Loan capital

[UncleLenin]

I wanted to know what leftist's opinions are on this subject.

Loan Capital:
Monetary capital loaned to capitalists in return for payment of interest; its source is the unpaid labor of wage workers. Loan capital is a particular historical form of capital, a form generated by the capitalist mode of production. The forerunner of loan capital was usurer’s capital.

[danyboy27]

What is your opinion on loan capital?

can you please explain us what is loan capital and what is your opinion on this%

[Comrade Jacob]

It should be banned! Loans are a disgusting and a manipulative thing, only help others if you can make more money, essentially; make money off the fact that people have been crippled by capitalism! It is foul and it is poisonous. Capitalism grinds people into the ground and then capitalism is there to save you from itself for the right price. Ban them and shoot those who are loan-sharking and the owners of loan companies!

[Polaris]

It should be banned! Loans are a disgusting and a manipulative thing, only help others if you can make more money, essentially; make money off the fact that people have been crippled by capitalism! It is foul and it is poisonous. Capitalism grinds people into the ground and then capitalism is there to save you from itself for the right price. Ban them and shoot those who are loan-sharking and the owners of loan companies!
:laugh: I have no idea why I found this so amusing. Maybe I shouldn't spend this much time on here. Now I'm having trouble responding to the OP because I can't stop giggling, thanks.


I can't tell if this thread is trolling or just really confused. Probably trolling, but I'm going to respond to it seriously since Comrade Jacob already took the sarcastic response. Obviously loan capital is bad, in a similar sense that capitalism is bad; it encourages further exploitation of workers as the loaned money is used to start-up or further capitalists' businesses.
Additionally, the loaner is getting paid yet is not contributing any labor and is indirectly exploiting the workers them self as the money that the loaner makes off of the loan comes out of the capitalist's profits-- the profits of course are the value of the workers' labor that is not paid to them.

Loan capital prolongs the existence of capitalism. When a business might have failed due to the inherent contradictions of capitalism, a loan can keep it afloat. See the 2008 bailouts (if you are not familiar, government loans given to large corporations during the recession) for example, a great example of how the state is just an extension of the bourgeoisie. Big companies and banks might have flopped which would could have made the crises worse, furthering the conditions needed for a revolution, but the loans prevented that.

As far as banning them, I think that is where your question gets off track. They would not exist in a socialist/communist society for obvious reasons. Banning them today would not be possible as our rulers would certainly not allow that to happen, although I suppose that would be nice although it reeks of reformism.

Loan capital is an inevitable development of capitalism made to keep the mode of the production in place; it can also be used to brainwash people into thinking that it is easy to move up in society, all you need is a loan and a good idea! The only way to overcome the shortcomings is communist revolution.

[tuwix]

Loan isn't bad thing. Neither Marx was against them, nor mothers and fathers of anarchism. Only thing that could be considered as bad in loans is interest. An interest is an expression of exploitation in phenomenon of loans. As seller lives from stolen part from customers called a comission as bankers lives of stolen from customers part called an interest.
But its is obvious that loan must be part of economy as long as it is monetary one. And it can be useful. Instead of saving money for dreamed journey, car or any other good, you can loan for that. The only negative thing is interest of it.

[Lokomotive293]

Capitalism won't exist without loans, so yes, ban them...

Seriously, nowadays, the capital masses needed for investing have become so huge that no single capitalist, not even the richest one of them, can just pay for that out of his pocket. They all need the banks in order to exist (and the banks need industrial capital, of course).

Talking about the "loan sharks" and "evil banksters" as though they are the evil of capitalism, and without them, everything would be great, can create very dangerous illusions in capitalism, and has also historically been a part of "theories" you don't want to be associated with. So, no, we should not demand to "ban loan capital".

[Zergling]

Loans create money that doesn't exist and increasingly, will never exist at all.

Ban them.

[Thirsty Crow]

Abolish capital as a social relation of production. That should be enough, and any reference to specific forms of capital is redundant.

[Sotionov]

All unearned incomes, profit of those that employ wage labor and all rents (including rent of money) should be abolished.

C.2 Why is capitalism exploitative? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html)
C.2.1 What is "surplus-value"? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21)
C.2.2 How does exploitation happen? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc22)
C.2.3 Is owning capital sufficient reason to justify profits? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc23)
C.2.4 Do profits represent the productivity of capital? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc24)
C.2.5 Do profits represent the contribution of capital to production? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc25)
C.2.6 Does the "time value" of money justify interest? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc26)
C.2.7 Are interest and profits not the reward for waiting? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc27)
C.2.8 Are profits the result of innovation and entrepreneurial activity? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc28)
C.2.9 Do profits reflect a reward for risk? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc29)

Chapters 2.6. and 2.7. are directly of interest here.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

can't believe this is even being asked.

capitalism should be abolished, this goes without saying. once it is, we can wave bye-bye to it and all of its terrible symptoms - loans, debt, poverty, inequality, despair, crime, the list goes on and on.

[Lokomotive293]

can't believe this is even being asked.

capitalism should be abolished, this goes without saying. once it is, we can wave bye-bye to it and all of its terrible symptoms - loans, debt, poverty, inequality, despair, crime, the list goes on and on.

It's nonsense to demand to abolish loans within the context of capitalism, though. I know none of you think that, but there are a lot of so-called "libertarians" and pseudo-economists who think that by banning loans or going back to the gold standard, or by introducing a completely new, free-of-interest system of loans, you can reform capitalism into awesomeness.

Capitalism won't exist without loans, nor are loans the problem of capitalism. The problem of capitalism are its internal contradictions that keep getting the system into crises that can always only be solved by preparing a crisis worse than the last one.

So, not only is the demand redundant, as it would be the same as abolishing capitalism, it also leads people away from understanding what the real problem is.

This video is pretty good, even though it manages to not once mention surplus value, which is kind of essential for understanding crisis

qOP2V_np2c0

[cyu]

In order for you to loan something, you have to first assume you have the "legal" right of ownership over whatever it is you are loaning out.

Not exactly possible for communists that do not believe in property, nor anarchists that do not believe in being forced to obey pre-existing laws.

http://cjyu.wordpress.com/article/if-they-do-not-give-you-work-or-bread-gcybcajus7dp-10/

This isn’t to say I’m encouraging everyone to take bread or engage in armed robbery on the high seas, because while I think it’s justified for those who need to do it to survive, I don’t believe (for obvious reasons) that it’s a good economic strategy.

I would instead encourage the taking of the actual means of production (land, raw materials, equipment, etc) – like what the MST of Brazil did or what the rest of the Latin American recovered factory movements are doing.

[Luís Henrique]

Abolish capital as a social relation of production. That should be enough, and any reference to specific forms of capital is redundant.

Nah, it is far from redundant: it is an attempt at building a cross-class front between proletarians and "productive" capital against finance capital (and as such it is always a backdoor for antisemitism).

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

Well, UncleLenin has been banned, I suspect for the 'Nazis are left wing really, you left wingers don't know what you're talking about' thread. So you might be right.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Nah, it is far from redundant: it is an attempt at building a cross-class front between proletarians and "productive" capital against finance capital (and as such it is always a backdoor for antisemitism).


Well, UncleLenin has been banned, I suspect for the 'Nazis are left wing really, you left wingers don't know what you're talking about' thread. So you might be right.

Yeah if I were to guess, this poster's next thread might have been something like this:


Hey guys, what's your opinion on poisoning wells and eating Christian babies? Shouldn't we oppose it?

[Comrade Jacob]

Who is really surprised that he was banned?