Lakshmi Rhone wrote: > In one reading Marx argued that > commodity money could only be transcended if commodity production itself was > transcended. > > He seems of course to have been quite wrong about this, yet the break with > commodity money seems stillborn
Marx notes that the circulation of fiat money can be forced within national boundaries -- though he assumed that international money was golden (an assumption that fits with the era in which he wrote). With a world state, we can imagine the forced circulation of fiat money on a world scale. What we have now -- U.S. hegemony in the imperialist system -- is intermediate, so we see incomplete circulation of fiat money (the US$ as the world reserve currency). But it's not about to be replaced with gold. In any event, replacement of gold with fiat money in circulation requires _state power_. (Some currencies get scarcity-value simply because something is needed to facilitate commodity circulation: after Saddam fell, his dinars were still circulating and actually had to be suppressed. But such currencies are valued because they are assumed to be convertible into "hard" currency such as the US$ or gold.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
