Re: primitive accumulation–public debt
On Dec 10, 2006, at 11:47 AM, abu hartal wrote:
Doug, Marx describes the whole system of public debt as primitive
accumulation. Abu HartalFrom Marx, chap 31 Capital vol I:
The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of
primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter’s wand,
it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it
into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the
troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or
even in usury. The state-creditors actually give nothing away, for
the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable,
which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash
would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus
created, and from the improvised wealth of the financiers,
middlemen between the government and the nation-as also apart from
the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good
part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen
from heaven-the national debt has given rise to joint-stock
companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to
agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern
bankocracy.
“Given rise to” strikes me as the key phrase here - capitalization of
this sort created modern finance several centuries ago. It’s now so
well-established that the word “primitive” belongs nowhere near it.
Is there anything more routine than a Treasury note?
Doug