[Marxism] Re: SACP analysis of Zimbabwe

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

I have not done much research on Larouche, but Zarlenga's  group is  
having a conference at Roosevelt University in September. Speakers  
are listed below. One of the main sources for their economic theory  
seems to come from Gesell. I posted something on him from Wikipedia  
below.

Greg





Stephen Zarlenga,                Please visit AMI’s website for  
latest conference info:

Director                                                         
http://www.monetary.org

Important New Speakers At the 2007 Conference include:

 Richard C. Cook, former U.S. Treasury official and author of  
"Challenger Revealed: How the Reagan Administration Caused the  
Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age" will speak on “Election 2008:  A  
National Reform Agenda to Restore the American Constitutional  
Commonwealth.” The speech will feature the rationale for adopting the  
American Monetary Act as key to restoring America as the world's  
greatest industrial democracy and no longer acting as a military  
imperial state.

Dr. Dieter Braun, Department of Applied Physics, Ludwig Maximilians  
Universität, Munich, Germany presents a paper demonstrating the  
magnifying effect of interest rate upon wealth concentration, and how  
fractional reserve banking
relies on erroneous accounting methodology.

Mr. Ole Mackeprang, European Financier who spoke at our 2005  
Conference discusses "Money Systems & Warfare"; and will update us on  
practical changes the Euro has brought about. He has worked in 62  
countries, principally France, Germany, Italy and Spain (Banque  
Rothschild and Banque de l'Union Parisienne).

2006 speakers included these; many of whom will speak in 2007:
(Topics may be adjusted)

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, major proponent of economic justice and  
possible future President of the United States of America;  Michael  
Hudson, UMKC professor and PBS commentator on reforming the  
international payments system; Dr. Ed Chambers of the Industrial  
Areas Federation (IAF) America’s leading specialists on organization  
building for progress and justice; David Hershey, leading pension  
fund advisor/manager, on applying Frederick Soddy’s ideas today and  
the Fed under Bernanke; Ben Gisin, of Agricents, publisher of Touch  
The Soil magazine describes how monetary policy wrecks agriculture  
and degenerates food quality;  Charles Walters, founder and Editor  
Emeritus of ACRES USA environmental farming Magazine and Randy Cook,  
Executive Director of National Organization for Raw Materials will  
discuss farm parity programs;  Dick Distelhorst on replacing  
privately created money with US money; Mr. Ken Bohnsack, Founder of  
the Sovereignty Proposal to loan US money interest free to local  
government on a per capita basis for infrastructure; Prof. Robert  
Blain, S.I.U., author and inventor, on the debt buildup up in the  
U.S.; Robert Poteat will discuss fractional reserve banking; Prof  
Guido Preparata, Univ. of Washington at Tacoma, will review the  
monetary ideas of Sylvio Gesell; Mr. David E. Kelley will present  
concepts for achieving economic justice. Alistair McConnachie of  
Prosperity Newsletter, sponsor of the Bromsgrove Monetary Conferences  
on UK developments; Prof. Glen Martin, Radford Univ., Pres. of  Intl.  
Philosophers for Peace Org. on developments in the peace movement;   
Stephen Zarlenga author of The Lost Science of Money on progress at  
the American Monetary Institute; Prof. Nic Tideman of Virginia Tech  
(formerly Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic  
Advisors) on reforming the Distribution of Wealth; Mr. George Romero,  
leading taxation specialist on charitable giving to assist reform  
movements;  Mr. Ken Palmerton formerly of the island of Jersey,  
speaking on its popular money system (yes, Guernsey too).
Speakers rostrum will be updated periodically here at our website.

Chapter leaders will report on the developing AMI Chapters in  
formation around the U.S. and discuss what works in attracting and  
educating fellow Americans on reforming the money system. Our goal is  
to establish one chapter in each Congressional District.

The American Monetary Act, and The Monetary Transparency Act, Ami’s  
proposed monetary legislation will be discussed in detail:  including  
how to gain support for monetary reform.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
---------------------------------------------------------

[Page from Wikipedia explaining the ideas of Gesell' eg., markets  
without capitalism.]

Sylvio Gesell. Natural Economic Order.

Available online at http://www.systemfehler.de/en/neo/, this is a  
classic book on Monetary Reform.

This is the classic non-Marxist critique of capitalism by an economic  
and monetary reformer which profoundly influenced Keynes.

Michel Bauwens:

This is an important aspect of research for P2P Theory. Following the  
relational typology of Alan Page Fiske, there are four  
intersubjective modes which have existed cross-culturally and  
historically: equality matching (gift economy), authority ranking  
(feudal-type structures), market pricing, and communal shareholding  
(according to us: P2P). Societies have always been a mix, but it can  
be argued that historically we have seen a succession of dominant  
forms: the gift economy in the tribal era, authority ranking in  
feudalism, market pricing in capitalism, and my hypothesis is that  
communal shareholding forms may dominate in a future 'P2P-oriented era'.

But if they have always co-existed, it may be illusory to aim for a  
stateless and marketless society, rather, we should expect states and  
markets informed and dominated by P2P principles. A current example  
is fair trade, a form of market that aims to become independent of  
pure power relations by negotiating with both producers and consumers.

The open questions is therefore: can we have markets without the  
unsustainability of the capitalist format and its attendent  
biospheric destruction and social and psychic dislocation?

To answer this question, we can also look to theoreticians of the  
past, such as Silvio Gesell.

The Author

Silvio Gesell is one of the main thinkers of this tradition. Gesell  
was briefly finance minister in Karl Liebknecht’s German-soviet  
republic and was greatly appreciated in his time by figures as Keynes  
and Martin Buber.

“In 1891 Silvio Gesell (1862-1930) a German-born entrepreneur living  
in Buenos Aires published a short booklet entitled Die Reformation im  
Münzwesen als Brücke zum sozialen Staat (Currency Reform as a Bridge  
to the Social State), the first of a series of pamphlets presenting a  
critical examination of the monetary system. It laid the foundation  
for an extensive body of writing inquiring into the causes of social  
problems and suggesting practical reform measures. His experiences  
during an economic crisis at that time in Argentina led Gesell to a  
viewpoint substantially at odds with the Marxist analysis of the  
social question: the exploitation of human labour does not have its  
origins in the private ownership of the means of production, but  
rather occurs primarily in the sphere of distribution due to  
structural defects in the monetary system. Like the ancient Greek  
philosopher Aristoteles, Gesell recognised money's contradictory dual  
role as a medium of exchange for facilitating economic activity on  
the one hand and as an instrument of power capable of dominating the  
market on the other hand. The starting point for Gesell's  
investigations was the following question: How could money's  
characteristics as a usurious instrument of power be overcome,  
without eliminating its positive qualities as a neutral medium of  
exchange ? He attributed this market-dominating power to two  
fundamental characteristics of conventional money: Firstly, money as  
a medium of demand is capable of being hoarded in contrast to human  
labor or goods and services on the supply side of the economic  
equation. It can be temporarily withheld from the market for  
speculative purposes without its holder being exposed to significant  
losses. Secondly, money enjoys the advantage of superior liquidity to  
goods and services. In other words, it can be put into use at almost  
any time or place and so enjoys a flexibility of deployment similar  
to that of a joker in a card game.

Gesell's theory of a Free Economy based on land and monetary reform  
may be understood a reaction both to the laissez-faire principle of  
classical liberalism as well as to Marxist visions of a centrally  
planned economy. It should not be thought of as a third way between  
capitalism or communism in the sense of subsequent "convergence  
theories" or so-called "mixed economy" models, i.e. capitalist market  
economies with global state supervision, but rather as an alternative  
beyond hitherto realized economic systems. In political terms it may  
be characterised as "a market economy without capitalism"…Gesell's  
alternative economic model is related to the liberal socialism of the  
cultural philosopher Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) who was also  
influenced by Proudhon and who for his part strongly influenced  
Martin Buber (1878-1965). There are intellectual parallels to the  
liberal socialism of the physician and sociologist Franz Oppenheimer  
(1861-1943) and to the social philosophy of Rudolf Steiner  
(1861-1925), the founder of the anthroposophic movement…An  
association called Christen für gerechte Wirtschaftsordnung  
(Christians for a Just Economic Order) promotes the study of land and  
monetary reform theories in the light of Jewish, Christian and  
Islamic religious doctrines critical of land speculation and the  
taking of interest. Margrit Kennedy, Helmut Creutz and other authors  
have examined the contemporary relevance of Gesell's economic model  
and tried to bring his ideas up to date." (http://userpage.fu- 
berlin.de/~roehrigw/onken/engl.htm)


Books to explore this tradition:


Silvio Gesell, The Natural Economic Order (translation by Philip  
Pye). London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1958. Dudley Dillard, Proudhon, Gesell  
and Keynes - An Investigation of some „Anti-Marxian-Socialist“  
Antecedents of Keynes’ General Theory, University of California: Dr.- 
Thesis, 1949. Hackbarth Verlag St.Georgen/Germany 1997. ISBN  
3-929741-14-8.

Leonard Wise, Great Money Reformers - Silvio Gesell, Arthur Kitson,  
Frederic Soddy. London: Holborn Publishing, 1949.

International Association for a Natural Economic Order, The Future of  
Economy – A Memoir for Economists. Lütjenburg: Fachverlag für  
Sozialökonomie, 1984/1989. (P.O. Box 1320, D-24319 Lütjenburg)

Margrit Kennedy, Interest and Inflation Free Money - Creating an  
Exchange Medium That Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth.  
Okemos/Michigan, 1995.

Retrieved from "http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Natural_Economic_Order";


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