/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2854790
>It appears that Marx uses much of Hegel's logic in his analysis, but no one can be certain.
>no one can be certain
This is such a ridiculous fucking statement that it is a wonder you have read a single chapter of Capital at all

>>2854859
Can you highlight the Hegelian logic in Capital for me, please?

I'm sick to death of the "theological" study of Marx. I'm at the stage of being negatively polarised into sympathy for bourgeois economics, which for all it's faults is actually deployed to real world use.

Marx himself was perfectly good at illustrating with real world then-contemporary examples, but 99 percent of the time if you ask a modern "Marxist" to do the same they'll give you a jusf-so story that would make the simple illustrative fables of Econ 101 blush, and they'll expect to be taken seriously and insist you just read the holy book again if you've any further questions. Infuriating and stupid. I'm so tired, why did I get cursed with wanting to understand the economy and not railway signalling like every other autist.

>>2854866
Read chapter 1 you credulous dunce, the presentation not only of the chapters but the very writing is based on the systematic elaboration and unfolding of contradictions. Of course you will not acknowledge this because it does not suit your argument and system of quote mining at every chance you get

I only wish to commend your post this time, as you have done away altogether with class relations (how proud you must be) with this quote:

>Harvey's lies casts much doubt on Harvey's self-appointed authority. Following from this historicism of Harvey, we are able to understand previously ambiguous statements (pg. 43):
<In a slave-holding society there can be no value theory of the sort that we are going to find under capitalism.
Thus, he implies that value existed in these economies, but that it was a value of a different kind (e.g. not SNLT). He affirms this in Chapter 3 (page 101). Marx contrarily sees that ancient trade is simply unrecognised in what, "in truth", is at the bottom of its equal exchange relation.

Bravo. Not only have you ousted Beverly and now Harvey with your rigorous insight on the matter of fetishism (which last week you were only barely acquainted with - how prodigious!) but you have done away with the matter of value altogether. One wonders why you spend your time with us miserable peons who must struggle time and time again to comprehend your arguments when you could say, email Harvey directly to instruct him more clearly. You have nothing to lose!

>>2854874
>Read Chapter 1
This is not an adequate response, I'm afraid - you have given no actual examples. For reference, I made this comment in context of well-known academic debates surrounding the importance of Hegel in Marx's Capital (e.g. Fred Moseley's "Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic") in which no consensus is ever met. I myself have constructed a complete and Hegelian logic of Marx's Capital, from Part 1-3 of the book, where capital becomes the unifying concept of labour between its objective and subjective essence, and in the Hegelian sense, "substance is subject" by its self-determination. Reading Moishe Postone brought me to this position, to connect labour as "substance" of value to its spiritualisation. Zizek also appears to agree with this basic model, but is more brief on it. So, a Hegelian interpretation can be made, but can it ever be certain? You tell me. Can I ever certify my Hegelian interpretation of Marx? If not, then my comment stands - but let's read it again:
<It appears that Marx uses much of Hegel's logic in his analysis, but no one can be certain.
Thus, you will find no fault in this statement.
>Not only have you ousted Beverly
Where do I "oust" Beverley? I praise Beverley, in fact.
>now Harvey
But Harvey is incorrect in some places.
If he wasn't, you would be able to defend him in my accusations.

>>2854883
Hilarious, we cannot permit Marx beginning with the commodity as the social atom for reason of methodology but we may speak in absolute horseshit by raising to the level of abstract totalities universal ideals for a conceptualisation of capital.

Please email Harvey your ideas, truly they are groundbreaking

>>2854891
>we cannot permit Marx beginning with the commodity
Who cannot? You appear to be offering non-sequitur commentary.
>but we may speak in absolute horseshit
Are you referring to Marx's own apparent Hegelian logic?

>>2854900
You mean that rational kernel within the mystical shell? That logic?

>>2854904
>You mean that rational kernel within the mystical shell? That logic?
Exactly. So, do you think my interpretation is correct?
Hegel in Science of Logic (1816) devises between the "objective" and "subjective" logic. The three logics together comprise:

• Being (Quality-Quantity-Measure)
  
• Essence (Essence-Appearance-Reflection)
  
• Concept (Subjective-Objective-Idea)
  

We proceed from labour as "substance" (which in Phenomenology of Spirit is "subject", or self-determined, and this is the meaning of progress). Substance here however begins 'objectively', merely as "being". The being of "labour" must then be abstracted, which Marx writes, occurs in exchange between concrete labours, or use-values, and so the abstract form of value develops from its conception:
<the value form arises out of the value-concept.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
In exchange, qualities attain quantities through a common being, and this is how they are related. Relativity is a quantitative notion, and so to Hegel, an internal negativity. Thus being in-itself (use-value) becomes being for-another (exchange-value), which we see most clearly in [Ch. 1, Sct. 3], that commodities attain their identities in another, rather than themselves. Here then, we establish the basic relationahip between quality (use-value) and quantity (exchange-value), which both find their "measure" in each other, yet this form develops into the "absolute commodity" of money (Ch. 2):
<The commodity is immediate unity of use-value and exchange-value
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
So then, money as "absolute commodity" is absolute unity[?]
This then comprises the logic of being:

• Being (Use-Exchange-Money)
  
  

Following, we see "value" (e.g. abstract labour) possess a two-fold character however; an essence and appearance. Marx writes:
<exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it […] A commodity is a use value or object of utility, and a value. It manifests itself as this two-fold thing, that it is, as soon as its value assumes an independent form – viz., the form of exchange value. It never assumes this form when isolated, but only when placed in a value or exchange relation with another commodity of a different kind. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Here, then essence has no being without appearance, it seems, and so this seems composite with a logic of syllogism. We then only have Reflection to discern. Reflection to Hegel is a relationship between essence and appearance, in reality and illusion. We may return to a subtle comment by Marx in describing exchange-value:
<the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Here, validity is conditioned in the realisation of value, and so where there is invalidity, there must be illusion. Marx deals with this in Ch. 2 and Ch. 3, regarding the price-form, which offers "imaginary" results and "symbols" that mystify. Here, illusory being exists in the price-form, as the utmost development of value's apparent form. Here, "real" prices differ from "imaginary" prices, and so this completes the logic of essence in the commodity-form:

• Essence (Value-Form-Price)
  
  

This completes the objective logic of Marx, and incidentally, covers the first part of Capital Vol. 1 (Chapters 1-3), in determining the commodity as an 'objective' entity (e.g. a "value" as such). Moving into Part 2 (Chapters 4-6), capital is introduced, which modifies the commodity in its object (C-M-C), and makes it subjective (M-C-M):
<In simple circulation, C—M—C, the value of commodities attained at the most a form independent of their use-values, i.e., the form of money; but that same value now in the circulation M—C—M, or the circulation of capital, suddenly presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a motion of its own, passing through a life-process of its own, in which money and commodities are mere forms which it assumes and casts off in turn. Nay, more: instead of simply representing the relations of commodities, it enters now, so to say, into private relations with itself. […] Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as such, capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
This self-relation is the meaning of subjectivity (e.g. Descartes), and the self-expanding, motive value becomes "substance as subject". Here, the object of value is transformed as subject, and as a result, its value becomes surplus-value. This is the movement of money (e.g. the absolute commodity) into capital. This is also why Marx sees money as the first form of capital, moving into exchange:
<The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital […] the first form of appearance of capital is money […] The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C—M—C
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
Thus, as soon as money attains being, it is already passing into a more developed form, by progress of its internal relations. We see this finally expressed in Part 3 of Capital Vol. 1 (Chapters 7-11), between the objective aspect of capital (constant capital) and its subjective aspect (variable capital). Thus, the "idea" of capital is attained by the immediate unity of dead and living labour, the same way that the commodity is the unity of use and exchange-value:
<The same elements of capital which, from the point of view of the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves, from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and variable capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm
This definition of "capital" as such (c+v) is consistent throughout the rest of the trilogy, and this seems to be logically completed by Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 8, already. This is then "The Logic of Marx":

• Being (Use-Exchange-Money)
  
• Essence (Value-Form-Price)
  
• Concept (Variable-Constant-Surplus)
  

The "Idea" of capital is thus completed with its final concept.

>>2854956
I don't know whether to laugh or cry, you've misunderstood the reference and its quotation (rational kernel) so deeply that you engage in mystification through the rigid repetition and application of a formal schema of Hegel's dialectic through the transposition of Marx's works. You must actually read Capital on its own terms and understand why Marx begins with the commodity as the premise of his critique and expands outwards through an expansion of a set of contradictions contained within material processes that begin with sensuous activity.

Hence you have completely misread chapter 1 by (oh look, yet again) pulling a single quotation on the composition of value (form and concept) and deriving an understanding that is arse backwards with an idealist reading. Again hence that Marx's first consideration of this social atom is as a 'useful thing' i.e. as a material property.

You are inevitably going to respond with another wall of text so this post shall be my last. You have not understood Marx's inversion of the Hegelian dialectic of which you are unsurprisingly not alone, as you may throw a stone on X and hit Marxists who will come out with such lines as "zomg Marx said that production and consumption are in fact a mediated unity" with no hint of irony as they type it into their phone or laptop (in which technology appears to be magic and children's films may be an appropriate subject for the application of their vast and comprehensive readings of hegel).

If you care for a more elaborate response, read the Theses On Feuerbach. It is where Marx sets out properly his method culminating in the final and most famous thesis which has been grossly misunderstood. It is not an invective for social change but the recognition of a dialectical relationship between change and interpretation, this not being some abstract terminological conceptualisation of Hegel's logic but the recognition that the production of knowledge or concepts (as a social act) is reciprocally determined by material processes. Hence, First Premises Of Materialist Method:

>The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.
<empirical

>>2854873
Ideally, political economy is supposed to express social relations in terms of distributed revenues, or "prices of production" in the Classical vocabulary. From the total wealth of society (and the world) there are three main determinations of income, which to Marx, corresponds to the "Trinity Formula" of the three main classes in capitalist society. The three major costs of production:

• Wages (Labour)
  
• Profit (Capital)
  
• Rent (Land)
  

Here, each revenue is exactly proportional to the other, and so where we have more or less of one, this relates more or less of the other. So then, higher wages means either (i) lower profits, or (ii) lower rents. In capitalism, the source of revenue can only arise from this. Thus, the economy is plainly expressed as a class struggle for total social wealth, based purely on costs of production. So then, the economy in basic data provides its critique.

Stripping back of all of the sophistry, this is what the macroeconomics of Marx is about; who does the work and who gets paid how much. Marx never writes much about a communist society, but he gives basic ideas here and there, and so we can apply social statistics to his proposed vision in the style of political economy:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
Marx sees that all means of production will be owned by the government, and so a taxation cost is required to fund this, along with costs of administration, and also a welfare program. This will be deducted at a certain rate, but he says, it will diminish over time. After deducting this from the wage then, each person originally receives what they give to society. So, the harder you work, the more you get, and so on. Over time, he writes, this will be more equal, accounting for each person's different capabilities. Here then, there are two revenues: taxation and wages. The abolition of rent and profit then allows for an increase in wealth, and a reduction of class war.

I think what you've learned is that it's best to learn things yourself, and counting on others is frustrating, since the pretension to knowledge is more attractive to them than knowing. This is especially concerning where it regards Marx-ism in particular, since Marx wanted to make his work accessible to the working class, despite his own obtuseness. We may read from this excerpt (1872):
<I applaud your idea of publishing the translation of “Das Kapital” as a serial. In this form the book will be more accessible to the working class, a consideration which to me outweighs everything else.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p2.htm
So then, it is best to keep things simple. I sympathise.

>>2854988
>mystification
It is Hegel's logic; the logic you claimed was in Marx's Capital.
>this post shall be my last
So you will not be providing citation for Hegel's logic in Capital? Your original reply was an insistence that Marx's Capital is evidently Hegelian, yet you seem to be denying it in the same instance. "Contradiction", as they say. Anyway, since this is your "last" post, I shan't expect your presence in the thread any more, so I will offer my gratitude to you for our productive conversations, along with your literary recommendations. I hope you have a wonderful life, my friend. God bless. 🙂👍

>>2854873
What precisely is it that you feel you've not understood?

>>2855003
My last post responding to you you idiot

Anyone can recommend some bibliography on the history of modern banking and finance, crashes, depressions etc.?

I am going to ask a stupid question. Is there as much labour spent in making 1 dollar bill as in making a commodity that costs 1 dollar? Is there as much labour spent in making four 25 cent coins as in making 1 dollar bill?

>>2855230
Let me rephrase. Does 1 dollar bill contain the same amount of labour time that 1 dollar commodity has?

>>2855025
But you just responded to me again with this post… 😛

In case there is misunderstanding concerning my own interpretation, the "inversion" which Marx performs is in the status of "substance". As we read from Marx:
<My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
Here, Marx's contention is not in the form of the logic, but rather, the assumption of its ideality. Substance to Hegel is mind, which in Spirit, is made subject. To Marx on the contrary, the "substance of value" is labour. Here then, we have a materialist reversal, so as to put Hegel back onto his feet. So, to begin with, Hegel's substance is ideal, while Marx's is material. When the value form proceeds from the "value-concept" therefore, this is an idealist turn in the expression of social labour, by the abstraction which occurs in exchange. This occurs in the commodity, which as fetishised labour, determines itself according to "superstitous" effects, in appearance. The capitalist idea of surplus value then inhabits the "automatic fetish" of self-valorisation; the abstraction gains spirituality as realised substance (e.g. value is conceived as a self-relation, not a material relation). The critique then regards the capital concept as such; the "value-concept" is the capitalist project, since labour-power is subsumed under the name of variable capital, the subjective essence of the concept, in relation to constant capital, its objectivity. Marx however sees that these are not value-relations in reality, but relationships between the subjective and objective aspects of the labour-process generally, as we have discovered:
<The same elements of capital which, from the point of view of the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves, from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and variable capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm
So then, labour-power as "social substance", appears in the form of value, which from an idealist perspective, unfolds from the logical determinations of the concept, but this development is really governed by material relations (e.g. modes of production), and the critique of political economy is then a critique of the value-concept. This is why Marx sees that a communist society has no form of value, in opposition to Harvey's estimation. The critique of value begins earlier however, in Aristotle, who sees that the internal contradiction between value in use and value in exchange brings contrary judgements of the worth of a thing (Robert Owen takes his own stance when he claims iron to be the true "precious metal" of mankind, not gold). Adam Smith resolves this by seeing how exchange-value is determined from the disutility of labour, carried on into Ricardo, Gossen and Jevons, where the critique is revised, between marginal and total utility in value. Marx's critique appears to subvert the Hegelian Spirit, by seeing value-conception as a great mis-recognition, as opposed to the Hegelian Weltgeist. The logic of value then proceeds from Hegel, but the substance of value must be discovered to be labour - the same way to Marx, the substance of mind is matter.

>>2855230
>>2855234
>Is there as much labour spent in making 1 dollar bill as in making a commodity that costs 1 dollar?
No. In fact, it costs more to make a penny than a dollar (and more than a penny to make a penny), which is why some US politicians have suggested to get rid of physical pennies. The same thing has been suggested in the UK, since it is just wasteful on public funds.

>>2855321
So the exchange isnt equal then?

>>2855333
The exchange is not equivalent of labour values, no, but the exchange is still stabilised by relative supply (e.g. exchange rates). So, if we take two goods which trade: 2 of (x) for 20 of (y). Factorisation reduces this to a 10:1 exchange rate, which is then a purely quantitative relationship. What can only qualify each as compared qualities is then their status as objects of demand. For exchange to occur, each good must be demanded of another. Thus, where two goods are demanded, supply measures their exchange rate, and this is their relative "value" to one another. You'll notice that Marx uses the same logic in his "value form" [Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3], where "value" is expressed as a ratio between assets.

>>2855037
I will give a brief timeline of banking. So, according to both Graeber and Hudson, banking began in Ancient Mesopotamia, where Temples would account for public and private debts, and after which at the end of a cycle, these debts would be forgiven, like the Hebrew "Jubilee Year" of 6 years in bondage, and freedom granted afterwards (Exodus 21). We can read from Hudson's "Temples of Enterprise" (pg. 19-20):
<The origins of money and interest are grounded in these credit arrange-ments and the fiscal practices innovated by Sumerian temples and palaces ca. 3000 BC […] Palace scribes and accountants developed monetary units as an ad-ministrative tool, assigning standardized values to key commodities for forward planning and resource allocation, for collection of land rent and other transactions with the rest of the economy, and for trade consign-ments to be settled in silver at the end of each seafaring or caravan cycle […] A grid of administered prices was created, set in round numbers for ease of computation and account-keeping.
As I have shown here: >>2834735
Administered public prices were set in exchange rates with other goods as early as 1900 BCE. As it is also commented upon in different places (including Marx; e.g. Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 19), the corvée of these societies gave account between what is provided as a personal and surplus cost by "obligation". Banking in particular then (following Hudson's influence from MMT) is an account of assets and liabilities, based in these rites. Hudson gives the same origin for Greek money (pg. 49):
<From its origins in the the 7th century BC in Asia Minor, coinage was state money. As Aristotle emphasized, that made coins a creation of law (nomos).
So then, money and banking emerge as state projects, not a natural development out of barter exchange, and certainly not an inter-personal activity. On the advance in banking, there cannot simply be accounting, but also the application of debt-interest from borrowing. As I have already shown, interest put upon loans (along with applying "risk" to the credit) was a social custom as early as 1,000 BCE: >>2849987
Hudson claims that it emerged at least a milennium earlier (pg. 91). He does at the same time make a necessary intervention upon wergild (compensation), which was explicit in the most ancient law codes, and is also cross-cultural, as a type of interest put upon social debts. Money-debt to Hudson then has particularity. In discussing the topic (pg. 93), Hudson dismisses the idea that "economic" laws upon the rate of interest regulated anything back then (the same conclusion as Marx's; e.g. Capital Vol. 3, Ch. 36). To Marx, the rate of interest is only governed by the rate of profit under capitalist conditions. Similarly, Smith (e.g. Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, Ch. 9) only attributes the regulation of the rate of interest from [1546 CE] onwards, making it a capitalist phenomenon. The mercantilists also only discussed the capitalist period, although they invoked the Biblical themes of usury. Indeed, usury preceded capitalism, and as Hudson cites from Leemans (1950), standard rates of interest existed: Mesopotamia (20%), Greece (10%) and Rome (8%). Hudson unfortunately tells us that no solid explanation for rates exist (pg. 93):
<But to date [2000], nobody has suggested a firm explanation for the 20 percent rate's origins.
All that is known is that these rates were customary, and so did not vary with variable conditions. Debts were still a social problem in many ancient societies however, as we read in Aristotle; that debt-slavery persisted, but the forgiveness of debts also had ceremony (Seisachtheia):
<The whole country was in the hands of a few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans secured upon the debtor's person, a custom which prevailed until the time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the people […] As soon as he was at the head of affairs, Solon liberated the people once and for all, by prohibiting all loans on the security of the debtor's person: and in addition he made laws by which he cancelled all debts, public and private. This measure is commonly called the Seisachtheia [= removal of burdens], since thereby the people had their loads removed from them.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26095/26095-h/26095-h.htm
This is only possible with money, since the means of payment becomes exclusive to a particular asset, rather than in general. Hudson and Graeber thus discuss the utility of money as the basis of taxation, since this then drives its demand. To not be able to pay rents and loans then implies money-payment, and so debt is an inherent function of money, also as a means of class power:
<Thus social power becomes the private power of private persons. The ancients therefore denounced money as subversive of the economic and moral order of things. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm
So, what we have learned so far is that as soon as there is money in a society, there is debt and interest as the customs of creditors. Before capitalist conditions, the rate of interest has no precise cause, and is stable. Banking begins as a state creation, but as money is spread into the population, it is gathered by merchants, who become creditors and gain income from interest. This is then the origin of private banking, from the public. Marx writes that in general, it was only the rich or aspiring independent producers who would request a loan from merchants, and this would be their ruin (of course, many kings were also ruined by these loans, and so the old stories about Jewish merchant scapegoats). In the history of this development though, we have the Knights Templar, who are often considered the world's first global bankers, beginning in the 12th century (e.g. 1150 CE) and being seized by the Catholic Church on 13th October 1307. This article gives a brief example:
<A pilgrim could leave his cash at Temple Church in London, and withdraw it in Jerusalem. Instead of carrying money, he would carry a letter of credit. The Knights Templar were the Western Union of the crusades.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38499883
Moving into the capitalist era, we find the origin of the word "bank" in 1516, where Jews were barred from trade in Venice, and so set up benches; these benches for trade were called "banco" (or "banks"). Modern banking is generally attributed to the Italians in the renaissance period (e.g. early 15th century). Here then, banking as a central institution is created by Catholics. Central banks only emerge after the protestant reformation, first in Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank, 1668), then England (1694). Here, banking is protestant. As we advance, we see Marx make this comment in regard to Jewish finance:
<[The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines the fate of the whole Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have no rights in the smallest German state, decides the fate of Europe.] […] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
Here, we see Marx's admittance of a "Jewish" age of finance, which as per the discourse of the time, was based around the ascendancy of the Rothschild family, which especially began during the Napoleonic War, by the reliance of the British State for direct funds (1815). The 19th century then signifies the "Jewish" epoch, as the Christian submits to the terms by his own idolatry.

Drawing out a basic timeline, we can see the creation of money from debt incarnating the potential for interest in the hands of creditors. Originally, all credit was issued by the state (with temples being institutionalised), but overtime, it became privately traded, at rates set by custom, until capitalism, where rates are set by the rate of profit. The Crusades brought the bank of the Knights Templar around [1150 CE] which ended [1307 CE]. After this, we get Italian banking, such as the Medici bank [1397 CE], which established double-entry book keeping. Later on, we get central banks [1664-], and private bank creditors such as the Rothschilds, who fund countries, leading to massive enrichment. I would say that the real primacy of banking comes today, where our personal bank accounts are a prerequisite to legally earn a living. Apparently, the shift from cash payment to cheque payment gradually began from the late 19th century, to the 1960s, where it massively increased afterwards. Today, most wage payments are direct deposits in bank credit, and so we cannot socially survive without banks!

In the LSE article "Wages and Labour Relations in the Middle Ages" (2023), there is a claim that the shift from composite payments (cash and in-kind) to purely cash payments begins with the bargaining power of labour following the Black Death of 1350. Two kinds of worker is first identified (pg. 2): (i) day labourers, and (ii) famuli. Famuli were long-term workers and were consequently paid less than the short-term workers (pg. 27):
<Day wages increased dramatically and quickly in the wake of the Black Death; between 1349 and 1379 a day labourer would only have had to find 98 days of work to earn the equivalent of an average famuli labourer’s grain livery. […] from 1380 to 1439, a day labourer required only an average of 82 days’ work to match the value of an average famulus’ livery.
Figure 5 (pg. 34) displays the immediate disparity of the sectors from 1350. From the 1370s on, the price of grain began to fall, and so subsistence was met easier (by means of cash payment), causing a social demand for a greater cash component (pg. 3), yet the famuli wage only rose from the 1380s onward (pg. 29). We read that the reason that wages in-kind only began to shift in conposition until later was that the historically high price of grain insulated famuli workers and employers in mutual protection from market volatility for the workers, and labour mobility for the employers. What changed was the increased stability of the price of grain and its decreasing market rate, which made in-kind payments less valuable for famuli (pg. 30), and cash given value.

Other shifting labour relations involved the individuality of workers being accounted for in manorial records from 1380-90, an evidently new custom born from the primacy of labour. Here, we see the foundation of the labour contract under capitalist conditions (pg. 31-4). We see another interesting trend (pg. 34), that wages equalise for both famuli and day labourers around 1430, and so a standard wage (given in cash) is established. So then, the beginning of capitalist conditions by the dissolution of feudalism in England can be traced back to 1350, moving up to 1450, where after the War of the Roses (1455-87), Henry VII began enclosing commons at least from the period of 1487 (as reported by Francis Bacon, 1622).

For those who are interested in 'the ancient economy', M.I. Finley's work is typically the first recommended, simply for its namesake. Reading the contents, we largely discover a portrait of ancient values, customs, but not social statistics of any depth. To be fair, however, Finley does warn us of the sparseness of their project, and thankfully, the book is short (pg. 9):
<The title of this volume is precise. Although change and variation are constant preoccupations, and there are many chronological indications, it is not a book one would call an "economic history".
Chapter 1 is mostly a disputation about the concept of economics to begin with, for which Finley gives doubt as to what can constitute his current field of study, exactly. His major concern is a lack of statistics, yet as he adds in Chapter 2 (pg. 36), the ancients were not ignorant of quantity, or even cataloguing wealth - it is simply that a lot of the time, quantity is treated absolutely, rather than relatively. The "ecomic unit" (pg. 34) manifests, not within traded objects, but between them. Thus, to have "twelve herds of cattle" (Odyssey 14.98-104) means nothing, besides what these herds may be related to, as a measure of wealth, most especially in labour costs. In the period of his study, Finley informs us that he will be dealing in a time between 1000 BCE and 500 CE (pg. 29).

Chapter 2 offers varying considerations of the status of wealth and poverty, with advocates for each. The denial of wealth is compared with the later vows of poverty we see with the Saints, which is obviously modeled after Christ, and previously, we have Socrates. The distinction between worldly and heavenly goods always had this distinction, so long as wealth was conceived, which also moved toward secular considerations between value in use and exchange, which thus had philosophical inquiry. We see these things considered poetically in Homer, the glory of honour for Achilles was precisely the purchase price of a long life. Man thus transcends himself by the ghost of reputation, but what shall a man die for? We see that Achilles grumbles to Odysseus as a Shade, telling him that he would rather be a servant on earth than the king of Hades. Here, the price is paid and there is buyer's remorse. Socrates dies for Truth, even in the possibility of escape, such as Christ dies for all of man. Here, the "treasures of heaven" await the true believers, but we see this earliest in Hesiod, who writes of the Isle of the Blessed, where the repentant go after a good life. The quest of philosophy then is searching for true value, which neither rusts or rots, since it is not of this world.

Apart from this enlightened pretension, there was also a certain and customary ambition for worldly wealth, as commented on by Aristotle, that a man without property is not a free man at all. Finley quotes Cicero on the same point, interestingly highlighting wage labour as an illiberal condition, since it is one based in dependence. Beyond this, Cicero also targets merchants and craftsmen. On the other hand, he regards specialists, like doctors, favourably, but farmers are most virtuous. Aristotle gives a similar estimation, based in degrees of how "natural" or "unnatural" the livelihood is. In any case, the mechanical arts and crafsmanship are disregarded as "unnatural", the same way mercantile trade is. The same sentiment for the Greeks and Romans prevails. Finley does offer insight by additional commentary of these antque attitudes (pp. 43-44), that we are bringing an individualist framing to these words, when hierarchy was always presupposed. Compared to them, we are a classless society, and this is often misrecognised. From pages 46-47, Finley gives an interest account of the loss of prior class relationships in Rome, at least from 366 BCE. He sees that what develops is a comglomeration of "nobility" which is not entirely a class, but a status, which thus confers special privilege by its contraction. This nobility has lost its division of labour, or what is otherwise referred to as "occupation" (pp. 44-45), and only distinguishes itself on the basis of property. Here, the design of order descends into naked plutocracy (e.g. the rule of the ploutos; the wealthy, not simply 'money'). The basic structure of society then becomes rich and poor, as wealth is universalised in private property. The idea of "class" is lost according to the Platonic division, and so the "citizen" is born, basically as an opportunist. This is the tale Marx gives in his own time, that money is the determination to individuality, and so the bonds of society are increasingly contracted as isolated units. Too, the "treasures of heaven" necessitate an economy of scale, and Jesus provides this basis; do good and good will be returned unto you. Here, salvation is simply the grasping of a cynical delight. So, who has ever really suffered for God, if like how the "wages of sin" is death, the wages of virtue is everlasting life? This is not mere quality, but quantity, as Jesus speaks of it. The "first" and "last", the "least" and "most" in celestial mansions. So then, wealth appears to be the horizon of the world, the same as what David Graeber writes on the subject. To finalise the point, we see the common theme of Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery for 20 pices of silver, and Judas selling out Jesus for 30 pieces. Here, mammon is a master one cannot love while loving God, and by these means, money already in the ancient world is man's "real god"; the Mark of the Beast, as attested to:
<[“These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Revelations, 17:13; “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelations, 13:17.] 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar. But what is given so as to then be returned? We read from [pp. 53-54] the massive loans recorded at interest in Roman society, not for productive investment, but for luxury. Indeed, it was the Caesarian period of Empire which crumbled it into bankruptcy. Nero is Anti-Christ.

Finley continues in his deconstruction of class concepts in the ancient world, particularly targeting Marxists for their deceptive simplicity (pp. 49-50). Finley's view of "status" as opposed to class rhymes with a lot of contemporary sociology, in how class becomes culture, codes and all the rest. I'm not sure if Finley is strictly correct, but its helpful to problematise. An intetesting example is the historical conflict between aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as depicted in The Great Gatsby. We see Gatsby anounce equality with Tom Buchanan by virtue of his material wealth, but Tom corrects him, and tells him that real class is not in money, but in blood. The various entanglements of blood, money, property, culture and so on blend, but are never self-identical. It is only the bourgeoisie which has its real fraternité and egalité, such that there were black slave owners in the US. A theoretical issue I hold against Finley therefore is not his assertion that "class" is not enough, but only his lack of formal criticism. He should have defined terms, but he nonetheless admits to his own design (pg. 51):
<It is for such distinctions that I suggest the word ''status", an admirably vague word with a considerable psychological element.
So then, status and class have no clear demarcation.

Chapter 3 concerns slavery, and as Finley writes (pg. 63):
<This ineradicable double aspect of the slave, that he was both a person and property, thus created ambiguities
This is verifiable through the Levitical law, that slavery was never an unconditional right of ownership, but held that owners must be responsible toward their property. This immanent recognition of the slave's humanity then backgrounds the very notion of "progress" to most (e.g. law as the vehicle of expanding enfranchisement). Similarly, Finley tells us that the freeing of slaves was a common act, and with this came its own legal clauses. Finley makes distinction between different conceptions of slavery, between Spartan "helots" and Roman "peculium", neither of which were the chattle slaves of Athens, and so their legal designation was also informal, such as we may read (pg. 65), that we interpret Roman law through the lense of its later European revision, and so analogies are made; helots are serfs, but peculium are peasants (craftsmen and the like). Wage labour is an advance from original relations, which I feel Finley overestimates in its accounting. For example, Finley writes that a concept of labour-time must be made, but it already was, by the length of the day. We do read in the Bible that the day had a division into hours, but nowhere do I read that anyone was paid per hour. The status of the Greek "thetes" is given for the wage worker, who was a free man, but propertyless. This describes the proletarian condition, where the proletarii in official Roman designation had no property besides family - it was Sismondi who first compared the modern working class to proletarii, but maybe thetes is also analogous? This is the lowest status conceived of in the ancient world (pg. 66); a free man who is also a wage worker (as Finley relates between pages 73-75, most free men earned a living, but were self-employed. It is specifically the wage which denotes 'slavery' by dependence, not its labour as such, distinguished by the contracts "locatio conductio operis" and "locatio conductio operarum"). Finley finally discusses the place of citizen-bondsman (pp. 66-67) in Both Greece and Rome. The abolition of the Athenian debt was called "Seisachtheia", while the abolished Roman debt was called "nexum" (pg. 46). Of course, we have only re-instituted debt slavery today. Finley's basic point throughout this chapter is that the idea of "class" in the ancient world was poorly defined, and so low status people existed together, but not with all the same rights and reputation. Moreso, the lower status did not seek revolution by class war (pg. 69), but rather the redemption of freedom in status. Slavery was fine to slaves, but only if they weren't the ones enslaved. This shows obvious parallels to today; a universal plight is sidelined by "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". Everyone is an opportunist. Revolution turns to reaction. But at least we are not alone in this political cynicism.

Chapter 4 concerns the status of land ownership, with the Greek city-states restricting ownership to citizens, while in Rome, the relationship was looser (pg. 95). Land was seen to be exempt from taxation, while where it is taxed, there was tyranny. Interestingly, Rousseau writes the reverse, that property/land tax is the most liberal, while poll taxes (what is equal to income tax) are most illiberal (t. Essay on Political Economy, 1755). We read in Pseudo-Aristotle (320 BCE) that sales taxes were very common, and Rousseau also approves of this. Finley does tell us however (pg. 97) that as the Roman Empire expanded, the tax liability of the rich passed to the lower classes. We see this applied in Britain from the 19th century onwards, that the "income tax" as a temporary measure during the Napoleonic conflict was first imposed on the rich, but after it was re-introduced and revised, the majority revenues came from the least of all earners, and the richest avoided direct taxation. This is all an open secret of course, that our oligarchs do not pay taxes at the same rate that others have to. Thus, as states expand, tyranny grows, by revoking the status of tax-exemption, and this is the citizens' slavery.

In terms of class relations, rather than citizen relations to land, we can read [pg. 103] that due to the debts of the wealthy, peasants were exploited more intensely, and their status as men was degraded even further. This mirrors what Marx writes about ground rents impressing on capital, leading to greater exploitation. Today, this is comparable to taxes on profits, which then incentivises greater exploitation from employers. Finley concludes with this idea, that "economic rationality" was not really present in ancient society; concepts like "investment" are modern, so property was not capitalised (pg. 120):
<Be that as it may, it is a fact that, though ancient states all owned land, from which they derived income normally by letting it, in the case of the Roman emperors also by direct exploitation through agents, they almost never bought land.
Land was a presupposed asset of ancient existence; a robust housing market did not exist; rather, a family had an oikos with acres of land, and generations lived in this settlement. The idea of land markets generally implies, (i) private monopoly, and (ii) public dispossession. The conditions of modern propertylessness are projected onto the past, when this was an exception, not the rule, for the free citizen. If the ancients saw our 'civilisation', they would rightly call it an oligarchic slave society.

Chapter 5 is about town and country, and begins with the definition of a "city" (e.g. polis). Differences between a true and false city were already made by Pausanius (pg. 124), highlighting constituents, such as government buildings, water fountains, theatres, etc. Aristotle tells us that a city is simply the formation of different villages into a single central body. We read in his Constitution of Athens that the presence of 10 distinct tribes was in the public consciousness, with political power separated between them, and for which sake, representation in the council was determined by lottery. Thus, a presumption of multi-tribal (read: multi-ethnic) differences are given in the establishment of the political body, which at most times, shares power evenly between them (e.g. Aristotle sees that families develop into villages, and into cities, and so the particularity of tribal-ism is established with a lack of civilisation. Aristotle described himself as an urban entity; not merely metropolitan, cosmopolitan). The rise of cities is attributed to transportation [pg. 129], which is the same estimation Thomas Sowell makes in his "Basic Economics". Smith also writes that growth is directly proportional to mobility, which is why civilisation began near water networks, while for landed people, the degree of civilisation is inferior, Smith using Russians as an example, and we may add the Sub-Saharan African. Finley offers alternative reasoning, however (pg. 130):
<It is therefore more correct to say that Rome took to the sea because she had become a great city than the other way round.
What then is the first cause of civilisational greatness?

Chapter 6 regards state income and expenses. It opens up with a long detail of funds, and Finley tells us that status was conferred upon those who offered a grander "leitourgia" ('service to the state'), and shame upon those who failed to provide the same (pp. 150-151). The liturgy was given in two basic ways, tithing for religion, and "agon", the performance of public tasks (which for the propertyless classes in Rome, came in the manner of corvée labour - page 153). This idea of an honour system is also discussed in Xenophon's "Economist" (360 BCE), that the more money you earn, the more you are compelled to spend, in attempting to preserve social status, rather than any concrete utility. This is "liturgy", or what is otherwise called "obligation", as tribute. From [pg. 163] Xenophon's "On Revenues" is discussed, and all of the ways in which public revenues can be increased. I have dealt with these primary sources extensively, so I will conclude my review with this.

The book would have been better titled "Features of Greco-Roman Economies" rather than "The Ancient Economy". All in all, the book offers a fine general perspective, but is still structured in a way that I don't prefer. I learned some new things and was met with things I already knew. For beginners, this could help, but not on "the ancient economy" as a topic, itself.

>>2855705
>>2856344
>>2855534
Thank you man. Regarding ancient economy, I was aware of Hudson's and graebers work as well as Finley, I got them from a thread that was made some time ago on the subject. The article I didn't know nor it's author, thank you very much. I would greatly appreciate any work on modern finantial history, from the sixteenth or seventeenth century onwards. Beggars can't be choosers but, are you aware of any good book on the subject? The more up to date, the better, since the newer, the more other works I can mine from its bibliography

>>2856718
You're welcome.
I give more primary sources on ancient economic theory in the last thread (archived thread #6), but I have also compiled archives of ancient economic theory (400 BCE - 1400 CE), as well as modern theory (1500 - 1690) here:
>>>/edu/25915
On books concerning banking in particular, I can't say I have actually read any, even if other economic histories comment upon them; e.g. David Graeber's "Debt" (pg. 291):
<It is often held that the first pioneers of modern banking were the Military Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, commonly known as the Knights Templar.
In looking at recommendations for books online, the most comprehensive and chronological appears to be Charles Kindleberger's "A Financial History of Western Europe" (1984). We can read [pp.9-14] a detailed list of various banking events, as well as crashes and crises (going back to at least 1400 CE, to 1950 CE). I've attached the book to this post, and will probably be reading through it myself (although, I first want to get to some Japanese Marxists, such as Samezō Kuruma and Kojin Karatani). So, this is my suggestion. 👍

>>2853731
Those fucking doctors!

This book is the first part of a compilation, including "Kahei-ron" (1979) as its second, but discontinuous part. This section in particular is a collection of articles written between 1950-56, the content of which, inspired by the leading Japanese Marxist, Kōzō Uno. The first three articles were written between 1950-51 and the fourth was written in 1956. The collected work makes distinction between these two periods. The fourth article is presented first, and the other three, second. As Kuruma tells us however, the first part is affirmative, while the second is negative, and in reading the second after the first, there is a lot of repetition, and so I will base my review in Part One, which covers everything.

We see that the analysis concerns money. Discerning progress in the concept (from Ch. 1-3), Kuruma writes:
<In particular, the relation between the theory of the value-form and the theory of the exchange process is an issue that I struggled with over a very long period of time […] In each of those theories, the analysis seems to revolve around how money is generated; but the manner in which Marx carries out his analysis is completely different.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
In 1947, the question was raised concerning differences in these processes, between value-form and the desire of the possessor of commodities. Kuruma took the view that the two could be separated, while Kōzō Uno didn't. Kuruma gives relevance to Marx's value-form theory:
<The riddle of money concerns how, in that case, gold’s use-value – which is the element in opposition to its value – has general validity in its given state as value. Not only had no one prior to Marx solved those riddles, there was not even an awareness that they are in fact riddles.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
Marx, as we see, writes in chapter 2 that the utility of the precious metals as money comes from their ability to be imperishable, divisible and mobile. Of course, Marx was not the first to make this point either, but Marx's actual claim has always been bothersome. At the beginning, and conclusion of Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3, Marx claims to be the first to derive the form of money from the simple commodity (e.g. money from barter), but of course, this is also false - and it is bourgeois common sense to propose this story. Marx's self-congratulation must then concern the dialectic method of it, and so the great "mystery" is only in the style of presentation. Even so, modern theorists of money dispute this classical idea and so all "enlightened" political economists get this wrong, while a man Aristotle like is granted validity in his work, by seeing the origin of money in the state.

Kuruma simply spends the rest of this first section of part one expositing Marx's value-form theory. In the second section, he presents the exchange process, where he begins by quoting from the First Edition:
<The commodity as commodity however is the unity of use-value and exchange-value immediately; and at the same time it is a commodity only in relation to other commodities. The actual relation between commodities is their exchange process.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
Thus, Kuruma perceives theoretical distinction between the inter-relation of commodities, and of exchangers:
<In the theory of the value-form, therefore, Marx solely considers the commodity from the perspective of value, setting aside its use-value. That is not the case in the theory of the exchange process. […] Marx thus describes the exchange process as, first of all, a process for the realization of the commodity as use-value. It should be noted, however, that the “realization of a commodity as use-value” is different from the “realization of use-value.” […] the use-value of the commodity is not merely use-value as such but a use-value with a certain social determinacy. It is not a use-value for the person who possesses it, but rather for another person. […] However, the exchange process of commodities is not limited to the process of realizing a commodity as use-value: it must at the same time be a process for realizing it as value. […] The realization of value refers to the transformation of the value of a commodity – which had only existed in what might be called a “latent” state – into real value. In other words, the transformation of value into the shape of objectively valid value: money.
This is a convoluted argument, but what he's saying is that use-value in itself and use-value as the form of value are distinct modes, since use-value is realised in personal consumption, but 'social use-values' (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 1) are realised in exchange. Thus, in one case, use-value is a natural relation, but with social use-values, it becomes a value-relation (e.g. use-value becomes a property of value). I have actually criticised Marx on this point before, and Baudrillard in "Mirror of Production" (1972) offers a similar criticism. The critical point is that "use-value" is still a value in its terminology (e.g. "value in use"), and so where use-values are given a natural status (e.g. Gothakritik), it reifies the concepts of political economy - or what Baudrillard calls the "system of production". I have previously suggested Marx use the term "utility", which he has in continuity, before (e.g. Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3), to avoid confusion (e.g. both Xenophon and Aristotle describe value in use and exchange as modes of primary and secondary utility - Marx also footnotes this early on in Zur Kritik, 1859). Clearly, a bewilderment at Marx's vocabulary invites debate, as we see in Kuruma's own hermeneutics:

Kuruma continues:
<The exchange process must thus be a process for the realization of the commodity as use-value, and at the same time a process for its realization as value. Yet the two realizations mutually presuppose and mutually exclude each other […] If the commodity is not a use-value for the other person, it is not a value. However, the commodity is only first demonstrated to be a use-value for the other person when it is handed over as a use-value in the exchange process. This means that the commodity cannot provide itself with validity as value from the outset when it is exchanged. Not only is the realization of a commodity as use-value and as value a vicious circle of mutually presupposition, it is also a contradictory relation of mutual exclusion
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
This itself is paraphrased from Marx; that between two people in exchange, one seeks the other aspect of the commodity from the other, and thus exist, like the form of the commodity itself, within a unity of opposites:
<This contradiction must somehow be mediated in order for commodity production to be generalized. What mediates it, needless to say, is money. […] When this happens, the commodity owner is able in the subsequent purchasing process to make this money count as value, exchanging it for the other commodity (or commodities) that he wants. This is objectively possible because his own commodity has become money. That was not the case prior to the appearance of money […] money becomes necessary to mediate that contradiction.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
Thus, money as "medium of exchange" attains its being, as the outgrowth from simple to general exchange. The development is made further, however, where the real distinction between the two processes is explained:
<The task particular to the theory of the exchange process, along with tracing back the contradictions, is to analyze the necessity of the general equivalent for mediating the exchange process – i.e., the discussion of the necessity of the genesis of money – which is a task that falls outside of the realm of the theory of the value-form […] Prior to the appearance of money the contradiction we have looked at must be confronted. But the commodity owners act in accordance with what theory has demarcated. In this way, they generate money, which is indispensable to the meditation of the contradiction. Marx describes the owners as having “already acted before thinking.” […] [money] is something spontaneously generated, not the product of examination or some “discovery” as bourgeois economists often claim.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
And so we see the meaning; that value acts "behind the backs" of its exchangers, despite the contradictions of pre-monetary exchange. We read Marx [Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 4] state that comsciousness of value only comes after the price-form has developed, and so value 'determines' itself by these forms of social intercourse. In section 4 of part 1, Kuruma moves onto fetishism:
<Having already pondered what is expressed in the equation in Section 1 and 2, and how it is expressed in Section 3, Marx turns his attention in Section 4 to the question of why […] Marx is raising a theoretical question not posed before.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
This is also Marx's apparent criticism of the Classical school [Ch. 1, Footnotes 32-33]; that although value and its magnitude have sufficient investigation, fetishism is left out of the conception. Kuruma himself is setting out to formalise what Marx wrote, by different stages:
<Having already pondered what is expressed in the equation in Section 1 and 2, and how it is expressed in Section 3, Marx turns his attention in Section 4 to the question of why: [Political Economy has indeed, however incompletely, analyzed value and its magnitude, and has uncovered the content concealed within these forms. But it has never once asked why this content takes that form, that is to say, why labor is expressed in value, and why the measurement of labor by its duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product]
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
As yet, Kuruma does not quite expand on this problem, and neither does Marx, really, from his original criticism. It's for this reason that the Marxist lives in vagueries in regard toward the Classicists, as we see with Harvey. Kuruma makes the same false presumptions; that Year One began with Marx's personal revelation. Theology.

Kuruma is basically setting out to dispute an accusation of a supposed contradiction between the value-form analysis and the exchange process; one is a priori, the other, a posteriori - abstract and concrete, but between them, Kuruma explains, [Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 1-2] the "what" of value is given, [in Sct. 3], the "how" is given, [in Sct. 4], the "why" is given, but in [Ch. 2] the "what through" is given, setting up Chapter 3. So, the style of presentation by Marx is interpreted as logical procedure.

As we read in the 1885 preface to Capital Vol. 2, Engels rebukes Johann Karl Rodbertus for the claim that he was the discoverer of surplus value, such as in his work "Overproduction and Crises" (1851). Engels corrects Rodbertus that the theory of surplus value began with Adam Smith (1776), which Marx himself also accepted.

Regarding the work itself, the first half of it is a response to two disserations discussing the "causes" of crises of overproduction, which are framed in the dissertations as crises of under-consumption. Rodbertus refutes this by seeing both overproduction and under-consumption as the same event, caused by the same condition, which is the exploitation of labour. As labour over-produces, it receives a lesser proportion of its product, and so focus is shifted from the relations of production, to its mode:
<[the] value of products is in inverse ratio to productiveness
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rodbertus/overprod.htm
We read Engels' similar estimation of the matter (1877):
<while under-consumption has been a constant feature in history for thousands of years, the general shrinkage of the market which breaks out in crises as the result of a surplus of production is a phenomenon only of the last fifty years; and so Herr Dühring's whole superficial vulgar economics is necessary in order to explain the new collision not by the new phenomenon of over-production but by the thousand-year-old phenomenon of under-consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch25.htm
Thus, under-consumption is not dismissed out of hand as a feature of class society, but it is the capitalist character of under-consumption which concerns us. Marx makes the same judgement in the Manifesto (1848):
<In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
So then, the cause of under-consumption must be seen to have its basis in an internal contradiction, between "national wealth" and individual wealth. Engels in his Outline (1844), following from Smith, diagnoses this:
<The “national wealth” of the English is very great and yet they are the poorest people under the sun.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
Rodbertus equally examines this problem, and this is the entrance into his critique of political economy, listed by 34 points. I will here attempt to summarise them:

• (1-4): Revenues arise from the division of labour. All revenues derive from labour. Profit and rent derive from surplus labour. All historical class societies establish systems of surplus labour extraction. Wage slavery is downstream from slavery, since the same basic relationship remains.
  
• (5-7): All revenues are proportional, and so where wages rise or fall, profit and rent will rise or fall in equation to it. "Necessary wages" are set as a standard measure. Rates of wages depend upon labour productivity; the more productive, the lower the wage, in proportion.
  
• (8-10): Capital as stored-up labour was not recognised in ancient society since revenues were not distinguished. Revenue is recognised where it is divided between owners of respective assets, and each earns what's his. This division intensifies by surplus labour variability.
  
• (11-14): The rate of profit determines capital investment. Rent of land is also taken from surplus labour applied. The rate of profit is inversely proportional to the rate of return on raw materials, and this affects interest. Profit and rent are inversely proportional revenues. Raw materials and land compete against capital.
  
• (15-18): However, rent and profit compete against wages. These rates all depend on labour productivity. The share of the total product can be raised for rent and profit while necessary wages are also static, if a greater productivity of labour affords this difference.
  
• (19-21): Aggregate productivity depends upon the level of employment in the population. While aggregate product increases, wages may remain constant in distribution. This raise in aggregate revenue raises rents, but does not directly influence the rate of profit [e.g. more people means more productivity means more rent]. This ground rent equalises across the economy, like how the rate of interest equalises for the entrpeneur and manufacturer.
  
• (22): Wages and surplus revenues act inversely upon one another; profits and rents act inversely upon each other, yet rent can also rise without affecting profits or wages, if there is an increase in rates of employment.
  
• (23-5): Exchange entails 'social use-values' as its basis. Exchange-value is based in supply and demand, and a balanced supply and demand results in equal costs. In generalised commodity exchange, exchange-value is now "market value", which apart from the conditions of individual supply/demand, is now regulated by social competition. From this comes money, which however is not a commodity, but where gold and silver act as the "office of money", they are 'certificates' of market value [Rodbertus is contradictory on this point]. The perfect money therefore would simply denote the labour content of another good, rather than be based in the value of its own object (e.g. gold).
  
• (26-7): Nonetheless, commodities are still regulated by the cost of their product (e.g. "gravitated") in conditions of market competition, which drive prices as low as possible (e.g. "equilibrium"). On this point, Rodbertus compares Smith and Ricardo, that Smith views the 'striving' of this movement, while Ricardiand see that the value of commodities is a realised fact, but Rodbertus tells us that this is simply prescriptive, not descriptive. The limits of social production is in purchasing power.
  
• (28-9): Positive law holds that some men possess land and capital, while others only possess "labour-power" [Rodbertus uses the term "Arbeitskraft" which translates as LP, so Marx did not "invent" this term. In fact, the term is used in the English translation of Gossen, 1853. So, this was simply a pre-existing German term, it appears]. The distribution of social revenues (or the share in the social product) is not regulated by rational laws, but by "exchange left to itself", or the "laws of society". Labour is commodified and so subject to supply and demand.
  
• (30-34): "The division of the national product according to the "natural" laws of exchange has as its consequence that with increasing productiveness of labour the wages of the labourers become an always smaller share of the product. […] If every participant in exchange always retained the entire product of his labour […] then no glut could arise from an increase of productiveness […] Every participant would be able to buy a larger quantity of every product in respect to which productiveness had increased […] and the undiminished purchasing power of everyone could cope with the increased amount of product consequent upon increased productiveness - until the wants of everyone were absolutely satisfied; until no one would buy more even though he could. In this case, then, the purchasing power of society would always remain commensurate with its productiveness […] A like success would attend the increase of productiveness" [this is an intelligent comment, since it presents an application of Say's Law, against Say himself - reminding us of Marx's comments, about actually putting bourgeois theory into practice].
  

Thus, Rodbertus bemoans the irrationality of the laws of exchange, which bring illusions of justice, and a world of inversions; bourgeois theory contradicts practice, and so on. We see Rodbertus' enemies here being the same "vulgar economists" of Marx's own Critique, the Say-Bastiat school. Thus, this piece seems to inspire Marx.
<What, then, should society do? She must step out of this fatal circle, in which she is driven about by prejudices alone, and replace the "natural" laws, in so far as they are harmful, by rational ones!
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rodbertus/overprod.htm
Rodbertus has the same slogans as Robert Owen, and also sounds like the Lassalleans, concerning the "full proceeds of labour".

We have three basic periods before World War 2 (1939): "War Communism" (1918-21), "New Economic Policy" (1921-28) and Five Year Plans (1928-39). We see with War Communism, the pressures of the Civil War meet economic measures, by nationalisation, centralisation and rapid industrialisation. After this, Lenin introduces market reforms, which can be called "State Capitalism". However, not everything was produced by the state. During 1928, Stalin seems to recreate War Communist measures in pursuit of increased production. This is the most notorious period of repression in the USSR, such as the Holodomor (1932-3), the criminalisation of homosexuality (1934) and the Great Purge (1936-8).

Using the textbook "Soviet Union Information Bureau" (1929), I will be mostly describing the NEP (1921-28), since these are the statistics provided. We may begin with population figures; in January 1928, the popuation was 149,000,000 - an increase of 11,000,000 since 1914, or around 8% per year (population density being around 18 people per square mile, while in the UK in 1930, it was 300 per; malthusian degeneracy). Marriage facts also show an increase in unions and a reduction in divorce, despite the liberal laws in the USSR (made restrictive in 1936 by Stalin). "Postcard divorces" (e.g. "no-fault" settlements) were established in 1918, and by comparison, it took the US and UK til at least the 1960s to lay the groundwork for this decriminalisation. Of course, the USSR also allowed female suffrage before the "liberal" West as well, and especially the scandalous decriminalisation of homosexuality, which only occured with equality under the law in the US and UK by the 21st century. The USSR was then the most liberal country in the world as regards civil rights, and at the same time, it promoted fertility - the same way there was a baby boom in East Germany (the baby boom of the US was also sponsored by the New Deal post-war social democracy). Here, public wealth sponsors health, while private wealth in capitalist societies seem to lead to infertility, through celibacy, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and the like. The USSR ironically proves that liberal laws and self-preserving customs can co-exist, subverting the dialectical materialism of today's capitalist apologists, namely 'Western Marxists' who think that Eurocentric perversity defines "progress".

Beginning with the structure of the economy, there were three types of enterprise: (i) state, (ii) cooperative, and (iii) private. Private businesses could be established by anybody, except that employment was limited to twenty people, where an expansion of this required special leasing or concession agreements with local powers (concerning private contracts, patents also existed with proper legal protections). Cooperatives were a massive part of Soviet society, with membership entailing 35,000,000 in 1928 (28% of whom were peasants and 60% city workers). These groups organised in every sector of production and distribution, but largely only within domestic trade. State enterprises largely dealt with heavy industry and foreign imports/exports.

The total number employed in 1928 was 74 million (50% of total population), with 80% of people working in agriculture (and as reported, these people lived off of 90% of their own product, making agricultural surplus 10%). 10% of people worked in industry, handicrafts, construction and transport, with 2% in large industry. 11,000,000 operated in unions, and 9,000,000 had social insurance (e.g. rural/fire/life insurance, paid out at a 5% rate by employers, and probably reduced from worker income). Workers also had benefits, such as subsidised housing, fuel, water, electric light, transportation, special working clothing, dental and medical service, which is accounted for in the gross wage. The net wage (e.g. cash paid after the benefits are covered) itself had a national average of around 60 rubles, or $30 a month (around 1/5 of the average American salary). Converted to today's worth, the net annual salary of an average Soviet citizen was $7,000. Workers also had different rates of working hours. The common working day was 8 hours, with 7 hours being introduced in the textile industry, and 6 hours for miners who work underground. Along with the employed were 1.3 million who were unemployed, while around 700,000 were claiming pensions. So then, 50% of the population worked while only 1% was registered as unemployed. A recorded number of at least 10,000,000 children were in school, yet many people were not integrated into the national system, such that the numbers of peasants who were unemployed were around 7,000,000 in 1926, from their recent statistical accounting. This also proves that job opportunities were massively available in the USSR. As I should also mention, apprenticeship schemes were set up by quotas for young people between 14-18 years old.

Of the various means of supplying goods, foreign trade of course played an important role, with total numbers for trade reaching around 900 million rubles in 1928, but this still being a trade deficit. Foreign trade grew from 1922 at least 400% showing the entanglement the USSR had with the world market, despite some formal restrictions. The major exports were industrial products, such as oil, coal, metals, etc. Labour efficiency shows that the oil sector grew in output while reducing employment, just as coal mining expanded with extra employees. It is then large industry which predominates this area (another point on efficiency; we can see industry increase in its output at least 100% each year since 1922; a twelve-fold advance beyond population replacement - it is often said that Stalin was the engine of industry, but evidently, this was already in process at constant development, without needless compulsion).

Domestic economy must also be considered. State enterprises mostly produced and sold wholesale, while cooperative and private businesses were largely retail, such that at least 95,000 cooperative shops are tallied: 60% of retail was based in cooperatives, while 25% was private, and 15% was state-owned. We see a genuine competition in the Soviet consumer marketplace, then, between these models. Recorded gross domestic sales in 1928 was ~50 billion rubles, which means that national wealth depended on retail and wholesale in the domestic economy at least 50 times as much as foreign trade - this is reflected in the rates of employment per sector, such that only around 5% were in heavy industry.

To summarise my analysis: the average worker in the Soviet Union (1928) received a net annual salary of $7,000 ($2/hr), but housing, healthcare and education were all subsidised public services. 80% worked on farms, and 10% worked in general handicraft or industry. You either worked for the state, a cooperative, or private business, probably after an initial period of working an apprenticeship when you were a teenager. Poverty and precarity still existed, but was being overcome. For the meantime, you were poorer than a Westerner, but not really that much, considering the social taxations within the capitalist system. There were political repressions, but this exists everywhere, and besides, there were also liberations which the West did not have. Keep in mind that this only describes the NEP period (1921-28), and that with Stalin's forced collectivisation of agriculture, his exploitation of industry, and political terror, a tide is waiting to turn within this mixed-economy experiment, toward a second phase of War Communism, and itself being momentous of the horrors of a new World War. Some bemoan Kruschev for his liberalisation, but at the same time, he was still more conservative than Lenin!

Nassau Senior is most well-known for asserting that the profits of capitalists come from "abstinence", or "wages of superintendence". This had precedence in the time of Smith, who commented upon this popular judgement, and so Senior was not an innovator, but an apologist. Indeed, Marx lumps Senior into the group of "vulgar" political economists, between the period of 1830-50, who rejected Ricardo. Nonetheless, anyone is worth reading, and so I will be reviewing Senior's Lectures.

Senior makes this initial "self-evident" claim:
<the rate of wages depends on the extent of the fund for the maintenance of labourers, compared with the number of labourers to be maintained […] the rate of wages can be raised, or, what is nearly the same, the condition of the labouring classes improved, only by either increasing the fund for their maintenance, or diminishing the number to be maintained.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
Of course, this has logistical common sense, yet also presupposes a fixed "labour fund" which then offers Malthusian conclusions. Indeed, Senior in other places writes of the fatality of industrial labour, which requires increasing exploitation to even sustain itself. Senior is quoted by Marx (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 9, Sct. 3) in begging to not reduce the working day from 12 hours to 10 hours in 1936, lest civilisation itself collapse. Senior's "last hour" is recorded as the rhetoric of this argument:
<the whole net profit is derived from the last hour
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch09.htm#S3
Here, Senior accepts the theory of surplus labour, but sees that for 11 hours, the worker is only making back his wages, while the last hour makes profit - thus, to reduce production to 10 hours gets rid of both, wages, and profits, as sustainable incomes. So, we must see Senior's presumption of a labour fund in this context.

Senior continues in his explicit malthusianism:
<The only effectual and permanent means of preventing the undue increase of the number to be maintained, is to raise the moral and intellectual character of the labouring population; to improve, or, I fear we must say, to create habits of prudence, of self-respect, and of self-restraint; to equalize, as by nature they are equal, the wages of the single and the married, and no longer to make a family the passport to allowance. But these are necessarily gradual measures — they are preventive, not remedial. The only immediate remedy for an actual excess in one class of the population, is the ancient and approved one, coloniam deducere.
Here, the reduction of living conditions by "self-restraint" gives notion to abstinence, that if only workers properly invested and saved their money they would be wealthy (Senior also writes that prudence gives freedom by the choice not to marry, and so the cause of poverty is said to be marriage, in part. On this topic, Paul Cockshott has previously affirmed the fact that because homosexuals rarely get married or have children, they have disposable income, so this would be in line with Senior's meaning). Further, we read of Senior's callousness as regards the idea of a family wage (as presupposed by Ricardo), and so the desire to reduce the poor by making them poorer is suggested, which is only in partnership with what is written by Arthur Young on the topic (1771): "Everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor or they will never be industrious…they must be (like all mankind) in poverty, or they will not work." The idea of a family wage being reduced has its historical reality, by the deconstruction of the family into a cash nexus of individual workers and tenants. The father and mother work for their individual wage, and the child works for the sake of the parents - this is also where the idea of "keep" emerged, where parents become like landlords. Senior also speaks against the Poor Laws (e.g. welfare) as being an "artificial" stimulus to worker populations. In all cases, Senior sees that there are simply too many mouths to feed and not enough productivity from them.

Senior then makes a strange argument:
<In the natural state of the relation between the capitalist and the labourer, when the amount of wages to be paid, and of work to be done, are the subjects of a free and open bargain […] But the instant wages cease to be a bargain — the instant the labourer is paid, not according to his value, but his wants, he ceases to be a freeman. He acquires the indolence, the improvidence, the rapacity, and the malignity, but not the subordination of a slave.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
His argument here is that if a worker is paid more than he is worth, then in fact, he becomes a slave, like how if he is subsidised by welfare, he is a slave. Freedom for Senior must necessitate a "natural" relationship to the whims of the capitalist, and on this we may read:
<He is told that he has a right to wages, but that he is bound to work? Who is to decide how hard he ought to work, or how hard he does work? Who is to decide what amount of wages he has a right to? As yet, the decision has been made by the overseers and the magistrates.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
He has actually answered his own question. If not the magistrates, then it must be the capitalist who decides all of these - and so Senior invokes class war.

Senior's answer to the surplus population is emigration:
<Nature has decreed that the road to good shall be through evil — that no improvement shall take place in which the general advantage shall not be accompanied by partial suffering. The obvious remedy is to remove those whose labour has ceased to be profitable, to a country that will afford room for their exertions. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
We see something similar in the Cromwell period of the Commonwealth (1649-1660), that the Irish were sent out to the American colonies to be indentured servants. This is at least interesting, since it defies the Marxist presumption of surplus populations acting as a reserve for domestic labour. Malthus similarly sought to reduce the number of the poor rather than increasinfg it, despite Smith already in 1776 describing the rising and falling of working populations according to capital accumulation. It only seems in the next decade of Senior's treatment (1840s) that mass immigration has its conspiratorial strategy to lower wages, which Marx by 1870 speaks as to its conscious realisation. Engels in 1845 discusses the lowering of English wages on account of the Irish. Senior does actually comment on this event (1850):
<We have heard it made a subject of complaint, that the uneducated Irish have dispossessed the English of the lowest employments in London and its neighbourhood. We rather rejoice that the English are sufficiently educated to be fit for better things.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/senior-political-economy-1850-ed#lf0205_head_021
Yet, in a world where job guarantees are "slavery", skills entail no necessary means of employment. We see "over-education" today concurrent with unemployment. We can compare his comments in 1850 with 1830:
<It is true, that to remove a million of persons might, perhaps, cost £12,000,000 sterling; that is to say, might cost as much as the direct expenditure of three months war; and that an expenditure of £12,000,000 sterling is an evil. But in the first place, it has been demonstrated that the expense of keeping paupers at home is far greater than that of their removal. […] We are told that the labourers form the strength of the country, and that to diminish their number is to incur voluntary feebleness. But does the pauper, — the man whose labour is not worth his subsistence, who consumes more than he produces,—does he add to the strength of the country?
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
Here, lowering the population by forced emigration is an unconditional virtue, but increasing the population by immigration is also good, since it takes away jobs. He is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Incoherence.

Moving from the preface to the first lecture, we receive some interesting data about nominal and real wages:
<wages have risen since the reign of Henry VII, because the labourer now receives 1 s. 6d. or 2.s. a day, and then received only 4½d […] wages have fallen since the reign of Henry VII, because the labourer then earned two pecks of wheat a day, and now earns only one.
These results are absolutely shocking, that in 330 years, the average worker has become twice as poor as they were (displaying the grand illusion of progress). Senior no doubt attributes this decline to population increase (though he never offers an historical cause). After this, Senior gives a hilariously dishonest statement:
<The poor and half-employed Irish labourer, or the still poorer and less industrious savage, is as inferior in happiness as tie is in income to the hard-worked English artisan. […] It is generally admitted, that during the last fifty years, a marked increase has taken place in the industry of our manufacturing population, and that they are now the hardest working labourers in the world. But during the whole of that period the average duration of their lives has been constantly increasing, and appears still to increase: and notwithstanding the apparent unhealthiness of many of their occupations, notwithstanding the atmosphere of smoke and steam in which they labour for seventy-two hours a week, they enjoy longer life than the lightly-toiled inhabitants of the most favoured soils and climates. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch01.htm
If this were true, that working 72-hour weeks caused a length in life and an increase in happiness, then why didn't Senior decide to work in a factory himself? Why?

In the second lecture, Senior extends his claim of the labour fund being a sum of consumed commodities for a given population, and it is this logistical sum which determines the fund per worker. From this he writes:
<It is inconsistent with the doctrine, that the rate of wages depends on the proportion which the number of labourers beam to the amount of capital in a country […] if my proposition be correct, no increase or diminution of these things can directly affect wages
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch02.htm
He makes this argument by simply denying a definition of whay may constitute "capital" as a category:
<The word capital has been used in so many senses, that it is difficult to state this doctrine precisely
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch02.htm
If capital is to include means of production however, then how does productivity not relate to rates of wages, based in proportions between populations and goods? We notice that Senior never explains what increases the rate of productivity per worker besides "self-restraint", which itself has no meaning to the productive process. Phenomena like overproduction was clearly evident in the industrial era; so much so, that Malthus himself was a promoter of increasing effective demand. His early article "An Investigation of the Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions" (1800) describes market gluts which are relieved by increased market consumption:
<There is one circumstance, however, that ought to be attended to. To circulate the same, or nearly the same quantity of commodities through a country, when they bear a much higher price, must require a greater quantity of the medium, whatever that may be. The circulation naturally takes up more. It is probable, therefore, that the Bank has found it necessary to issue a greater number of its notes on this account.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004861579.0001.000/1:2?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Thus, since at least 1800, overproduction is present. So then, if increased production itself cannot raise wages, even by market demand, then the claim of wages having relation to the social product proves contradictory. On this point, both Smith and Marx see that an investment in capital raises demand, and demand for labour, which is corrected by increased worker population. There is consistency here, but not in Senior's basic denial.

In the third lecture however, Senior reverts his opinion:
<In either case, the additional produce obtained from the machine would have been an additional fund for the maintenance of labour; and wages must, according to my elementary proposition, have risen.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
So, Senior does in fact correlate capital investment with the rise of wages. We see his citation of real wages between 1500 and 1830. If machines add so much productivity, then how has real consumption declined? Only by population. Looking at numbers, we see that ~2 million people lived in England in 1500, and from the 1831 census, 13 million lived there in 1830. This difference is around 600% and so by proportion, the only way for real consumption to have halved is for economic growth to be 300% from this time. This would mean that there was >1% growth per year.

As a final point, Senior makes a remarkable statement:
<it is not employment, but food, clothing, shelter, and fuel — in short, the materials of subsistence and comfort, that the labouring classes require. The word employment is merely a concise form of designating toil, trouble, exposure, and fatigue. All these, per se, are evils, and the less of them that is required for obtaining a given amount of subsistence and comfort, — or, in other words, the greater the facility of obtaining that given amount, — the better, caeteris paribus, will be the condition of the labouring classes; indeed, of all classes in the community. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
This is entirely correct, of course, but shockingly lucid, but it is also wrapped up in a more elaborate conclusion:
<If the higher orders were to return to the customs of a century ago, and cover their coats with gold lace, they might enjoy their own finery; but how would that benefit their inferiors? The theory which I am considering, replies that they would be benefited by being employed in making the lace. It is true that a coat, instead of costing £5, would cost £55 But what becomes now of the extra £50? for it cannot be said that because it is not spent on a laced coat, it does not exist. If a landlord with £10,000 a year spends it unproductively, he pays it away to those who furnish the embellishments of his house and grounds, and supply his stable, his equipage, and his clothes. Suppose him now to abandon all unproductive expenditure, to confine himself to bare necessaries, and to earn them by his own labour, the first consequence would be, that those among whom he previously spent his £10,000 a year would lose him as an employer; and beyond this the theory in question sees nothing. But what would he do with the £10,000 which he would still annually receive? No one supposes that he would lock it up in a box, or bury it in his garden. Whether productively or unproductively, it still must be spent. […] If not spent by himself, it must be lent to some other person, and by that person it must be spent productively or unproductively. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
This is related to a comment by Ricardo, that wasteful spending should hire unproductive labourers rather than simply emptied out into hoards of luxury (returning the argument of Malthus, that what is important is the act of circulation itself). Senior adds that last interesting comment: "If not spent by himself, it must be lent to some other person", which implies that saving is itself a detriment to the wealth of a nation, and so, say, this idle money was given to the poor, since it is considered a fund for them in the first place, would this not be more efficient? Uniting all theorists then, it seems that the optimal form of economy is one of redistributing funds:
<the labourer can generally manage better his own income than it can be managed for him by his master
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
So, Senior surprised me in his final analysis!

Karl Kautsky's response to Rudolf Hilferding's "Finance Capital" (1911) is a rebuke of Hilferding's revision of the Marxist theory of money, which rather than proceeding from socially necessary labour time directly, through a money commodity (e.g. gold), proceeds from what is described by Rudolf as socially necessary circulation:
<The real measure of value is not money. On the contrary, the ‘value’ of money is determined by what I would call the socially necessary circulation value. […] In other words, under a system of pure legal-tender paper currency, given a constant velocity of circulation, the value of paper money is determined by the total price of all the commodities in circulation. The value of paper money in such circumstances is completely independent of the value of gold and reflects directly the value of commodities.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
Kautsky shows a difference to Marx's own theory:
<The formula is constructed in imitation of Marx’s formula, which reads: “The quantity of money functioning as the circulating medium is equal to the sum of the prices of the commodities divided by the number of moves made by coins of the same denomination.” Both formulas outwardly say the same, yet they are fundamentally different. […] But in Marx the value of money, the value of a mark, is presupposed as given. What changes with the sum of prices of the commodities and the velocity of circulation of money is not the value of particular coins, but the number of coins in circulation at the same time.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
Here, the quantity of currency is based in a standard of measurement, such that if paper (in its representation of gold) exceeded 1:1 supply, this would be reflected in the value of the currency, which to Marx, is equivalent to the debasement of gold for silver (e.g. depreciation, such as in the Roman fiat system, which minted de-valued coin under the pretense of a higher value). Thus, Marx has a theory of inflation, but ties it back to gold in its limited supply based in production. Thus, this is commensurate with Hilferding's judgement, since a rise in price is also concurrent with a rise in supply of money - the only real difference between Marx's theory and Hilferding's is that Marx's requires mediation by a money commodity, so as to measure value, since otherwise, money as a valueless asset becomes measured by valueless commodities. It is a direct reversal of equivalence, since commodities do not express their value in money, but money gains its value from commodities. This is certainly problematic. Kautsky tells us what circumstances beguile Hilferding:
<In this way a “social regulation of circulation” was established through the central banks, which did not exist as long as gold, coming from private mines, was bought by private persons, who also accumulated the gold hoards. Under those circumstances, the value of money was indeed determined by its production costs. Today it is determined by the ratio between the amount of money in circulation and the socially necessary circulation value, and since that ratio is always kept at the same level by the central bank, we have a constant gold value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
It is the imposition of monopoly which converts the 'value' of money in its determination by production, to its regulation by distribution. Marx writing on fiat saw that the treatment of money as anything besides a value is erroneous, and so denied the "vulgar" quantity theory of money, despite effecting the same basic arithmetic.

Here too, Kautsky sees that although central banks regulate the supply of money, the storage of gold in a hoard (e.g. bank vaults) necessitates the medium of gold for both: (i) the measure of value, and (ii) the supply of money. Why do banks require gold to begin with, if gold is immaterial? The same question could be asked of contemporary central banks; if money doesn't require taxation or securities, why do banks only make money in consideration of taxation and securities? For example, The Bank of England acts as a central reserve for other commercial banks, and money is authorised from the account of this treasury at a certain fractional rate. This is the limit of central banking in practice, but not in theory, as it goes. Modern Monetary Theorist L. Randal Wray tells us that taxation is not a fund for the public budget, but only a means of limiting personal consumption, and the means of creating demand for currency. Here, Wray slips in the implicit admission of what drives the value of money - if taxation did not exist, money would lose demand, and so would lose value, leading to inflation. If personal consumption was not restricted, there would be inflation, etc. So then, money in its bare mechanism may be produced ex nihilo, and so does not strictly "circulate" as a medium, but at the same time, it necessarily functions from its appearance, as the redistribution of existing funds through taxation. Any mysticism of MMT is thus surely unveiled, in that where banks account outstanding assets or liabilities, circulation depends upon production, or 'SNLT'. Thus, it is the monopoly of capital which regulates the supply of money in actuality, not otherwise - Gesell discusses this, in how Manchester liberals wanted a free market of commodities, but a monopoly on money - evidently, it is that the rate of profit determines supply; indeed, Engels in 1844 calls money a "monopoly", yet Kautsky sees that money only has value in its anarchy of production; Marx himself has deadly silence on the topic. This brings in even deeper issues though, since if profits are managed according to manual pricing which determines the rate of supply of money, then money gets its "value" from an aggregate of valueless prices, the same as Kautsky's own criticism against Hilferding. So then, we can have a comparison: If circulation determines production, then what regulates the supply of money, except production? If production determines circulation, money supply is regulated by commodities. In each case, production is the determining factor (e.g. Smith's "absolute supply").

Now, this is not denied by Hilferding, since he is basing value in value; of money for commodities, but he does not answer why gold is more or less stable than paper for the same purposes, if its supply is regulated by 'circulation value' rather than circulation having its value in SNLT. On this point, he writes about paper's volatility:
<A pure paper currency of this kind cannot meet the demands imposed on a medium of circulation for any extended period of time. Since its value is determined by the value of the circulating commodities, constantly subject to fluctuations, the value of money would also fluctuate constantly. Money would not be a measure of the value of commodities; on the contrary, its own value would be measured by the current requirements of circulation, that is to say, by the value of commodities, assuming a constant velocity of circulation. A pure paper currency is, therefore, impossible as a permanent institution, because it would subject circulation to constant disturbances.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
Here there is mystery, since if paper is volatile with a change in the supply of commodities, why is gold not subject to the same effects? Only due to a higher value stamped by its coinage. This is why gold bullion became a standard of international trade (e.g. "world money"), as opposed to silver, copper or paper, since its value is stable; but what is stable? Its relatively limited supply, based in bare costs of production. Of course, the "value" of money only appears in commodity exchange, and so Kautsky using Marx asks the most important question:
<The question: why does not money directly represent labour-time, so that a piece of paper may represent, for instance, X hours’ labour? is at bottom the same as the question: why, given the production of commodities, must products take the form of commodities?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
If at the same time that paper money abolishes a means of intrinsic valuation, it in effect, ceases to be money (in the Marxian sense), and so if it is not money, how can it take the form of money and exchange for commodities? Thus as Kautsky concludes, wherever a token is traded for a commodity, the token itself must be a symbol of a money commodity, lest there is no realisation of value. Whether or not this is the case is still debated, but most often from the right, not the left. Libertarians like Peter Schiff state that only gold can be money, and that it is still serving as the measure of value for commodities. Schiff here is indeed a "disguised" Marxist, like so many others, but with the Keynesian revolution, money was treated as an inherently monopolised asset, and with value simply being based in aggregate demand, yet the cause of aggregate demand must surely be based in production, which then regulates the supply of money - along with class warfare in general, as Keynes notes. So then, the question is, if we have abolished money (e.g. universal equivalence in commodity exchange), then why do we still have money? As it is suspected by some, fiat currency is secretly regulated by a commodity - in common terms, it is based in debt - while others will say that Marx was simply incorrect about money, and as a consequence, his theory of value formation falls apart.

The juxtaposition of the Classical from the Marxist, to the "Neoclassical" is an historical retroprojection, which was not consciously considered in its own period of theoretical development. There was the consideration of a general continuity of similar concepts, but hardly ever was there a proposed break from what was established. We see this most evidently in Jevons - one of the fathers of marginal utility theory, who in all his writing, accepts the Labour Theory of Value of Smith, Ricardo and Mill, just in an modified form, as we may read (1871):
<Cost of production determines supply. Supply determines final degree of utility. Final degree of utility determines value.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy#lf0237_head_054
We see then, a general consensus, which is decoded by proper analysis, since of course, there is only one reality of economic phenomena, just different interpretations. No one can deny apparent effects, only causes, and so the great debate is philosophical rather than statistical.

In terms of bare theory, then, there can be reconciliation, even if something must always be lost by translation. As it is often attributed to Keynes, "It's better to be generally right than precisely wrong." So then, we may proceed in this discussion of the Marxist view of the marginal utility theory. We will begin with Engels himself (1894):
<this explanation for the profits of capital, as advanced by "vulgar economy," amounts in practice to the same thing as the Marxian theory of surplus-value […] it is just as easy to build up an at least equally plausible vulgar socialism on the basis of this theory, as that built in England on the foundation of Jevons’s and Menger’s theory of use-value and marginal utility […] In reality, however, this theory is merely a paraphrase of the Marxian. What defrays all the price additions? It is the workers’ "total product" […] Hence the resultant extra profit accruing to the capitalist, or capitalist class, arises, and can only arise, in the last analysis, from the fact that the worker, after reproducing the equivalent for the price of his labour-power, must produce an additional product for which he is not paid — i.e., a surplus-product, a product of unpaid labour, or surplus-value […] we are not dealing with one of those ordinary vulgar economists […] but with a Marxist disguised as a vulgar economist.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/pref.htm
Thus, the "vulgar socialism" of Bernard Shaw is based in marginal utility theory, as a "paraphrase" of the Marxian. Engels finds no controversy in its proposition, but only that it repeats what has already been said, which has always been my own position since I first read Jevons; that he is explicitly appropriating Ricardo, and proving that the disutility of labour is the real measure of value, the same as what Gossen wrote in the theory's genesis. Thus, to Engels, marginalism is a "disguised" Marxism, which will be a surprising conclusion to many, but he is not alone, since Paul Cockshott also recognises that Jevons as a marginalist nonetheless possessed an LTV in effect (the same as Gossen). Engels also includes the founder of the Austrian School, Carl Menger, and thus, Engels saw that Austrian analysis has its socialist possibility (the same way I have proven the exploitation of labour by the time-preference theory of interest; a precise reversal of Hoppe - thus I follow Engels in saying that all theories are 'correct'; some are just more correct than others, like how Catholicity is the 'fullness' of faith). We can then disregard the philistine prejudices of both Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff who proclaim the marginalist 'counter-revolution' to be a conspiracy of capitalists to subvert the LTV, especially after Marxism. The first Marxist rebuke of marginalism is seemingly Bukharin's "Theory of the Leisure Class" (1914). Here, the "leisure class" refers to an ascending rentierism in capitalist society, diagnosed by Veblen in 1899:
<This stratum of the bourgeoisie is distinctly parasitical; it develops the same psychological traits as may be found in the decayed nobility at the end of the ancien regime and the heads of the financial aristocracy of the same epoch.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
I shall give a summary of Bukharin's perspective, then.

Bukharin begins by identifying his opponent:
<Our selection of an opponent for our criticism probably does not require discussion, for it is well known that the most powerful opponent of Marxism is the Austrian School.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/preface1.htm
This of course continues today, mostly politically, and it's interesting, since Marxists and Austrians are both the biggest cultists in social science; pure dogmatists, so they deserve each other, really. I should add that the prophetic ecstasy is also present in this work as well:
<The historical mission of the bourgeoisie has already been fulfilled all over the world.It is now approaching its end.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
These were also the sentiments of Engels back in 1886. Bukharin diagnoses marginalism as a rentier ideology:
<Turning to the Austrian School and to its most prominent representative, Böhm-Bawerk, we shall find that the psychological traits of the rentiers, as described above, here present their logical equivalents. In the first place, we here find for the first time a consistent carrying out of the point of view of consumption […] crass individualism is likewise neatly paralleled in the ”subjectivist-psychological” method of the new tendency […] Finally, the fear of revolution is expressed in the representatives of the theory of marginal utility in their most pronounced aversion towards every-thing historical […] We consider the Austrian theory as the ideology of the bourgeois who has already been eliminated from the process of production […] It is therefore precisely the rentier type which represents the border type of the bourgeoisie, and the theory of marginal utility is the ideology of this border type.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
Thus, the 3 'logics' of marginalism are: (i) consumption, (ii) individualism, and (iii) ahistoricity. Bukharin presents the Marxist alternative to these:
<The methodological difference between Karl Marx and Böhm-Bawerk may be summarized concisely as follows: objectivism subjectivism, a historical standpoint an unhistorical stand-point, the point of view of production the point of view of consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
A basic reversal of the marginalist logic. So we proceed.

Bukharin derives 'objective' and 'subjective' methods of analysis through a review of Sombart, who thus defines two approaches to economic phenomena; individuals creating society, or society creating individuals:
<Marx is never concerned with motivating, but always with defining (limiting) the individual caprice of the economic person.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/ch01.htm
We read this explicitly in Marx's [preface] to Capital Vol. 1, that individual actors are irrelevant to general laws - the same way that although quantity turns to quality, the margins of transformation (say, from a liquid to a solid state of matter) only determine the process where it becomes general. Until the single straw breaks the camel's back, the process is not in actual transition. The same thing applies to commodity values - one person's market valuation is regulated by the limits of society. Böhm-Bawerk himself admits to these 'laws' (1896):
<[the total price paid for the entire national produce coincides exactly with the total amount of value or labour incorporated in it] […] I have nothing to omit and nothing to add to this judgment […] Every economist knows such laws.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Heliocentrism and geocentrism use the same data.

The main issue Bukharin has here is precisely a lack of causation underpinning the surfaces of economic relations given from the Austrian theory; supply and demand emerge ex nihilo. Now, here I will defend Carl Menger, who begins from an historical basis of primitive "communism" (as he expressly describes it), which is disrupted through the scarcity of resources, which then leads to the faculty of "economisation" (the "principle" of his framework). The economic faculty assorts goods between short and long term production/consumption. Ecomomisation then scales goods by the time it takes to produce, with longer durations extracting a greater value (at the same time that he affirms "time" as a measure of value, he does not signify this as labour time explicitly, but only implicitly; e.g. 'toil and trouble'). Also, Menger does actually give an account as to the origin of exchange, which is identical to Smith (although he still slanders Smith in the same breath), Gossen and Marx; that trade begins at the margin of surplus production, and as he writes, it is only with commodity exchange that use-value and exchange-value appear as features of social intercourse. This to me is not simply historic, but it defies charges put against the Austrian school:
<We have investigated the three initial fallacies of the Austrian School: its subjectivism, its unhistorical point of view, its beginning with consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/ch01.htm#s4
I would also say that in Menger's notion of economic faculty, he proves what Jevons also does to a lesser extent, that high value commodities (luxuries) are a result of rational systems of production, but irrational systems of consumption, and so in turn, an irrational system of production itself, by means of distribution. This is precisely the "vulgar socialism" Engels wrote of, immanent to the critical logic of political economy.

After Bukharin, there is Paul Mattick in 1939:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1939/marginal.htm
His criticism is mostly political, by seeing the state capitalism of the USSR as its impedement to science in the domain of political economy, which for this sake has apparently led to an embrace of marginalism over Marx. Mattick on marginal utility asserts that its sole reason for existence is to justify income differentials, but we see early on with Gossen, a total criticism of landlords and the request to nationalise land for redistribution. This evidently conflicts with Bukharin's hypothesis that this theory is a rentier ideology. In terms of industrial revenue, we see in Clark (1899) an application of Von Thünen's law of final utility (1832) to derive a "natural" wage. Clark is himself a capitalist apologist, but only tentatively, for he writes in his introduction that if it can be found that labour is exploited, then one has recourse to socialist politics. Indeed, he writes that Von Thünen's theory gives appearance to labour exploitation (in how labour is diminished at the margin), and in applying Von Thünen's law, he also misinterprets it. Von Thünen's "frontier wage" is described by Marx (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 33) in terms of the frustration of capitalists, who seek to lower wages by concentrating land ownership in the US. Clark misinterprets Von Thünen's "natural" wage simply as the minimum wage, and not the frontier wage itself. So, Mattick is right, but in his hyperbole, also wrong.

Next, we may read from Ernest Mandel’s book, "Marxist Economic Theory", on the topic of marginalism (1962):
<the labour theory of value had to be demolished. This was the great turning-point of bourgeois political economy, towards the marginal theory of value
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-economic-theory/marginalists.htm
Thus, we discover once more this idle repetition which has been canonical of Marxist myopia since Bukharin, at the very least. It is a thought-terminating cliché, as they say, to avoid the work of primary engagement. This sort of academic laziness and dishonestly is too common, and too effective, in teaching people how to disable their own reason. Mendel continues:
<From Petty to Ricardo and Marx, every theory of value was objective. that is. its ultimate starting-point was production; value was identified with cost of production, or revolved around it […] demand upon value. as an independent variable, was denied […] The neo-classical school […] regarded this value no longer as a function of cost of production but as a function of the independent influence of demand upon cost of production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-economic-theory/marginalists.htm
What is troublesome here of course is that it disregards the constitution of value by demand in both classical and Marxian political economy, and also neglects the consideration of how costs of production influence demand in the marginalist theory. It disservices both, because Mendel presumes the duality of an absolutely "objective" and "subjective" framework. He concludes:
<The labour theory of value can be demonstrated empirically. even if only in the sense that, in the last analysis. all the elements of the cost of production of a commodity tend to. be reduced to labour, and to labour alone, if one goes far enough back in the analysis. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-economic-theory/marginalists.htm
Of course, this is not denied by any marginalist, in that labour is the primary element of cost which is able to be stored up as capital; the cost-function is simply given as an independent product, reflected in revenue (e.g. the "prices of production", proper). This is why capital "adds" value, as an element of cost in the final accounting.

This will conclude my brief review of these writers. I would then see that Engels is least deluded about the theoretical project of the marginalists, whom possess as their political potential, a "vulgar socialism", which as Engels writes, portrays a "diguised" 'Marxism', in effect.

Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) was a jurist and a contributor to the European enlightenment. What he brings of relevance to political economy is a short discourse upon the nature of economic value, in his "Duty of Man and Citizen" (1673), Bk. 1, Ch. 14, wherein he conceives of the paradox of value, use and exchange:
<After ownership [was] introduced […] it soon became customary among men to exchange commodities […] it was necessary for human convention to assign things a quantity, according to which they could be compared and balanced with one another […] This quantity usually goes by the name of value […] Value is divided into common value and value par excellence. The former is seen in things, and actions or services, which enter into trade, in so far as they bring men some use and pleasure. The latter is seen in money, in so far as it is understood virtually to contain the price of all things and services, and to furnish them a common standard […] we usually call things that serve no use at all things of no value. Yet there are some things most useful for human life, upon which things no definite value is understood to have been set, either because they do not admit of ownership
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Here, "value" is understood, not as a natural relationship, but something internal to commodities, or at least to objects of personal possession. Utility evidently exists in things which are nonetheless valueless in character. Upon this same point, Samuel invokes the ecclesiastical law of "simony", or of putting a price on sacred things so as to buy or sell them, which is forbidden. In the same paragraph he also says that man cannot have a price:
<a free person has no value, because free men are not articles of commerce.
Perhaps a rhetorical counterpart to this would then to assign man with sacredness and his commercial sale a type of simony. Pufendorf writes of exchange-value:
<there are various reasons why the value of one and the same thing is increased or diminished […] men hold in lowest esteem the things with which human life cannot dispense […] this because […] a bountiful supply of them. Hence an increase of value tends to be produced especially by scarcity […] As for services and acts, difficulty enhances their price, as do also skill, utility, necessity, the scarcity or rank or freedom […] The opposites of these things usually lower the price.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Thus, Pufendorf reconises that value "par excellence", given in price, is relative to supply, but he also adds that the "difficulty" of work enhances price, the same as skill. Labour is thus introduced as an element of price, but he does not quite relate supply to costs of production, but rather appeals to transcendent categories, like God:
<nature, not without the singular providence of God, pours forth a bountiful supply
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Is it really "nature", or is it man and his labour? Finally on the price of commodities, Pufendorf sees that with free trade, and without legal regulation, the market decides:
<The common price, to be sure, not being fixed by law, admits a certain latitude, within which more or less can be, and usually is, given and received, according as the contracting parties have agreed. Generally, however, it follows the custom of the market. In this account is usually taken of the labor and expense ordinarily incurred by merchants in transporting and handling their wares; also of the manner of buying and selling, whether wholesale or retail.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Here, notice that labour is seen as a cause of price, but only for the merchant, and in a contradictory manner. If the merchant only suffers the task of commerce, why does he do it? Pufendorf concludes, mysteriously:
<in civilized states, where the citizens are marked off into different classes, there must necessarily be several classes that would be entirely unable to make a living, or scarcely able to do so, if the old-time simple exchange of commodities [e.g. barter by use-value as a measure] and services were still in vogue. Hence most nations, attracted by a richer mode of life, have seen fit by convention to impose a value par excellence upon a certain thing, in order that the common values of the other things might be tested by this, and virtually contained in the same; so that by this medium one could acquire anything that is for sale, and engage conveniently in any sort of dealings and contracts.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Here, the claim is that exchange-value (by the "medium" of money) was "imposed" by means of class interest to "make a living" through expanding free contract. As I have shown, capitalist relations of labour in England are developed from the Feudal composite wage, which in transition to the cash wage, equalised with the wage of everyone else. This struggle was first beneficial to the plight of labour, but then became harmful. Senior in 1830 is complaining that the agricultural wage is better than the industrial, since it is paid in-kind, and so like Pufendorf tells us, as utility loses its standard measure of "value", useless things attain a higher social status (the same way Augustine distinguishes between nature and society in the designation of prices upon creation). Thus, Pufendorf is critical, yet insufficiently inquisitive.

Joseph Schumpeter's text "On the Concept of Social Value" (1908) is an investigation into the difference of an individual and "social" theory of value, or in precisely Marxian terms, subjective and objective methodologies. To the individualists, Schumpeter assigns Jevons and Walras, and to social theorists he assigns Wieser and Clark. I would only add that in Jevons' "Theory" (1871), he necessarily presumes social equilibrium to give an analysis of "statics". It's this very consideration which draws the criticism of Veblen (1899), and so Jevons in discussing value is presuming a general social concept. As Schumpeter writes, however, it is with Clark that the distribution of social production is allocated in terms of marginal efficiency, and this is absent from Jevons.

Individual and social value both resemble each other:
<It is true that in some connections, and, in particular, in applying pure theory to practical problems, it is desirable to combine all the individual demand and supply curves into general demand and supply curves. In similar connections we speak of general utility curves. But these are by no means the same as the utility curves of a communistic society. They resemble them and have about the same shape; but they refer to individual wants and to a given distribution of wealth.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
Thus, general equilibrium is duly considered, but it only aggregates from individual choices, and not from the subject of "society" as a whole, which is his contention. As he infers here, however, "they resemble them and have about the same shape", and so is there distinction without a difference? Indeed, Schumpeter sees that man is determined by various social forces, and sees that in the case of commodity exchange, this is a social act, and for which, views "social value" as having relevance:
<It may, in explicit terms, be held that what appears prima fade as the result of individual actions turns out, in the end, to be the very thing that would be brought about by the conscious action of society itself […] The concept of social value would, in this case, acquire in economics an importance similar to that of the fiction of a "central sun" in astronomy.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
Schumpeter thus views the result of individuals and of society as synonymous, and extends this to the idea of social distribution having equivalence under a system of free competition, and a non-competive communism:
<economic forces are not only of the same nature, at all times and everywhere, but also that they lead, under a régime of free competition, to the same results as in a communistic society. Competition and private ownership of productive agents are held to bring about a distributive process quite similar to one regulated by a benevolent and intelligent ruler.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
This is identical to what Gossen writes, that a totally just system of distribution based on free exchange would result in what socialists and communists envision, since value would be proportionally applied to the disutility of labour. The proper difference between Gossen and Schumpeter, however, is that Gossen advocated for the nationalisation of land, and the redistribution of rent, as the precondition of fair distribution, since as he puts it, rent by private land ownership is one-sided gain. The basic error in Schumpeter's argument then, is that rent and profit are fair distributions. For the same purposes, Adam Smith proposed a tax on ground rent as the best and fairest tax. This is rather basic in political economy, to criticise the institution of private rents. To continue, if Schumpeter argues that individual and social values are seemingly synonymous, what denies us being political and economic communists? Schumpeter explains:
<If it be really society that fixes values, then the exchange values of things could be called social values-in-use. This theory we may proceed to discuss now. Rodbertus held this view, and it amounts to saying that exchange-values, as represented by prices in a market, are identical with the values which the same commodities should have in a communistic society […] the theory of distribution cannot be based on value sans phrase, but can only be indirectly so based with the help of the theory of prices […] prices determine the marginal utilities of productive agents, because they decide how much of them will be offered for the production of a certain commodity […] It appears, therefore, that the theory of prices is not to be dispensed with in a full explanation of social distribution; and this theory of prices is based on individual values.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
So then, in essence, Schumpeter is assigning the ECP (Economic Calculation Problem) to communist modes of distribution, and sees rather, that a free market gives the same results as communism. This assertion is very interesting, since Marx also writes of putting bourgeois theory into practice (e.g. Gothakritik) by a distribution of the social product according to individual contribution - at least in the 'lower phase'. This differs from capitalism, Marx says, since in capitalism, revenues generalise by competition, while in communism, revenues are given individually. Here, Marx applies a staggering reversal; that it is in fact capitalism which conceives of "social" value, while communism applies individual value! Marx also assigns Owen's "labour money" as the form of the social product in renumeration. This doesn't simply modify "price" (as a signal of demand), but perfects it (e.g. labour money is incapable of monetary crisis). This is continuous of Rodbertus' own judgement (from whom Schumpeter proceeds in the view of "social" use-value); that a more rational mode of exchange would directly represent the labour of its constituents - a system that Josiah Warren termed "true civilisation". We see then that Schumpeter properly analyses the distribution of a social product according to productive agents, but fails to see how contained in the socialist critique is already the realisation of a more perfect economic calculation. Schumpeter's view of "competition" in land and capital then being decisive in establishing a rational system of pricing is incorrect - already attested to by H.H. Gossen.

Eugen Böhm-Bawerk is, after Menger and Wieser, the main theorist of the Austrian School of Economics. His critical text "Karl Marx and the Close of His System" (1896) was written and published 2 years after the posthomous publication of Capital Vol. 3 (1894), and attempts to analyse the different theories of value given between the first and third volume of Marx's trilogy.

He begins in his introduction to the work:
<Marx had taught in his first volume that the whole value of commodities was based on the labour embodied in them, and that by virtue of this "law of value" they must exchange in proportion to the quantity of labour which they contain […] In daily life, however, the profit of capital is in proportion to the total capital invested; and, largely on this account, the commodities do not as a fact exchange in proportion to the amount of work incorporated in them. Here, therefore, there was a contradiction between System and fact which hardly seemed to admit of a satisfactory explanation. Nor did the obvious contradiction escape Marx himself […] Has Marx himself solved his own problem?
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/intro.htm
We then move into the first chapter:
<The pillars of the system of Marx are his conception of value and his law of value. Without them, as Marx repeatedly asserts, all scientific knowledge of economic facts would be impossible.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch01.htm
It should be mentioned that the term "law of value", while being applicable to Marx's own understanding, is largely a term invented by Engels, the same as "simple commodity production", acting as an editorial insertion. Böhm-Baerk proceeds to elaborate on Marx's theory:
<[value] is in dialectical form not identical with exchange value, but it stands, as I would now make plain, in the most intimate and inseparable relation to it. It is a kind of logical distillation from it […] It states, and must state, after what has gone before, that commodities are exchanged in proportion to the socially necessary working time incorporated in them […] he even calls the deviation "a breach of the law of the exchange of commodities" […] whence comes "the surplus value" as Marx calls it? […] The solution Marx finds in this, that there is one commodity whose value in use possesses the peculiar property of being a source of exchange value. This commodity is the capacity of labour, the working powers […] Surplus value […] is due to the fact that the capitalist makes the labourer work for him a part of the day without paying him for it. In the labourer's working-day two portions may be distinguished. In the first part–the "necessary working time" […] the second part-the "surplus working time" […] Really new surplus value can only be created by the living work which the capitalist gets the worker to perform. The value of the means of production which are used is maintained, and it reappears in a different form in the value of the product, but adds no surplus value […] the proportion in which the surplus value stands to the advanced variable part of capital […] Marx calls the rate of surplus value […] Totally different from this is the rate of profit. The capitalist calculates the surplus value, which he appropriates, not only upon the variable capital but upon the total amount of capital employed […] the same rate of surplus value can and must present itself in very different rates of profit according to the composition of the capital concerned
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch01.htm
This is all completely correct. Chapter 2 concerns the average rate of profit and the costs of production:
<The "organic composition" of the capital is for technical reasons necessarily different in the different "spheres of production." […] therefore, given an equal rate of surplus value, every branch of production must show a different, a special rate of profit, on the condition certainly, which Marx has hitherto always assumed, that commodities exchange with each other "according to their values," or in proportion to the work embodied in them.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch02.htm
Accordingly, Böhm-Bawerk highlights the contradiction between the theory of unique costs of production with a general rate of profit, since here, commodities evidently fail to exchange at their particular values. Continuing:
<How does Marx himself try to solve this contradiction?To speak plainly his solution is obtained at the cost of the assumption from which Marx has hitherto started, viz., that commodities exchange according to their values. This assumption Marx now simply drops.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch02.htm
After this, Böhm-Bawerk perfectly explains the alteration of value to prices of production, based in competition, which then equalises an average rate of profit, thereby qualifying cost-price against surplus. He also writes that Marx presupposes the equality of value in commodity exchange as a pre-capitalist condition - something that Marx unfortunately fails to ever offer detail for, and so Engels must fill in the gaps with "simple commodity exchange". So then, Böhm-Bawerk infers that in Capital Vol. 1, the "law of value" is a pre-capitalist condition, the same as Engels' crucial "supplement" the work (1894):
<In a word: the Marxian law of value holds generally, as far as economic laws are valid at all, for the whole period of simple commodity production — that is, up to the time when the latter suffers a modification through the appearance of the capitalist form of production. Up to that time, prices gravitate towards the values fixed according to the Marxian law and oscillate around those values, so that the more fully simple commodity production develops, the more the average prices over long periods uninterrupted by external violent disturbances coincide with values within a negligible margin. Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange, which transforms products into commodities, down to the 15th century of the present era. But the exchange of commodities dates from a time before all written history — which in Egypt goes back to at least 2500 B.C., and perhaps 5000 B.C., and in Babylon to 4000 B.C., perhaps to 6000 B.C.; thus, the law of value has prevailed during a period of from five to seven thousand years.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm
This is utterly unknown in Marx's original formulation, and so stinks of revision, but facts can be extracted as to Marx's own feelings on the topic, such as here (1864):
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production for their existence; on the contrary, as I have already demonstrated, they also “exist in pre-bourgeois social formations”. They are the historical presupposition of the capitalist mode of production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm
This is understood from the writings of Smith (1776):
<In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another. If among a nation of hunters, for example, it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does to kill a deer, one beaver should naturally exchange for or be worth two deer. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days' or two hours' labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day's or one hour's labour […] As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials […] As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce […] Labour measures the value not only of that part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit. In every society the price of every commodity finally resolves itself into some one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every improved society, all the three enter more or less, as component parts, into the price of the far greater part of commodities.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch06.htm
Here, we begin with equivalent exchange in value, but as the social product is divided, it becomes distributed into the component prices of production. Marx is repeating Smith. Smith also comments on the rate of profit being affected by capital competition, and the rate of profit being based in the amount invested. Marx's view is very similar to Smith's basic conception, so this is its origin.

Böhm-Bawerk in the next chapter is seeking to unfurl the apparent "contradiction" between the value of simple commodities [LP = d/i] and capitalist commodities [C = k + s] on this basis, then. He quotes himself (1884):
<Either products do actually exchange in the long run in proportion to the labour attaching to them–in which case an equalisation of the gains of capital is impossible; or there is an equalisation of the gains of capital–in which case it is impossible that products should continue to exchange in proportion to the labour attaching to them.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
This is true, of course. The square cannot be circled. He attributes the first Marxian admission of this to Schmidt (1889), who again, we must remember, is writing before the publishing of Capital Vol. 3 (1894). He writes this:
<I cannot help myself; I see here no explanation and reconciliation of a contradiction, but the bare contradiction itself. Marx's third volume contradicts the first. The theory of the average rate of profit and of the prices of production cannot be reconciled with the theory of value. This is the impression which must, I believe, be received by every logical thinker.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Of course, his logic is entirely valid, and Böhm-Bawerk quotes Sombart in conclusion of Marx's simplicity:
<For, when suddenly out of the depths emerges a 'quite ordinary' theory of cost of production, it means that the celebrated doctrine of value has come to grief. For, if I have in the end to explain the profits by the cost of production, wherefore the whole cumbrous apparatus of the theories of value and surplus value?
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
The point here is that prices of production appear as the cause of exchange-value, rather than the opposite, and so the "transformation problem" is accounted for. Four consecutive arguments are then proposed as counters:
<First argument […] the total of the prices of production  of the commodities produced still remains equal to the sum of their values […] Second argument: The law of value governs the movement of prices, since the diminution or increase of the requisite working time makes the prices of production rise or fall […] Third argument: The law of value, Marx affirms, governs with undiminished authority the exchange of commodities in certain "primary" stages, in which the change of values into prices of production has not yet been accomplished […] the total value of the commodities, determined by the law of value, determines the total surplus value.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Böhm-Bawerk then provides a detailed response to each.

For the first argument (that total value = total price, by means of market value, or socially average price), Böhm-Bawerk cites Schmidt, who made the same argument, and he simply affirms that this is a simple contradiction. If commodities are presumed to have labour-embodied values which make up the substance of their value, and for which, their exchange-value is determined, then the assertion that "value" is a function of average sale price means that commodities (in general) share a common value, but no commodity in itself has an absolute value. The theory of value then deconstructs itself by means of its justification - I find this to be a rather fair judgement.

For the third argument (e.g. simple/capitalist values), Böhm-Bawerk states clearly that "This argument has not been developed with precision and clearness by Marx, but the substance of it has been woven into those processes of reasoning" which is entirely true. Böhm-Bawerk then sees that Marx's inference of the law of value operating in pre-capitalist society is conjectural. No evidence attests to this reality - but we must see that the theory of value never offers empirical proofs; it is a logic based upon a primary proposition of equivalent exchange - if there is equivalent exchange, there is an equivalent quantity of a "third thing" shared between two commodities, which is labour. It is a logic, not a history. Upon this point, Böhm-Bawerk states that independent rates of profit (e.g. before equalisation by competition) should correspond to investment in capital. He writes that no evidence of this exists, and Sombart agrees. In reading accounts of profit in pre-capitalist periods, it was exclusively regarded as a mercantile phenomenon (e.g. Chrematistics), and never an industrial revenue. Land was considered to have a "natural" yield in rents, however, and this is an extremely common trope in all manner of historical accounts. Medieval writers, such as Aquinas and Khaldun both comment upon the rate of profit for merchants being based upon supply, and thus, the marginal price of goods. Here, profit is understood exclusively as a market phenomenon, with the mantra of commerce being about buying low and selling high. The realisation of equivalence then is limited to equilibrium. Profit to Aristotle is immoral, but equality brings mutual gain. Smith in discussing profit limits his empirical study to the capitalist era, beginning in the year 1546, by a history of the rate of interest. As Marx and Hudson write, there was no pre-capitalist regulation for interest, identical to the conclusions of Massie (1750), who limits the attribution of interest rates to rates of profit. Böhm-Bawerk's inference of Marx's pre-capitalist profit relations is then rightfully discerned as problematic.

The Fourth Argument begins by a summary:
<We have now seen, wrecked in succession, three contentions which affirmed the existence of certain reserved areas under the immediate control of the law of value. The application of the law of value to the sum total of all commodities and prices of commodities instead of to their several exchange relations (first argument) has been proved to be pure nonsense. The movement of prices (second argument) does not really obey the alleged law of value, and just as little does it exercise a real influence in "primitive conditions" (third argument). There is only one possibility left. Does the law of value, which has no real immediate power anywhere, have perhaps an indirect control, a sort of suzerainty? Marx does not omit to assert this also. It is the subject of the fourth argument, to which we now proceed.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Böhm-Bawerk ends the chapter with this long criticism:
<This is what Marx does. He declares most emphatically that nothing can be at the root of exchange relations but quantity of labour alone; he argues strenuously with the economists who acknowledge other determinants of value and price besides the quantity of labour–the influence of which on the exchange value of goods freely reproduced no one denies. From the exclusive position of quantity of labour as the sole determinant of exchange relations he deduces in two volumes the most weighty and practical conclusions–his theory of surplus value and his denunciation of the capitalistic organisation of society–in order, in the third volume, to develop a theory of prices of production which substantially recognises the influence of other determinants as well. But instead of thoroughly analysing these other determinants, he always lays his finger triumphantly on the points where his idol, quantity of labour, either actually, or in his opinion, exerts an influence; on such points as the change in prices when the amount of labour changes, the influence of "aggregate value" on average rate of profit, &c. He is silent about the co-ordinate influence of foreign determinants as well as about the influence of the amount of social capital on the rate of profit, and about the alteration of prices through a change in the organic composition of the capital, or in the rate of wages […] This is to evade the admission of the contradiction; it is not to escape from the contradiction itself.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Böhm-Bawerk is unclear in this - he seems to assume that "labour" here is not comprising the value of both prices of production, wages and profits. Marx is only borrowing from Smith, but we do eventually see the ruthless criticism of Smith by Rothbard, who puts the victims of communism upon his conscience. From the analysis so far, Böhm-Bawerk is right that Marx offers implicit contradictions in his work, but he also seems to misunderstand some of Marx's perspective, as well. This misunderstanding is clearer in the next chapter:
<Smith, in the same way as Marx in his third volume, taught that in a developed economic system values and prices gravitate towards a level of costs which besides labour comprises an average profit of capital. And Ricardo, too, in the celebrated fourth section of the chapter "On Value," clearly and definitely stated that by the side of labour, mediate or immediate, the amount of capital invested and the duration of the investment exercise a determining influence on the value of the goods. 
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch04.htm
Here, Böhm-Bawerk is taking the category of "labour" opaquely, as that which is assorted into wages, and not seeing that "capital" is a sum of labour to these thinkers.

In Chapter 4, Böhm-Bawerk advances his polemics not simply against the doctrine of surplus value, but also the very idea of labour value itself. He develops it thusly:
<Value and effort, as I have stated at length in another place, are not ideas so intimately connected that one is forced immediately to adopt the view that effort is the basis of value […] When therefore it is affirmed that a necessary and natural correspondence between value and effort exists in any quarter, it behoves us to give ourselves and our readers some grounds in support of such a statement […] If Marx had not confined his research, at the decisive point, to products of labour, but had sought for the common factor in the exchangeable gifts of nature as well, it would have become obvious that work cannot be the common factor […] Marx might have seen that we do not absolutely disregard value in use, from the fact that there can be no exchange value where there is no value in use–a fact which Marx is himself repeatedly forced to admit […] If Marx had chanced to reverse the order of the examination, the same reasoning which led to the exclusion of the value in use would have excluded labour; and then the reasoning which resulted in the crowning of labour might have led him to declare the value in use to be the only property left, and therefore to be the sought-for common property, and value to be "the cellular tissue of value in use." […] In order to maintain without obvious contradiction their cherished philosophical principle that labour is the "true" source of value, they were obliged to beat a retreat to mythical times and places in which capitalists and landed proprietors did not exist.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch04.htm
Now, this is reminiscent of Philip Wicksteed's critique of Marx's theory of value, positing "abstract utility" (1884):
<Simple and obvious as this seems, it in reality surrenders the whole of the previous analysis, for if it is only useful labour that counts, then in stripping the wares of all the specific properties conferred upon them by specific kinds of useful work, we must not be supposed to have stripped them of the abstract utility, conferred upon them by abstractly useful work […] Now the "common something," which all exchangeable things contain, is neither more nor less than abstract utility, i.e., power of satisfying human desires.
https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/today/1884/10/wicksteed-capital.htm
This is of course correct, but Böhm-Bawerk declines the graduation to a conception of Wicksteed's precision. It shouldn't be hard, since it is written so early in Kapital:
<Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Böhm-Bawerk's bloviation does him no favours. For the rest, he criticises the 'reduction problem' of simple and complex labour - indeed, Engels himself struggled on this question, and Marx sidelines it as an impracticable consideration, since industry de-skills labour anyway. Jevons and Gossen apply increased disutility of labour to the long-term investment of professional careers, which is similar to some neo-Marxian ideas of added value for education - but in all these cases, these are "imaginary" commodities, so cannot directly relate a transfer of value by Marxian standards. This is then an unanswered problem, but in political economy in general (e.g. Smith's "unproductive labour"). Perhaps the vulgar economists have the best answer; supply and demand.

Bohm-Bawerk finally concludes rather optimistically:
<What will be the final judgment of the world? Of that I have no manner of doubt. The Marxian system has a past and a present, but no abiding future. Of all sorts of scientific systems those which, like the Marxian a hollow dialectic, are based on a hollow dialectic, most surely doomed. A clever dialectic may make a temporary impression on the human mind, but cannot make a lasting one. […] But even when this will have happened Socialism will certainly not be overthrown with the Marxian system,–neither practical nor theoretic Socialism. As there was a Socialism before Marx, so there will be one after him. […] Marx, however, will maintain a permanent place in the history of the social sciences for the same reasons and with the same mixture of positive and negative merits as his prototype Hegel. Both of them were philosophical geniuses. Both of them, each in his own domain, had an enormous influence upon the thought and feeling of whole generations, one might almost say even upon the spirit of the age. The specific theoretical work of each was a most ingeniously conceived structure, built up by a magical power of combination, of numerous storeys of thought, held together by a marvellous mental grasp, but–a house of cards.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch05.htm
So then, no emnity is between these men, but only the tide of history, which Böhm-Bawerk sees progressively upon a future socialism which has abandoned Marx. Indeed, Keynes writes the same as regards this politics:
<The purpose of [Gesell's] book as a whole may be described as the establishment of an anti-Marxian socialism, a reaction against laissez-faire built on theoretical foundations totally unlike those of Marx in being based on a repudiation instead of on an acceptance of the classical hypotheses, and on an unfettering of competition instead of its abolition. I believe that the future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx. The preface to The Natural Economic Order will indicate to the reader, if he will refer to it, the moral quality of Gesell. The answer to Marxism is, I think, to be found along the lines of this preface.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch23.htm
So then, socialism has a future, but it won't be Marxist.

>>2858688
>around 9:00
>the bank doesn't hold onto the capitalist's paid-off loan it deletes the money
what? more on this?

>>2847559
the anon never gave me that source

>>2861692
The typical view of money is that it is circulated from a bank hoard, and is limited in its distribution by directly transferring coins, notes, etc. But what this disjunctive circuitry proposes is that money is created ex nihilo, from an account of assets and liabilities, between the creditor and the debtor, and upon the completion of a loan contract, this money is destroyed. So, the process is rather identical (e.g. money is transferred from banks to the public, and the money is returned to the bank), except that the mechanism is different (e.g. rather than "tax and spend", its "spend and tax"). So, no bother.

Theoretically, however, this can pose certain problems, as we read in Kautsky: >>2859865
Money loses its status as "commodity", and so its function as a "measure of value" is uncertain. As Hilferding writes, the contrary is true; money is not what measures value, but it is value which measures money. This all plainly contradicts Marx, yet Marx can still be useful in squaring the circle between "value" and debt. We read that labour acts as credit and value is a debt:
<In every country in which the capitalist mode of production reigns, it is the custom not to pay for labour-power before it has been exercised for the period fixed by the contract, as for example, the end of each week. In all cases, therefore, the use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
Thus, debt may serve as a measure of value, yet money in itself has no representative debt-commodity. Some thinkers say otherwise; that bonds can act as the money commodity, but a bond takes no labour to produce, and that is the issue. As Hilferding writes, money was once based in its production cost, but in monopoly, it has no cost, and thus, no value. The real question then arises; if money is no longer money, how can it take the form of money? MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) attempts to answer this, by seeing that money never had value, but was always a monopoly asset which recorded social debt. Nonetheless, Hilferding still agrees with Marx:
<the quantity of money functioning as the circulating medium is equal to the sum of the prices of the commodities
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm
Labour still regulates money supply, just in reverse. The practical conclusions one can make about the supply of money today is that money can be supplied to reduce the distance between absolute and effective supply of commodities. Malthus as early as 1800, and Senior in 1830 both suggested redistributing money to resolve the crises of overproduction (e.g. underconsumption) in their time. OP's two files represent capitalist waste.

Charles Kindleberger's "A Financial History of Western Europe" (1984) is a basic chronology of money and banking in Europe, and serves as a textbook for the topic. For this review, I will be going through chapters 1-8, which traces a development of banking from 1200 - 1900 CE, from independent creditors to central banks.

Chapter 1 is an introduction which can be passed over, but it does present a comprehensive timeline [pp. 9-14], so we will begin with Chapter 2, which concerns the development of money. The first section concerns the "function of money" [pp. 19-20], which as he writes, has a spatio-temporal dimension, for short-term and long-term uses, and also between distant transactions. He ascribes three basic functions to money: (i) medium of exchange, (ii) unit of account, (iii) store of value. Media of exchange overcomes the "double coincidence of wants", unit of account allows for relative valuation, and store of value is a function for long-term investment. In terms of the origin of money [pg. 21], Charles cites the work of Bruno Hildebrand (1864) to show that the view of an original barter is incorrect, and that credit relations existed all throughout the ancient and medieval periods. He doesn't go in depth, but still offers this consideration - along with stating that a medium of exchange is not required to have a money of account, using France from the 10-18th century to display an independence of circulation and accounting [pg. 22]. Here then, accounts can be abstractly recorded between creditor and debtor.

In Chapter 3, the origin of banking is connected to the bills of exchange circulated by international merchants [pg. 35]; an apparent 13th century innovation [pg. 39]. We do know that crediting obviously preceded banking, and that international accounting for deposits and withdrawals (along with bills of exchange) at least emerged with the Knights Templar Bank (1150-1307). Around the same time, he writes [pg. 36], medieval fairs were established for the sake of international trade. In the 12th century, transnational markets existed, just like in ancient times, but this was not yet a global market, such as we see emerge within the 16-17th century. W.S. Jevons comments on the decline of "merry England" and the May Pole, connected to the decline of medieval fairs, which is in tandem with the rise of capitalism, and so it proves Marx right, that in prior times, commerce ruled industry, but now the reverse is true. International trade is then not at all identical to capitalist production. At fairs, as Charles continues, a merchant book kept an account of "vostro" and "nostro", or claims and liabilities, with the difference being settled by officials. Fairs are shown to decline and become exclusive as the 16th century approached [pg. 37], but Antwerp established fairs in the period of its decline to increase revenue, but this was suspended before the 17th century.

Along with innovating bills of exchange, the Italians also established banking in its city-states [pg. 42], beginning locally at first, but then expanding. North Italians (known as Lombards) set up in City of London, and were making loans to the King of England from 1272-1310 for a sum of £400,000. The creditors of the king were then Italian bankers [pg. 43]. The hub of finance in the 13th century was the ancient 'City of London' district (Londinium). An interesting history surrounds the City of London, with its internal council preceding parliament, and its "ancient freedoms" protected by the Magna Carta (1215). Many conspiracy theories surround this supposedly 'sovereign' corporation, and is most often connected to Catholicity, by protestant prejudice, especially against the Jesuits. Certainly it is true, that global power lived in the "square mile", but it is not clear whether it does anymore. At the very least, we can connect Catholic, Italian creditors in the 12-13th centuries to the rise of global banking. The Hundred Years' War was also financed by Italians (e.g. The Bardi and the Peruzzi of Florence), yet Edward III defaulted on the loan in 1348, and this bankrupted the bankers. At once then, creditors gained power over their debtors, but debtors also have powers, if the loss is big enough - like what is attributed to Keynes; the greatest debtor makes creditors their slaves, and so the function of debt is beneficial at a certain threshold, which is also why credit is limited in its borrowing powers - when the function of borrowing is unlimited, you get things like the 2008 crisis, based on sub-prime mortgage lending. Charles tells us that the risks of lending to royalty was known, but there was also a high reward. Italians in England would often receive special privileges in return for their contributions, and so we see the plutocracy at work in the supposedly "noble" system of feudalism. But as the Bible reveals, even one's soul has a price.

Arising from the dissolution of the Templars (1307) and the ruination of the Bardi and Peruzzi (1348), we get the Medici Bank (1397), which was also established within London, but also Venice, Rome, Bruges, Geneva, Lyons, etc. Here, international banking was firmly instituted (what Charles leaves out is the invention of double entry book keeping by the Medici Bank). As yet, the Italian age of banking was soon diminished, beginning in the early Reformation period; e.g. 1520s [pg. 44]. It was Genoa which then became the centre of finance by 1550 (which established the first state deposit bank in 1407), but they were later outdone by the Dutch in 1620. In this time, South Germans gained relevance and so we see the banking clan of "Fuggers". Consecutive financial crises in Spain from 1557-1647 brought ultimate ruin to the Fuggers in 1596, by their failure to pay back loans [pg. 45]. Germans had also brought in 'intermediation' for loans, by contributions from the wealthy, which was a new technique in the rise of banking. So then, banking moved from the heart of the Catholic Church (1150) to the heart of the Reformation (1550), to further move toward Northern Europe, which also established central banks (1668-94). The "Jewish" age of finance is then a later development, with European recognition of it from ~1820, the post-Napoleonic era of the Rothschilds. So, referring to my original timeline, we see this progresion:

• Catholic Period (1150 - 1550)
  
• Protestant Period (1550 - 1820)
  
• Jewish Period (1820 -)
  
  

The Bank of Amsterdam was set up in 1609 (7 years after the Dutch East India Company), and in the style of the Bank of Venice (1574), sought to have high deposits from merchants, with the minimum of 300 florins being preferred, but with smaller deposits permitted, just at a higher fee (pp. 48). It was these transfer fees and the like which generated profit for the bank. Various other public banks arose from this time, but all ended up failing in the crisis of 1672 (pp.49). We should see here that every banking system has failed, so far, and as Marx sees, the crisis of overproduction (beginning in the 1820s) is a commercial crisis of capital, but general crises are inevitable with the rise of financial capital, and as we see from the first global depression from the 1870s, to the 1920s, to 2008, financial crises are very common, and this is empirically verified, since at least the 13th century (with the financial risk of lending being recorded from at least 1000 BCE but only having local crisis). As I have also related, most labour (in the West) is also paid through digital bank deposits, and so all transactions are mediated by this system. The rise of capitalism is the rise of banking (e.g. Marx does not write much on this, but he sees that capitalism emerged in Italy before anywhere else - the same as banking). While the Bank of Amsterdam was not a credit bank, the Bank of Sweden (est. 1656) was (pp. 49-50). The Bank of Sweden (Riskbank) had its precedent model in the Dutch Bank of Lending (1614) for one sector of it, while the other was based around the Bank of Amsterdam's exchange bank model. Riksbank then had its Lanebank (lending bank) and the Wechselbank (exchange bank); both based on the Dutch models (this composite bank was also suggested in the English Bank Act 1844, but probably unknowingly of the example of the Riskbank). The state took it over in 1668, and it became the world's first central bank, but already in 1661, it was issuing the first banknotes in Europe.

Henry VIII permitted interest in England from 1545, after the dissolution of the monateries, which saw the rise of goldsmiths and jewellers, originally from the scrivener, a type of broker, from whom many suggested banking originated [pg. 51]. Banking in England was rather slow [pg. 52], in that the creation of seven banks in 1571 were not commercial banks - banking only came to attention in the middle of the 17th century, such as with William Potter (1650), but also Hugh Peters, who after spending nearly a decade in Holland, promoted commercial banks in every major city. As Charles tells us [pg. 53] the Bank of England brought disaster to the economy, since its founders were more interested in private, rather than a public service. War financing was especially prevalant. The bank was established by various creditors who all collectively pooled £1,200,000 for an annual payment of £100,000 in return. Investors [stockholders] included the Dutch, Huguenots, Jews, English Emigrants and existing financiers in England. The Bank grew in size alongside the East India Company, as outsider merchants rebelled against the monopoly - Marx also writes that the Bank of England was the financial engine of the Empire. This then concludes Chapter 3, which I will summarise:

Banking was invented by Italians in the 12-13th century, concurrent with fairs, which would provide international trade. Merchants would provide accounts for claims and liabilities at the fairs. Banks fell into ruin by risky lending, such as the Lombards, and Bardi/Peruzzi, who were all bankrupted from lending to England, from 1270-1350. From this arose the Medici Bank (est. 1397) which had continental dominance until the 1520s. German banking arose in the 1550s, but was overtaken by the Dutch in the 1620s, yet most public banks failed by 1672. The models of dutch banking, exchange/lending, inspired the Riskbank (est. 1656) which became the first central bank (1668), followed by the Bank of England (1694), which was preceded by ideas from Potter (1650) and Peters, to establish commercial banks. The Bank of England however, was set up for stockholder profits, by increasing trade monopoly, and financing British wars. It should be noted that most central banks were created to provide funds for wars, beyond simple war bonds.

Chapter 4 concerns bimetallism (e.g. gold and silver), which has been a common means of securing exchange for lower and higher order goods. Gresham's Law is discussed (pp. 56-57), also described by Copernicus, as the way that greater circulation requires lower value coins and the adoption of this currency consequently leads to the removal of gold from circulation. Steuart (1767) describes the order of trade, of domestic coin, and foreign bullion, scaled in terms of the metal grade. This was also inferred by Copernicus in 1526. "World money" as an institution, as Kindleberg informs us, was established in the 19th century (pp. 66-67), from original conferences, first held in 1857, when the West was embraced bimetallism (pp. 58-65), first in Britain (1717). The gold standard became universal from 1880 (pg. 68).

Chapter 5 begins by a description of immediate issues with the Bank of England, which created inflation in the 1690s, with subsequent bank runs til 1707 (pg. 75). A rival to the Bank of England was the Sword Blade Bank, which created the South Sea Company (1711). With a debt of £300,000, state lotteries raised funds, but since not enough people participated, rights to sell tickets was granted to the Sword Blade Bank. The Sword Blade Bank raised £2,000,000 which were the funds for the South Sea Company. The South Sea Company failed from 1720, and the Bank of England gained dominance in England by applying monopoly rights of notes in an act of 1742 (pg. 76). Kindleberger explains that for its early history, the Bank of England only operated within London, even as late as 1802. Notes were also not for basic circulation, but as securities for gold deposits. So, the circulation of notes would have been limited anyway (pp. 76-77). Over time, lower denomination notes were made. No note below £20 was issued before 1759, but afterwards, there was the £10 and £5 note by 1794. £2 and £1 notes were issued by 1797, but were revoked by 1817, in the post-Napoleonic period. We see the central location of London, with only about a dozen banks being outside of London (pg. 79). We see that the Bank of England expanded as a lender from 1826 all over the country, maintaining monopoly rights of 65 miles from London. Here, joint-stock banking is created (pp. 83-84). Private banks were shrinking in number, while joint-stock banks increased in proportion. We can see stats [pg. 88] of the monopoly which branches gained from 1855-1913. So then, joint-stock banking was created in 1826 and this led to the monopoly of banking markets.

Chapter 6 discusses French banking. We can read this: "The fair at Lyons made it the financial center of France from the transfer of the fair from Geneva in 1461 to the failure of Samuel Bernard in 1709 […] The failure of Samuel Bernard in 1709 was of the usual sort: he had loaned Louis XIV 15 million livres by 1703, 20 million by 1704 and 30 million by 1708 when he refused further advances, needed to fight the War of the Spanish Succession, was cut off from payments on the out-standing debt, and unable to repay his drafts" (pp. 95-6). This then gives the pre-history. John Law is attributed as the theorist of money as "blood" which "circulates" (1705), and for this sake, wantes to increase supply so that unemployment could be reduced. John Law after being exiled, eventually convinced France to start its own national bank in 1716 (Banque Generale). Law served as Minister of France until 1720. After Law, Isaac Panchaud formed the Caisse d'Escompte in 1776 that lasted until the French Revolution, and was followed by a successor, created in 1798, that was quickly assimilated into the new Bank of France two years later (pg. 98). The Bank of France began to invest in the economy from 1830 onwards (pp. 109-110).

Chapter 7 concerns German banking. The pre-Prussian period saw the Hanseatic League, but because Germany was not yet unified until 1871, officially, it relied on the use of foreign coinage, such that "the Rhineland, for example, had at least seventy types of foreign coins in circulation in 1816" (pg. 119). The customs union began unifying Germany from 1818-1833. Independent coins were minted from 1837 onwards. The Mark was made the official coinage in 1871. The first German great bank was Darmstüdter Bank of 1853 (pg. 123), until the establishement of the central Deutsche Bank, in 1870 (with the Reichsbank also operating from 1876-1945). After this, industry was invested into (pp. 125-6).

Chapter 8 concerns Italian and Spanish banking. Italy, like Germany, was not unified, until tariffs, and in 1847 had reacted against the German Zollverein (pg. 136). Italy was united in 1861, and with this established both central and regional banks by incorporation (pg. 138). These regional banks were further incorporated into the Bank of Italy in 1893. On Spain, Kindleberger writes that "For present purposes, Spanish financial history may be said to begin with the American War of Independence when Spain joined France on the side of the colonies against Britain." (pg. 146). The bank which financed this was the Bank of St. Charles, which declined by 1822, and the Bank of San Ferdinando took its place (pg. 147). There was a shortage of Spanish coins, and by 1848, half of currency was foreign. After an 1856 Banking Act, banks were set up all over Spain, with San Ferdinando becoming the Bank of Spain, officially, and in 1874, it gained a monopoly over the issuing of notes (pg. 150).

So then, we can see that banking was invented during the Crusades (~1100 - 1300), with The Knights Templar creating banking (1150 - 1307), which moves into the Bardi and Peruzzi dynasties (1290 - 1350), then Medici (1400 - 1500). Genoa was the centre of finance, yet we see the transition from the Bank of Venice (1574), to the Bank of Amsterdam (1609), which borrowed its model. The Swedish Riksbank (1656) became the world's first central bank (1668), after first copying Amsterdam's exchange model. We see the Bank of England (1694) lead into the General Bank of France (1716-20), until the Bank of France was established (1800). After this, we have the Bank of Spain (1856) the Bank of Italy (1861), and the Bank of Germany (1871). This is the timeline.

Friedrich List's brief "Outlines of an American Political Economy" (1827) is a series of 8 letters to Charles Ingersoll, and it portrays the necessity to protect and develop manufacturing (as per his later work, "National System of Political Economy", 1841). List was part of a movement which promoted the "American System", and which has attribution as early as Henry Clay's advocacy, such as delivered in this speech (30-31 March, 1824):
https://archive.org/details/mrclaysspeechins00clay/page/n1/mode/1up?ref=ol

Friedrich List in his first letter offers his perspective [pg. 8]:
<Economy of individuals and economy of mankind, as treated by Adam Smith, teach by what means an individual creates, increases and consumes wealth in society with other individuals, and how the industry and wealth of mankind influence the industry and wealth of individuals. National Economy teaches by what means a certain nation, in her particular situation, may direct and regulate the economy of individuals, and restrict the economy of mankind, either to prevent foreign restrictions and foreign power, or to increase the productive powers within herself.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/outlines-of-american-political-economy-in-a-series-of-letters-1827
Afterwards, List emphasises the politics of economics [pg. 9]:
<They do not treat political economy, but cosmopolitical economy. To complete the science we must add the principle of national economy. The idea of national economy arises, with the idea of nations. A nation is the medium between individuals and mankind
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/outlines-of-american-political-economy-in-a-series-of-letters-1827
Thus, List is seeking to complete the original logic. National "power" is seen as the object [pg. 10], since power and wealth increase each other. Letter two ends with a distinction between American and English political economy as the difference between monopoly and enterprise; of tyranny and liberty. List says that the American system seeks to invite immigration to add to the nation, and that the land is so wide that it could support hundreds of millions of independent farmers [pg. 12]. List has so far made distinction between: (i) individual, (ii) national, (iii) world economy, which is also the difference between (i) political (national) economy, and (ii) cosmopolitical (individual/world) economy. Power and politics are considered within the national system, but cosmopolitics only considers wealth itself. We see that free trade is considered cosmopolitan [pg. 18] and so is problematised. Capital as a concept is also expanded to include not simply "capital of matter" (e.g. commodities), but also "capital of mind" - or what today is most often described as "human capital" [pp. 19-21]. The base of human capital to List then adds to the total "productive power" of a nation, and so each capital can act against the other. To increase material riches can be the loss of skill [pp. 22-24]. For the rest, he simple seeks to affirm that "cosmopolitical economy is not political economy". Of course, Smith never described himself as a "political economist", and the neologism of Antoine Montchretien (1615) certainly bears more resemblance to List's own meaning. It is at least in the 1871 preface of Jevons' "Theory" that "Economics" is offered as an alternative classification (which we see with Menger's "Principles" of the same year), but the Physiocrats also referred to themselves as "economists" before this time, which Smith does reference. The earliest accounts of "economics" and "economy" in Ancient Greece refer to the management of the oikos (household), but still has what are considered "economic" insights. It was with Montchretien who simply transposed the oikos to the polis, so Political Economy extended from Economics, and in turn, "Political Economy" returns to "Economics".

What is most interesting in List's "Outline" however, is an attached letter of Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Austen (9 January, 1816). Jefferson makes a shocking claim that he has foregone his cause of an agrarian utopia, built upon the export of raw materials to Europe, and has 'proudly' seen the necessity of manufacture as a means of preserving national independence [pp. 37-9]:
<You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependence on England for manufactures—There was a time when Imight have been so quoted with more candor. But within the thirty years which have since elapsed, how are circumstances changed! […] We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist […] He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us eiflier to a dependenreon that nation, or be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts indens and caverns. I am proud to say, I am not one ofthese.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/outlines-of-american-political-economy-in-a-series-of-letters-1827
So then, even Jefferson's idealism became pragmatic.

Richard Whately followed Nassau Senior as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Oxford. His brief "Introductory Lectures on Political Economy" (1831) then concern the orthodoxy of the time. We begin with a definition of "political economy" itself:
<Man might be defined, "An animal that makes Exchanges:" no other, even of thoseanimals which in other points make the nearest approach to rationality, having, to allappearance, the least notion of bartering, or in any way exchanging one thing foranother. And it is in this point of view alone that Man is contemplated by Political-Economy. This view does not essentially differ from that of A. Smith; since in thisscience the term Wealth is limited to exchangeable commodities; and it treats of themso far forth only as they are, or are designed to be, the subjects of exchange. But forthis very reason it is perhaps the more convenient to describe Political-Economy asthe science of Exchanges, rather than as the science of national Wealth.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_004
This he maintains, despite the internal contradiction of the term "wealth", as he also highlights, such as here:
<Though one thousand pounds' worth of jewels be of the same value as one thousand pounds' worth of instructive books, which must as surely be the case as that a poundof feathers and a pound of lead are equal in weight, it does not follow that each must contribute equally to public and private happiness.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_004
He simply raises the problem but does not solve it.

The second lecture begins with an indulgent digression upon religion, but it eventually circles back to discussing the morality of Mandeville's "private vices", such as it relates to Smith, and the theory of wealth altogether. As Whatley confers, many view wealth as corrupting, and so this is duly considered, especially upon "luxury", which is accursed as increasing effeminacy in nations:
<As for the effeminizing effects that have been attributed to national luxury, which has been charged with causing a decay of national energy, mental and bodily, no such results appear traceable to any such cause. Xenophon indeed attributes the degeneracy of the Persians to the inroads of luxury, which was carried, he says, to such a pitch of effeminacy, that they even adopted the use of gloves to protect their hands. We probably have gone as much beyond them
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_005
I have previously problematised luxury in itself, in the same sense that Keynes did. Luxury is a result of the advancement of divisions of labour, which increasingly specialise production for generally useless goods. Even Bataille in his General Economy apllies this marginalism. Further on, Whatley seems to contradict himself:
<Rich men are indeed often most laboriously and honourably active; but they may, and sometimes do, spend their lives in such idleness as cannot be found among the poor, excepting in the class of beggars.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_005
How can the rich both be laborious and idle? Clearly, Whatley is conflicted in his judgement. Adding:
<A rich nation, on the contrary, is always an industrious nation; and almost alwaysmore industrious than poor ones.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_005
Here, he properly concludes that national wealth has never been judged as evil, though individual wealth may be. The case stands thus that there is an antagonism:
<The “national wealth” of the English is very great and yet they are the poorest people under the sun.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
This is a central consideration.

After much meandering, Whatley finally provides some matter of content for what is political economy:
<An abundant supply causeshim to lower his prices, and thus enables the public to enjoy that abundance; while he is guided only by the apprehension of being undersold; and, on the other hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes him to demand a higher price, or to keep back his goods in expectation of a rise.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_007
All which he adds afterwards is that dealers provide a great service, and so cannot be blamed for anything. After this he moves into Lecture 5, where he begins by describing the division of labour in standard terms. He raises controversy however, in that the notion of pure savagery emerging into divisions of labour contradicts the Bible, in how Cain and Able already had their roles. Of course, it is easier to argue that Adam and Eve were themselves in an uncivilised condition (e.g. nakedness). Whatley sees that civilisation is prior to savagery:
<On looking around us and examiningall history, ancient and modern, we find, as I have said, that no savage tribe appears tohave risen into civilization, except through the aid of others who were civilized […] Now if this be the case, when, and how, did civilization first begin? […] in the beginning therefore of the human race, this, since there was no man to effect it, must have been the work of another Being.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_008
Now, this is not an entirely fabulous theory, in the sense that civilisation has most often been brought to people rather than been cultivated by itself. It could be argued that most Europeans in early modernity were uncivilised, by their lack of integration into world-historical events.

In Lecture 6, he develops from division into exchange:
In proportion then as the division of labour was extended, exchanges would become more and more frequent. For, diversity of production is evidently the foundation ofexchange; since, as long as each individual provides for all his own wants, and only for them, he will have nothing to part with, and nothing to receive. Barter then havingbecome a customary transaction, would naturally be superseded, in the progress of society, by the employment of some kind of Money […] It will suffice for our present purpose to state, that by Money, I mean, any commodity in general request, which is received in exchange forother commodities, not for the purpose of being directly used by the party receiving it,(for that is Barter,) but for the purpose of being again parted with in exchange forsomething else. It is not the very commodity which the party wants, or expectshereafter to want; but it is a security or pledge
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
Here, his idea of money is quite sophisticated, for I have also characterised money as a security, or anti-trust mechanism, following from David Graeber's own work. Money's "intrinsic" value substitutes an honour system for selfishness. Whatley makes a later terrible claim:
<Among poor and barbarous nations, (as I formerlyremarked,) we may find as much avarice, fraud, vanity, and envy, called forth, inreference perhaps to a string of beads, a hatchet, or a musket, as are to be found inwealthier communities.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
Of course, "rich" nations frequently engage in organised robbery under the name of law; kleptocracy is the rule. Whatley makes claims of the savage's lack of wealth:
<The savage is commonly found to be covetous, frequently rapacious, when his present inclination impels him to seek anyobject which he needs, or which his fancy is set on. He is not indeed not so steady or so provident, in his pursuit of gain, as the civilized man; but this is from the general unsteadiness and improvidence of his character; not from his being engrossed by higher pursuits. What keeps him poor, in addition to want of skill and insecurity ofproperty, is, not a philosophical contempt of riches, but a love of sluggish torpor and of present gratification.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
This is an important introduction of the psychological aspect of productivity (e.g. time-preference), preceded by Thomas Massie (1750), where prudence is defined by investment. Jevons offers the same judgement, that the lower state of society reflects a lower demand for higher order goods. Of course, wealth here is inherently relative to demand, yet still pretends to an absolute measure. Democritus vindicates the savage where he claims that true poverty is excessive demand, and we see that higher order products are generally useless. What need does the savage have for more than what is given to him in satisfaction? Here, realism conflicts with snobbery, and it necessarily misses the mark, against Adam Smith's own distinction, between absolute and effectual demand. What the "civilised" man possesses is only greater means, not greater ends.

After this, Whatley praises hoarders in a false fashion:
<in countries as far advanced in commercial transactions as almost the whole of Europe is, it may be said that, with hardly any exceptions, hoardingwithdraws nothing from the public use. If the miser is engaged in any kind ofbusiness; he lives himself indeed (as in the other case) on a miserable pittance; but his desire of gain naturally prompts him to add continually his profits to his capital; which is a part of the capital of the country
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
Here, Whatley equates the wealth of a miser with the wealth of all people in a nation; this is precisely what Smith criticises, that the rise of profits is a detriment, not a gain, for the majority of people. This is seen as early as 1691 by Sir Dudley North. Here, Whatley has the most disastrous idea of "wealth". The "private vices" of the worker has its basis in the general welfare, not the capitalist's self-interest. Whatley has reversed Smith.

Lecture 7 begins with a defense of the unnecessary as a cause to progress, and I agree - but the unnecessary must have its precondition. As Smith, Gossen, Marx and Menger all affirm, commodity production begins at the threshold of surplus - a surplus by its nature is wasteful to its possessor (as Xenophon identified). Thus, where necessity is fulfilled, waste may become useful, but if necessity itself becomes exchangeable, the realm of the necessary takes precedence again, in the same savage way that Whatley identifies. If we then first provide for the necessary product, we free ourselves to the surplus, the same way that Whatley quotes Cicero on the topic:
<it is, as Cicero observes, when men are released from the avocations of necessary business, that they are especially led to fix their desires on the hearing, the learning, the investigating, of whatever is attractive through its intrinsic grandeur or its novelty.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_010
It is the same as Aristotle or Marx claiming that man must eat and drink before he thinks. Precisely! Yet the capitalist ideologue is conflicted, between cultivating the pride of common luxury, and debasing private luxury. Jevons signs the alarm (1879) in his advocacy for the publicity of private goods, like books and paintings. The multiplication of utility (e.g. wealth) requires provisions.

Lecture 8 begins promisingly, by criticising thre idea of national wealth as a matter of distribution, yet Whatley devolves his argument into blaming poverty on the poor:
<the wealth of a nation would be computed according to that of the richest individuals […] among nations equal in wealth, the greatest and most important varieties may exist in respect of its distribution. If a large proportion of the wealth of a communityconsist of the enormous and overgrown fortunes of a few, that community has by nomeans such promising prospects in respect of the intellectual and moral advancement of the rest of the people, or even of the possessors of those fortunes, with one which enjoys a greater diffusion of wealth […] But there are means by which the evil in question may be much alleviated. A small degree of care in education will diminish the extreme helplessness which is oftenfound in manufacturing labourers. The women in particular are often so improvident, in devoting themselves exclusively and unremittingly to a single operation, for thesake of earning higher wages for the present, that they grow up ignorant of thecommon domestic offices; and when they marry, are wholly dependent on such asthey hire for those purposes; so that a fall of wages, or want of work, reduces theirfamilies to a state of much greater discomfort, than others, with the same absolutepoverty, have to encounter […] Another expedient which provident good-sense would suggest as a safeguard against the worst extremities of this evil, is, that the several members of a family should betake themselves, as far as that is possible, to different occupations.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_011

Lecture 9 begins by an admission to his deficiency. It would have been merciful to say this earlier:
<It is not my design, either now or hereafter, to attempt delivering a complete and detailed system of Political-Economy.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_012
This is a massive understatement of course, and this can conclude the waste of time that this work entails. Beyond its indulgent pomposity is its allergy to theory. What has actually been said? That usuers are great, and that the poor need to be more responsible for their lack of wealth. That is what stands out least. This can hardly count as a work of political economy. It is a smothering.

Dudley North's "Discourses Upon Trade" (1691) is a collection of two short essays, "A Discourse Concerning The Abatement of Interest" and "A Discourse Of Coyned Money". We begin the first essay with three points upon the relative revenues of land and capital via trade:
<When Interest is less, Trade is incourag'd, and the Merchant can be a Gainer; whereas, when it is great, the Usurer, or Money-owner takes all. The Dutch, with whom Interest is low, Trade cheaper, and under-sell us. Land falls in value, as Interest riseth.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
Here, trade and interest are put at odds, as per the old mercantilist debates of that century, and with it are also the usurer and merchant, who compete, alongside the revenues of rent and interest. This is concurrent of phenomena identified by William Petty, that trade and rent grow as interest decreases, but he also sees this as caused by increased productivity, and so takes a supply-side position, as against Potter and Child. From stated correlations between the phenomena, North sets out to answer what part the state should have in regulating the rate of interest. From this he departs into a digression upon economic matters in general, and speaks upon the cause of poverty and riches as providence/profuseness:
<some are more provident, others more profuse […] And those are the Rich, who transmit what they have to their Posterity […] who by Trade serving the occasions of their Neighbours, supply themselves with what they have occasion for from abroad; which done, the rest is laid up, and is Silver, Gold, &c.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
Here, he is basically describing the function of saving. After this, he establishes equality in kind between land and capital, which relates to the Classical innovation:
<But as the Landed Man letts his Land, so these still lett their Stock; this latter is call'd Interest, but is only Rent for Stock, as the other is for Land […] Thus to be a Landlord, or a Stock-lord is the same thing; the Landlord hath the advantage only in this: That his Tenant cannot carry away the Land, as the Tenant of the other may the Stock; and therefore Land ought to yield less profit than Stock, which is let out at the greater hazard […] These things consider'd, it will be found, that as plenty makes cheapness in other things, as Corn, Wool, &c. when they come to Market in greater Quantities than there are Buyers to deal for, the Price will fall; so if there be more Lenders than Borrowers, Interest will also fall; wherefore it is not low Interest makes Trade, but Trade increasing, the Stock of the Nation makes Interest low […] It is said, that in Holland Interest is lower than in England. I answer, It is; because their Stock is greater than ours.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
We also thus see that he takes the supply-side position, in that an increase of stock in competition leads to lesser interest, not that lesser interest increases stock. This is also Adam Smith's position as regards the rate of profit; that the more capitalists who compete for labour, the lesser the profits (which has historical correlation with rates of interest; e.g. Massie, 1750). On top of this, the merchant is contrasted with the usurer in terms of the rate of interest; usurers will only lend when rates are high, and merchants will compete and make it low. He thus sees an issue between production and circulation. All in all, North sees that a lack of intervention is best for the promotion of trade, in the style of the Dutch, and so has a lasseiz-faire attitude. He makes a good point:
<Let any one Answer me, why do not the Legislators in those poor Countries, where Interest is at 10, & 12 per Cent, make such Laws to restrain Interest, and reduce |8| it for the good of the People? If they should attempt it, it wou'd soon appear, that such Laws would not be effectual to do it.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
In the same sense has it been declared that raising the minimum wage of a developing nation cannot increase its wealth, but only harm it (upon the minimum wage, I have previously demonstrated the universal perspective that raising the minimum wage is rejected by intelligent writers such as Marx, Jevons and Keynes, yet all still supported lowering the maximum working day - here, the cause of wages is identified, rather than mystified). Raising the minimum wage in the first place, as Keynes remarks, satisfies the trade union consciousness upon money wages, which often conceal a reduction of the real wage. Indeed, many poor countries have tried to print money to get themselves out of poverty, but this is a fatal illusion. This is North's point, then; we must care about identifying causes, not effects. As yet, there is such a thing as underconsumption granted from a lack of circulation, so this must also be duly considered.

Next is "A Discourse Of Coyned Money" which begins:
<In the former Discourse, it hath been already made appear, that Gold and Silver for their scarcity, have obtained in small quantities, to equal in value far greater quantities of other Metals, &c. And farther, from their easie Removal, and convenient Custody, have also obtained to be the common Measure in the World between Man and Man in their dealings, as well for Land, Houses, &c., as for Goods and other Necessaries.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
This is rather self-explanatory. After this he describes the possession of money as inherently impoverishing:
<No Man is richer for having his Estate all in Money, Plate, &c. lying by him, but on the contrary, he is for that reason the poorer. That man is richest, whose Estate is in a growing condition, either in Land at Farm, Money at Interest, or Goods in Trade: If any man, out of an humour, should turn all his Estate into Money, and keep it dead, he would soon be sensible of Poverty growing upon him, whilst he is eating out of the quick stock.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
How different this sounds from his earlier text, that a man is rich or poor based on his capacity of saving. Clearly, saving is counted as dead money, and so capital is alive and enriching. Even here we have difficulty, for whatever is invested is lost to the capitalist, which is the means of his "abstinence". We see an enslavement of the capitalist to the abstraction of his wealth, since if whatever is returned as surplus is entered back into production, circulation is transposed toward others as a duty of its expansion. This could be tolerable if wealth was redistributed, to clear the "glut" of markets, which has been recorded since at least 1800, by Malthus. The contradiction between production and circulation then begins in the transformation of the merchant into a usurer, in North's terms, that "the Usurer, according to the saying, will take half a Loaf, rather than no bread". Ricardo thus sees that with monopoly price, the law of value (e.g. competition) is terminated for a maximum marginal profit (what Smith called a "tax" on the public). Moving on, we see what 'keeps down the market':
<1. Either there is too much Corn and Cattel in the Country, so that most who come to Market have need of selling, as he hath, and few of buying: Or, 2. There wants the usual vent abroad, by Transportation, as in time of War, when Trade is unsafe, or not permitted. Or, 3. The Consumption fails, as when men by reason of Poverty, do not spend so much in their Houses as formerly they did; wherefore it is not the increase of specifick Money, which would at all advance the Farmers Goods, but the removal of any of these three Causes, which do truly keep down the Market.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
What's interesting of course is that North identifies a glut in the market and poor people in want of money, without relating the two as synchronous phenomena. In diagnosing the cause of riches between nations as the amount of money (e.g. gold) they have in reserve, North proposes an interesting regulation to commerce:
<Let a Law be made, and what is more, be observ'd, that no Man whatsoever shall carry any Money out of a particular Town, County, or Division, with liberty to carry Goods of any sort: so that all the Money which every one brings with him, must be left behind, and none be carried out
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
He does not speak conclusively upon this, however, and concludes the essay by a suggestion to impose no laws upon regulating coin or trade, but rather that so long as you have an increase in trade, money will come to you.

I will begin this by a quote from Murray Rothbard's book, "The History of Economic Thought", Vol. 1 (1995), where Rothbard considers Smith the root of all evil [Ch. 17.6]:
<Smith's labour theory of value led to Marxism and all the horrors to which that creed has given rise; and his exclusive emphasis on long-run equilibrium has led to formalistic neoclassicism, which dominates today's economic theory, and to its exclusion from consideration of entrepreneurship and uncertainty.
Here, Smith is considered not simply mistaken, but an active and revolutionary agent toward socialism, as Rothbard also claims attribution of directly [Ch. 16.5]:
<Adam Smith also gave hostage to the later emergence of socialism by his repeatedly stated view that rent and profit are deductions from the produce of labour […] Smith was even less kindly to the role of landlords, where he recognized no economic function whatever that they might perform […] Smith's labour theory of value did inspire a number of English socialists before Marx, generally named 'Ricardian' but actually 'Smithian' socialists, who decided that if labour produced the whole product, and rent and profit are deductions from labour's produce, then the entire value of the product should rightfully go to its creators, the labourers.
This term, "Smithian" Socialist, is also present in Noel Thompson's "The People's Science" (1984), by reference to Esther Lowenthal's "The Ricardian Socialists" (1911):
<The term Ricardian socialism is probably due to the fact that Ricardo was a dominant figure of a school in which the labour theory of value was a common doctrine […] There is no evidence that the socialists were particularly impressed by his [Ricardo's] teachings. . . They all of them quote Adam Smith as their authority for the labour theory of value
Here then, the early British socialists were expressly identified with Adam Smith as their inspiration. Robert Owen was brief in his writing upon Political Economy, but in each place that he discussed it, he affirmed the labour theory of value, which obviously makes sense, considering his invention of "labour money" as an asset.

So then, the British socialists are all Smithian in kind, for all those who embrace a Labour Theory of Value feel compelled to criticise capitalist society; e.g. Mill (1848):
<The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-principles-of-political-economy-ashley-ed#lf0199_label_1041
Here, Mill is affirming socialist self-management, even with reference to Owen in proceeding passages. Mill then fits the type of a "liberal socialist", the same as how Matt McManus (2024) describes him. Another Political Economist is W.S. Jevons, principally inspired by Mill and Ricardo in his marginal theory of value. Although Jevons himself was known as an ardent liberal, he had imperative in promoting co-operative relations (1870):
<I wish to see workmen becoming by degrees their own capitalists—sharers in all the profits and all the advantages which capital confers. 
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers#lf0236_label_049
This is reminiscent of Reagan's own sentiments (1987):
<I can’t help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.
https://www.cesj.org/about-cesj-in-brief/history-accomplishments/pres-reagans-speech-on-project-economic-justice/
Thus, liberalism contains in itself the fruit of socialism, not as internal contradiction, but as non-contradiction. It is capitalism which is contradictory. I woukd say that in general, this can be traced back to the Levellers (1649), and from this to Locke's "Labour Theory of Property" (1688), which in itself contains Petty's formula for the wealth of nations (1664). Thus, we see an advance from the 17th century onwards, of liberalism to socialism.

It is not just the British, but also the continental radicals who appropriated Smith for their cause. We see P.J. Proudhon reject Fourier to praise Smith instead (1848):
<I have certainly read Fourier, and have spoken of him more than once in my works; but, upon the whole, I do not think that I owe anything to him. My real masters, those who have caused fertile ideas to spring up in my mind, are three in number: first, the Bible; next, Adam Smith; and last, Hegel.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/pierre-joseph-proudhon-what-is-property-an-inquiry-into-the-principle-of-right-and-of-governmen
So then, anarchy seems to have its roots in Adam Smith. Finally there is Marx, who is most well-known for his theory of "surplus value", but where did this theory originate? Engels tells us that it was Adam Smith, whom Marx himself also recognised as its discoverer (1885):
<Thus even Adam Smith knew “the source of the surplus-value of the capitalist,” and furthermore also of that of the landlord. Marx acknowledged this as early as 1861
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm
But Engels is even conservative here. Marx declares the political ecomomy of Smith as "enlightened" in 1844:
<To this enlightened political economy, which has discovered – within private property – the subjective essence of wealth, the adherents of the monetary and mercantile system, who look upon private property only as an objective substance confronting men, seem therefore to be fetishists, Catholics. Engels was therefore right to call Adam Smith the Luther of Political Economy
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/third.htm
And so with this great Reformation, Smith heralded a new age of socialism, as Benjamin Tucker writes (1926):
<The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his “Wealth of Nations,” — namely, that labor is the true measure of price.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/benjamin-tucker-individual-liberty
So then, Smith as the 'Reformer' of Political Economy, is also an "enlightened" critic of capitalism, and the Father of Socialism.

my investments just increased $750 in value overnight

my fellow party members will be happy with my next financial contribution

Friedrich von Wieser in 'The Origin of Value' (1884) coins the first use of the term "marginal utility" (Ch. 4, Sct. 2):
<In the following, I shall refer to the utility of a good—which is decisive for the value of a unit of that good because it corresponds to the least important use permitted by economic considerations—as "economic marginal utility" or simply "marginal utility" (cf. Jevons's terms "final degree of utility" and "terminal utility"). It will become evident that, in all cases involving the value of individual goods that make up a stock, marginal utility determines the magnitude of that value. Economic value is marginal value. [Ich werde im Folgenden den für den Werth der Güter- einheit entscheidenden Güternutzen, weil er an der Grenze der wirthschaftlich zugelassenen Verwendungen steht, den wirth- schaftlichen Grenznutzen oder auch kurzweg den Grenznutzen nennen (vergl. die Ausdrücke y)final degree of utilüy(c und yiterminal utilitya bei Jevons). Es wird sich zeigen, dass in allen Verhältnissen, in denen es sich um den Werth der ein- zelnen, einen Vorrath bildenden Güter handelt, der Grenznutzen den Ausschlag fiir die Grösse des Werthes giebt. Der wirth- schaftliche Werth ist Grenzwerth].
https://archive.org/stream/berdenursprungu00wiesgoog/berdenursprungu00wiesgoog_djvu.txt

true or false?

>>2867040
Well, industry doesn't require selling to the world market; it can also sell to domestic markets (e.g. "Made in America"), which is naturally more expensive by costs:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/11/heres-how-much-a-made-in-the-usa-iphone-would-cost.html
It appears more expensive to producers and consumers in the short-term, but can lower over time. Regardless, it is acting as a security, most especially for employment. A notorious example is the decline of Detroit:
<In Detroit, the devastating economic effects of deindustrialization continue to push inhabitants away from what was once the fourth-largest city in America.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/detroit-decline_n_813696
<Data says 51% of children lived in poverty in 2024, a rate that is three times the national average
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2025/10/07/grim-reality-more-than-half-of-detroit-children-are-now-living-in-poverty-census-bureau-data-shows/
Of course, the lumpenisation of the proletariat doesn't reduce national costs, it only exacerbates them by the means of welfare payments. So, the national producer and consumer may be able to buy goods cheaper, but this is only relative to the social costs of unemployment and crime, resulting from it. In terms of effective policy for re-industrialisation, there have to either be incentives or interventions. In the UK for example, the post-war Labour government nationalised key industry sectors:
<Nationalisation was the Labour Party’s idea of putting the control of the main industries in the hands of the people, instead of a small group or shareholders […] 1 in 10 British people worked in these nationalised industries […] Many people believed the process artificially helped declining industries.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zsd68mn/revision/6
After Thatcher and Major (1981-97) privatised industry, unemployment rose and lumpenisation increased - the conservative Peter Hitchens rightly declares that under the rhetoric of independence, a culture of dependence on the state was the ultimate result. He also wishes to re-nationalise industry, especially the railways. So, this is one strategy; to either buy out industry or to confiscate it. Rothbard actually suggested something akin to this:
<I do not often agree with John Kenneth Galbraith, but his recent suggestion to nationalize businesses which get more than 75% of their revenue from government, or from the military, has considerable merit. […] But why stop at 75%? Fifty per cent seems to be a reasonable cutoff point on whether an organization is largely public or largely private.
https://panarchy.org/rothbard/confiscation.html
So, if social costs are subsidies for private gain, there is a right of the taxpayer to appropriate property for their own use. This is perhaps original in Benjamin Franklin:
<All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html
So then, property is conditional upon the social welfare, which is a principle found in Aristotle, Cicero, and even Carl Menger. Nationalisation can be for public interest. In terms of incentives, we see global competition lead to capital flight for the sake of lower wages, in most cases, so as anon says, lower wages can induce employment. This has common sense validity, such as in the case of illegal immigrants who work for less. Lower wages in themselves are not a bad policy, if it is met by additional subsidies (e.g. UBI or NIT), and so the private gains are funneled back into social reward, reversing prior woes. It is also the perspective of political economy that the real class struggle is not in terms of money wages, but in the length of the working day, which measures real wages.

This is a good collaboration between Michael Hudson and Carl Benjamin on the debt cycle, expressed as class warfare. If I could appeal to both men, I would portray the wage relation as a type of interest-bearing capital. Aquinas of course also demystifies rent as a type of usufruct, and thus a usurious "double payment", or as Carl properly declares, indebted students must 'move uphill just to stand still', like the ancestral debts put on children in the ancient world, as Graeber writes about; the pension fund is no different - life serves death. Carl also describes student debt as a "tax" on young people, which is true, but I would comment that Adam Smith described profits as a tax also. What is common in all of this is a mode of surplus extraction by unproductive elements of society, and so a unified class struggle. We can read Marx on this issue:
<In the corvée, the labour of the worker for himself, and his compulsory labour for his lord, differ in space and time in the clearest possible way. In slave labour, even that part of the working-day in which the slave is only replacing the value of his own means of existence, in which, therefore, in fact, he works for himself alone, appears as labour for his master. All the slave’s labour appears as unpaid labour. In wage labour, on the contrary, even surplus-labour, or unpaid labour, appears as paid. There the property-relation conceals the labour of the slave for himself; here the money-relation conceals the unrequited labour of the wage labourer.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
So, the "5,000 Year War" is not particular, but is a general struggle.