alloneword wrote:chlamor wrote:<Snip>
There is nothing special about money...
Well, on that point (and most of the preceding 'word-salad'), I'll respectfully disagree.
You seem to be making the same fundamental error as Marx, as Gesell put it in the passage (did you actually
read it?) I linked to: 'he made the mistake of excluding money from the scope of his inquiry'.
It's the failure to recognise this fundamental systemic fault regarding 'what money
actually is' (as in: "Where does it come from") that renders your argument invalid, no matter how many sneering comments you make about Gesell or however deep your personal emotional investment in Marxist dogma.
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Once upon a time, there were just people and they produced things. That those things were useful is self evident or else people would not have produced them. The nature of their wants, desires or needs is not at issue here. Suffice it to say that the things produced by people had no quality other than that of being useful to themselves. It is also important to note that "people", here, refers to the tribe or clan as there is no basis for distinguishing "atomic" units (self, "immediate" family, etc.) nor is there any foundation for "property", within the tribe or clan. All of that comes later and "trade" always develops between groups of people and not within them.
There is always the possibility, and indeed the likelihood that what one produces for oneself, is also useful to others. There is also the likelihood that the specific territory of one group of people or the specific skills learned by that group or something else unique to it, allows that group to produce a surplus of a particular thing or set of things. That establishes the basis for "trade" between groups. The preconditions for trade are that both have something useful not just for themselves but for the other and that it is sensible to produce more of the one thing within the tribe than it would be practical or even possible to produce the other thing that is being traded for. Early candidates for this trade may be salt or specific types of tools, or whatever.
The conditions for that original trade are incidental. How much of one thing “trades” or exchanges for how much of another may be entirely arbitrary in the first instance. It does not take long, however, for the things that are produced in surplus to be gauged in relation to one another. It may be that the trade becomes regularized or the number of things being traded increases or the number of peoples engaged in this trade itself grows. The result is that the things traded now acquire an exchange value, or a quantitative measure of what things of one type trade for things of another type. It is important to note that this value has nothing to do with the intrinsic qualities of the things being traded as these qualities are often entirely different. Instead, this exchange value is a social measure lent to those things by those who would trade them.
What is the basis of exchange value? The basis for exchange value is the amount of labor time spent in producing the products being exchanged. More, this labor time is not measured in terms of labor of a specific type because that is as varied as the specific types of products being produced. This is a peculiar kind of abstract labor which reduces multiple skill levels and the effectiveness of the individual producers to a quantity of abstract social labor congealed in the products themselves. Of course, no trace of that congealed abstract labor is detectable in any of the products themselves, because it is a creation of the social act of exchange itself.
What we have described above is not capitalism. In fact, ancient peoples live with this type of trade for thousands of years. No surplus value has yet been “invented”, no exploitation is implied, nor are the things being produced necessarily commodities because to assume that form, products must be produced explicitly for exchange. This trade lives typically at the margins of society and remains incidental in its importance if not in its terms. It is also true that of all the things produced, relatively few become candidates for trade and thus acquire an exchange value.
The problem arises when the number of products entering into exchange increases in number. One bowl of salt exchanges for 3 tanned hides which exchange for a flint awl which exchanges for 11 dried fish and so on. Very quickly, this matrix of value relationships becomes a complex table, and this even with relatively few products entering into trade. How do we know this? Because, these tables have survived among examples of the earliest forms of writing. One of the most interesting are variations on Sumerian cylinder seals which when rolled onto clay or mud, to produce trade tables:
Many archaeologists believe that the widespread adoption of cuneiform writing was a direct result of the adoption of the Sumerian tablets.
At this stage, commodities do in fact begin to appear and a simple innovation is required to simplify the growing matrix of exchange. Exchange now becomes a two step process in which the exchange value of any two commodities entering into exchange are first compared to the exchange value of a third. Through widespread adoption, that commodity becomes a universal equivalent or money. The traits that lead one commodity to be adopted as the money commodity over another have been widely studied. These traits include the realization of a large amount of value in a physically small and portable mass, durability, easy divisibility, and so on.
In truth, though precious metals are a natural, any commodity will do. Specific quantities of the money commodity become the denominations of money (i.e. Pound Sterling or a pound of sterling silver). Each commodity now acquires a measure relative to the money commodity, or what is to say the same thing, a price. The act of exchange now appears to be a two step process: that of selling and that of buying, though nothing has really changed and the intermediate step of transformation into the money commodity often never need take place.
Of course we have described an early stage in the evolution of money with national money and credit money and banknotes and a thousand other things to come, but, nevertheless, nothing really changes from this humble beginning. And this early stage of commodities, too, may last for hundreds or thousands of years without carrying with it the implications of universal commoditization and exploitation, except in embryo. But we have enough here to suit our purpose.
There is nothing special about money. Midas was wrong. As the universal equivalent, money may be transformed immediately into any other commodity but any commodity may undergo the very same transformation or else it would not be a commodity.
Money has no “magic”. Money spent is gone forever. Money hoarded merely sits there. It is capital (coming much later) that has “magic” for when it is spent, it returns larger than before. And, while it is true that there is a slogan that says, “money makes money”, in truth it abridges the reality: that money transformed into capital is magically augmented and makes more money. This is how money gains its “peculiar luster” as Marx calls it. And while even the capitalist may be confused about money, particularly in the infinite complexity of its full blown evolution, nevertheless in his “values” he knows the truth – to consume money is to be a spendthrift and a parasite, and to hoard money is to show stupidity, but let even a spare sou show up and it is immediately invested in “productive endeavor”, as capital.
You are showing way too much intuition and not nearly enough rigor. Being way too loose in use of words and the logic behind them slops both around like paint on an abstract. It is certainly not a crime to be befuddled by the categories of political economy, complex as they are. But, to declare Marx, one of the most important writers in human history, as “wrong” without being cognizant of either his views or their context… that is just silly.
The story of Robinson Crusoe is the quintessential cliché of economics. One might as well wear a neon sign screaming “sophist”. If one had read Marx, they would know that he demolishes such a story early in Capital. In fact, the Crusoe story exists because of weaknesses in the other favorite cliché of the economists: the story of the Indian and the bow and arrow.
“Once there was an Indian and he had an idea. Instead of using a spear to hunt rabbits with the other ‘braves’, one day he went hungry and invented the bow and arrow…”
“Um, Professor Samuelson… he wouldn’t have gone hungry, you see, because ‘Indians’ had no concept of consuming as a function of individual production so he would have eaten just the same as everyone else so…”
“TO CONTINUE, that Indian used his bow and arrow to hunt twice as many rabbits the next day and in return for sharing that knowledge with the rest, he had them give one of their rabbits to him for each one they kept…
“Errr, Professor… that doesn’t work either because they had no concept of private property and the bow and arrow wouldn’t ‘belong’ to the ‘inventor’ and, besides, once they knew how…”
“AND THAT BOW AND ARROW WAS THE FIRST CAPITAL and anyone who doesn’t say so on the test WILL FAIL!”
The previously mentioned Robinson has no such problems. He blithely enters into primitive conditions with the knowledge, the stupid certainty, the idiotic prejudices and the fully formed views of a thoroughly modern philistine. What a perfect way to start a ‘hypothetical’ story about the origins of political economy.
BTW I have no emotional attachment to Marx just as it is not dogma. I save those attachments for my closer relations in this world. And my ball glove.
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
