theory" with this mumbo jumbo !

Anyway, the point I was making, which I think you agree with, is that in contemporary advanced monopoly capitalism the financial sector has become so large and politically powerful that it is now "non-functional" from the point of the wider capitalist system - its "super rent deriving" parasitic feature, has always been present, previously kept in check through political/legal imposed limits, is now actually seriously retarding the future stability and growth of the entire system, stripping out value from the productive, real value producing, capitalist sectors to feed its limitless short termist , indeed completely irrational, greed. The well documented "hollowing out" and "financialisation" of the US economy over the last 30 years for instance has been quite astonishing. As it has in the UK. The Financial sector of capitalism is now very akin to a cancerous growth within capitalism itself.

 

[frogwoman]

Yes. Having held the evidently futile and presumptuous opinion that my audience would have sufficient capacity of mind to recall that I had just said this:



Do you see my point?

I don't think it has passed through that stage. Because for one thing, you cannot look at western capitalism in isolation from the rest of the world, western multinationals operate in the third world, iphones and the like are made by chinese workers for western corporations.

 

[Blagsta]

another thread ruined by dwyer

 

[SpineyNorman]

They were able to use what they earned, often just enough of it to keep them alive, sometimes considerably more. Some slaves owned slaves themselves.

You're equating capitalism with wage labor. But money accumulated through slavery can be invested as capital equally well, can't it?

She's quite right to equate capital with wage labour. Wage labour is kind of essential - the relationship between wage labour and capital is the very essence of capitalism.

Are you trolling or are you really so stupid as to believe usury and capitalism are one and the same? I feel sorry for your students prof.