Re: (OPE-L) A minor Ernest Mandel Mystery

From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Wed Nov 24 2004 - 19:47:30 EST


At 6:33 PM -0500 11/24/04, Fred Moseley wrote:
>On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM wrote:
>
>>  Mandel wrote the following as a note to his article
>>  "Gold, Money, and the Transformation Problem":
>>
>>  "Throughout this contribution, I consider gold and paper
>>  currencies (bank notes) as identical, assuming paper
>>  currencies  to be convertible into gold.  The problem of
>>  inconvertible, constantly depreciating, inflationary paper
>>  currencies -- moneys with forced course as Marx called
>>  them -- are outside the realm of this study, as they
>>  were outside the realm of the third volume of _Capital_.
>>  BUT THEY CAN BE EASILY REDUCED TO MARX'S
>>  COMMODITY THEORY OF MONEY, ON THE BASIS
>>  OF CHAPTER II  OF _CONTRIBUTION TO A CRITIQUE
>>  OF POLITICAL ECONOMY_." (Ernest Mandel and Alan
>>  Freeman eds. _Ricardo, Marx, Sraffa_, London, Verso,
>>  1984, p. 277, emphasis added).
>>
>>  But, Mandel doesn't then tell us how this reduction can
>>  be "easily" done on the basis of the 2nd ch. of the
>>  _Contribution to a Critique_.  What did he have in mind?
>>  Which part of Ch. 2 was he thinking about?
>
>Hi Jerry,
>
>I think that Mandel has in mind pp. 119-22, which I cited in my last post,
>in my discussion of Marx's implicit determination of the MELT in the case
>of inconvertible paper money.

Yes note that Marx emphasizes that the State cannot rise above the
laws of circulation, i.e. those laws will delimit the quantity of
socially valid fiat money the State can get away with emiting. But
you don't theorize that delimitation.

Yours, Rakesh



>  It's too bad that Mandel doesn't say more
>about this.
>
>
>
>>  And, where exactly did Marx refer to monies with "forced
>>  course"?
>
>
>I think that Martha has this right.  "Forced currency" is currency forced
>into circulation by the state, i.e. "inconvertible paper money".
>
>Comradely,
>Fred


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