[OPE-L:1896] Re: Re: Reply to Claus on the money supply


Subject: [OPE-L:1896] Re: Re: Reply to Claus on the money supply
From: Allin Cottrell (cottrell@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 11 1999 - 19:40:41 EST


On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, Claus Germer wrote:

(in response to Paul Cockshott on money)

> I attempted to provide a summary of the materialistic
> character of Marx's approach to value and money, which is
> based on the assumptions first that human labor is the basic
> condition of existence,

OK.

> second that in the presence of division of labor, there must
> be a way of distributing labor,

OK.

> and third that in a market economy this way springs out of
> the process of exchange and expresses itself in money.

Not OK. This short-circuits the analysis of money, which cannot
simply be taken for granted as an "expression" of certain
general needs associated with a "market economy". One has to
back up and recognize a public power ("the state") as a further
condition of existence of complex societies, and look
historically at the genesis of money in association with the
state's power to tax.

Paul and I are arguing that this is not just a matter of
"choosing a theoretical approach" (take your pick, any one is
equally good if it's internally consistent) but a matter of
tailoring one's theory to a historical reality.

Allin Cottrell.



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