Re: [OPE-L] Where does the money comer from

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Wed Apr 27 2005 - 18:08:17 EDT


I think the figures I gave for the growth of gold stocka
as being in the region of 0.8% to 1.5% during the period
of the gold standard indicate that it did not reach even
the level required to sustain the long term rate of interest,
let alone the rate of profit.

Gold production depended so much on chance that it is hard 
to see how for instance the Australian goldfields could
be fortuitously discovered at just the right moment to
meet a liquidity crisis.

-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Rakesh Bhandari
Sent: 27 April 2005 18:57
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Where does the money comer from

There is an argument for how under market pressure the output of the
gold sector should vary to meet the needs of circulation in Thomas
Sekine's Outline of the Dialectic of Capital. I don't think there is
an attempt to see whether the output of the gold sector did actually
play such an equilibriating role.
Yours, Rakesh


At 1:20 PM -0400 4/27/05, glevy@PRATT.EDU wrote:
>  > But why must an initial explanation of the
>>  production of surplus-value necessarily include an account of
>>  mechanisms that expand the money supply?
>
>Hi Ian:
>
>I think Paul C's point is that it is already implied in the
>formula M - C - M'.  In a sense, I think he is right.  I.e.
>in the formula M - C - M', and indeed in the theory of the
>money-form, there is an unexplored and necessary
>presupposition -- namely, the role of the state in (co-)
>determining the quantity of money in circulation.  Paul C's
>way of addressing this issue is to suggest a state theory
>of money.  Another way of theorizing the issue is to
>recognize that a more concrete level of abstraction than
>that examined in _Capital_ the role of the state in the
>determination of the money supply has to be recognized
>and systematically explained. In other words,  it's Book 4
>stuff.  But, before you can get to Book 4, don't you have to
>examine the subject of classes (i.e. the topics of Books 2
>and 3)?
>
>In solidarity, Jerry


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