Me: Jonathan,

Is not a monopoly the very dominating expression of economic power?

Thus is not the virtual monopoly monetary and financial paradigm of Debt Only as the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of money/credit….not the issue we should focus on? The better to end such domination and hence bring greater individual economic freedom and security and systemic stability.

J: To Craig (January 21, 2021 at 6:43 pm)

The concept of ‘monopoly’ and the ideological dominance of the ‘financial paradigm’ are aspects of power. But in my view, focusing on these so-called ‘economic’ aspects power is far too narrow and deeply misleading.

The Capital as Power approach (CasP) rejects the very category of the ‘economy’, the discipline of ‘economics’, and by extension, the notion of ‘economic power’.

CasP argues that in capitalism, ALL forms of power that affect future profit, hype, risk and the normal rate of return end up being capitalized and in that sense become part and parcel of differential-capitalization-reads-power.

In conventional parlance, these forms of power are classified as ‘economic’, ‘financial’, ‘political’, ‘military’, ‘cultural’, ‘gender’, ‘racial’, ‘ethnic’, etc. But this fracturing is part of the problem: it prevents us from seeing how capital shapes, encompasses and capitalizes them all.

Me: Would you not say that Finance and its monopolistic paradigm is the major part, the core of the problem of CasP, and is therefore the most strategic point of analysis and thrust for positive change? It IS Finance Capitalism we are grappling with after all.

My understanding from a study of the history of the fall of empires is that the major factor in their fall has always been their unawareness of or unwillingness to deal with the problems of ever increasing (mostly private) debt, and that in fact ever increasing debt was what kept many of the other factors that contributed to the downfall in (unnecessary) continuous suspension.

DT: Craig, I agree with what you are saying here, but I see Jonathan (January 21, 2021 at 8:00 pm) as rejecting what are now called “economics” and “the economy” when what he is actually rejecting is Capitalist monetary control of the economy and the condition Aristotle called Chrematism (money making). If I am right, I also agree with Jonathan that your practical focus on debt as the problem to be resolved “is far too narrow and deeply misleading”. Again, to make progress on this we need to reach agreement on our terminology.

Me: Dave, I would say that the sea = the current monetary and financial paradigm, which the navigator “knows” cannot be changed because it is full of serpents known and unknown and is chaotic and so unstable. Consequently the navigator gives no heed to it, even though like all current paradigms it is subject to change with a little imagination and actual analysis that might recognize the new tool and/or discovery that changes it from roiling-ly chaotic and unstable to always in watery process yet as graciously navigable as a lake on a sunny day.