Die Neue Zeit
27th October 2008, 00:00
http://www.revleft.com/vb/simplification-class-relations-t73419/index.html
[There are the "active" petit-bourgeoisie (small business owners in their niche markets), "passive" petit-bourgeoisie (such as business partners other than general partners), the business magnates (the list of billionaires below), the "functioning capitalists" (senior management and even fund managers working in financial asset management companies), and the "money-capitalists" who are the subject of this thread.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires
In light of the recent financial crisis (the result of the development of Western capitalism over the past four decades, not just the neo-liberal era), I'm surprised that there aren't as many billionaires into financial capital proper as there should be. To me, these people come across more as class symbols than as the guys calling the shots:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt1-2.htm#s5
A third force working in the same direction is the increasing amalgamation of industrial capital with money capital, or “high finance.” The industrial capitalist is a manager that possesses an industry in the sphere of production, taking this word in its widest sense (including transportation) in which he exploits salaried wage-workers and draws a profit from them. The money capitalist, on the contrary, is the modernized form of the ancient usurer. He draws his income from interest on the money which he loans, not only, as formerly, to indigent private individuals, but also to capitalist managers, institutions, States, etc.
Between the industrial capitalist and the money capitalist a great antagonism exists, similar to that between the first and the land owners. Interest on borrowed capital like ground rent constitutes a reduction from industrial profits. The interests of both forms of capital are here contradictory. Politically also they are in opposition.
[...]
The kings of finance need not fear a strong governmental power, independent of people and Parliament, because they can rule such a power either directly as bondholders, or else through personal and social influences. In militarism, war and public debts they have a direct interest, not only as creditors, but also as government contractors, since the sphere of their influence, their exploitation, their power and their wealth is thereby increased.
It is wholly different with industrial capital. Militarism, war and public debts signify high taxes which the wealthy must assist in bearing, or else the cost of production is increased. War signifies besides this a stagnation in the production of commodities, a break in trade, economic difficulties and frequently ruin. Where the financier is rash, extravagant and violent the industrial manager is frugal, timid and peace-loving [...] Where the proletariat has not yet entered the field of independent politics the industrial capitalist willingly serves it as bellwether in order to increase his own political power. To the little bourgeois Socialist the opposition between industrial capital and the proletariat appears less than that between profit upon the one side and ground rent and interest upon the other. For him the solution of the social question consists in the abolition of interest and ground rent.
[...]
According to the London Economist, five men, John D. Rockefeller, C.H. Harriman, Pierpont Morgan, W.M. Vanderbilt and G.D. Gould together possess seven hundred and fifty million dollars; while the total capital of the banks, railroads and the industrial companies of the United States is seventeen thousand five hundred million dollars.
[...]
Money capital is that form of capital which mostly inclines toward violence, which easiest leads to monopoly and thereby attains boundless power over the laboring class, which is most estranged from the laborer, which most threatens the capital of the private industrial capitalist, and more and more comes to rule the whole capitalist system of production.
With the development of industrial and financial capital reflecting more the extraction of surplus value than mere ownership and control over the means of production, how do we explain the divisions in the capitalist classes?
EDIT:
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0810/0178.html
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0810/0183.html
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin issued a call on Tuesday for regulation of the "over the counter" derivatives market, which has an estimated size of about $596 trillion. By contrast, the value of the world's financial assets-including all stock, bonds, and bank deposits-was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey. How can the derivatives market be larger than the entire world's financial wealth?
Because the same assets might be involved in several different derivatives. A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on something else-a share of stock, an interest rate, a foreign currency, or a barrel of oil, for example. One kind of derivative might be a contract that allows you to buy oil at a given price six months from now. But since we don't yet know how the price of oil will change, the value of that contract can be very hard to estimate.
Does sufficient derivatives holding warrant a new class altogether, in which "speculative" individuals live primarily from deriving surplus value WITHOUT any sort of significant-influence ownership or factual control over the MOP whatsoever?
[There are the "active" petit-bourgeoisie (small business owners in their niche markets), "passive" petit-bourgeoisie (such as business partners other than general partners), the business magnates (the list of billionaires below), the "functioning capitalists" (senior management and even fund managers working in financial asset management companies), and the "money-capitalists" who are the subject of this thread.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires
In light of the recent financial crisis (the result of the development of Western capitalism over the past four decades, not just the neo-liberal era), I'm surprised that there aren't as many billionaires into financial capital proper as there should be. To me, these people come across more as class symbols than as the guys calling the shots:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt1-2.htm#s5
A third force working in the same direction is the increasing amalgamation of industrial capital with money capital, or “high finance.” The industrial capitalist is a manager that possesses an industry in the sphere of production, taking this word in its widest sense (including transportation) in which he exploits salaried wage-workers and draws a profit from them. The money capitalist, on the contrary, is the modernized form of the ancient usurer. He draws his income from interest on the money which he loans, not only, as formerly, to indigent private individuals, but also to capitalist managers, institutions, States, etc.
Between the industrial capitalist and the money capitalist a great antagonism exists, similar to that between the first and the land owners. Interest on borrowed capital like ground rent constitutes a reduction from industrial profits. The interests of both forms of capital are here contradictory. Politically also they are in opposition.
[...]
The kings of finance need not fear a strong governmental power, independent of people and Parliament, because they can rule such a power either directly as bondholders, or else through personal and social influences. In militarism, war and public debts they have a direct interest, not only as creditors, but also as government contractors, since the sphere of their influence, their exploitation, their power and their wealth is thereby increased.
It is wholly different with industrial capital. Militarism, war and public debts signify high taxes which the wealthy must assist in bearing, or else the cost of production is increased. War signifies besides this a stagnation in the production of commodities, a break in trade, economic difficulties and frequently ruin. Where the financier is rash, extravagant and violent the industrial manager is frugal, timid and peace-loving [...] Where the proletariat has not yet entered the field of independent politics the industrial capitalist willingly serves it as bellwether in order to increase his own political power. To the little bourgeois Socialist the opposition between industrial capital and the proletariat appears less than that between profit upon the one side and ground rent and interest upon the other. For him the solution of the social question consists in the abolition of interest and ground rent.
[...]
According to the London Economist, five men, John D. Rockefeller, C.H. Harriman, Pierpont Morgan, W.M. Vanderbilt and G.D. Gould together possess seven hundred and fifty million dollars; while the total capital of the banks, railroads and the industrial companies of the United States is seventeen thousand five hundred million dollars.
[...]
Money capital is that form of capital which mostly inclines toward violence, which easiest leads to monopoly and thereby attains boundless power over the laboring class, which is most estranged from the laborer, which most threatens the capital of the private industrial capitalist, and more and more comes to rule the whole capitalist system of production.
With the development of industrial and financial capital reflecting more the extraction of surplus value than mere ownership and control over the means of production, how do we explain the divisions in the capitalist classes?
EDIT:
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0810/0178.html
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0810/0183.html
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin issued a call on Tuesday for regulation of the "over the counter" derivatives market, which has an estimated size of about $596 trillion. By contrast, the value of the world's financial assets-including all stock, bonds, and bank deposits-was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey. How can the derivatives market be larger than the entire world's financial wealth?
Because the same assets might be involved in several different derivatives. A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on something else-a share of stock, an interest rate, a foreign currency, or a barrel of oil, for example. One kind of derivative might be a contract that allows you to buy oil at a given price six months from now. But since we don't yet know how the price of oil will change, the value of that contract can be very hard to estimate.
Does sufficient derivatives holding warrant a new class altogether, in which "speculative" individuals live primarily from deriving surplus value WITHOUT any sort of significant-influence ownership or factual control over the MOP whatsoever?