Late Capitalism
rich
richard.romeo at gmail.com
Tue Nov 9 19:26:52 UTC 2021
very good points, Joseph. Modern capital should be rooted in what you call
'biological existence', tangible assets, but though that is very evident in
the daily workings of the global economy, increasingly, much of modern
finance isn't concerned with such things partly due to the high level of
mathematical (and physics) conjuring whether via arbitrage, derivatives and
all those confusing 'vehicles' of investment not directly tied to the
tangible.
I don't think power's role is to enslave capital, it's to briefly manage it
in one's own small corner. and then it's all a question of leverage--a term
I love since it inhabits that space of meaning its opposite. I have
leverage therefore I am reducing risk or I have something behind me or
under me to support me or I have too much leverage and I'm indebted to my
eyeballs. Capital, like much overspecialization of just about everything
nowadays, has become just that, tied to investment decisions only a few can
understand to at least talk about--I doubt they fully understand the
systems they have created. But, as long as the money keeps coming, fine. In
the end, it's all just numbers. How can such people have any idea of the
value of anything, since their timelines are skewered towards the market, a
market consisting of back office deals, dark pools, etc, only the clued-in
sophisticates know about. and by clued-in I only mean they are on the
invited list. Much of us rely on these guys, at least in the US, for our
retirement savings via pension funds and the like. It's harder to make
enough to keep all these retirees and soon-to-be retirees on the up and up,
so they must rely on more aggressive and fraught investments. You can see
how the farther you look into modern finance (which as we know runs the
world), the less you can see real matter.
Delillo aptly coined it 'money talking to money'. I think of winning in
this context as not being the last man holding the watermelon before it
hits the ground. Trading is all done by non-humans anyway, the market
movers I mean. Just in sheer size of their positions. Some would call these
guys winners, with much leverage, but as I mentioned leverage can also be
the 10 ton weight on your back, not the ground supporting you (Chinese real
estate market, e.g.)
The wild, biodiversity, all the things that make life worth living, all run
on such long timescales. Modern finance just isn't configured to think of
that as a positive.
and let's not forget politics, nationalism and frankly, stupidity (the most
common element in the universe per either Zappa or William Gaddis). we got
all that baked in as well.
Can limits be known when the focus of these finance folks is so narrow?
Is it demonic or just plain dumb relentlessness?
I wish I knew the answer to any of this
rich
On Tue, Nov 9, 2021 at 1:28 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> And what is capital? And how did it get ismized? Capital is sometimes
> thought of as “the means of production”, already pretty far along in a
> certain model of thinking with mass production in mind. What are the means
> of production for a fig tree or Yosemite’s half dome. A river full of wild
> trout, crawfish, ducks, turtles, a prairie covered with bison, pigeons, oak
> trees, crows. I think capital is rooted in the idea of a magic machine
> able to endow its controller with potentially unlimited wealth and power.
> A jack tale that wore out its welcome a while back.. What is wealth? What
> is Power. The idea seems to me to be leaving something out of the reality
> of biological existence. Is power to enslave capital? Are atomic weapons
> capital? Is nonstick plastic on a frypan capital? Is poison capital? Why is
> capital so fucking dangerous? Is untapped agression and hunger for violent
> domination capital? Money is a marker for what the economic system owes
> you. Is biological life a system of banking and debt? Is winning the money
> game any better than eating an apple right now, from a tree you planted,
> really tasting it, breathing clean air surrounded by living beings ?
> As rich and Pynchon both point out the system is huge and very hard to
> tinker with, but it does have geographic and physical realities ,
> equipment, names, faces and shitloads of weaponry, all of which were made
> without without regard for certain real limits. Thise limits are becoming
> evident and the fragility of this seemingly un changeable machinery is
> also becoming more evident. Every former empire looked invincible, but
> even a flea can bring down an empire. And how inviceable is something that
> needs to be so scary, so demonically driven?
>
>
>
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