The discussion that follows was prompted by the article: Economic crisis Thirty years of the open crisis of capitalism, II. 1980s . The discussion was initiated by jk1921.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!
27 October, 2010 - 03:51
#1
Economic crisis Thirty years of the open crisis of capitalism, II. 1980s
Anyone else concerned that the bit on the gold standard sounds too much like a right-wing conspiracy theory?
The abandonment of convertibility at the end of Bretton Woods was surely an important moment in the evolution of capitalism. We've kind of got used to it these days, but until 1973, the complete severance of money from the world of actual commodities happened only briefly and usually in times of extreme crisis (basically, the state would default on its bills). Today, of course, it's regarded as normal. But the move a pure fiat currency also has extremely important political considerations because without a commodity backing the only thing lending stability to a currency is the power of the state. This is all perfectly in keeping with a Marxist analysis, so I'm not sure about the connection with "right-wing conspiracy theories".
Perhaps you could elaborate?
Yeah, a favorite theme of some elements in the Tea Party in the U.S. is the idea that the abandonment of the gold standard is what created this giant debt bubble that finally exploded. They blame the Federal Reserve and somehow connect that to the idea of "one world government." Now, Rand Paul was just elected to the U.S. Senate; he believes the country is "enslaved by debt" and he now has the power to filibuster any attempt to raise the legal debt limit the U.S. runs--possibly threatening the entire world economy.
I guess that in the U.S., whenever we hear about the gold standard, its coming from some right-wing crack-pots.
It will be interesting to see how the American parliamentary system handles an influx of right-wing crackpots into both houses of Congress. A number of rules and unofficial rules will come into question. Cloture, reconciliation, filibuster, 'nuclear option', etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option
I'd imagine the bourgeoisie would figure out some way to keep the debt running if one of these wing-nuts actually tried to block it from increasing in Congress. For example, there is no real chance of any further stimulus packages making it through Congress now, so the Fed just decided on its own to buy $600 Billion dollars of bonds to supposedly prevent deflation. Also, there is in theory some serious crisis brewing as a result of the foreclosure documents crisis, such that nobody really knows who owns anything anymore, the banks could turn out to be worthless and the entire global economy could get flushed again. The approach so far is to pretend it isn't really a problem and continue foreclosures, hoping the courts will go along and "homeowners" won't try to fight them. So far the courts have proven perfectly willing to rubber stamp most of them. So much for the vaunted captialist "rule of law"!