Subject: Re: M-TH: VALUE THEORY, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, & CULTURE
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:02:42 -0500 ()


     Well, for what it is worth, Marx did identify gold as 
his real abstraction, the universal equivalent form of 
value.  Clearly this reflects the social conventions of the 
day, and the fact that when he wrote British financial 
capital was in the process of imposing and enforcing the 
gold standard on the world at large.  This all collapsed in 
the the Great Crash of 1931 (the international monetary 
system and many banks, not the ballyhooed stock market 
crash of 1929), although it took Richard Nixon in 1971 to 
ultimately eliminate the "barbarous relic," except as an 
element of reserves of central banks.
     Ironically, Marx's remarks about gold supported 
Lenin's support of the gold standard in the 1920s, a not 
unreasonable position for the gold-exporting USSR.
     This position of gold is further emphasized by the 
fact that silver originally backed both the dollar (from 
the 15th century silver thaler of Bohemia) and the pound 
_sterling_, originated by Charlemagne.  All of these were 
"real abstractions," in contrast with the unreal and 
irrelevant abstraction put forward by somebody on M-Sci 
recently.
Barkley Rosser
PS to Ralph:  I have my differences with Louis Godena, but 
I do not support your call for him to resign or for anybody 
to be expelled from any lists.
On Wed, 19 Feb 1997 09:51:13 -0800 (PST) Ralph Dumain 
<rdumain-AT-igc.apc.org> wrote:


> Perhaps marxism-thaxis can be a vehicle for productive discussion
> where marxism-and-sciences-and-crackpot-hasbeen-turds has failed.
> The connection between philosophy and money is not the sole
> prerogative of George Thomson or Alfred Sohn-Rethel.  I have read
> not a one of the following works, but I wonder if anyone is in a
> position to comment on them:
> 
> Agnew, Jean-Christophe.  WORLDS APART: THE MARKET AND THEATER IN
> ANGLO-AMERICAN THOUGHT, 1550-1750
> 
> Michaels, Walter Benn.  THE GOLD STANDARD AND THE LOGIC OF
> NATURALISM: AMERICAN LITERATURE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
> 
> Shell, Marc.  MONEY, LANGUAGE, AND THOUGHT: LITERARY AND
> PHILOSOPHICAL ECONOMIES FROM THE MEDIEVAL TO THE MODERN ERA
> 
> Simmel, George.  THE PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY.
> 
> The last is a well-known classic work, the others are fairly
> recent.  I know that literature and theater are not exactly
> philosophy, but it seems the same sort of analysis is at work.
> I'm hoping that there are more than superficial and misleading
> analogies here.  I still have bad memories leftover from Ferruccio
> Rossi-Landi's fraudulent and incompetent drivel in LINGUISTICS AND
> ECONOMICS and LANGUAGE AS LABOR AND AS TRADE.
> 
> 
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-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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