File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-05.230, message 11


Date: Thu, 3 Apr 97 4:48:58 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: Law of value and labour time vouchers





	
		Lew,


	When Marx wrote his critique of capitalism (as opposed to a plan
to revolutionize the modern capitalist system he never saw) he naturally
demonstrated the new political primacy of money/capital and its power for
evil.  That was his job.  He had to demonstrate the way in which money
created new forms of power and created new forms of alienation.  He did
demonstrate those things - as principles.  By no means did he demonstrate
how a 21st century economy can be run without money.  From his vantage
point it might even have seemed reasonable (although I'm not sure that was
even his contention).  From our vantage point it is clearly impossible,
unnecessary and dumb.  Look, Marx was essentially warning the people, who
were standing on the earthen levies of the feudal order, of the coming
flood.  From that levy water seems like an awful force, when you're trying
to power a hydro-electric plant, it is a little different. 


	Marx was demonstrating how money creatED capitalist power. 
Capitalists aren't even interested in cash any more.  In fact, when they
talk about holding "cash" they actually mean short-term interest bearing
securities.  Actual money is becoming a valuation tool almost strictly of
goods, not capital.  Capital is valued in equities, corporate paper and
derivatives. Currency is a hedge against government behavior and commodity
price fluctuations.


	If you were guided by Marx's principles, instead of involving
yourself in debates over 19th century texts, you would see that money/capital
is now equity/capital.  Clearly, the communist model has no place for
equity/capital as it overcomes the alienation between economic and political
power.  Equity/capital will still be necessary (in a distinctly modified
form) under socialism, but only as something to be absorbed by the transition
to communism.  Cash will always be necessary in any interdependent economy.  


	I don't have to "prove" that last statement by finding some quote
in Marx.  I simply posit it as self-evident.  Your job is to create the
elaborate utopian scheme that replaces money with merit badges or
whatever.  I don't think it is relevant to socialism. 



	
	Karl Marx never saw a car, a plane, never heard a radio, and
probably never talked on a telephone.  He probably never held currency
that wasn't backed by a precious metal.  He was a visionary, but the man
had historical limits.  Consider the fact that the entire Russian economy
- the product of all that socialist planning and debate, and the
subsequent infusion of capitalism - is smaller than the economy of Mexico
(according to CNBC).  How tiny is the scale that he was working on
compared to today?  I don't challenge his principles (except the LTV, and
even then not completely), but I apply them to current reality, which was
a luxury he didn't have.  





	peace



 



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