Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:29:48 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Credit


boddhisatva wrote:

>Credit, most often linked in Marxist writing with the excesses of
>capitalism,

Huh? Marx thought credit was one of those things that helped capital
overcome its own internal barriers, at least for a time. What are these
"excesses" of capitalism, and how do they contrast with its normalities and
deficiencies?

>brings a use-value assessment into the investment process with
>interest rates.  It therefore discourages market deformities large enough to
>unbalance the currency or the economy.  It also provides the means, as Rakesh
>Bhandari noted, for full employment, because it overcomes the need to invest
>wholly out of present receipts (minus that amount of value lost to
>unavoidable inefficiencies).  This growing money supply anticipates economic
>growth, thus keeping the value of the currency ( and therefore previous
>investments) stable and rational.  If it fails to anticipate that growth, the
>interest rate  markets signal that fact.

This is incomprehensible.

Doug





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