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541 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit -- rank: 1000

You know, I suspect that one reason that debt jubilees and the like are not spoken of now as compared with earlier periods might have something to do with the greater economic importance of debt. If debts are not central to the functioning of the real economy, they can be wiped away with little impact. Not so today.

Document Size:	4805
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 17 12:02:01 PST 2012

542 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit -- rank: 1000

On Jan 17, 2012, at 12:06 AM, Michael Pollak wrote: > Graeber's story of the origins of money in the state and imperialism (rather than the dynamics of generalized commodity exchange) doesn't illuminate what's new in capitalist credit markets. Yes, I think this is his anarchist bias showing. The state becomes the villain, and a lot of historical specificity gets lost. He's also into cycles - commodity money, fiat money - which becomes a kind of eternal recurrence. If you point to the uniquene ...

Document Size:	6747
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 17 08:15:06 PST 2012

543 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit -- rank: 1000

On Jan 17, 2012, at 5:40 AM, Mike Beggs wrote: > It's not an anarchist-Marxist > thing - it's actually the chartalism that grinds my gears! Know any good critiques of chartalism? It rubs me the wrong way but I'd like to deepen my critique. Doug

Document Size:	4778
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 17 07:11:33 PST 2012

544 [lbo-talk] Gingrich's attacks could help Obama -- rank: 1000

On Jan 16, 2012, at 3:10 PM, Sean Andrews wrote: > What's been more interesting to me is the stuff Gingrich is throwing > out in opposition to Romney - it's almost Marxist in it's vociferous > critique of capitalism. (cf. Nixon, China, etc...) It's also standard right-wing populism: anti-finance, and seeing the roots of many problems abroad (Bain's Latin investors, the Ontario Teachers' pension fund investment). Doug

Document Size:	5103
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 16 12:15:46 PST 2012

545 [lbo-talk] "Oigin as Essence" - profoundly ahistorical -- rank: 1000

On Jan 16, 2012, at 3:04 PM, Sean Andrews wrote: > Agreed. It is a very well written book and, while I am sure there are > ideas or concepts to disagree with, overall, /Deb/t is very nuanced in > its use of history and comparative method. Well worth any time you > spend reading it. > > s > > On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 12:00, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote: >> Graeber is one of the more nuanced thinkers and best writers I've run across in a long time. >> & ...

Document Size:	5626
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 16 12:14:37 PST 2012

546 [lbo-talk] Gingrich's attacks could help Obama -- rank: 1000

On Jan 16, 2012, at 2:22 PM, Wojtek S wrote: > Romney seems to be getting a presidential treatment in the media, no? Well why not? He's entirely plausible and reasonably sane.

Document Size:	4790
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 16 11:38:47 PST 2012

547 [lbo-talk] Gingrich's attacks could help Obama -- rank: 1000

On Jan 16, 2012, at 12:15 PM, Wojtek S wrote: > Otoh, the tone of the news reports on the Republican primaries seem to > indicate that the owners of the United States and the media have > already decided that the next POTUS will be a Republican. Is it just > me, or do others have a similar impression? Really? How do you get that impression? They've been covering it like a freak show, I've thought. Doug

Document Size:	5066
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 16 10:58:11 PST 2012

548 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

On Jan 16, 2012, at 2:14 AM, Michael Pollak wrote: > On Sun, 15 Jan 2012, Doug Henwood wrote: > >> Since we live under capitalist society, and credit has become more important than it was in the 19th century, it's pretty important to focus on what's different about capitalist credit. > >>>> (Money itself is a form for suspending the unevenness of the times required in different branches of production, to the extent that this obstructs exchange.) >>> >>&g ...

Document Size:	5690
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 16 05:40:10 PST 2012

549 [lbo-talk] Fwd: the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

[This probably bounced because David isn't subscribed.] From: David Graeber <david.graeber at me.com> Date: January 15, 2012 3:37:25 PM EST To: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Cc: "lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. Sent from my Magic Brain On Jan 15, 2012, at 2:39 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote: > > On Jan 15, 2012, at 1:40 AM, nathan tankus wrote: > >> it s ...

Document Size:	9978
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 15 21:00:19 PST 2012

550 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

On Jan 15, 2012, at 4:10 PM, Angelus Novus wrote: > Of course, Marx was a serious scholar, and any theoretical account of capitalism has to have solid empirical evidence. > > But Carrol's point is that _Capital_ isn't a book about English capitalism. It's a theoretical account of capitalism. I agree with that. But it's not just about an abstraction. Thus all the gritty stuff.

Document Size:	4934
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 15 13:45:33 PST 2012

551 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

On Jan 15, 2012, at 1:40 AM, nathan tankus wrote: > it strikes me that this is what one would say from a static structural > reading of Marx - that is, assume a total system modeled on industrial > capitalism as it existed > in Marx's Europe in the mid-19th century, contrast it with "past ages" > each taken as a whole... But what I was trying to do in my book was > take a more historical > account, and from that perspective, there's a real problem. As I put > it ...

Document Size:	7065
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 15 11:39:36 PST 2012

552 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

On Jan 14, 2012, at 8:02 PM, Michael Pollak wrote: > a) Graeber's way of using the word "credit" to simply refer to all debts is the normal way of using the word. It's Marx's use that's idiosyncratic. Marx is creating a new word use, and using it for precisely the opposite purpose, namely to focus on what is different between capitalism and all preceding systems rather than to focus on what is same. It's not that one POV is right and one is wrong. They are simply looking at diff ...

Document Size:	6199
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 15 11:33:52 PST 2012

553 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

On Jan 15, 2012, at 1:41 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > Capital is NOT an empirical account of any vcapitalist society. It is NOT a > history of capitalism. It is not a history of money. The Critique is totally > abstract. > > Alan has it pretty right it seems to me. > > And because it is abstract theory, NO concrete political conclusions > can be drawn from it. The gap between theory and practice is sharp: one does > not lead to the other. There are reams of quotes from ...

Document Size:	5565
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 15 11:30:56 PST 2012

554 [lbo-talk] threatening the powerful -- rank: 1000

On Jan 15, 2012, at 11:48 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: > On 2012-01-15, at 9:01 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote: > >> This story reminds me of what I read in the intro to Corey Robin's book, The Conservative Mind. Robin says that what has always scared the crap out of the powerful is that people could actually provide what government and (Corey says) management does. Thus, Robin says, what scared people during the general strike in Seattle 1919 was the capacity people had for organizing themse ...

Document Size:	6010
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 15 08:54:03 PST 2012

555 [lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit. -- rank: 1000

On Jan 14, 2012, at 6:16 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: > On 2012-01-14, at 4:02 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > >> The importance of that >> passage is the difference between all capitalisms and all other monetary or >> commercial societies of the past. And none of this is _politically_ of >> direct relevance. Always the CORE political question of mass movements (i.e. >> any anti-capitalist movement) is How do we Grow! > > Ya, nuff dat GrandRussia shit. Huh?

Document Size:	5102
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jan 14 15:31:16 PST 2012