From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Thu Mar 10 2005 - 15:43:57 EST
Paolo: Here's the link to Part 5. > P.S. By the way, thanks for the many interesting sites and > articles that you keep posting to the list. You're welcome. I sometimes wonder whether members want me to stop.... In solidarity, Jerry +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Sergio Bologna, "Money and Crisis" (Part Five) | < http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/02/27/2019223 > +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Money and Crisis" (Part Five) Sergio Bologna[Part Five of five parts. Continued from here.]Does this highlighting of the Crdit's non-productive and speculative characteristics, contrasting with the revolutionary and innovative view given in the first group of articles in 1858, perhaps show the influence of Proudhon's Manual? In the pages that he dedicates to the Preire bank, Proudhon, who was more concerned with problems of value than with the political function of the institution, had shown how the Crdit, with a capital of sixty million francs, had issued bonds to the tune of six hundred million francs, guaranteed by an equal sum employed in subscriptions of public bills (treasury bonds, etc) or of company shares. But since shares are subjected to depreciation, they would not provide effective guarantees. Unlike the circulating banks which discount commercial effects of a given value and are guarantees of a transaction - Proudhon concluded - the Crdit Mobilier is not in a position to supply guarantees of value, and thus it "cheats" its clients. Proudhon did not draw the conclusions which Marx had indicated - that the Crdit, by virtue precisely of that structure, was an institution which could prosper only in times of boom, and which would collapse in times of monetary panic. He had not drawn them because he lacked an overall perception of the cycle. His vision of the speculative nature of the Crdit Mobilier was therefore static and moralistic, and to the extent that it influenced Marx, it was in the sense of making possible a further deepening of his analysis. This story continues at: < http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/02/27/2019223 >
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