Now, more than ever, there is an imperative need for people to understand the nature of credit in a capitalist society. In a time when we are seeing the high seas of finance increasingly rocked by rolling crisis and systemic instability, from Enron to the sub-prime mortgage debacle to the dot.com bubble to the asian financial crisis- in such a time it is imperative that average citizens develop a useful critique of the way credit functions in the global economy. Full text of the video can be read at: kapitalism101.wordpress.com
Tags: credit
16 Responses to What is Credit? 1 of 2
brendanmcooney
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:55 am
@TheRoadsidePicnic. No marxism is not about lifestyle politics at all. Changing your consumption habits has nothing to do with revolutionary politics. 2ndly Marx was extremely poor his entire life. He had to beg for money to feed his family. How is this a hypocritical lifestyle? The reason he was so poor was because he spent his whole life working on radical theory instead of doing normal wage labor. He sacrificed his health and well being for the sake of revolution. How is this hypocrisy?
TheRoadsidePicnic
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:20 am
Brendon – That is truly absurd. You have to practice what you preach. Marx didnt, why should anyone else. Lifestyle is fundamental to Marxism! Of course it is. Class consciousness is lifestyle. Far from being random – the fact that Marx lived a burgeois life makes his theory hypocritical. This point has been seized upon by Capitalist critique of the the ‘Burgeois Marx’. The other communist leaders ended up in the same cushy lifestyles more or less while the workers toiled. Anyhow nuff said.
brendanmcooney
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:42 am
@TheRoadsidePicnic. I don’t see anything hypocritical about Marx’s lifestyle. Marxist theory is a not a theory about lifestyle politics, it doesn’t state you change the world by conforming your lifestyle to some idealistic notion of authenticity. And I see no relationship between this and the hypocrisy of stalinist ideology. I think are making really random connections here.
TheRoadsidePicnic
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:34 am
You not heard the old ‘How come Marx lived in a Burgeois house on hamstead heath, did no physical work, had a mistress, sponged off an industrialist and had played stock market? Im surprised. The Hypocrisy critique is KEY to understand Marxism failure more than value theory etc. Its why British communists promise to take ‘workers wage’ once elected and why electorate think.. ‘yeah sure you will’ Marx was brilliant economist but Capitalism has already ‘appropriated’ best ideas to the system
brendanmcooney
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:48 am
@TheRoadsidePicnic. I’ve heard many different and good analysis of why 20th century “communism” failed- the problems of socialism in one country, the problems of development, failure to overthrow value production, the vanguard party model, etc.- but I don’t think having leaders that believed what they said is a contender for one of these theories. If anything the use of Marxist jargon by Stalin was purely disingenuous, a verbal facade to facilitate brute politics.
TheRoadsidePicnic
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:51 am
I mean, the revolutionaries were ‘Idealists’ in they believed what they preached – unusual for politiicans. This idealism lasted till came into power and then catastrophie occured repeatedly.
Its worth examining Marx again, he was a economist, but also firey dead certain revolutionary who ‘knew’ the best. This trait was common to many communists with murderous results. I dont think capitalilst contradictions (70 years to work on that) was problem but Marxist Contradictions ,
brendanmcooney
June 3rd, 2011 at 7:21 am
@TheRoadsidePicnic.Marx isn’t idealism at all, it’s materialism. And wouldn’t it be a very good thing to discuss and figure out why USSR/China/etc failed to escape from contradictions of capitalist accumulation that marx theorized? Rather that seeing Stalin/Mao etc as a reason to dismiss marx I see them as a reason to examine marx much further- we need to know why it was so hard to overcome the law of value so that we can draw lessons for future situations.
TheRoadsidePicnic
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:06 am
Great stuff. The Marxist economic analysis is the only one that reveals the trade secrets of the system. Secrets that are suppresed. If only it werent for Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Id be a convert, but Marxism needs to sort out its own inherent contradictions
and the old ‘That wasnt the true Marxism, if we did it now it would be different’ argument I dont buy. The same often genocidal Totalitarian system resulting from an Initial Idealism occured too many times for this to be the case.
VCC900
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:33 am
ok so what is “give me credits if you use this” or something plz reply
tuberesponder
June 3rd, 2011 at 9:00 am
INVESTMENT is not a type of “credit”. It’s an exchange of ownership, facilitated by a medium of exchange,
Credit “can” be used to finance investments, but is NOT empirically necessary.
The Source of Credit is NOT investment. The Source of Credit is the “good faith and credit” of the Creditors. The creditors CREDITS are enforced through LEGAL TENDER.
It’s LEGAL TENDER status that gives FICTITIOUS CREDIT it’s “value.”
tuberesponder
June 3rd, 2011 at 9:43 am
MONEY and CAPITAL are not proper synonyms.
Corporate media, owned by their CREDITORS and working for their ADVERTISERS (who are also owned by THE Creditors), play word games calling money “capital” in their bogus DOW Jones Financial News Segments.
Have you seen the movies Money as Debt, and Money as Debt II?
They are not 100% correct, but they explain the financial racket pretty well.
MONEY is not capital. Capital are the TOOLS of turning material, through labor into products
tuberesponder
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:19 am
The Whole point of being a capitalist is NOT to keep money circulating. it’s to turn materials into products,
you have the cart before the horse again.
Money is a MEANS a MEDIUM, a MIDDLE, not an ENDS.
You can’t say the whole reason of capitalism to keep money circulating. that’s saying the end is the middle.
in our PREDATORY CREDITORY financial system, THE CREDITORS need the money to keep circulating, otherwise they can’t pay their LIABILITIES. (repay the “credit” they issued to you)
tuberesponder
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:06 am
Money is not turned into commodities.
your M-C-M=FAIL
LABOR uses CAPITAL (machines and tools), in a PLACE to turn MATERIALS into PRODUCTION.
MONEY is NOT CAPITAL. It is not an empirical factor of production. It is an EXPEDIENT MEDIUM in an EXCHANGE ECONOMY.
In Chemistry it might be called a CATALYST. It’s not a “reactant” but it facilitates the reaction.
MONEY does not produce. Land, Labor, Capital, and Resources do. (owners do not necessarily produce)
FEATTP, TEATTP
SAXORXIII
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:23 am
search agenda 21
CajunCommie
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Havanna grows 60% of its food within city limits.
Just food for thought!
And not just verticle farms, but how about housing? I’m sure people living in shitty tenements and public housing would rather an apartment in a retrofitted Manhattan skyscraper to call home. Skyscrapers were built to conserve space in dense urban areas, but zoning laws mean mixed use structures are scarcer than they should be. Mixed-use buildings are much more sustainable and easier to use.
1studentoftruth
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:53 pm
And what egotistical american would submit to that? Surely not the ones in power. These materials things have become their identity. That why their were people committing suicide over the recession. They weren’t doing it because they would be homeless, with no food or car, but because they would lose their status. That’s what oppressor and oppressed societies are built on, superficial status, and america holds the crown.