Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

UG#611 - Money as Powerlessness(Economic Parasitism,MMT,Debt in the Middle Ages)

Robin Upton | 28.01.2013 17:35 | Analysis | History | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

Does money really empower people, or does it trap them in a zero-sum game in which >99% will come out as losers? A two-parter this time on money and debt. In our first hour, two speeches from the first conference on Modern Money Theory in Rimini, Italy. In the second, we continue reading from David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years.

ug611-hour1mix.mp3 - mp3 27M

ug611-hour2mix.mp3 - mp3 27M


In our first hour this week we hear from Stephanie Kelton and Michael Hudson speaking at The Summit on Modern Money Theory in Rimini, Italy in March 2012. Assistant Professor of Economics, Stephanie Kelton, begins by explaining MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) in simple terms, clarifying the special case of the Eurozone as a restriction on governments who are denied authority over the money used in their territory.

Next we hear from Michael Hudson, also speaking at the MMT summit, who notes the difference between money as created by central banks and bank credit (also called 'money') as created by commercial banks. He characterizes the extreme privatization ongoing since 1971 as one of the most visible aspects of a broader economic parasitism. Owners of capital have, he suggests, numbed the brain of society at large to make it insensitive to the attacks by the rentier class. Unrecognized by too many, there is an ongoing 'financial war' by which the rentier class are seeking to exert complete control over the 99% - something the classical economists warned about.

Hudson highlights the extent to which the FIRE sector has assumed preeminence in the economy, unreported by economics as it is conventionally taught. Economics text books, he says, ignore the centrality of debt and money creation - and the power this gives to commercial banks to effectively loot the productive economy. Economic theory makes much of the prices of consumer goods, which he notes have remained fairly stable in US over the last 30 years, even as real estate, stock and bond prices have skyrocketed - reflecting a huge power shift away from the 99% to the 1%.

In our second hour, we resume reading Chapter 10 from David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years. This week we consider developments in the apex of commerce in the Middle Ages, the Muslim world centered on the Indian Ocean. How was commerce different in the absence of government control? For one thing, he notes that Muslims thought of business as an outgrowth of mutual aid - rather than the more western notion of cutthroat competition.

Thanks to Bonnie Faulkner's Guns and Butter for the MMT conference audio.

Robin Upton
- e-mail: unwelcome [At] unwelcome Guests [d0t] net
- Homepage: www.unwelcomeguests.net/611

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech