Re: Michael Moore and the hydrocarbon "die-off" - a further comment

["Jurriaan Bendien" <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is the problem which led economists in the classical school to call for
a return to the gold standard or a new Bretton Woods, and why people like
Mandel investigated the possibilities of new gold rushes, or new resource
deposits, or technological revolutions without a labour-saving bias, which
could raise the general price level, and thus save the capitalist system.
But this does not address the problem completely, because another way to
solve it is to revise the terms of exchange, which revaluates specific
assets and devaluates others, provided this strategy is politically and
culturally accepted.

What the US government is trying as regards the funding of the Iraq war, is
in effect to engage in primitive accumulation but present this as something
else, through making the real terms of exchange very opaque to ordinary
people, different from what they really are. The question is really: to what
extent can you fool people about a horse-trade, i.e. to what extent can you
fool them that they are buying or selling something, whereas really they are
buying and selling something else ? Marxist students already know about the
economic distinction between labour capacity and labour performance, but
this is an extension of that principle, because somehow, you have to
establish new terms of exchange, i.e. you have to enforce the marginal
utility principle because differential perceptions of use-value are critical
to changing the terms of exchange which need to be established.

The latest trick with regard to Iraq, will obviously succeed only if
European and Japanese capitalists think, that if they do not financially
support the USA, that then the overall economic decline would be so great,
that it would have a huge adverse effect on the world economy. This is
essentially the US bluff: support us, or else. Typically of course, the
outcome in such an event is a compromise bargain, where some financial
contributions are made, but less than the USA wants, and with all sorts of
new conditions attached (a complex bargaining process), shifting the balance
of power against the USA and in favour of Europe. A principled "no" may not
be an option, and hence the reformists are mobilised to frighten people that
if the "international community" does not intervene, then we will all hang
together for our sins.

But what is more important to understand theoretically, is that what is
actually happening here, is this attempt, to explicitly change the terms of
exchange itself, and say that primitive accumulation (expropriation of
Iraqis) is valid and justifiable, if it saves the capitalist world economy.
What this means can be simply explained in the form of a question: "Iraq is
a use-value, now what is this use-value worth as an asset, can we attach an
appropriate pricetag to it, and then sell it ?".

Essentially, this question is answered by capitalists on the basis of the
future earnings potential of Iraq, but the problem here is (1) that this
earnings potential is conditional on a stable investment climate (i.e.
bourgeois democracy), and (2) to assess the use-value of Iraq in price
terms, you have to be able to distinguish and valuate clearly what the
assets and liabilities are, but these estimates are themselves, among other
things, conditional on the defeat of the Iraqi resistance and any other
resistance.

Another way of looking at it is to say, "it does not matter who owns Iraq,
what matters is that we get a workable bourgeois society going in Iraq, and
some people are just more competent to manage that process, and because they
are more competent to manage that process, ownership should be conferred to
those people, and if you do not agree about the competence of those people,
then you should appoint some other people or get better advisors."

This is why I think Colin Powell asserted "we will stay in there, as long as
it takes", and his voice is the voice of Capital speaking to you there
through a military man who deeply believes in the progressive nature of
private enterprise. Because we have to change the meaning of what people
understand by assets and liabilities, you see, and sometimes, you have to
use an army to change the meaning of what people understand by assets and
liabilities. Real assets are effectively owned and privately owned tangible
assets, and only on the basis of effective private ownership of the assets
can further liabilities be extended. That is the logic of it. If therefore
critics of the USA present a costs/sales account, or a profit/loss account,
or an income/expenditure account, they are still looking at it in the wrong
way, because the objective way we have to look at it is in terms of assets
and liabilities. That is what the bourgeois dispute is about essentially,
how should we do our accounting principles for the war, conceptually ?

As regards the issue of gold I mentioned, part of the problem is that gold
reserves cannot cover the total financial claims in circulation, and in
addition, part of those financial claims consists purely of claims on future
wealth, i.e. on  wealth that does not exist yet, the tangible value of which
cannot be definitely established yet, i.e. they are fictitious capital.
Hence, only a fiduciary hegemonious currency is possible, or, else a
different metal base (e.g. steel), or we say, gold can only cover part of
the financial claims on the social product, but countertrade can cover the
rest of the claims to the social product, or some such thing. As regards the
fiduciary hegemonious currency, this must be based on the strongest
economies, i.e. the economies with the highest productivity and the most
social cohesion. But, the problem here is that the decision to abandon
dollar hegemony and to adopt (let us think very broadly), e.g. an oil-euro
standard, is subject to competition between different capitalist interests
and therefore again problematic. The ultimate deciding criterion of this
competition can only be military force, and this is where the US government
thinks "we better get in there quick."

The general historic trend in the bourgeois class, is therefore towards the
idea, that the only way in which bourgeois private property can be defended
in the future is if private ownership is vested in tangible assets which can
really be defended against attack, and the only security you have,
ultimately, is if you invest in tangible private assets and can physically
defend them with privately owned weapons, armies, police and security staff.
This is the real long-term dynamic behind the militarisation process and the
armaments economy. But in the meantime, the imperative is that you change
the terms of exchange, by revaluing and devaluing existing asset holdings,
which, in the meantime, can only be done through sending a clear message to
investors worldwide.

Jurriaan



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