Do you know any Communists?

coolemon · 26-02-2014 01:57AM

sin_city wrote: »

Where did you get that from what I said?

Because you said boom and bust cycles are caused by banks inflating and deflating currency supply.

As if to say banks operate independently from other social processes and are therefore the actual cause, in and of themselves, of those decisions. That those decisions originate at source and are independently arrived at.

Well, who knows....why did the US invest $5billion recently in the Ukraine??? Where did that money come from?

Do they want to impose US hegemony globally?

Huge question. And one not entirely known given it is still an unfolding situation.

But it is a situation which can be 'fit' coherently and consistently into the Marxist theoretical framework with some analysis - with no questions left unknown.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 02:16AM

sin_city wrote: »

Where did you get that from what I said?

I am pursuing this line of questioning because, in Marxist theory, all aspects of society are interconnected. Generally, we do not blame "the banks" or blame "the developers" for problems in isolation. Rather, we see the developers and bankers decisions as constrained or shaped by their objective material conditions as the person taking out a mortgage. It is, therefore, the system that is to blame. The system and totality of social relations.

As Marx states - "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." - https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm

And, if you are interested, here is a video of a Marxist analysis of the US economic crisis.

http://vimeo.com/1962208

sin_city · 26-02-2014 02:31AM

coolemon wrote: »

Because you said boom and bust cycles are caused by banks inflating and deflating currency supply.

As if to say banks operate independently from other social processes and are therefore the actual cause, in and of themselves, of those decisions. That those decisions originate at source and are independently arrived at.

Well, they do. If you control the money, then you control everything.

If central banks were not different then we should have no problem auditing them.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 02:42AM

coolemon wrote: »

As Marx states - "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." - https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm

I don't believe this. History is written by the victors of the wars. As Napoleon said:

Terrorism, War & Bankruptcy are caused by the privatization of money, issued as a debt and compounded by interest "

This is the world we live in and have lived in long before Marx.

coolemon wrote: »

And, if you are interested, here is a video of a Marxist analysis of the US economic crisis.

http://vimeo.com/1962208

I'll look at it but I also suggest you investigate the history of central banking and it's relationship to wars and regime and political change.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 02:46AM

sin_city wrote: »

Well, they do. If you control the money, then you control everything.

If central banks were not different then we should have no problem auditing them.

sin_city wrote: »

Well, they do. If you control the money, then you control everything.

No. Money is given 'power' and 'value' by the socio-economic system.

Not by banks.

Therefore - whatever "control" and "power" they have is at the mercy of every other social and economic activity in the system.

Banks go bust and bankers can go to jail. Factories go bust and factory owners can go to jail. Mortgage holders can go bust and mortgage holders can go to jail.

Nobody, nor any 'aspect' of the system have, or can have, complete control or power. The system is interconnected and therefore inter-reliant. Causes can only be explained in relation to other social processes of the system or of the system itself.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 02:49AM

sin_city wrote: »

I don't believe this. History is written by the victors of the wars. As Napoleon said:

Terrorism, War & Bankruptcy are caused by the privatization of money, issued as a debt and compounded by interest "

Well Napoleon is obviously clueless. Terrorism, or terrorists, are not some independent entity. Those who decide to go to war do not arrive at those decisions from the blue. Bankruptcy is not an independent process.

Therefore, to claim that they are the root cause of anything, is illogical.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 02:54AM

coolemon wrote: »

No. Money is given 'power' and 'value' by the socio-economic system.

Money is simply a commodity that everyone wants.

It can take the form of gold, silver, tally sticks, seashells and today we have been manipulated into believing that a central bank piece of paper has value...It does, until it doesn't I suppose.

It is something you can trade for something else such as shelter, food, entertainment, oil, equipment.

This is life....People want something for something else.

If you are disputing this then I don't know what to say to you. Facts are facts.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 03:04AM

sin_city wrote: »

It is something you can trade for something else such as shelter, food, entertainment, oil, equipment..

Precisely. Therefore the value of "money" or "gold" is determined by, and related to, broader socio-economic processes.

When the titanic was sinking, a gold bar was not much use. (unless perhaps in the mind of the fool who exchanged it for his only life-jacket).

Gold and money is given power and value by the totality of the interconnected socio-economic processes of the system.

Socio-economic processes are something no bank can have complete control over. To point to the control of money as being the source of power is illogical, when money really only has a symbolic value given to it only in relation to the real material economy. Other social processes produce real material value and wealth. Food production, housing production, and so on. These real material processes determine the value of money, and therefore the power of money. Not banks.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 03:19AM

coolemon wrote: »

Precisely. Therefore the value of "money" or "gold" is determined by, and related to, broader socio-economic processes.

When the titanic was sinking, a gold bar was not much use. (unless perhaps in the mind of the fool who exchanged it for his only life-jacket).

Gold and money is given power and value by the totality of the interconnected socio-economic processes of the system.

Socio-economic processes are something no bank can have complete control over. To point to the control of money as being the source of power is illogical, when money really only has a symbolic value given to it only in relation to the real material economy. Other social processes produce real material value and wealth. Food production, housing production, and so on. These real material processes determine the value of money, and therefore the power of money. Not banks.

Gold has been seen as money for thousands of years across many different civilizations. Nothing you say will change that.

Central Banks have cornered the market on gold.

I don't have answers on why but I like to think I am asking the right questions rather assuming I know all the answers though one man.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 03:32AM

sin_city wrote: »

Gold has been seen as money for thousands of years across many different civilizations. Nothing you say will change that.

Central Banks have cornered the market on gold.

I don't have answers on why but I like to think I am asking the right questions rather assuming I know all the answers though one man.

You are missing the point.

I don't care how long it has been used for, or whether we are talking about gold, copper coins, nickel coins, beads, digital code, bones or whatever.

The point is. If those items have power and value - > they are socially assigned those values and power. Their values are intrinsically related and inseparable from the material economy. From the production of the means to reproduce the very thing that gives them value in the first place -> humans, or more precisely, society.

Saying the boom and bust cycle is caused by the inflation and deflation of money is illogical.

Saying it is caused by, oh, the over production of housing (real material objects with a use-value rather than something of just symbolic value) would explain a boom and bust cycle. Because the symbolic value of gold or money is determined by the material economy and the exchange of real material objects.

They are not powerful in and of themselves. Nor can they be explained as the cause of anything without placing them in relation to the broader socio-economic system.

Karl Stein · 26-02-2014 03:52AM

sin_city wrote: »

Gold has been seen as money for thousands of years across many different civilizations.

Gold is intrinsically worthless to you as an individual if you're stuck on a desert island by yourself.

WilyCoyote · 26-02-2014 04:07AM

Charles Rocher wrote: »

Gold is intrinsically worthless to you as an individual if you're stuck on a desert island by yourself.

Cathal - old bean! Just think how many Miley Cyrus-type mermaids would be shimmying up the sands to you.

Karl Stein · 26-02-2014 04:10AM

WilyCoyote wrote: »

Cathal - old bean! Just think how many Miley Cyrus-type mermaids would be shimmying up the sands to you.

Oh god not her, someone more wholesome for goodness sake, please Sir.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 04:14AM

coolemon wrote: »

You are missing the point.

I don't care how long it has been used for, or whether we are talking about gold, copper coins, nickel coins, beads, digital code, bones or whatever.

The point is. If those items have power and value - > they are socially assigned those values and power. Their values are intrinsically related and inseparable from the material economy. From the production of the means to reproduce the very thing that gives them value in the first place -> humans.

Saying the boom and bust cycle is caused by the inflation and deflation of money is illogical.

Saying it is caused by, oh, the over production of housing (real material objects with a use-value rather than something of just symbolic value) would explain a boom and bust cycle. Because the symbolic value of gold or money is determined by the material economy and the exchange of real material objects.

They are not powerful in and of themselves. Nor can they be explained as the cause of anything without placing them in relation to the broader socio-economic system.

Gold may not have value but it has been seen as valuable by people all over the world. It has been this way and chosen as a better way of trading over barter. It was in use as a medium of exchange long before any material economy.

Money has no real value until it is exchanged for something with real value.

You in my opinion are missing the point.

All this is theoretical stuff that has no real world value other than giving you an opportunity to use big words.

Central Banks DO cause the real world boom and bust cycles.

In the free market, the market sets interest rates...not central banks...

What do you disagree with regarding this short video:

WilyCoyote · 26-02-2014 04:16AM

WilyCoyote wrote: »

Cathal - old bean! Just think how many Georgia Salpa -type mermaids would be shimmying up the sands to you.

There you are Charles. Fixed my own post ....... surely a first on boards

Lets hear it for the Stickies commies!

coolemon · 26-02-2014 04:58AM

sin_city wrote: »

It was in use as a medium of exchange long before any material economy.

The 'material economy' are those economic activities which produce material wealth - such as food, housing, cups, pots and pans. Things that have a use-value - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value

The material economy has operated as long as man.

Gold as a medium of exchange is relatively recent. Early societies were communistic, without money or exchange.

Money has no real value until it is exchanged for something with real value.

Correct. Therefore the focus of inquiry into booms and busts should be on those things with real value. Since money has no value except in relation to those things with real value.

Hence the Marxist focus on the processes of production - the real source of wealth, and the root cause of economic crises.

Central Banks DO cause the real world boom and bust cycles.

No, they don't.

Banks are nothing but peddlers of symbolic value. As with above, boom and bust cycles must be understood 1) In relation to the production of real value (material economy) and 2) In relation to the totality of the socio-economic system and its interconnectedness.

What do you disagree with regarding this short video:

Nothing in particular. In fact that video backs what I am saying up - that the value of money/gold is based upon the material economy.

Marx's study of capitalism was very much one of an ideal 'free market'. His theories did not anticipate, for example, the welfare state and Keynesian economics.

Whether or not a hypothetical free-market economy would work is another discussion entirely. I don't think it would, for a variety of reasons.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 05:19AM

We humans need a price system in order to produce efficiently and in order to maximize the quality of life overall for everyone.

If something is scarce, the price rises, therefore the demand goes down.

This can only work if private property is protected for ownership and ability to exchange.

Private property and the means of production is not the problem.

Without ownership of private property and the means of production, there is no way to get prices of goods and so there is no way to know if they are scarce or not and no way to know if goods are being produced at the most efficient level.

I suggest you read road to serfdom by Hayek.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 05:44AM

sin_city wrote: »

We humans need a price system in order to produce efficiently and in order to maximize the quality of life overall for everyone.

But the price system is actually a measure of nothing. It attempts to assign tangible values to objects when, in reality, all values are subjective irrespective of what "price value" is placed.

The 'price' of something is meaningless for this reason.

If something is scarce, the price rises, therefore the demand goes down.

But scarcity cannot be tangibly measured. Scarcity is a subjective value. And you cannot quantify subjective values with a price mechanism.

A bowl of porridge might be scarce to someone hungry, and scraps for the bin for someone without hunger.

The "value" placed on that porridge is subjective and, in actuality, intangible and immeasurable.

One of the reasons why capitalism is so irrational. With people starving while people in the USA throw plates and fridges of food in the bin each week.

there is no way to get prices of goods and so there is no way to know if they are scarce or not

Sure there is no way to know if something is scarce or not as it is.

I think Rhino horns are scarce. To a Chinese billionaire, they are something to sniff up his nose from his pocket change.

Again - scarcity is subjective. The value of something is subjective.

Capitalism 'manufactures' the notion of scarcity through the creation of social value as a necessary requirement for the systems survival. See commodity fetishism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism

Subjective values are socio-cultural constructions and also reflect social relationships, rather than of an intrinsic economic scarcity. The Chinese billionaire never had a value for a Rhino horn until he was told it was a cure for erectile dysfunction.

and no way to know if goods are being produced at the most efficient level.

But capitalism does not produce efficiently. It is the most wasteful system in human history.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 05:56AM

Price is a measure of nothing???

If something is more plentiful one year and suddenly becomes less plentiful the next year the price increase is due to the difference. "It" is not something someone created. "It" is the result of many many actions.

To say it is meaningless is just plain wrong. It gives knowledge to the consumer whether or not to buy or to substitute and to the producer whether or not to produce more or less and to do so at the maximum.

There is no way for YOU as an individual to know what is scarce and what is not...The market will do this to the optimum.

Capitalism has set free the talents of great thinkers and inventors of which we benefit today.....How is it the most wasteful?

It did not waste the lives of millions that died where it did not exist.

Is that final statement just ideology like the rest of what you say or is it based on fact?

coolemon · 26-02-2014 06:13AM

sin_city wrote: »

If something is more plentiful one year and suddenly becomes less plentiful the next year the price increase is due to the difference. "It" is not something someone created. "It" is the result of many many actions.

No. "It" is the product of social relations and cultural forms which produce intangible subjective values.

The price is more reflective of those subjective values than of whether the material object is intrinsically scarce.

It gives knowledge to the consumer whether or not to buy or to substitute and to the producer whether or not to produce more or less and to do so at the maximum.

But that is completely irrational. The 'price' is not based upon scarcity and rather reflects the social power relations of the society, and which thus shape subjective values.

That 'maximum' could be building a super yacht for a Russian oligarch. meanwhile people need housing or food. Scarcity has nothing to do with it.

There is no way for YOU as an individual to know what is scarce and what is not...The market will do this to the optimum.

The market will reflect social power relations. That is all.

Capitalism has set free the talents of great thinkers and inventors of which we benefit today.....How is it the most wasteful?

But ideas are socially produced. Not the product of "great thinkers". Ideas do not occur out of thin air, but are built upon an existing socially produced environment and cultural consciousness.

Is that final statement just ideology like the rest of what you say or is it based on fact?

Fact.

sin_city · 26-02-2014 06:32AM

coolemon wrote: »

No. "It" is the product of social relations and cultural forms which produce intangible subjective values.

The price is more reflective of those subjective values than of whether the material object is intrinsically scarce.

Absolute rubbish. Zero knowledge of economics here.

coolemon wrote: »

But that is completely irrational. The 'price' is not based upon scarcity and rather reflects the social power relations of the society, and which thus shape subjective values.

That 'maximum' could be building a super yacht for a Russian oligarch. meanwhile people need housing or food. Scarcity has nothing to do with it.

More rubbish

coolemon wrote: »

But ideas are socially produced. Not the product of "great thinkers". Ideas do not occur out of thin air, but are built upon an existing socially produced environment and cultural consciousness.

What great inventors and thinkers thrived in an un-free society?

They do it for themselves in a society where they have chosen to do so for their own reasons.

coolemon wrote: »

Fact.

Good to see you backed it up with stats...Oh wait no you didn't just more ideology

Iwasfrozen · 26-02-2014 12:01PM

Here's an interesting question for coolemon. How would you set prices in a socialist society preceding our current late capitalism?

Grolschevik · 26-02-2014 01:47PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Here's an interesting question for coolemon. How would you set prices in a socialist society preceding our current late capitalism?

("Succeeding", I presume.)

Anyway, the use of markets as a price-setting mechanism is not in principle incompatible with a socialist economy.

It's usually referred to as "market socialism", and people have been proposing versions of it since the '30s at least.

http://rdwolff.com/content/what-%E2%80%9Cmarket-socialism%E2%80%9D-can-markets-and-socialism-coexist

KyussBishop · 26-02-2014 01:53PM

sarkozy wrote: »

Which is a very important point because even Marx recognised that knowledge or worldviews is the product of having certain kinds of interests grounded in human beings' material conditions, their very personal experience of everyday life as an individual tied to their community.

Marx developed a methodology which led him to define this varience in worldviews based in interested knowledge as 'class', the observation being that, as with feudalism with its different forms of power, ownership, commerce and production, divided humans into kings, vassals, peasants, etc., industrial capitalism also divided humans into different levels and, looking around and seeing that this was truly the case, he sought to explain why this happened.

The place you occupied on the pecking order, therefore, impacted on how you saw and made sense of the world - this he called 'class consciousness' - and how you got others to believe this - he called this 'false consciousness'.

Antonio Gramsci, an extremely influential theorist who did his best work in prison, then asked himself why, if the conditions for a communist takeover in Italy were right in the years following WWI, why the country lurched into fascism instead. He theorised that culture, as a product of an ideological system rooted in capitalist production, played a key role in the balance of power across certain social classes - the theory of 'hegemony' - whereby the system functioned whereby the dominant classes co-opt middle- and upper-working-classes to do the dirty work of containing and repressing, where necessary, the large working classes.

I think we have the same situation in Ireland today.
...

That's a very insightful way of looking at it alright - and fits in really well with what I've learned, particularly with how certain worldviews or economic ideological views, tend to come from enormous networks of economic/political think-tanks (many billions flowing through them), which manufacture the propaganda that allows the wealthy financiers/businesspeople (particularly in the US - e.g. the Koch's are the most well known), to keep an 'intellectual hegemony' on economics.

Even economic teaching itself is pretty much captured by wealthy interests - and this is why I'm such a big fan of Post-Keynesian's like Steve Keen:
I think he's pretty much at the forefront of people, who has the best chance at reforming economics and economic teaching itself, in the near future - without this, I don't think 'The Left' will see a resurgence (because even the left is captured ideologically, by adopting the economic views of the right).

Brian M. Lucey, an Irish economist, recently did a good study with Stephen Kinsella (another Irish economist - a Post Keynesian; though I don't know what school of thought Brian follows), about how poor a state Irish economic academic teaching is in:
https://brianmlucey.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/what-do-irish-economists-think-and-teach/

These are pretty good folk for Marxists to ally with really - Marxists might have a desire for much bigger/fundamental change than what Post Keynesian (PK) economists desire, but what the PK's want is a big stepping stone towards goals that Marxists desire as well, and (even better) they propose changes that are within grasp in the present as well.
I think PK views will be a core part of a resurgence in the Left - if they ever get enough attention - but from what I've seen, the Left is very fractured/divided; for instance, I can't see any Left-leaning group of any kind in Ireland, that I can readily identify with (though am certainly curious as to suggestions).

sarkozy wrote: »

When you actually stand back from the emotional arguments for or against capitalism or communism, when you look at it from a philosophical, ethical or political point of view, the fact that capitalism has never solved our economic or environmental problems, that it's never found a way to avoid systemic economic crises like this one (which will probably get worse, by the way), that capitalism has never managed to actually deliver what people claim by ensuring everyone has what they need and want all the time, that global poverty and inequality persists and is getting worse, you have to ask yourself what then can be the alternative?

I won't say it, but I bet all my money in the world (which isn't much) that nobody will be able to propose an alternative that isn't in some way one of the aforementioned.

You mention the 'divide and conquer' type narrative (turning the middle class and poor against one another), and I think that is only allowed to happen because of the 'There Is No Alternative' economic austerity narrative - and this is why PK ideas are so valuable: They show immediate ready alternatives, but communicating that is very very hard, because of just how completely economic discourse is 'captured'.

KyussBishop · 26-02-2014 02:36PM

sin_city wrote: »

I'd also like to see some stats on this.

sin_city wrote: »

So there are no stats on this?

:rolleyes:

For starters here are two others already mentioning their role moving towards finance in this thread, and some working in other roles within financial institutions, so thus far that's: 4 people.

Can you point me to at least 4 posters supporting free-market views, who have already posted in this thread, who are not involved in some way, with finance? (does the industry you are working in, touch on finance?)

If you can't - it's safe to say that most free-market supporters who have posted thus far in this thread, are involved in some way, with finance.

KyussBishop · 26-02-2014 02:56PM

coolemon wrote: »

Socio-economic processes are something no bank can have complete control over. To point to the control of money as being the source of power is illogical, when money really only has a symbolic value given to it only in relation to the real material economy. Other social processes produce real material value and wealth. Food production, housing production, and so on. These real material processes determine the value of money, and therefore the power of money. Not banks.

While you're right in one way, the problem is that when there is a monopoly on the issuance of money, the issuers of money control how much production can occur, and also control the distribution of productive activity in the economy - along with many other things.

Control over the flow of money is real (disproportionate, enormous) power, which is independent of the value of that money (so long as there is a monopoly on the type of currency usable for taxes); sure, its power is tempered by the power productive forces and workers hold in the economy and such, but still, when you have complete power over the money a country uses, you have a huge amount of power over the entire country - even its government (who are - bizzarely - forced to borrow that money from the private sector, at interest).

KyussBishop · 26-02-2014 03:04PM

sin_city wrote: »

Gold may not have value but it has been seen as valuable by people all over the world. It has been this way and chosen as a better way of trading over barter. It was in use as a medium of exchange long before any material economy.

Money has no real value until it is exchanged for something with real value.

You in my opinion are missing the point.

All this is theoretical stuff that has no real world value other than giving you an opportunity to use big words.

Central Banks DO cause the real world boom and bust cycles.

In the free market, the market sets interest rates...not central banks...

Money/gold was not just a veil over barter, that is a myth:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/09/money-created-overcome-barter.html

The business cycle is not caused by central banks, it is (simplified) caused by almost all (97%) our money coming from bank loans, and the debt associated with that; money enters the economy on a 1:1 ratio as Money:Debt.

Debt carries interest, and this means the amount of debt constantly grows far greater than the amount of money in the economy - this is unsustainable, and it always leads to a bust when the amount of debt grows past a (largely arbitrary) critical point - this is the economic cycle.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 04:34PM

What great inventors and thinkers thrived in an un-free society?

They do it for themselves in a society where they have chosen to do so for their own reasons.

I don't understand your question. What is 'un-free'?

Nobody chooses or thinks anything in circumstances of their own choosing.

Oh wait no you didn't just more ideology

Everyone is ideological. Including yourself.

coolemon · 26-02-2014 04:39PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Here's an interesting question for coolemon. How would you set prices in a socialist society preceding our current late capitalism?

Socialism, in my view, would be a moneyless society. As I have stated, all values are subjective anyway.

There would be no 'prices'. There might be rational planning of resources in certain circumstances, but there are endless methods one might use to 'calculate' the utilitarian value of an intrinsically scarce resource.

Conservation and ethical guidelines, for example, on the rational use of Rhino Horn. Rather than whatever tom, dick and harry has the money to irrationally snort it up their nose in a free market economy. "Price" being a measure of nothing but social power relations.

EDIT NOTE: It must be remembered from where I am coming from with what appears to be these otherwise bizzare claims about 'price'.

Firstly, socialism removes the commodity. It makes free access of all material goods and services (within reason). By doing this it removes the bulk of social value from material objects and their production. That is, the removal of commodity fetishism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism) -> of the seeing of objects as something which embody a social interactional value -> such as prestige, social status, self worth, and so forth.

Capitalism 'creates' a scarcity of social value to continue its perpetual growth and the turnover of profit.

It enforces this scarcity through restriction and private property. Through private control of the means of production.

It is the contention of Marxists that we have the material productive capacity to meet all intrinsic human needs. But not those needs produced through the artificially created scarcity of social value through material production.

So rather than price being something reflective of an intrinsic material scarcity -> it actually reflects ownership and power relations.

Socialism would produce less, use less and share resources to a greater extent. It would be an incredibly efficient system of social reproduction. Unlike capitalism, which wastes resources on producing needless social value.

This is summed up in the quote by Marx: "Accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake: by this formula classical economy expressed the historical mission of the bourgeoisie"

coolemon · 26-02-2014 04:56PM

KyussBishop wrote: »

While you're right in one way, the problem is that when there is a monopoly on the issuance of money, the issuers of money control how much production can occur, and also control the distribution of productive activity in the economy - along with many other things.

Control over the flow of money is real (disproportionate, enormous) power, which is independent of the value of that money (so long as there is a monopoly on the type of currency usable for taxes); sure, its power is tempered by the power productive forces and workers hold in the economy and such, but still, when you have complete power over the money a country uses, you have a huge amount of power over the entire country - even its government (who are - bizzarely - forced to borrow that money from the private sector, at interest).

Of course the control of money confers power to those controlling it.

But the issuers of money are, in their decisions, constrained and influenced by other factors in the socio-economic system. Their power is not inseparable or independent from the conditions which constrain it.

Central banks are enshrined with such power by states. But states and their political structures are vulnerable to socio-economic upheaval and class conflict. To say that the power of a central bank, or indeed even a state (which claims an absolute monopoly on violence) - are independent types of power is wrong. The extent of their power is directly correlated to the latent power of the population and the totality of socio-economic activity.

It must be looked at from a systemic point of view. Money confers no power independently. And therefore that power cannot be seen as something independent nor looked at in isolation.

Do you know any Communists?

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