Re: (OPE-L) on money, capital, and the state

[Riccardo Bellofiore <riccardo.bellofiore@xxxxxxxx>]

At 10:58 +0000 30-05-2004, Costas Lapavitsas wrote:
> Gerry,
>
> The state is surely not exogenous to 'capitalism'. But I take it
> that the capitalist mode of production is a structured whole in
> which the sphere of the economy is analytically prior to the state
> and politics. It is in that sense that I prefer endogenous (to the
> process of exchange) explanations of money's emergence. That does
> not preclude the state playing an important economic role in general.
>
> Costas

I agree with the first proposition (I too prefer an argument where
the State is not already "in") but definitely NOT the second. The
issue is that the arguments à la Menger, though definitely better
than those in the Walrasian tradition (they have a tryly
decenttralized economy) wants the emergence of money from the market
without capital: this is very Neoclassical, and now we know that this
is necessarily linked to an argulent where the commodity comes
"first" and money comes "later"; more than that, that money in the
end is a commodity (may be a special one, but not at the beginning of
the argument, which is very un-Marxian), and, as all the Mengerians,
the trick is to have the money neutralized even if it cannot be
neutral, so that saving and investment meets as the good Neoclassical
want, with saving existing before investment. The problem is that the
argument starts from general circulation without capital. I take that
for Marx general commodity circulation is already capitalist (of
course, this does NOT mean that we have to have capital at the
beginning of Capital, since Marx cannot have the category of capital
on the first page). Thus, the real problem one you get that is the
one posed by Luxemburg (though in  a very confused manner): from
where the money comes in into the capitalist process? The answer need
to put in money as essential in the production of commoditis, not in
an argument where money are already produced. Once you do that, the
distinction between claim ticket and receipt voucher becomes crucial,
and you are in the terrain of Schumpeter, with non-commodity money,
no loanable funds, no priority of deposits (and even of savings),
banks financing firm production etc. In other term, trying to mix
Menger with Marx is making Marx a neoclassical, I very much prefer to
go towards an articulation of Maarx and Schumpeter. Note, Schumpeter
was NOT a supporter of Knapp, but he criticised the Austrian
reduction of capitalism to a market economy that is to the mixture of
the market and private property, capitalism need another third
distinctive feature, finance. Our problem should be to link finance
and "labour" (labour power-living labour) rather than stoppin g at
the link general equivalent-(objectified) labour.

All this, I repeat, is quite COMPATIBLE with having a model which
starts without the State already in the picture - though, say, the
State may be essential to anchor money in a non-commodity setting, or
in coinage in a commodity setting).
--

Riccardo Bellofiore
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche
"Hyman P. Minsky"
Università di Bergamo
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