/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>If you let someone borrow money at zero percent interest you're losing money in the long term, because the currency gets devalued in the time it takes for the loan to get paid back.
Wrong
>In an economy with inflation, a zero percent interest loan may as well have a negative interest rate.
Wrong
>In this regard, shouldn't the a "zero percent" interest loan actually have a percentage tied to the rate of inflation in order to truly be zero percent?
Not necessarily
Read vol III

Fuck finance capital, kill finance capital, burn banks
That is all

>>1681218
Which part of volume 3 addresses this?

>>1681218
Also I don't see how the first two points are wrong.

If someone gives a loan of 100 currency units in the year 2000, and the interest is 0%, then only 100 currency units needs to get paid back. Let's say the loan is paid back all at once after 1 year, for simplicity. If the currency inflates by 10% before 2001, then the 100 currency units in the year 2001 is now worth 90 of the currency units in the year 2000. Which means the giver of the loan lost 10%. The loan giver could argue that charging an interest rate tied to inflation (10% in this case) would stabilize the loan at its original value, meaning the loan taker pays the loan giver back exactly 100 at the original year 2000 value.

>>1681248
these points aren't wrong. the other anon just pulled it out of his ass

>>1681248
But why should people who loan money out in hope of extravagant returns be paid anything at all in the first place?

Kill all rentiers. Euthanize rentiers. Drop kick rentiers. Abort rentiers. Curb stomp rentiers.

>>1681027
> is the fact that commercial and investment banking are no longer separated, so the funds of ordinary workers are, collectively, used to give loans to investors and bourgeois enterprises. When those enterprises fail, or those investments crash, the government is forced to bail out the banks using public money, which means the proletariat is taxed thrice by the bourgeoisie.
they literally just print the money though

>>1681248
Well, it makes sense if you want to make a business of it, but give money at 0% interest would be a favor, so your objective is not profit

>>1681644
OP isn't making a prescriptive statement here. Hell it's right there in the post:
>This is not a defense of interest

They are right that someone would lose purchasing power/monetary value in the long-term by lending money at a 0% interest rate, due to inflation, and the corollary is also true: someone would gain monetary value over time by lending money at a 0% interest rate if the currency is deflationary, i.e. gain monetary value over time because the supply of the underlying asset is decreasing over time, like gold-backed money.
This is a descriptive statement, that doesn't mean we advocate for a return to the gold standard or a Bitcoin-backed economy like lolberts do.

[This is a repost to correct some mistakes made in my original reply]

>>1681647
that's just a roundabout way of taxing the public since it devalues the currency they have already stored up in exchange for their labor power. If a prole saves all year to put a down payment on a car, but then the federal reserve prints a bunch of money to bail out banks, the money the prole saved up is devalued. So in addition to having surplus value stolen from them by their employer, inflation devalues what they save, assuming they are even able to save.

>>1681679
>give money at 0% interest would be a favor, so your objective is not profit
unless you're in a deflationary situation

>>1681248
you aren't "losing money". you quite literally get the money back. you might not get the full value back, but that's not the same thing as losing money (which states can't either way). inflation isn't some automatic thing either. the idea that it is, is used by porkoid economists to justify keeping wages down. it's not the currency that somehow inflates, it's porky that increases prices on goods and services. the state can attempt to tax capitalists indirectly by printing money, in which case they will attempt to claw value back by raising prices
you say that the loan has zero interest rate but at the same time it has a negative interest rate. this is a contradiction in terms
if you want the value loaned out to return to you then yes, you must account for changes in productivity changes during the term of the loan. if productivity is increasing then interest must be positive to compensate. if it is decreasing interest must be negative. only when productivity is constant can the interest rate be zero in this case

>>1681739
>>1681739
>you aren't "losing money". you quite literally get the money back. you might not get the full value back,
Ok so you're losing purchasing power, to be more precise, which is what money is used for. Exchanging for goods. So if the amount of goods that the money can buy has decreased, then the money is worth less than it was before, has less value than it had before, which is functionally the same as getting less money back. Which was the entire point. Even if you loan 100 and get 100 back, the inflationary circumstances decreases the purchasing power of the money. Meaning that in any inflationary situation, a zero percent interest loan is a net loss for the creditor.

>>1681757
>which is functionally the same as getting less money back
no it isn't

>>1681765
because?

>>1681770
because you are getting the same amount of money back. try to keep up

>>1681851
if the function of money is its purchasing power, and the money you get back has less purchasing power, despite having the same numerical amount assigned to it, then functionally you have less money. "tRy tO kEEp uP."

>>1681739
>inflation isn't some automatic thing either
Throughout the history of capitalism, no it isn't.

However, since the US ended the convertibility between USD and gold in 1971, most nation states in the world use fiat money.
According to Modern Monetary Theory (Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton et al.), the amount of inflation of a given currency can be controlled by a state with fiscal policy under certain conditions, like being sovereign over its money.
How? In last resort, the state can always tax rich people at very high rates, which is technically equivalent to removing printed money from circulation. Reminder that US tax rates in 1935 under FDR could go as high as 75% for the rich.

The thing is, the central banks controlling currencies with a floating exchange rate, like the US Federal Reserve, ECB and Bank of Russia, target a mild inflation rate with their monetary policies, typically around 3%.
Why? Because a mild inflation rate discourages saving money and makes consumption and investments into assets more attractive, while not wrecking the economy completely due to prices rising way higher than wages, which could potentially trigger an underconsumption or overproduction crisis.

Inflation is a political choice, because capitalism starts from the standpoint of infinite growth, and if no more value is added into the system, it becomes increasingly obsolete and anachronistic.

>>1681851
Nominally yes. But when you consider this amount of money as something to be traded on international markets, like the Forex, it's another story.

>>1681727
It's not just the federal reserve, every bank prints money, and it doesn't always devalue currency.

>>1681964
>every bank prints money, and it doesn't always devalue currency
The only case I can think of right now is if a nation exports a lot of goods and accumulates a lot of foreign currencies and assets, but wouldn't print enough of its own money to take into account the increasing amount of accumulated assets the state has under its control.
This can be desirable for a nation state if they want a stronger currency on the world market to buy more foreign assets, but this is not necessarily the case.

The Chinese state is in a position where it has a highly positive trade balance and is accumulating a lot of assets, domestic and foreign, but the People's Bank of China is not stupid: they buy and sell USD and a few other currencies to keep a soft monetary peg related to the most important floating exchange-rate currencies on the world market, according to their business needs and the prevailing geopolitical conditions, in order to maintain their export-oriented trade balance.
In other words, the renminbi has more or less a fixed exchange-rate with USD on the Forex as of today.

This case isn't a common one in our world economy since the 1970s, what generally happens is that at best, the liberal institutions of a given country manage to have a ~3% inflation rate every year and most people don't notice (unlike investors for reasons described in >>1681938) and at worst, the currency of an African or South American nation wanting more financial independence suddenly peaks into extreme inflation and wrecks the economy.


>>1682010
>MMT approach to inflation only works temporarily and relies on being a hegemonic or regional power. Otherwise you can't get away with that shit.
It's not the first time I've seen this criticism on /leftypol/, but when I ask to elaborate, most arguments seem to be about how only the USA can do it because of USD hegemony in international business and a couple of links to Michael Roberts' blog.

First of all, this doesn't negate my point about mild inflation being a liberal political choice.

Secondly, the conditions for MMT shenanigans according to its proponents are the following:
>1) The national government chooses a money of account in which the currency is denominated;
>2) The national government imposes obligations (taxes, fees, fines, tribute, tithes) denominated in this money of account;
>3) The national government issues a currency denominated in this money of account, and accepts that currency in payment of these imposed obligations;
>4) Any other obligations against the national government are also denominated in the chosen money of account, and payable in the national government's own currency.
(source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12799)

For sure it's not a possibility for West African countries using the CFA Franc as a currency, or even Southern European countries using the Euro, but to me, the message of MMT to less dominant nation-states on the world market seems rather clear: do not accept more debts denominated in a currency you do not control, typically an IMF loan in USD, if you want to have full control over the fiscal lever of your nation-state, which offers a lot of possibilities.

The MMT Job Guarantee program promoted by Pavlina Tcherneva and Stephanie Kelton is fundamentally a social democrat program à la Keynes, where the state assumes the role of the capitalist of last resort to assure eternal growth.

Would it be a good thing?
It would be better for proles in the USA if the goal of said growth is to rebuild bridges and providing clean water to Michigan, and by extension, it would be great for the rest of the world if the federal government of the USA could redirect the money it is creating with its monetary policy toward these goals rather than increasing military spending (i.e. investing into means of destruction).

Is it realistic?
Doesn't seem so, the bourgeoisie of dominant countries certainly doesn't want to pay more taxes, and the authorities are lax with them.

Is it even desirable on the long-term?
Personally, I don't think infinite growth in a finite world is possible, even if the periphery of the world market at both global and intranational levels, "hinterlands", would immediately benefit from state investments in a medium-term.

I don't see MMT as a prescriptive economic program but as a description of how fiat money does currently work and how it could potentially be used (protip: even people working at central banks can be dumbfounded by phenomenon explainable by unorthodox economic theories, both Marxist and non-Marxist)

If someone is interested about the history of MMT, I recommend this series of articles: https://strangematters.coop/history-of-chartalism-modern-monetary-theory-mmt-part-two/

OP, this is very muddled. What you mean with "truly zero percent" seems to relate to some notion of neutrality. But you haven't made explicit enough what the reference point is. Some action is neutral relative to some reference point of an alternative action if the choice between the two does not make a difference in some aspect(s). (If the choice made no difference in any aspect the two actions would be indistinguishable.)

So, what's our reference? Suppose price don't change and Alice loans Bob some money and Alice somehow magically knows Bob will pay it all back in time and that the prices won't change until then. Would a zero-interest rate for the loan be the neutral or natural thing to do? Don't we also have to consider that there is a risk Alice will need the money before the payback date? Because of that risk, Alice will probably be unwilling to lend the money at zero interest even if she is 100 % certain about both getting it back in time and no price changes happening.

Suppose Alice is sure she will get it back in time without price changes happening AND she is also perfectly sure she won't need it in the meantime. Then at zero interest rate, she wouldn't give a fuck about whether to lend the money or not (if she has no personal relationship with Bob, that is).

Now to the situation in the last paragraph, we add price increases (and as you might have guessed, our brilliant Alice knows exactly what these will be like). Does it follow that she needs to receive extra money later just in order to not give a fuck whether to lend or not? Answer: NOPE. (If you feel this answer is wrong, it's because your feelings are grounded in a world with uncertainty. But going through the model with all its wacky assumptions you will see that the answer for the model's world really is NOPE.)

To make the model more realistic, we now add some uncertainty for Alice, but only about this aspect: Does she need the money at some time before the payback date? Now the answer is: YEP, there needs to be some compensation. But how does it relate to the rise of prices? There seems to be no exact rule. If each prices increases by 10 % during the lending period (note that this is much more simple to analyze than 10 % inflation, and we are already puzzled), and Alice realizes after lending out money that she needs the money herself, what really is the economic damage to her? Perhaps a profitable opportunity within a small window passes by. The damage might then be much higher than what 10 % extra could make up for. So there is no simple unambiguous relation here between some numeric value that damages her and some other thing that would compensate that damage.

>>1681871
>then functionally you have less money
wrong. words matter you imbecile. $1 = $1, no ifs or buts about it

>>1682636
shit bait

>>1683401
my point exactly: $1.00 != $31.08. I'm glad we agree

>>1683918
you're being deliberately obtuse as a substitute for having anything to say. if the function of money is its purchasing power, then functionally the money becomes worth less than it was before due to inflation. I keep saying functionally and emphasizing purchasing power but you keep insisting I'm being literal because you are a troll. Tell me. Would you rather have the purchasing power of 1 US dollar in the year 1913 or the purchasing power of 1 US dollar in the year 2023? Don't answer as though I am asking you what time period you would rather live in. Answer with regards to purchasing power only. Weasel.

>>1684254
but anon OP said that a zero percent interest loan actually has a non-zero interest. this is factually incorrect. if I lend you a dollar and later get the dollar back then I have not lost any dollars. this may seem trivial and obvious but when you start looking at how money works from the state's POV

>If you let someone borrow money at zero percent interest you're losing money in the long term, because the currency gets devalued in the time it takes for the loan to get paid back. In an economy with inflation, a zero percent interest loan may as well have a negative interest rate. In this regard, shouldn't the a "zero percent" interest loan actually have a percentage tied to the rate of inflation in order to truly be zero percent?
My government does this for university loans. It's indexed to inflation, and mandatory to begin repaying once you hit a salary threshold..

>>1683394
>>1683401
>>1683456
>someone points out that the function of money and value/purchasing power/etc. are different things
<bait!
back to whatever shithole you came from. someone pointing out a technicality, however poorly explained, is not bait. someone disputing your understanding of the function of money is not bait. that's a disagreement.
you're on the internet. nerds will sometimes be obtuse and need a prod to explain themselves. aggravating maybe, but anyone who calls this kind of thing bait needs to fuck off back to 4chan/v/ or whereever else copied them.
oh look, you made me disagree, i guess your shitposts are BAIT now aren't they?!?

protip - if you call something bait and you then bite said bait, you're an fool, but I don't think you're a fool, comrade.


>>1684321
>this may seem trivial and obvious but when you start looking at how money works from the state's POV
Give an example of why it is important to distinguish the function of money from its value or purchasing power.
We know $1 is $1, the amount of money stays the sam, but the power of that money changes, so $1 was more functional than $1 is now. Is the function of money not its value? If not, explain what else it must be.

>>1684395
Value is made up and doesn't exist. Therefore, one dollar = one dollar according to the laws of matter and physics in any context

>>1684395
I never claimed the value of money doesn't change. stop putting words in my mouth

>>1684401
Money has no value. Money only serves as the appearance of value, as money reflects the labor time embodied within commodities.

>>1684417
Money cannot have value because it is not a product of labor. Money is beamed into banks by central bank with no production process or human labor

>>1684432
>Money cannot have value because it is not a product of labor
both commodity money (salt, gold, silver etc) and paper money have value
>Money is beamed into banks by central bank with no production process or human labor
wrong. transferring digital money still requires labour

>>1684397
Read Capital

>>1684512
Gold and silver are mere commodities in modern bourgeois economy, not money commodities. Modern capitalist markets do not use gold or silver as dominant currency. Trade mediated by gold and silver has been utterly supplanted.

The humans who oversee the modern process of money creation are not performing any labor that is socially necessary or value-creating. They are merely managing and regulating the monetary system which oversees the valorization of actual labor and production, akin to a a conductor who directs the orchestra but does not make any sound.

The money “produced” by central banks is utterly fictitious and has no production process similar to gold or silver. Unlike these precious metals, which require labor and resources to extract and refine, central bank money is created out of thin air with digital systems, by simply crediting the reserves of commercial banks. This means that there is no labor embodied in the money, and therefore no value. Moreover, the money “produced” by central banks does not actually exist in physical form, but only as digital entries in a ledger. It is not backed by any tangible asset, but only by the faith and trust of the public.

The money "created" by the central banks has "value" only because people believe and accept that it has "value", not because it embodies any labor or actual value.

Therefore, there is no labor embodied within the money produced by the central banks. The labor theory of value does not apply to this kind of money creation, which is a fictitious and artificial form of capital.
>>1684520
I have. My posts are based upon karl marx capital. Please provide counter-arguement or fuck off.

>fiat money has value
Commodity fetishism

>>1684568
>The humans who oversee the modern process of money creation are not performing any labor that is socially necessary
could capitalism function without them?

>>1684596
Capitalism isn't socially necessary.

>>1684397
>Value is made up and doesn't exist.
>>1684520
<Read Capital
>>1684568
>I have. My posts are based upon karl marx capital. Please provide counter-arguement or fuck off.
Point to where Marx says "value doesn't exist" you clown. He talks about use value and exchange value and surplus value all the time.

>>1684811
According to Marx, value does not EXIST as an inherent property of things, or as a thing at all, but rather as a social relation (spook) between people mediated by commodities.

Please explain how value "exists" as a corporeal entity and not some mere spook without referring to mere bourgeois political economy.

1$ = 1$ in objective reality. 1$ = (anything besides 1$) in the minds of those spooked by the bourgeoisie.

>>1684641
it's necessary to Capital. Marx is quite explicit about what is socially necessary and therefore valuable are what's of interest to Capital. this is the entire reason for planned obsolescence, which makes new devices valuable despite the fact that the old device could have kept working just fine. there is no end to bullshit jobs that are nevertheless productive, because they help generate profit
>>1684887
>a social relation (spook) between people mediated by commodities
that's still a thing that exists, unless you suggest human minds aren't corporeal

>>1684887
>value exists as a social relation
yes, and social relations exist. I accept your concession.

>>1684887
Marx says that the use value of a thing is in the material body of the commodity. What we use in an item is within the item itself.

>>1684887
The universal equivalent (money) is tied to commodities (in the old days, precious metals), which standardises its production in order to stabilise prices - this creates equivalence between commodities based on their relativity to the unit of exchange. So, 1 dollar is worth a bottle of water and a hand-towell equally, because this is what it is able to be marketed for after the cost of production and distribution.
Marx infers that there is an extra factor in this, which is the "surplus value" extracted in exchange, derived from the exploitation of labour and converted into "profits"
This then bases value primarily in labour, wherein the "universal equivalent" in fact refers to the universality of the proletariat's class character, in the unanimity of homogenous industrial labour, only distinguished between countries by workers rights fought for by this class.
And so on.
Cash also began as a receipt for the precious metal that it was supposed to be able to redeem - thats why classically, cash is the one commodity that is not commodified, because it stands in for something else, which to marx is the direct product of labour, alienated by the unit of exchange.
1 dollar is not even 1 dollar. A =/= A.

>>1685073
Cash is the very device of alienation which obscures its own object of representation. What does the dollar attach itself to today? It is held in this ambiguity of being "paper money" worthless except outside of custom; fiat currency, the currency of deriving its own authority - but of course we might know better, the dollar is simply tied to the amount of commodities in an economy which may be traded within this system. However, many dollars are printed and not spent, but held in foreign reserve - this is popularly called "foreign debt", which is not something you "owe", but is simply the notes of your currency that are held by foreign countries which accrue value based on the false promise of a positive return in consumption.
Basically, the federal reserve prints more dollars than what can keep up with economic output, which raises prices to keep up with this possible influx in the economy, or so to say, it will increase demand with lowering supplies - this is called inflation, which further alienates man from the representation of the universal equivalent.
Here, value fractures and pluralises, as the dollar survives from luxury spending, creating artificial celebrity cultures that produce mansions and yachts. Its all shitshow because its getting away from the base; labour and industrial manufacture.
This is why china is booming while america is busting. America doesnt make anything except DOLLARS.
LET IT RAIN BITCH
(Also, richard wolff is a pseud)
https://www.usdebtclock.org/

>>1681027
>If you let someone borrow money at zero percent interest you're losing money in the long term, because the currency gets devalued in the time it takes for the loan to get paid back.
There is inflation yes but the real problem is the opportunity cost for this capital that could be invested into building factories.

>>1685137
Unless the factories produce goods which are traded then there is no relief for the inflation. Inflation is brought down by recalling dollars by taxation or by strengthening the dollar by trade.
In a market economy you cant just make free work for free products.

>>1684887
you're really being stupid on purpose if you don't get that they're talking about inflation. that entire conversation you were just being an obstinate jackass.

>>1685596
deflation is better. destroy all money

>>1685596
If socially necessary labor time determines the value of all commodities and one million dollars can just as easily be "produced" as a trillion, then how much socially necessary labor time is embodied within one dollar?

Fiat currency has no value

>>1687487
now you suddenly admit inflation exists and that the value of a dollar fluctuates. thanks for making my point for me by asking a bunch of unrelated questions about shit nobody said.

>>1687487
The leap of your logic is to asssume that something like gold has "objective" value whereas socially-mediated value in cash tied to commodities is some subjective anarchy. The market regulates prices based on the cost of production and competition, not just the whims of the producer. Thats why you cant just sell apples for ten dollars, because another producer will sell it cheaper. This is how the market drives down prices, because it is efficient.
In the cases of inflation, prices rise because of the real presence of a growth of the currency in circulation, driving up prices as per the ratio of money to each commodity. This is also why you can have inflation in particular markets (think of oil), and depression in different markets (think of thatched-cottage production). Its all based on supply and demand in logistics.
>>1687567
Lol at picrel

>>1687710
Further, the point of marxism isnt to situate an "objective" standard in labour (like the digging a hole in the desert example), but to see how what society demands is met in supply by the standardising of this sort of labour. To marx, the standard of production should be based primarily in necessities and secondarily in luxuries. This gives reference to socially necessary labour time and shortens work, while also generalising it.
Marx did not see the specialist fields of today however, so a critique is needed, which the market provides for itself.

>>1687711
>>1687710
>>1687567
The "value" of money does not fluctuate. Fiat currency has no value. A central bank "Producing" a quintillion of dollars by crediting it to the banks takes the same amount of labor time as as producing a single dollar. That is, ZERO.

You tell me to read Marx, but any marxist would understand that money is not a STORE of value, but a MEASURE of value. YOU STUPID FUCKS
<Its all based on supply and demand in logistics.
Any refutation of the fact that money has no value only leads straight back to bourgeois economy, which obscures the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class.

>>1687728
Yes you are right that money is the measure of value, but this is not a marxist insight, it was made by adam smith and the early liberals (aka the bourgeois economists), who saw that wealth was in the total amount of commodities in circulation, with cash being tied to these in trade. This was against the physiocrats who thought value was objective and held in precious metals.
The dollar does fluctuate because the dollar's value is the alienated format of the ratio between cash and commodities. Thats why the dollar wants to expand itself as money-capital, in order to oversee production within its own unit of exchange. Thats why the US killed sadam and qadafi, for trying to escape the petrodollar.
This is what makes capital unstable and why marx wanted rational controls over the economy, in order to fix these issues.

>>1687731
>the dollar's value is
The dollar has no value. Money has no value, it only expresses value. It is a fetish, a social relation, a mechanism of domination.
>money is the measure of value, but this is not a marxist insight, it was made by adam smith and the early liberals (aka the bourgeois economists), who saw that wealth was in the total amount of commodities in circulation, with cash being tied to these in trade.
Adam Smith and the economists did not reveal the nature of value or money. As you explain, they only mystified it by equating it with the market price.
>The dollar does fluctuate because the dollar's value is the alienated format of the ratio between cash and commodities.
muh Supply and Demand™… another return to bourgeois economy.
The "value" of money is not simply determined by the ratio between cash and commodities, but by the sum of all social relations of production and exchange that underlies bourgeois economy.
>Thats why the dollar wants to expand itself as money-capital, in order to oversee production within its own unit of exchange.
You to anthropomorphize capital and money (different things, unlike you make it seem) to depict it as its own entity rather than a social relation between classes ((THIS IS BOURGEOIS ECONOMICS!!!!!!!))). Money capital does not have a will or a desire to expand itself; it is a tool that the capitalists use to dominate the production and exchange of commodities.

>>1687731
>The dollar does fluctuate because the dollar's value is the alienated format of the ratio between cash and commodities.
<money’s value is not determined by how much socially-necessary labor time is required to produce it, but by how it relates to the value of other goods and services in the market.
This is literally commodity fetishism.

>>1687744
Your fundamentalism would imply that all alienation experienced in the superstructure is an illusion from the economic base, when we should recognise that these alienated elements eventually take on a life of their own and eventually become productive elements in their own right. Money begins as a mode of exchange; a commodity which is not commodified, but today we have markets of currencies, including crypto-currencies, which determine their own relations via the market.
The agency applied to capital here is justifiable since capital in its circuitry doesnt just arrest proletarians but also capitalists to its functions of expansion, like how the only way to be a billionaire is to never spend your billions. This is accumulation acting against human desire. To the bourgeois economists, capital should circulate in the economy, not be held in reserve. This is why we had the keynesian revolution, which takes the place of stimulation to allow businesses to boom after their busts.
The overall point here is that capitalism's contradictions point to capital's own systematic projection against the bourgeoisie's human affinity with wealth. Class domination is in the mode of production, but exchange is autonomous, as many things are in the superstructure, which then become reproduced via capital.
When you treat money as a real object of relation you get to the point quicker - thats why i invoke the historical example of sadam and qadafi, because in these ways the dollar has wielded the reins of its own wrath against competition.
This is marx's point, that capital is anti-competition and forms economic monopolies, which act as the stepping stone to socialism.

>>1687789
Yes thats the formulation of the universal equivalent. Thats why its called as such, because it would be stupid to pay a dollar for another dollar.

>>1687789
>>1687808
The universal equivalent is the commodity which standardises the value of all other commodities, thus placing itself above the condition of being exchanged, and thus is the rate of exchange itself. Think about how the value between other currencies are measured.
Marx's project is to have labour (as a commodity) the new universal equivalent via labour vouchers so to standardise production and exchange, thus eliminating contradictions.

>>1687744
All these arguments are being deployed to ignore that inflation exists, which was the original discussion. If I were to give you a number of apples, would you rather the number of apples that a dollar would purchase in 1913, or the number of apples that a dollar would purchase in 2023? Now you can see the problem of the zero percent interest rate, which always results in a loss in an inflationary context. Also supply and demand affect price, not value. SNLT determines the value of the commodity.

>>1687920
>All these arguments are being deployed to ignore that inflation exists, which was the original discussion.
"Inflation" DOESN'T FUCKING "EXIST". ITS ALL JUST AN OBFUSCATION FROM THE REALITY OF CLASS CONFLICT. "INFLATION" is a spook. "Inflation" is not the "natural and inevitable" outcome of having too much "money" and too little "goods". What we call "inflation" is just the bourgeoisie's veiling of the class warfare.

>If I were to give you a number of apples, would you rather the number of apples that a dollar would purchase in 1913, or the number of apples that a dollar would purchase in 2023?
More bourgeois philosophy…. The bourgeoisie will ask themselves, "How many apples will a dollar buy???" They consider this "science" and you've fallen for their trick.

The real question is not how much "money" can "buy", but how much VALUE the wage-slaves can CREATE, and how much VALUE the wage-slaves/bourgeoisie can RETAIN.

>Now you can see the problem of the zero percent interest rate, which always results in a loss in an inflationary context. Also supply and demand affect price, not value. SNLT determines the value of the commodity.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND IS A FUCKING SPOOK/OBFUSCATION FROM ACTUAL CLASS WAR.

VALUE determines PRICE, because bourgeois PRICES tend towards their objective VALUES.

>>1687938
You're confusing the descriptive with prescriptive. We live in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where inflation exists. Based on the logic of that economy, if you give a zero percent interest loan, and you get paid back that same amount a year later, the inflation will mean you get back less purchasing power than you loaned out. You will be able to purchase fewer commodities. Throughout this thread you've been harping on bourgeois vs. proletarian ideology as though the above statements were a prescription of how things should be and not a description of how things currently operate.

Of course the bourgeoisie obfuscate class relations.

Nobody is talking about exchanging a dollar for another dollar btw. OP is talking about lending out a certain amount of purchasing power and getting less purchasing power back. You continue to deny that this happens under the current rule system, claiming that anyone who believes so have been tricked by the bourgeoisie. No! We haven't been "tricked" we're pointing out the rules of the game they have created, which is different from believing those rules are natural or immutable!

IMO interest/usury is probably the biggest driver of inflation because for an interest rate that goes above what the rate of inflation is, more money needs to be returned than what was initially borrowed but neither party necessarily needs to create anything to produce that extra interest, the bank just *wants* another, say, 30% on what it lent out and the proletarian has to pay it by hook or by crook.

If we didn't live in a creditors paradise, then perhaps inflation wouldn't really be much of a concern anyway, I doubt inflation was always something as precisely measured when it was written as a sin in the Abrahamic religions.

>>1687957
> more money needs to be returned than what was initially borrowed but neither party necessarily needs to create anything to produce that extra interest, the bank just *wants* another, say, 30% on what it lent out and the proletarian has to pay it by hook or by crook.
Neither party? Obviously the party in debt is obligated to produce that extra amount in the form of surplus value. Whether they get it from their own workers or they produce it with their own labor power is more a matter of who is taking the loan (a worker or a capitalist)

>>1687938
One apple is worth one apple, but an apple in america is cheaper than an apple in haiti. This is what youre getting at i believe.
But you dont understand that an apple can only be so cheap because of supply and demand. There are MORE apples in america, thus driving down prices unequivocly. This is sustained by the dollar, which is tied to the total amount of commodities which are traded with it.
America is so rich because the dollar is so expansive over so many goods.
Inflation occurs when there is overspending, causing a lack of goods to be traded in the market.
Supply and demand is literally just logistics.
America is the world standard of international trade so it covers so many goods. Foreign countries will buy dollars to then be able to spend them on international markets - this expands the reach of the dollar and ties it to precious resources, most notably oil. Qadafi wanted his oil to be traded in gold, sadam wanted his to be traded in euros - now, theyre dead, because they challenged the petrodollar. Other currencies like the pound and euro do the same thing, which enrich them.

>>1687949
>You're confusing the descriptive with prescriptive. We live in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where inflation exists.
YOU are the one who is confusing the descriptive and prescriptive. Bourgeois economic theory is "descriptive"????? Succumbing to bourgeois economy to explain rationalize the bourgeois system is like using theology to explain feudalism.

>>1687961
Not necessarily because they can just go without other wants/needs to produce the money or more frequently in the modern age they just take out another bridging loan, the new dollars aren't created when a proletarian pays off their loan, it's created the second they agree to the interest demanded by the bank. As soon as ink hits paper, that money MUST come from somewhere and the bank isn't interested in or responsible for where it comes from.

>>1687977
>Bourgeois economic theory is "descriptive"?????
not what i said.

>>1687938
>"Inflation" DOESN'T FUCKING "EXIST"
lol, lmao

Ok but what about deflation. Should there be negative interest loans to account for that?

I think that there is a long chain of equivocation between money and purchasing power and inflationary effects thereon, and you could go further with purchaser-side supply or demand fluctuation changing the valuation of the money they were loaned for the purposes of buying the product. If you take out a $5 loan to buy a bushel of apples and economic changes cause it to rise to $6 per bushel, then obviously the person who took the loan is now fucked in the same capacity to which the loaner would be fucked in OP's scenario.

Ultimately the question OP asked should be framed with "who should be the privelaged party when it comes to these scenarios?" Because the nature of capitalist speculation means that in any transaction, even wholly sanitized ones, there shall be a winner and a loser, its just setting up how the market works to determine who most often ends up the winner or the loser. This is why we're communists to begin with, the fundamental logic of capitalism is self-destructive.

>>1688035
>Ok but what about deflation. Should there be negative interest loans to account for that?
Yes! There would (not "should") be a negative interest rate. Also it's not a matter of "should".
OP is saying that if the interest of the loan were truly zero, the borrower would return the same purchasing power they borrowed. In the case of a "zero percent" loan under a deflationary situation the borrower would actually receive some interest (in the form of a deduction from the principle) instead of the lender. Since deflation would cause the currency to have more purchasing power than before, fewer units would be needed to cover the loan.

>>1687938
>"Inflation" DOESN'T FUCKING "EXIST".
Marx absolutely talks about inflation, both in the form of the debasement of metal currencies and in the form of the printing of inconvertible paper money issued by the state and having compulsory circulation. He of course still bases his ideas in the labor theory of value, but that doesn't mean inflation doesn't exist. And neither OP nor anyone trying to show you that inflation exists was denying the labor theory of value.

>>1688019
Cockshot literally explains what MATERIALLY caused "inflation" in at 23:18. Simplifying the bourgeoisie's exploitation of the proletariat down to bourgeois economic theory (INFLATION™️) is false consciousness.
>>1688099
<Marx believed… Marx said… blah blah blah
>worthless fabricated bourgeois second hand sources
They depict Marx as any bourgeois economist and co-opt his theories to support their own

Find actual text FROM marx where he acknowledges inflation as a law of economy which caused by "relative increase of the quantity of money in relation to goods" and not the aggregate distribution of social product and the constant struggle for a larger share of it.

>>1688151
not part of this debate but: your radical posturing is amusing when inflation as distributional conflict is something Keynesians in the 70s and post-keynesian oddballs since have been running with for a while. Quietly, in the background, because economics is boring and their particular path was the most boring of all.

>>1688151
>They depict Marx as any bourgeois economist and co-opt his theories to support their own
my source is a communist party publication

>>1688207
communist parties around the world well known for always being right

>>1688151
>Find actual text FROM marx where he acknowledges inflation
Marx never talks about inflation under that specific name, but he does talk about currency devaluation and the printing of inconvertible paper money issued by the state and having compulsory circulation.
> as a law of economy which caused by "relative increase of the quantity of money in relation to goods" and not the aggregate distribution of social product and the constant struggle for a larger share of it.
Why should I find evidence for something I never argued?

This whole shit-flinging is just semantics lol.

I have nothing to add.

>>1688207
Which one

>>1688216
This is a fabrication and a basterdization of marxist economic theory unless you can prove otherwise. That is not the true cause of "inflation". Please state from which of marx's texts you are paraphrasing to uphold bourgeois ideology. The true cause of "inflation" is NOT reducible to illusory bourgeois economic theory. (SUPPLY AND DEMAND™️) The true cause (AS COCKSHOTT DEMONSTRATED DECADES AGO) are due conditional material factors of production and exchange and the class war. PDF attached.

>>1688291
I do not "uphold bourgeois ideology." I have only ever pointed out that the purchasing power of a unit of currency will decrease over time in a situation of inflation. You said inflation does not exist. Yet further interrogation reveals that you do not actually disagree that the purchasing power of a unit of currency can decrease over time, you simply disagree with the vocabulary being used.

Inflation is observable in material reality as prices increasing. A unit of my country's currency can purchase fewer goods than it could last year. But the socially necessary labor time needed to produce those goods has not increased. So, what happened? Inflation. The currency is devalued by an increase in the supply of it. You say supply/demand is bourgeois economics but Marx talks in Value/Price/Profit about how Prices can fluctuate above or below the Value (SNLT) because of supply/demand. He says that supply and demand do not regulate wages but do determine temporary fluctuations of prices above or below their real value (SNLT). And these fluctuations of prices are the inflation/deflation in question.

>Supply and demand regulate nothing but the temporary fluctuations of market prices
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/value-price-profit.pdf

Acknowledging the existence of inflation is not a denial of class struggle, SNLT, etc. Nor is it arguing against wage increases. Just because the bourgeoisie point to inflation and use it to argue against wage increases doesn't mean I agree with them or that inflation is made up. They simply weaponize inflation, which exists.

>>1688291
>as cockshott proved

Once again I am reminding leftypol that economics is a soft science and that Cockshott is not the only Marxian economist out there, not everybody agrees with him, and Marx himself never denied supply and demand.

>>1688291
>The true cause of "inflation" is NOT reducible to illusory bourgeois economic theory
I didn't argue that it was. I simply argued that inflation exists. Your issue is purely with the vocabulary being used, not any real fundamental ideological disagreement. Also please do not confuse the following two different anons. I am only the first one.
>>1688418
>>1688422

>>1688430
>muh memes

Read more theory.

>>1688430
this meme is still dumb because, used as it's supposed to be, a negative derivative would give you the nonsensical result of increasing price with supply. It'd be far more accurate to stab at the fact that it's so completely arbitrary and variable that it's unfalsifiable

>>1688446
>a negative derivative would give you the nonsensical result of increasing price with supply
please read what you just wrote very carefully, because a negative derivative will give you the opposite

>>1688430
Cockshott posters might the worst around here if only because they actually believe themselves to be smart and a voice of reason.

>>1688574
by far the funniest thing about cockshott is his beef with heinrich

dude spends all this time railing against neue-marx lekture and every time heinrich gets asked basically just goes "I don't care go away"

>>1688591
>neue-marx lekture
what is that

>>1688591
He talks far more about why market socialism is unstable and about climate change.
>>1692240
You can make another thread if you care.

>>1685048
he has no retort
he has no alembic
he has no calcinator
he has no mortar nor pestle