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roachboy · 12-08-2007, 12:53 PM

host:

it seems to me that there are two ways to look at this...

either the problems under discussion here (and more broadly) follow from the ideology of endless growth, which is a core assumption in the gospel according to neo-liberalism--in which case the general characteristics of money since world war 2 are irrelevant...except insofar as the conversation about these general characteristics entails a concession of what i take as self-evident---that "free markets" are fictions, because they presuppose that exchange is a fact of nature and that its structure is optimally one that corresponds closest to what amounts to "natural law"--which does not exist.

so the exchange between rp and greenspan is one between two free marketeers, one of whom prefers for political reasons to position himself as a purist, and the other who is, by virtue of his position, compromised.

but the shared assumption between them appears to be that such markets are in fact possible, and that a monetary system hinged to the gold standard is, ideally, a system that would enable such fictions to unfold in the world that other people know about.

i dont buy it.

or you see a formal analogy between the characteristics of money since world war 2 and the neo-liberal ideology of endless growth....but nothing more than a formal analogy---the problem lay with the incoherence of market ideology as a whole, with neoliberalism as a whole, and should be addressed in a manner that enables us to look forward rather than back to the 1930s for solutions.

it seems to me that these lead you in very different directions.

looping back to the first point for a minute: rp's position clear, but is also so vague (that is, so lacking in correspondence to the empirical world) that it simply displaces the problem---so that, in rp-world, a "solution" to problems on the order of the subprime crisis---which is a speculation crisis----would entail a return to the gold standard (as if that is not just another form of fiat) or to some curious notion like good ole major douglas...the economic outlook that landed ezra pound in an ideological worldview that found its outlet on italilan national radio in the late 1930s and 40s.

rp wants money to be a thing. but money is a medium, and even if you link value to a second-order object, it is still a medium. as a medium, it hardly seems important whether there are predicates that one can attach to individual currency elements or not--the medium values would still fluctuate, would still be internally relative. so it seems that another way to think about dealing with the nested crises we move through would be to reject neo-liberal prescriptions and for nation-states to act to stabilize their own currencies rather than allowing their values to be determined to the extent they presently are by international currency market fluctuations. another possibility is something entirely other, a new system, which would be a version of a revolutionary socio-economic transformation. but there are no coherent proposals out there at this time that i know of that outline what such a new system would look like---so folk like rp run away, head back to some outmoded gold standard past as a model.

but what if the problem is more local than the entire history of monetary system logic since world war 2, and can be linked to the irrational assumptions particular to neoliberalism--regarding growth as eternal, for example, the collapse of expansion and equilibrium into each other. would this perspective not open onto a range of more available and implementation-possible options? like in the shorter run, more social-democratic type actions?

in other words, this is the world that neoliberalism has wrought.
why let that noxious, incoherent ideology and the politics based on it off the hook by fantasizing about a return to the gold standard?

i hope the questions i am trying to pose here are clear.
i have to go, so am posting them in this form....

12-08-2007, 12:53 PM	#49 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	host: it seems to me that there are two ways to look at this... either the problems under discussion here (and more broadly) follow from the ideology of endless growth, which is a core assumption in the gospel according to neo-liberalism--in which case the general characteristics of money since world war 2 are irrelevant...except insofar as the conversation about these general characteristics entails a concession of what i take as self-evident---that "free markets" are fictions, because they presuppose that exchange is a fact of nature and that its structure is optimally one that corresponds closest to what amounts to "natural law"--which does not exist. so the exchange between rp and greenspan is one between two free marketeers, one of whom prefers for political reasons to position himself as a purist, and the other who is, by virtue of his position, compromised. but the shared assumption between them appears to be that such markets are in fact possible, and that a monetary system hinged to the gold standard is, ideally, a system that would enable such fictions to unfold in the world that other people know about. i dont buy it. or you see a formal analogy between the characteristics of money since world war 2 and the neo-liberal ideology of endless growth....but nothing more than a formal analogy---the problem lay with the incoherence of market ideology as a whole, with neoliberalism as a whole, and should be addressed in a manner that enables us to look forward rather than back to the 1930s for solutions. it seems to me that these lead you in very different directions. looping back to the first point for a minute: rp's position clear, but is also so vague (that is, so lacking in correspondence to the empirical world) that it simply displaces the problem---so that, in rp-world, a "solution" to problems on the order of the subprime crisis---which is a speculation crisis----would entail a return to the gold standard (as if that is not just another form of fiat) or to some curious notion like good ole major douglas...the economic outlook that landed ezra pound in an ideological worldview that found its outlet on italilan national radio in the late 1930s and 40s. rp wants money to be a thing. but money is a medium, and even if you link value to a second-order object, it is still a medium. as a medium, it hardly seems important whether there are predicates that one can attach to individual currency elements or not--the medium values would still fluctuate, would still be internally relative. so it seems that another way to think about dealing with the nested crises we move through would be to reject neo-liberal prescriptions and for nation-states to act to stabilize their own currencies rather than allowing their values to be determined to the extent they presently are by international currency market fluctuations. another possibility is something entirely other, a new system, which would be a version of a revolutionary socio-economic transformation. but there are no coherent proposals out there at this time that i know of that outline what such a new system would look like---so folk like rp run away, head back to some outmoded gold standard past as a model. but what if the problem is more local than the entire history of monetary system logic since world war 2, and can be linked to the irrational assumptions particular to neoliberalism--regarding growth as eternal, for example, the collapse of expansion and equilibrium into each other. would this perspective not open onto a range of more available and implementation-possible options? like in the shorter run, more social-democratic type actions? in other words, this is the world that neoliberalism has wrought. why let that noxious, incoherent ideology and the politics based on it off the hook by fantasizing about a return to the gold standard? i hope the questions i am trying to pose here are clear. i have to go, so am posting them in this form.... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-08-2007 at 12:56 PM..