From: Russell Pearson <R.Pearson-AT-art.derby.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 10:34:26 +0100
Subject: Re: M-TH: Fictitious capital and the fetishism of interest



Hugh remarks:
>Which reminds me of the most amazing ad I once saw (early to mid-1980s) for
>some financial product or other, I think it was some kind of unit trust,
>only it was a central government agency or publicly-owned bank that had
>commissioned the ad -- a couple of happy folks were dancing around in a
>rain of money from horns of plenty, and maybe there were even trees with
>money growing on them. The message was explicit in the blurb. "You have to
>do nothing. Your money will work for you."  These things are alive and
>breed money. Money itself breeds more money. Or as one of my favourite
>ditties has it:
>
>	Love is a flower that withers and dies,
>	Love is like a rose;
>	But property -- property sticks,
>	And property -- property grows.

Taussig in _The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America_ relates some
interesting stories relating to the fecundity of money. In Bolivia it is a
crime to Christen money- this is what happens: a baby is to be Christened
and instead of the priest's blessing landing on said bairn, it falls on a
dollar bill hidden in the hand of one of the communion. (This is both
blasphemous and cheats the baby of the blessing.) The blessed dollar bill is
then spent. It returns to the owner multiplied ten fold. 
Taussig relates a tale of a shopkeeper who was given such a bill. He
discovered the sorcery when he heard a commotion in his shop and an almighty
racket (no pun intended) emmanating from his till. On opening it he
discovered two bills fighting for all the other dollar bills there.
Unbeknown to the shopkeeper, he had been passed two Christened bills and
both were fighting for the cash...



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