Eva Durant wrote,
>I thought it was meant to be funny, to link any
>of these [emancipation, repression, sublimation] with the Dow Jones index...
Funny in the sense of odd, yes. But also not at all funny in the sense that
an index of immiseration is daily presented to us as proof of prosperity. I
guess I'm becoming frustrated with the complacency of "waiting for the
bubble to burst". The reason the bubble won't burst is that if the stock
market falls violently, we will be called upon by governments to make
tremendous sacrifices to pump it back up again. As usual, the sacrifices
won't be voluntary and since most of us won't resist, those of us who do
resist will be punished.
What I am proposing is a clearer perspective on how contemporary stock
markets work. We are told by classical economic analysis that the money that
goes into the market is "discretionary" -- a free choice between consumption
or savings. That is a lie.
Money going into the market is compelled to do so by the tax code. The
choice is not between consumption or savings but between paying higher taxes
on current income or deferring receipt of that income in hopes of reducing
the total tax bite (pensions, RRSPs, 401Ks, etc.). In addition, much of that
latter "choice" is written into employment contracts, so it isn't even *that
much* of a choice.
One can view taxation as auxiliary to the "main body" of circulating capital
(both productive and financial) or one can view the financial markets as
auxiliary to the state's power of taxation. For some purposes, namely the
analysis of wages and profits under "normal" conditions, the former view may
offer better insights. For other purposes, such as the analysis of financial
crises and major systemic change, it may be more appropriate to begin from
the perspective of the state and taxation.
That, by the way, is precisely what Marx did when he distinguished
"primitive accumulation" from the normal capitalist accumulation of surplus
value. Capitalist crises inevitably involve a reversion to more brutal and
less consensual forms of expropriation. Neo-liberalism (Thatcherism, et.
al.) is far from the celebration of the free market it purports to be.
Rather it is an admission (not at all a frank one) of capital's weakness and
of the need for massive state interventions to prop it up.
The most important means by which the state intervenes to enforce the
primitive accumulation of capital is through its power of taxation. Money
doesn't have to be collected to be effectively taxed. Tax deductions that
are conditional on the taxpayer using the money for a specified purpose are,
in effect, a way of getting people to do "voluntarily" what they are
otherwise compelled to do.
To add insult to injury, the most servile act of tax code compliance is
upheld as the supreme expression of democracy and free will, pace Michael
Spencer's citation of John Ralston Saul's quote from the Canadian
government's 1995 foreign policy statement: "human rights tend to be best
protected by those societies that are open to trade, financial flows,
population movements, information and ideas about freedom and human dignity."
What's happening is both subtle and crude. When we try to address its
subtleties, we are told to shut up because we are 'incomprehensible'. When
we try to address its crudities, we are told to shut up because we are
'simplistic'. When we try to address both at the same time, we are told we
are making a joke. Yes, it is a joke. Yes, I am serious.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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