In a word, the rise of financialization is an index of capitalism in crisis. — Streetlight
A followup question might be: how much does neoliberalism allow capitalism to abandon states, that is, nation states? — Jamal
First, what is a market? A market is, first and foremost, a site of what might be called impersonal exchange. It is ‘impersonal’ insofar that those who participate do not, for the most part, have any pre-existing obligations, bonds, or relations to one another. — Streetlight
Finally what does financialization have to do with this? We often hear about the rise of financialization, and the predominance of ‘speculation’ and debt, but what does this have to do with the above? Well, one answer is that the above model of capitalism based on markets is, in a word, failing. — Streetlight
One of the ancestors of free markets was an aspect of the Bronze Age palace economy. People brought their wheat and other goods to the palace. Priests would then take a cut for the palace and distribute the rest to the people. — frank
This is one of the things I wish I could get across to some leftists. Money and banking, which are both products of a laissez-faire environment, aren't just objects in our world that we can extricate ourselves from by wearing red bandanas. — frank
Failing how, though? I've been pondering this for a while, and I still don't quite understand other than it has to do with the 1970s. — frank
First, I don't know why you keep referring to 'free' markets, rather than markets. — Streetlight
I'm not sure why you think 'money and banking' is a target here — Streetlight
But part of the reason I've emphasized that capitalism takes root at level of production rather than exchange, — Streetlight
What we think of as capitalism developed hand in glove with money and banking. Separating them would be a leap in the dark. — frank
So the Bronze Age economy was not capitalist. It was clearly socialist — frank
So the Bronze Age economy was not capitalist. It was clearly socialist
— frank
This is an anarchonism so terrible it does not deserve attention. — Streetlight
Capitalism: Impersonal Production — Streetlight
It is the reproduction of the conditions of impersonal exchange that begins to make instances of ‘capital’ into capital-ism: a systematization of ‘capital’ in society. — Streetlight
once impersonal exchange becomes wide-spread enough, it brings with it a change in the ‘who’ or ‘what’ production is geared towards: no longer lords and family, but markets.
It is at this point, where the general mode of production becomes geared towards the market, that capitalism proper can be said to come into being.
Capitalism on the other hand, cannot be understood apart from issues of production: of who and what is it that stuff is produced for. — Streetlight
there has been the ongoing activity of creating and animating private life and personal interests.
The omnipresent deterritorization has been compensated, balanced, and concealed by the all-embracing territorization. — Number2018
A followup question might be: how much does neoliberalism allow capitalism to abandon states, that is, nation states? — Jamal
I think the state remains as important as ever. — Streetlight
. ..the market in which the new elites operate is now international in scope. Their fortunes are tied to enterprises that operate across national boundaries...Their loyalties - if the term is not anachronistic in this context - are international rather than regional, national, or local...Many of them have ceased to think of themselves as Americans in any important sense...their ties to an international culture of work and leisure...make many of them deeply indifferent to the prospect of American national decline. — Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
It is at this point, where the general mode of production becomes geared towards the market, that capitalism proper can be said to come into being. — Streetlight
I’m surprised you didn’t include the existence of owners/employers as a distinguishing feature of this socioeconomic system. — Xtrix
We can imagine a world where production was controlled by workers and yet geared towards markets. Would this still be considered capitalist? — Xtrix
What should be added to this account of the birth of capitalism is the reciprocal interrelation between the impersonal production and reproduction and the emergence and development of the personal sphere itself. — Number2018
Land - and capital - starts to belong directly to merchants, or, at this point, capitalists. — Streetlight
Certainly a far more conciliatory capitalism than we know, but to the degree our conditions of life are dictated by markets - and not the other way around - this would still be a case of capitalism ascendant. — Streetlight
Importantly, being free of market-dependency doesn't mean getting rid of markets tout court. I'm not sure that would be either possible nor desirable. But it would mean incorporating markets into wider circuits of social life in a way that does not make the latter depend on the former. — Streetlight
Anywhere where exchange is not impersonal: families, friends, strangers asking for directions in the street, co-workers passing pens to each other across the room. Market exchanges make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of our lives. It just so happens their influence is unimaginably deep. Their extensity does not match their intensity in society. Markets are parasitic on non-market exchange that happen everywhere, all the time, among everyone, at all levels. I'm not even charging you for this — Streetlight
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