From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@msn.com)
Date: Sat Jun 05 2004 - 07:41:09 EDT
Posted on 5/26 by by Mathew Forstater/JL ----------------------------- This is, as usual, an interesting post from Walt, very well done. Unfortunately, though, Marx probably accepted a little too much of the conventional view of the history of money. I mean here the view that in the beginning there was barter, which evolved into money use, etc. Of course, Marx's version is far better than the standard, and he isn't doing it from an individualist perspective, but still the whole story doesn't seem to really jive with the latest cutting edge research on the history of money. See, e.g., http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1843765136/qid=1085591012/sr=1 -2/ref=sr_1_2/002-1518861-9479258?v=glance&s=books http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1883053714/qid=1085591218/sr=1 -8/ref=sr_1_8/002-1518861-9479258?v=glance&s=books Moreover, I would argue that this newer view of the origins and nature of money actually fits much better into Marx's overall system, and that we can find in Marx evidence that he did in fact understand much about this alternative view. See, e.g., the beginning of my paper on Taxation: A Secret of Colonial Capitalist (So-Called) Primitive Accumulation. (at: http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp/wp25/wp25.html ) Best, Mathew Forstater
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