Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Thank you for the expansive reply, Professor Nitzan. It will take me some time to think though all that you said, but I have some initial reactions to some of what you said.
When I say that the private control of the money supply is the “ultimate” source of capital’s power, I mean the “original,” “first” or “fundamental.” I don’t mean to imply that it is the “sole” or “most important” source of capital’s power. Indeed, elsewhere on this forum, I have referred to secondary sources of capital’s power, which combined control the breadth regime of sabotage, i.e., capital’s indirect control over wages, prices, and profit expectations of publicly traded corporations.
Regardless, in terms of timing, money supplies existed long before equity and debt markets, which I believe Finance created as a way to increase the value of existing capital without directly affecting the money supply (i.e., equity and debt markets were created to ensure differential accumulation), a fact that further cements the primacy of Finance’s control of the money supply in terms of creating and sustaining its power.
Finally, fiat money is not the issue, credit money is. As Di Muzio and others have documented, credit money– which is the system we have– obviates the entirety of paragraph (2) of your latest response because a commercial lender puts no existing capital or money at risk when it extends interest-bearing credit to a “borrower,” which is why I have come to call the process of paying off a loan “immaculate accumulation” because the bank accumulates tax-free capital worth more than 100% of the credit it granted, something the government could have done for simply the cost of repaying the full amount of the credit (whereupon repayment would remove the money from circulation, thus preventing any monetary inflation). Di Muzio has argued that credit money is what drives the need for the perpetual exponential growth of credit, money end economic growth, as well as “differential accumulation” more broadly. And he is right.
P.S. I believe the discussion of “rituals” and “symbols” (and “COP-MOP” pairs) makes it more difficult to understand CasP and its value in providing a framework for describing Capitalism as a control system. Besides, deception is Capitalism’s primary “concept of power,” and it is already hard enough for many to accept the fact of that deception let alone look past it to map the architecture of Capitalism as control system (CaCS?), which I guess is what I am trying to do. Anyway, thank you again for engaging with me. Your thoughtful responses are always helpful and challenging in a positive way.
I’m not sure I understand your claim. Perhaps you can use the following example to illustrate it. In our work, we suggested that, during the second half of the 20th century, the Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition supported Middle-East Energy Conflicts to boost its differential accumulation-read-power (for example, ‘New Imperialism or New Capitalism?’ 2006, http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/203/).
Do you think that ignoring the presumable politics-economics duality here prevented us from understanding the power of this coalition?
Thank you for your question. I hope I can answer it to your satisfaction, but I am an electrical engineer and lawyer by training, not a linguist or philosopher, and that is the kind of domain into which I am heading.
I did not say that you “ignored the presumable politics-economics duality,” I said you rejected it. In doing so, you engaged its literal meaning, which is the opposite of ignoring the duality altogether. Clearly, your engagement with the politics-economics duality and other foundational assertions of capitalism yielded CasP theory, which was a great achievement.
But CasP theory is not complete, as you and Shimshon Bichler discussed in a 2018 paper. While I agree with most, if not all, of CasP’s assertions, I think they need to be extended and restated to be more complete. For example, I think Tim DiMuzio’s conclusions regarding money and debt need to be more fully integrated into CasP theory proper as it is the delegation of the sovereign power of money to private parties that is the ultimate source of capital’s power, e.g., as I’ve said elsewhere on this forum, it is private control over money, wages and prices that gives rise to the “depth regime” of sabotage.
I started this thread because it seems that the foundational assertions of capitalism have meaning and purpose beyond those engaged so far by CasP. The politics-economics duality, although false factually, has nevertheless become true normatively. Thus, the politics-economics duality is not simply what it “means,” it is also what it “does.” From what I have seen so far, CasP has engaged the former, not the latter, but correct me if I am wrong. The real-nominal duality also “does” something, but its function is different than that of politics-economics. Regardless, both of these foundational assertions are part of the architecture of capital’s power, and understanding them within the context of their function within that architecture is distinct from whether or not they are accurate statements.
The fact that Plato discussed the concept of foundational assertions as Noble Lies (or true falsehoods) thousands of years ago within the context of discussing the establishment of a social power hierarchy demonstrates that power cares about what foundational assertions do, not whether they are true. Understanding what such assertions do may lead to a deeper understanding what power cares about (or fears).
I recall seeing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre when I was a child, as well. I was a big 30s and 40s film buff growing up, but I preferred lighter fare from actors like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Heck, I even loved Shirley Temple movies. I was a kid, after all.
One of the major reasons I believe companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google are rewarded with high earnings multiples is because they have created platform-proprietary markets where they stand between the buyer and seller, in many cases “capitalizing” a portion of the profits of “non-financialized” segments of society, just as finance capitalized these companies by trading their shares on secondary stock markets. Capital’s power is fractal in nature.
At the end of the day, one cannot survive in modern society without money, and controlling one’s access to money is thus the most coercive power there is today. There are merchants who clearly must believe that the alternative to selling through Amazon is dying in a desert.
Perhaps we are talking past each other here.
While I believe the politics v. economics duality is LITERALLY false, I also believe it has been made true as practical matter and serves to perpetuate the power of capital, which springs from the delegation of the sovereign power over the control of the money supply. Finance would not wield the power of capital but for governments ceding that portion of their domain.
I also believe the idea that the “nominal” is a reflection of the “real” is literally false, but, as a practical matter, the real/nominal duality is made true as a practical matter when expressed as CasP theory predicts it: finance drives (has power over) the “real” economy.
When you possess power, confidence in obedience trumps literal truth. From this perspective, the outright rejection of these foundational false dualities prevents CasP from fully understanding the source and nature of capital’s power.
In a way, I am applying Philip Miroswski’s concept of the “Double Truth Doctrine” of neoliberalism, which entails the same statement having one truth for the elite (the rulers), and another truth for the masses (the ruled). Can these basic dualities be expressed in CasP terms in a way that makes them true for the rulers, even though it is obvious that these dualities are false with respect to the ruled (who cannot see that fact)?
Even Plato’s Noble Lie could never be made literally true, but his point was that as long as the ruled believe it be true, that is enough for the rulers to be confident in their obedience, i.e., the lie itself is a major source of the rulers’ power.
I have revisited the real v. nominal duality and believe that it is true if cause and effect are reversed, i.e., the nominal economy/world does not reflect the real economy/world, it drives it, which is the net effect of capital as power mediated through strategic sabotage (I prefer “strategic scarcity”).
In this sense, there are also two societies, the nominal and the real, each with its own class system. Within the nominal world (I think of it as a game world called “the Market”), Finance is the ruler because it controls the banks, the money supply and capital markets, i.e., all the sources of capital, which exists solely within the game world and under Finance’s control unless and until it is emitted as money to purchase goods or services in the real world. (When you deposit money at a bank, it becomes the bank’s money, and you become an unsecured creditor. When you buy stock on an exchange, it is typically held in the name of your broker/financial institution, aka “the street name,” although you have a claim to the shares.)
Within the nominal world, I would argue the petit bourgeoisie are those who possess capital but not enough of it stop working for others (the working rich), as well as those who can stop working but who are likely to consume most or all of their capital within their lifetime. Anybody who has less capital is essentially classless. They are neither citizens nor denizens of the game world as they are consumed entirely by the real world (aka, the company store).
Between Finance and the nominal “petit bourgeoisie” are many other classes defined by the quantity of capital possessed. Each time you pass a certain milestone, you get access to more capital markets and assets at a lower cost. As investors, capital owners essentially have a rating much like a bond rating, only less subjective.
In the absence of war, pandemics and natural disasters, every bad economy is born in the nominal world as a financial crisis and migrates to the real world as Finance stops lending and other capitalists stop borrowing to preserve what capital they have. Every major recession or depression has been driven by a sudden contraction in the extension of private credit, which constricts the money supply in the real world, causing rising unemployment or worse deflation.
That’s why I say the proximate cause of systemic fear, the fear of the potential collapse of the nominal world, can only be driven by citizens of the nominal world, i.e., those with enough capital to participate in the game. While financial crises usually result in “the ruled” paying off debt and not taking on new credit, they downward spiral is always cause by capital owners who make big bets and cannot pay their debts as a result, which can trigger fire sales of financial assets and crash the stock market.
When it comes to understanding the development of the corporate form, I recommend both volumes of Morton J. Horwitz’ The Transformation of American Law, which tracks how American law was changed 1780-1960 to support finance, commerce and (ultimately) capitalism. You can find a link to an especially relevant chapter from Horwitz’ second volume, which was published as a law review article, here.
The chapter/article relates to the Supreme Court ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific, a case that has been discussed in several mainstream books including David Korten’s When Corporations Rule the World, Adam Winkler’s We the Corporations and Thom Harmann’s Unequal Protection. Winkler is a UCLA law professor, and his treatment is specifically focused on corporate personhood and its development since Santa Clara. The upshot of Santa Clara is that the Supreme Court refused to reach a decision on the issue of corporate personhood, but the clerk of the Supreme Court reported in the syllabus that the Supreme Court had found corporate personhood under the 14th amendment to the US constitution. Although the syllabus is not precedential, it has nevertheless been successfully cited and forms the basis of major decisions like Citizens United.
It may seem odd to recommend a legal text as a good source of history, but law school for me was one big, fascinating history lesson. Horwitz’ history was especially eye-opening because it layered in a lot the history of competing legal theories (natural law, positivism, realism, etc.), which was new to me.
I have mixed feelings about bridge building. On the one hand, it is politically expedient. If the halls of academia are filled with people who believe theory X, then it is surely wise for someone with a new theory to engage with theory X, and to build bridges between their own work and the work of popular scholars. Political expediency, however, is not always good science. For instance, I am glad that Galileo did not build bridges with the proponents of geocentrism. He knew he was right and they were wrong. And so he burned bridges … and paid a steep price. But science advanced. Of course, there is something to be said for framing your ideas so that people not familiar with them can understand them. In developing his theories of gravity and motion, Newton created a whole new mathematics — calculus. But none of Newton’s contemporaries (except Leibniz) understood calculus. So Newton framed all of his most important arguments without calculus. To the modern observer (who understands calculus) that makes them extremely tedious. But it was a wise choice, given the state of science. In the social science, of course, nothing is ever as clear cut. But perhaps this is where I differ from many social scientists … and perhaps why I have been drawn to the work of Nitzan and Bichler. If I think the evidence supports my ideas, I’m happy to burn bridges … in fact I think it is the principled thing to do. None of this is to say that Polanyi had no insight. I think he was a fantastic economic historian, as was Marx. I’ve written many harsh words about Marx’s ideas, but when I first read Capital, I was blown away by his account of the enclosures. I as similarly enthralled by Polanyi’s account of the emergence of capitalism. And also Wallerstein’s account.
Personally, I believe CasP stands on its own, and that Nitzan and Bichler spend too much time “debunking” neoclassical and Marxist economics when doing so is unnecessary. Spending any time discussing false/failed economic theories lends them too much power, especially when the legitimacy of CasP does not depend upon debunking those prior theories.
There’s a phenomenon in cognitive science called the “anchoring and adjustment heuristic” where a person’s initial assumption limits (anchors) how far he can deviate (adjust) from that assumption. Marx’s theory of capitalism ultimately failed because it was anchored by classical economic theory, which he “adjusted” significantly, and neoclassical theory ultimately failed because it sought to address critics of classical political economy, including Marx, by proposing the util as an alterantive to the SNALT.
Thus, to me, building bridges is not about engaging with theory X but engaging with important proponents and critics of theory X who arguably recognized the outlines of CasP but could not articulate it due to anchoring and adjustment. The words of Hayek, Friedman, Galbraith, Keynes, Lippmann, Marx, Mises, Myrdal, Schumpeter, Simons, Verblen etc., can all be used to show their understanding of certain aspects of CasP, if not its entirety.
Similarly, I think CasP can use the dichotomies of “economics v. politics” and “real v. nominal” to build bridges, even though those dualities are false as presented by and understood by Marxists and neoclassicals. There is nothing that prevents CasP from repurposing these false dichotomies to make them true in terms of power. For example, the only way there can be a separation of economics and politics is if the state creates and enforces it, thus ceding a major domain of historical state power to finance (capitalists). While such state action nullifies the reality of the separation philosophically , it also creates capital’s power and subjugates the state to it. “Real v. nominal” can likewise be made true if rephrased and reframed in terms of power instead of the philosophical terms understood by Marxists and neoclassicals. The nominal economy is not a mirror of the real economy, it is the engine, the power source, that determines the real economy.
Some thoughts. 1. “The” market is vague enough to pin down, so it is hard to decide whether it “exists” or not. Conceived as the overall system of pecuniary exchange, I think we can say it exists. The thing is that there is no agreement on the precise nature of this system, and it is this lack of agreement that makes the question of whether “the” market exists or not difficult to answer. 2. “A” market is less vague. Economists usually define any given market by (1) the commodity in question, (2) the geographical scope and (3) the time frame. Of course, here too there are ample disagreements — first on the boundaries of these three items, and second and more broadly on the institutions that underpin them. Ask economists to define the “market for computer chips”, “automobiles” or “health services” and you get more answers that you wish to consider and no clear way to decide which of them is “valid.” 3. I think that in capitalism, the only safe way to use the term “market” is in reference to pecuniary exchange. For example, we can say that “we live in a market society” (i.e. a society dominated by pecuniary exchange), or that there is a “market for cars” (a physical/virtual space where cars are traded for money). But the specific character of this pecuniary exchange is open-ended, both ontologically and epistemologically. I’m sure more words can be spilled on this subject, but I’ll stop here.
Hayek and his fellow neoliberals have not hesitated in asserting “the Market” and its almost godlike powers. Given that neoliberal ideology dominates current discourse, it makes sense to address “the Market” as they have defined it, and that Market does not exist. It is just a rhetorical device intended to substitute for the communistic fiction embedded in liberal ideology (as recognized by Myrdal).
When it comes to building bridges between CasP and other models for understanding capitalism, I guess I am more optimistic than you. That said, I agree that mainstream economics is essentially a secular religion aimed at perpetuating laws and policies that advantage capital, and professional (esp. academic) mainstream economists are unlikely to convert.
Perhaps we don’t disagree as much about “commodities” and “creatures of social imagination” as I made it seem. My point is that material things are material things. They don’t cease to be simply because we refuse to label them, nor do they become something else if we label them differently. Yes, words and their meaning matter, and the biggest impediment to building bridges to CasP is language itself.
As to “the Market,” what do you think it is? Isn’t it just another creature of social imagination that, unlike “commodities,” has no material or physical properties?
To me, the term “the Market” is most widely understood as Hayek and his fellow neoliberals present it, as an alternative formulation of society as a collective of the actions of individuals instead of as a collective of the individuals themselves. Their argument basically becomes “to protect society we must protect the Market.” The problem is that every economic transaction between two individuals includes at least one more party (Finance) who plays a coercive role, which destroys pretty much any definition of “the Market.” The only thing that gets “collected” from every transaction is capital because Finance always commands its share as a middleman. Thus, “the Market” is really the curtain behind which Finance hides its power.
Thank you for your reply.
To me, it is okay if Polanyi appears to oppose CasP, which came over half a century after The Great Transformation. That does not negate the similarities between his thesis and yours, nor does it render it any less relevant to CasP. Indeed, imagine if CasP came first in time, i.e., imagine The Great Transformation was written through the lens of CasP theory. What would change? What would stay the same? What would be completely new and different?
Rather than denying commonalities between CasP and prior theories/theorists, I think it would make sense to embrace those commonalities to further the knowledge, understanding and adoption of CasP. Polanyi has a wide following in academia to this day, and I think those followers could find common cause with CasP presented as an extension AND rejection of Polanyi’s theories.
When it comes to “the market,” I have come to the conclusion it does not exist. From the opening of the essay I am writing (and riffing on a famous Margaret Thatcher quote “society”):
Capitalism conditions people to cast their problems at the Market. But there is no such thing as “the Market.” There are transactions between individuals where each transaction is mediated and processed by the financial sector. And no individual, business or government can do anything except through the financial sector under the conditions it sets and for the tolls it demands.
Yes, all capital is Finance, and capital is power, but there is no market, just transactions between individuals, which transactions are mediated by Finance (through money, credit, and control of publicly-listed corporations) to the benefit of Finance (and servant capitalists like Bezos, Gates and Musk, more broadly).
Where I break from CasP is I believe every transaction takes place simultaneously on two parallel circuits. The first circuit involves the circulation of money and credit, which occurs wholly within Finance. The second circuit involves the circulation of goods and services (including labor), which occurs wholly within the material world. In this sense, I disagree that all “commodities” are “creatures of the social imagination.” Wheat is wheat. Steel is steel. Labor is labor. Etc. It is just that every commodity that is capitalized has a representation or avatar within Finance that is distinct from the representation within the material world, and it is the law that translates between these two representations to exchange value between the two circuits.
Hence, whether Finance (and capital) dominates the material world, or the material world dominates capital (and Finance) is entirely a matter of what the law says. Refusing to distinguish between Finance and the material world eliminates the ability to see the real control mechanism, the law, which allows the law to remain captive to capital, resulting in CasP’s state of capital.
You said:
Polanyi is famous for arguing that people, land and money are ‘fictitious’ commodities, and that subjugating them to the ‘free market’ is bound to end in a backlash.
The idea that the economy ‘interacts’ with society is common to liberalism (through distortions) and Marxism (via the base/superstructure distinction). Can you explain how, in your view, it is consistent with/predictive of CasP?
I first read Polanyi’s The Great Transformation maybe a decade ago. I am only returning it to now because of an essay I am writing, and after having recently immersed myself in CasP theory (thanks to Blair for pointing me to the free e-book version of your book, which I subsequently bought on Kindle, as well), the similarities were obvious.
While I don’t disagree that CasP is significantly different than Polanyi’s body of work, and it may be that Polanyi did not influence you at all, but I cannot ignore my reaction to re-reading The Great Transformation and seeing a relationship between his observations and the foundational observations (but not outlines) of CasP.
While I originally tried to explain my view by quoting Polanyi directly, let me try again.
First, it is clear that Polanyi views the distinction between economics and politics as artificial and false. The artificiality of the dichotomy he explains explicitly by referring to its absence in prior societies despite the obvious fact of trade in all prior societies. The falsity of the dichotomy he implies through his argument that state action was required to create and enforce the dichotomy.
Where he differs from CasP, and where CasP is wrong, is that Polanyi refuses to reject the reality, as a practical matter, of the institutional separation of economic and political institutions. Thus, the economics/politics dichotomy is not wholly false, but partially true (personally, I prefer Mirowski’s concept of “Double Truth,” which a purely dialectical approach seems incapable of grasping). The power of capital flows from the state power to control the money supply, which renders the assertion of “separation” of the two spheres as false, but the fact remains that capital has been successful at creating separate “economic” institutions (e.g., central banks and, more importantly, commercial banks).
Second, it is clear that Polanyi recognizes that capitalism (which he implicitly equates with liberalism by how he defines liberalism and the timing of its birth, i.e., 1820-1840) created a new social order (“creordered”) by subordinating society (i.e., the state and its citizens) to “the market.” The word “subordination” implies a change in relative power, does it not? I certainly think so. I also believe there is no such thing as “the market” once capital inserts itself as an intermediary between ALL economic transactions, e.g., by taking control of the supply of money and credit.
To reduce Polanyi down to his discussion of “fictitious commodities” entirely misses the point of his double movement argument, which is very much in line with CasP in that the assertion of power gives rise to resistance to that assertion. Further, it misses the source of that resistance, which Polanyi accurately describes as a desire to further the same ideals that capitalism/liberalism claimed to advocate. CasP has yet to describe why or how resistance to capital will arise, it only promises that it must. In this sense, Polanyi’s theory is more fully formed and concrete than CasP.
I hope I have helped you to understand my point of view, and I am happy to continue the conversation.
Best regards,
–Scot
Calling neoclassical economics a religion isn’t an analogy, it’s a fact. In neoclassical economics as restated by neoliberals such as Hayek:
- The Free Market = God (an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful entity);
- Capitalists = Kings (chosen by the Market, with all the divine rights granted thereby); and
- The State = mankind (who cannot question God or hope to understand or control him).
One of the many problems with economists (as opposed to physicists) is they never consider whether new assertions like “perfect knowledge” affect the underlying principles of their science. Symmetrical, perfect knowledge eliminates any claim to the absence of coercive power that animates economists’ concept of the Free Market because naked profits can only be achieved through extortion (theft) enabled by pretending alienable commercial goods are inalienable private property. This pretension is the ultimate source of capitalist power.
My question of whether there would be profit in the presence of perfect information was about ethics, not economics.
Indeed, I would argue that the questions that launched political economy related to ethics, as well.
In the related concepts of “free competition,” “free market” and “free enterprise,” the word “free” is meant to signify the ABSENCE of (i.e., “freedom from”) coercive power. While the concept of coercive power increasingly became identified solely with the state, at the founding of the United States (and the writing of The Wealth of Nations), the concept clearly encompassed power wielded by individuals, and even as late as the 1930s and 40s it was being applied to corporations, as well.
Liberalism at its core claims to abhor coercive power wherever situated. Neoliberalism only abhors coercive power situated in the state that does not benefit capitalists.
Anyway, as I see it, liberalism by its own logic and with some exceptions must reject profits in the presence of perfect, symmetrical knowledge because the owner the goods to be sold is using the fact of ownership to extort payment he is not due (theft). This is just monopoly power in the most transient and raw sense.
Conceptually, rejecting profits that are not re-invested in a business should not run afoul of other liberal ideals, if one recognizes that goods made for sale are meant to be alienated, i.e., commercial goods are not protected by unalienable rights because they are not simply property.
Returning to the underlying ethics or philosophy, the world had market economies long before capitalism. That’s because markets serve the vital function for any society as the means for the distribution of goods, services and money, but how much should access to markets cost a society?
So, my main question is this: do you think there can be a Kaleckian or a Goodwin model that accounts for energy and natural resources – or that treats them as “factors of production” – and explain the determination of aggregate demand and income distribution? Or do you know any researches that have done this? (as far as I know, there has been none).
In December 2020, Steve Keen and his team provided an update on their efforts to incorporate energy (and eventually entropy) into macroeconomics. In case you have not seen it, there is a link to the December 2020 report in this Patreon post.
I would also review the works of Tim Di Muzio, who has done a lot of work regarding debt and money applying the prism of CasP.
http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/view/creators/Di_Muzio=3ATim=3A=3A.html
Most of the materials linked to above are free downloads. That said, I highly recommend the two books Debt as Power (with Richard Robbins) and The Tragedy of Human Development.
For me, capitalism has a growth imperative because of how modern money is created (by private banks extending credit subject to compounding interest). Compounding interest is built into the net present valuation process, i.e., CasP’s central ritual of “Capitalization,” which allows one to compare the value of stocks to the value of bonds (a more fundamental form of capital).
Similarly, again speaking solely for myself, I view “differential accumulation” as most fundamentally being about seeking a return on capital that exceeds the growth of the economy as measured by inflation (Piketty’s r>g). Sure, there is a strata of capitalists who care about beating each other (i.e., “the average”), but most are concerned with ensuring that what they have already accumulated does not evaporate with the passage of time (consider “the time value of money” and Prospect Theory), which is why fixed income financial assets, which focus on capital preservation, continue to exist.
