While I have issues with it and find many unanswered questions, the author Loren Goldner intended this as a thought experiment, working with the implications of his ideas on fictitious capital (he and Aufheben had quite a debate about this, on Break Their Haughty Power web site). I hope people find it interesting.
cheers,
chris
Fictitious Capital and the Transition Out of Capitalism
By Loren Goldner
The following is a “thought experiment” which attempts to see fictitious capital in relation to the end of capitalism. By pursuing the concept of fictitious capital as far as we can, by illuminating the unbelievable distortions it has fomented in what is called “economic development” on a world scale, we can highlight the nature of contemporary struggles as well as explain why there are not more struggles. We can also address the reasons why a “society beyond capitalism” seems such a remote possibility at present.
In discussing fictitious capital, we must never forget that it is subordinate to, and derivative from, capital generally. It is important not to foment the illusion that the struggle is against “fictitious capital”, leaving “real” capital itself unexamined. But at the same time, it is indispensable to sort out the fictitious dimension of the contemporary economy, if only conceptually. Many people today, including people on the radical left, regard contemporary capitalism as functioning normally, more or less the way it always has. I could not disagree more. Perhaps, as contemporary ideologies assert, capitalism has “reinvented” or is “reinventing” itself, as it has done several times in the past. Be that as it may, the post-1973 period presents one of the strangest, if not the strangest phases in the history of capitalism.
What, then, is fictitious capital?
Fictitious capital is, on first approach, paper claims on wealth (in the form of profit, interest and ground rent) in excess of the total available surplus value, plus available loot from primitive accumulation.
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elrgoldner/program.html
Admin edit - replaced cut and paste with introduction and link to article. - catch
This text is from the Break Their Haughty Power web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner
Can comment on articles and discussions
moved!
pingtiao sent me a link to this a little while ago, although I only scanned the beginning of it at the time. Bits of it didn't quite ring true when I read it, but whether I'd be able to formulate why in any useful way I'm not sure. I'll try to check it out a bit more thoroughly though.