Re: [gang8] Re: The Axiom of Gross Substitution

[Hudsonmi@xxxxxxx]

Dear Gunnar,
       It sounds like what we mean is that any FINANCIAL CLAIM can be creditized, and by being creditized -- intermediated -- become a genuinely monetary claim.
       The ability to creditize an asset is an institutional privilege, which has evolved into a monopoly. 
       It may have begun with general trade receivables being marked "pay to bearer." But this too needed the intermediationof the temples in ancient Mesopotamia, and the only people willing to receive such pay-to-bearer notes were family members or members of a narrow group of family traders from a given city, who knew that if the debtor did not make good, they could collect from the trade umbrella organized under temple auspices.
       In today's I can't spend my house as money, unless I take out a mortgage from a bank and am duly credited with a bank account. So there is an institutional "choke point" here as to the substitutabilitiy of one creditary claim for another.
       Incidentally, I got the phrase "claim ON wealth" from Frederick Soddy's "Wealth, Virtual Wealth, and Debt."

       Michael Hudson