Re: [OPE] "lies, damned lies, and underconsumptionist statistics"

I think you have to trat debt and capital quite separately. Capital is an accumulation of commodities, debt a promise of future money. The UK national debt is not part of the UK capital stock. Debts sum to zero, capital does not.

--- original message ---
From: "Dave Zachariah" <davez@kth.se>
Subject: Re: [OPE] "lies, damned lies, and underconsumptionist statistics"
Date: 26th September 2010
Time: 10:49:32 am

  On 2010-09-25 22:29, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
> A physicalist theory of property sees property ownership or capital as a
> tangible thing that can be owned. A social theory of property views property
> ownership and capital as a relationship from which profit can be made. If I
> own a lot of capital, I have an asset against which I can borrow a lot more
> capital. I can use that borrowed capital to extract an income greater that
> the cost of borrowing it. That means, that if capital owned rises beyond a
> certain asset value, the yields per unit of capital value rise also. At that
> point, capital becomes simply a financial claim to a revenue stream; just
> exactly who owns what, is not directly relevant, it is merely an ultimate
> presupposition for the financial claim.
>

I'm not sure who you think subscribes to this 'physicalist theory of
property' but I agree that property ownership is a relationship and that
capital can become a financial claim on a revenue stream. These are
however legal relations, codified in the documents and practices of the
juridical system, and obtain their causal powers from the force of state
power.

//Dave Z
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Received on Sun Sep 26 06:09:35 2010