*
How is wealth created ? What is the source of wealth ? How do the
activities
of financiers contribute to wealth creation ? Or do they ?
From: Jim Devine
if "wealth" refers to use-values, financiers create it. After all, if
you want to sell some asset, the broker will help you do so, providing
you with benefits beyond what you pay for it (assuming no fraud, etc.)
After all, you wouldn't sell that asset if it didn't provide net
benefits in terms of use-value.
if "wealth" refers to exchange-value, financiers do not create it
(according to Marxian political economy). All they do is transfer
property rights from one person to another, rather than creating new
exchange-value -- or surplus-value.
^^^^
CB: If they create use-value, why aren't they creating exchange-value ?
^^^^^
The financiers are able to slice
off a piece of the surplus-value pie without expanding the pie's size.
Value and surplus-value, on the other hand, are produced by labor that
produces new products (goods or services) that are sold on the markets
rather than transferring legal claims to products among individuals.
It might be argued in reply that financial intermediation (as opposed
to its absence) allows capitalism to be more prosperous, producing
more value and surplus-value and/or allowing greater realization of
that value and surplus-value.("Financial intermediation" refers to the
provision of use-values of the sort described in my first paragraph
above.) That is, by greasing the wheels of commerce, financiers allow
the GDP to be larger than it would be in their absence.
If this argument is true, it only says that financiers are productive
_in capitalist terms_. It does not say that financiers benefit the
human race in human terms. Capitalist terms -- measured by such things
as GDP -- ignore all sorts of costs to humanity such as pollution, the
destruction of communities, and social inequality. GDP also ignores
benefits (use-values) that are not provided in a capitalist way.
