the neoliberal vision of the future

[littlebabyjesus]

The gold standard is neither here nor there. Money is created through loans. It's the only mechanism by which money is put into an economy. Money is created by creating debt. How else is it created? How else could you get it into the system?

 

[phildwyer]

Quantitative measurements are the only way to solve many practical problems.

We're talking about evaluation, not measurement. Human activity cannot be evaluated in quantitative terms without distorting its nature.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

According to whose theory? Certainly no capitalist would agree with you since the abolition of the gold standard..

Money isn't created by loans: all money is symbolic, alienated human activity. But in usury the symbolic, alienated form of human activity acquires autonomy from what it originally represents. Since it is autonomous, there's no reason why the amount of value should be correlated with the amount of debt (or indeed with anything else) at all.

How close is that view to Marx's view of ficticious capital do you think, if you subtract the wind-up and hyperbole?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

We're talking about evaluation, not measurement. Human activity cannot be evaluated in quantitative terms without distorting its nature.

Probably so. How can you not do that, though. Any system of barter is doing the same thing.

If you are not giving freely, but are rather doing something in return for having something done for you – and on condition that the other thing is done for you – you are in such a situation.

 

[phildwyer]

How close is that view to Marx's view of ficticious capital do you think, if you subtract the wind-up and hyperbole?

I'd say it was pretty much identical with the basic concept, although Marx had no idea of just how fictitious capital can be.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Come on phil, how else is money created except through debt?

 

[phildwyer]

How close is that view to Marx's view of ficticious capital do you think, if you subtract the wind-up and hyperbole?

I'd say it was pretty much identical with the basic concept, although Marx had no idea of just how fictitious capital can be.

 

[phildwyer]

Come on phil, how else is money created except through debt?

By labor.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How can labour create money?

Labour can create value, but not money.

 

[onarchy]

It's not an assumption, it's based on what you write.

It's a well-known fact that communication takes at a minimum the cooperation of two people. If one of the parties refuses to understand there will be no communication. One of the primary mechanisms of evasion is to sabotage communication, which is what you and most others in this debate has done consistently. You haven't even made an effort to understand your opponents position, which is why this "neoliberal vision of the future"-thread is so ridiculous. How can there be ANY sort of understanding of how liberals or neoliberals think if you do not actually take the time and effort to put yourself in THEIR position and see the world from THEIR point of view?

The reason you have sabotaged all communication is because you are arrogant. Not just a little, but EXTREMELY arrogant. So arrogant that you have already decided in advance that everything that comes out of the mouths of a liberal is complete crap. You are so arrogant that you think that whenever you hear anything that contradicts what YOU have learned and what YOU believe is true, you immediately assume it to be completely false. In fact you assume it to so obviously false that you actually will not waste a single calory exploring the possibility that what your opponent is saying might actually be true.

 

[DotCommunist]

I was hoping that telling you of my beliefs would make it easier to accept some criticism. I didn't intend to turn this into a discussion about buddhism, but you seem to have misunderstood it.

nor was I inviting such a discussion. I know your kind of buddhist. Laying your faith on the table isn't going to soft soap your views. I know how many preists, imams, teachers and pharisees have coated the lies that say good is bad and evil is good.

Accepting that suffering is and will always be a part of life is only the first step. Once you accept that, you can work with your mind to set you free from this. Since all suffering is subjective, it is
bascially a mental state. For us buddhists it is very sad to see people suffering and still do things which is guaranteed to give them more of the same in the future. This includes anger, which is very
destructive for your self and those around you.

Yes, you are that sort of Buddhist. Do you want to explain that to the woman is too weak from hunger to brush the flies from her childs eyes? Oh a mental state, you fucking chump. They suffer nobly on this turn of the wheel right? Material suffering through poverty is visceral, real and horrific. A mental state of acceptance through religion under extreme conditions is a soporific and sometimes all the person robbed of everything has. Poverty and godfearing have long been allies but your priests be they robed or collared are still part of the problem.

 

[phildwyer]

Probably so. How can you not do that, though. Any system of barter is doing the same thing.

A barter system doesn't give separate life to the conceptual common denominator that makes exchange possible. So the impulse to quantify human life does not arise in barter economies.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I'd say it was pretty much identical with the basic concept, although Marx had no idea of just how fictitious capital can be.

Yeah that's about what I'd thought too.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It's a well-known fact that communication takes at a minimum the cooperation of two people. If one of the parties refuses to understand there will be no communication. One of the primary mechanisms of evasion is to sabotage communication, which is what you and most others in this debate has done consistently. You haven't even made an effort to understand your opponents position, which is why this "neoliberal vision of the future"-thread is so ridiculous. How can there be ANY sort of understanding of how liberals or neoliberals think if you do not actually take the time and effort to put yourself in THEIR position and see the world from THEIR point of view?

The reason you have sabotaged all communication is because you are arrogant. Not just a little, but EXTREMELY arrogant. So arrogant that you have already decided in advance that everything that comes out of the mouths of a liberal is complete crap. You are so arrogant that you think that whenever you hear anything that contradicts what YOU have learned and what YOU believe is true, you immediately assume it to be completely false. In fact you assume it to so obviously false that you actually will not waste a single calory exploring the possibility that what your opponent is saying might actually be true.

As long as you go on claiming that 5 is an even number and that Jesus emigrated to America to found the Mormons (or the metaphorical equivalent) then you have no real basis for communication with normal people ...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A barter system doesn't give separate life to the conceptual common denominator that makes exchange possible. So the impulse to quantify human life does not arise in barter economies.

It doesn't, no. It does, however, require a system of quantifying endeavour – you've caught five fish, and they're a fair exchange of my labour fixing your roof, for instance. You're creating equivalences between different activities – you're quantifying their worth.

But to go back to the interest question, it is precisely because money does in theory represent debt that inflation occurs as the money supply increases.

 

[phildwyer]

How can labour create money?

Labour can create value, but not money.

OK, I see. Of course money purports to be a measure of value, but presumably your point is that the kind of value it represents in late capitalism is not reducible to labor?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Onarchy, if you want to join the discussion, it's really easy, just accept that words mean what everyone else thinks they mean and take it from there. You don't have to agree with them, but if your only resort in argument is to redefine everything so it fits your worldview then you have no chance at having an interesting conversation. All you can do is intellectually masturbate in private (with a selection of followers who groove on watching you wank, and if I were you I'd be a bit dubious about the sort of people who find your private guilty moments of self-love absolutely fascinating.)

Looks at phildwyer here, almost nobody on Urban agrees with him about this sort of stuff, but they can all meaningfully engage with him and respect him because he's arguing straight, not misrepresenting history or stretching concepts out of all recognition to support some sort of Randite fantasy.

 

[SpineyNorman]

It's a well-known fact that communication takes at a minimum the cooperation of two people. If one of the parties refuses to understand there will be no communication. One of the primary mechanisms of evasion is to sabotage communication, which is what you and most others in this debate has done consistently. You haven't even made an effort to understand your opponents position, which is why this "neoliberal vision of the future"-thread is so ridiculous. How can there be ANY sort of understanding of how liberals or neoliberals think if you do not actually take the time and effort to put yourself in THEIR position and see the world from THEIR point of view?

The reason you have sabotaged all communication is because you are arrogant. Not just a little, but EXTREMELY arrogant. So arrogant that you have already decided in advance that everything that comes out of the mouths of a liberal is complete crap. You are so arrogant that you think that whenever you hear anything that contradicts what YOU have learned and what YOU believe is true, you immediately assume it to be completely false. In fact you assume it to so obviously false that you actually will not waste a single calory exploring the possibility that what your opponent is saying might actually be true.

If essentially everyone except you agrees on the definitions of words and concepts who exactly is the one sabotaging communication? Several people, me included, tried to "waste a single calory" by engaging with you but when you won't even try to agree on the definitions of terms it is exactly that - a waste. It's like two monolingual people, one speaking Chinese and the other Spanish, trying speak to one another in their own languages. In fact it's worse - you don't even appear to be trying. Anyway, can't you just piss off for a bit? The grownups are trying to talk now.

 

[phildwyer]

But to go back to the interest question, it is precisely because money does in theory represent debt that inflation occurs as the money supply increases.

How can money "represent" debt when debt consists in a relation between different sums of money?

The same difficulty arises when we try to imagine debt as "creating" money.

It seems to me that we are actually dealing with a system of pure signification that neither represents nor creates anything at all outside of itself.

 

[TruXta]

We're talking about evaluation, not measurement. Human activity cannot be evaluated in quantitative terms without distorting its nature.

Measurement is pointless without evaluation. Your point too is void. Stop this "human nature" bollocks.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

How can money "represent" debt when debt consists in a relation between different sums of money?

The same difficulty arises when we try to imagine debt as "creating" money.

It seems to me that we are actually dealing with a system of pure signification that neither represents nor creates anything at all outside of itself.

It's a system that's very good at delivering massive chunks of cash to the useless rich for no fucking reason that makes any sense at all though.

Money that's going to have to come out of our funding for local libraries and as pounds of flesh from our grandchildren. Isn't sympathetic magic a wonderful thing when applied to global finance?

"Oh Oh, we're having a tewwible crisis due to lending to the inferior, give us fucking billions from the public purse or we'll refuse to provide the guarantess that allow normal useful trade to happen and let you all starve while we laugh at you from our superyachts"

"Hahah you fucking mugs, you gave us the money! You oiks really are stupid aren't you? We're going to use the billions we stole from you to buy more yachts and other banks. We're going to laugh at you as you starve in a gutter or rot to death in a privatised hospital from opportunistic infections and send your grandchildren off to labour camps to pay off the debts you just incurred to us, the very people who created the mess in question.

"Meanwhile, our stooges in government will get some really fucking painful austerity measures going and try to at least double the suicide rate by demonising and tormenting the unemployed and blaming them for the fucking horrible mess that we created, while we laugh at you from our superyachts and snort cocaine off the well-fed cleavage of some guffawing posh tart in a fucking tiara and while our indentured servants softly tongue our anuses in return for jobs in politics and the media."

 

[SpineyNorman]

OK, I see. Of course money purports to be a measure of value, but presumably your point is that the kind of value it represents in late capitalism is not reducible to labor?

I suppose that could be where problems arise from - because of all the bubbles, the sub-prime loans and stuff that connection has been broken, or at the very least made so elastic as to be irrelevant, allowing all sorts of weird and dangerous stuff to happen. Could it be that the connection had to be broken in order for capital to register a profit, no matter how fictitious and fragile? (I'm struggling to put this into words so apologies if it doesn't make much sense)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It certainly doesn't create anything at all outside itself. It does represent real things, however, because people believe that it does. That's the whole point of money – that it works because people think it works.

I agree that it signifies 'value/debt' in an entirely abstracted form. It is itself a concept – a new concept, that of a 'pure' 'value/debt' that has no content. And here we run into the problem of our fundamental disagreement as to the origin of concepts.

 

[phildwyer]

Measurement is pointless without evaluation.

Nonsense. It is easy to measure time: it is impossible to evaluate it.

 

[SpineyNorman]

It certainly doesn't create anything at all outside itself. It does represent real things, however, because people believe that it does. That's the whole point of money – that it works because people think it works.

I agree that it signifies 'value/debt' in an entirely abstracted form. It is itself a concept – a new concept, that of a 'pure' 'value/debt' that has no content. And here we run into the problem of our fundamental disagreement as to the origin of concepts.

Does Phil believe in Platonic ideal forms or whatever they're called then?

 

[frogwoman]

what is this guy's blog? i'd like to read it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I suppose that could be where problems arise from - because of all the bubbles, the sub-prime loans and stuff that connection has been broken, or at the very least made so elastic as to be irrelevant, allowing all sorts of weird and dangerous stuff to happen. Could it be that the connection had to be broken in order for capital to register a profit, no matter how fictitious and fragile? (I'm struggling to put this into words so apologies if it doesn't make much sense)

Breaking the connection periodically can be very useful to capital. As backatchabandit has explained on here, when the music stops and people go bust, real assets are taken over by those who issued the debt in the first place. By issuing money and charging interest on that money, bankers are able to take control of real things of real value without actually creating anything other than money!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Does Phil believe in Platonic ideal forms or whatever they're called then?

Oh yes. Don't go there, though. There are loooooooooooong threads about it.

 

[phildwyer]

I suppose that could be where problems arise from - because of all the bubbles, the sub-prime loans and stuff that connection has been broken, or at the very least made so elastic as to be irrelevant, allowing all sorts of weird and dangerous stuff to happen. Could it be that the connection had to be broken in order for capital to register a profit, no matter how fictitious and fragile? (I'm struggling to put this into words so apologies if it doesn't make much sense)

It makes plenty of sense. The whole history of money is a process of abstraction, a movement away from referentiality: from bartered commodities through gold to banknotes to figures on a screen. With the abandonment of the gold standard went the last pretense that money refers to anything real.

 

[TruXta]

Nonsense. It is easy to measure time: it is impossible to evaluate it.

Not at all, I do it every day, and so do you. There are more forms of value than labour and money. I thought you as a religious person would've got that by now. LBJ already laid it out simply, bartering and sorts of non-monetary tit for tats all imply counting and tallying of diverse commodites and activities. No need for capital or money.