Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Circulation of Fictitious Capital

[S5 E05] The Circulation of Fictitious Capital
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In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey explains Marx’s analytical techniques of presupposition and posit and applies them to today’s capital circulation system and the crises that may emerge from the ever-growing fictitious capital investments. By looking at the presupposition, or what came before a system, and the posit, what happens as a result of an established system, Harvey takes apart the complex systems and issues today, such as climate change or the instability of fictitious capital investing in itself, and is able to illuminate some possible futures if we continue down these paths.
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SOURCES:
Grundrisse by Karl Marx

[@headsails]

I’m in David Harvey’s corner. Not only is he an adept reasoner and wise, he’s also very chill and empathetic. Top tier man here. ❤

[@mirzaalam9844]

Professor Harvey's lectures remain remarkable after so many years of sharing his information with the public. I've noticed in the past as someone who reads finance journalism and listens to investors and money managers, that the difference between them and Harvey is that Wall street is often 5 to 10 years late to any analysis that Harvey made. More importantly, at a certain point the ideas disseminated stop being financial forecasts or economics lessons but rather become introspective and philosophical as one confronts how their own behavior and inner desires are set by the superstructure. Bravo.

[@kessa892]

Another fantastic and informative episode. Please take care of yourself, David.

[@SuperAlex1415]

Thank you so much professor Harvey. Listening your lectures for a long time. Please take care of yourself

[@lordxelizor]

The timing here is impeccable. I need to understand this concept and it’s modern implications for an essay I gotta write and lucky me, Dr Harvey posts right when I needed it most

[@dr.zoidberg8666]

And also lucky you: the SVB decided to collapse just to give your essay an extra page in length.

[@dorinpopa6962]

This matches quite well with the trends in increasing retirement age in European countries like France right now and increasing work time like in South Korea that's being proposed right now. On the other end, capital is betting on AI to increase the productivity of work and keep its head above the pool of fictitious capital. The complaints about not enough people being unemployed and "no one wants to work" also match this analysis.

[@dr.zoidberg8666]

AI is the ultimate trap for capitalism for several reasons. They do it to improve productivity, as you said, but the more integrated AI becomes in production, the more fixed capital grows in share of total capital, reducing the profit margin. Also, crucially, it endangers the social contract of capitalism, & thereby threatens what keeps the masses satisfied. Any way out of that fundamentally threatens the social role of the capitalist.

[@sirmclovin9184]

Thanks for pointing that out, that actually makes a lot of sense. But it also means that our chains as workers become stronger the longer this Ponzi scheme continues.

[@datgravygreen]

Thank you for this video. It has certainly clarified some ideas of Marx for me and inspired me to continue to study more.

[@algee8415]

I sometimes have "Why" questions and if I search there are usually answers in Dr. Harveys lectures.

[@tanujSE]

Thanks David Harvey for his valuable knowledge,he have good idea about present capitalism

[@bluewater454]

When does money become “capital”? And what is the difference?

[@headsails]

Fictitious capital is another word for “hedge fund”.

[@bertoltbrecht940]

Thank you very mutch🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏

[@williamneil8862]

Well, it took a long time to get there, but when Harvey did, he sounds remarkably like both Nouriel Roubini and Kenneth Rogoff, esp. Roubini who wrote a recent column for Project Syndicate entitled "The Unavoidable Crash" on Dec. 2, 2022. The theme is not fictitious capital but public and private debt and of course, there are all sorts of speculative markets on each type. The trigger is the fact that the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to fight inflation, which strains all the debt lending's terms as the lenders increase their rates whenever possible. As with credit cards.

[@Googlag]

You're so hooked on credit slavery that you already consider it the norm of life.

[@PrincipalDBA]

Capital, creation of the law is interesting. I did not know capital needed inputs as in an existing market. The pillow may cause the laptop to overheat. Funny it was made to be in the lap but gets too hot for the lap.

[@adams6412]

cuck fade

[@ReasonTatters]

Incredibly prescience topic in light of the SVB collapse.

[@DerekSpeareDSD]

the rich parasites will simply look for ways to profit from the impending climate calamity. In fact, they are already doing that. So, then, to the professor's point, value extraction creates new opportunities for more value extraction...all to everyone's detriment.

[@waynemcmillan5970]

The state can never go bankrupt as it’s the issuer of the currency.

[@haydock18]

Maybe India, before the Europeans came, could be an example of a place where all the preconditions for primitive accumulation of capital existed (money, wage labour, markets, etc), but capitalism could not develop, for various reasons (probably because colonialism got a foothold, military strength(?), trickery, robbery, (plus some chance events?)?)?

[@biacampbell676]

7:31 cheers tovarischc

[@dingla7830]

What if future money be issued in coupon form money or different colour money!

[@srikantdelhi]

If an observer in a particular historical epoch accepts the reality of his time as the result, as a consequence, to him all conditions necessary are precursor. But to the observer of the past epoch when the so-called precursors are in formation, they are the results or consequence of different precursors. Thus all precursors are results, and all results are precursors. If we imagine an observer located somewhere in universe observing the unfolding events on Earth, for him the precursors and results are not differentiable, the entire motion is one natural dynamic. Human observation is restricted from the standpoint of historical course, in that it only knows what it sees, and only sees what it has already learnt. Marx ofcourse was all too well aware of these findings of the philosophers before him, and in fact clearly saw the shortcomings in the German philosophy. Yet he never forces a view, he rather constantly tries to show what is not being seen and thus let the reader visualise the course of history, based on ever newer learnings. Of course he is not calling for subjectivism, but to appreciate the objective, the universal, through the dialectical development of the human mind, that corresponds with the development of the reality, or the material/real world, and the real/material world that then reflects the human mind, the human mind which has achieved an objective universality in the form of HUMAN consciousness. Thus Hegel placed firmly on his feet. The harmonious state, an universal idea materialised!

[@boombot934]

🎩Capital nowadays is almost exclusively fictitious, take cryptocurrencies as an example.

[@abdullahalatrash8912]

Marx predicted the modern financial system which is based on creating profits from paper money which is fiat. The financial system is totally separated from real economy. In a few words making Money from money and this destroys real economy. I fact the paper GDP is tens of times more than the real economy GDP. And the shadow banking is not regulated and after 2008 finance feeds itself and governments cannot do nothing about it exactly because is not regulated. And this lead to all the governments of the world being in perennial and growing debt. Because all currencies are Fiat and they are a form of debt. And as we all know they dictate and control elected governments. This means that all Capitalistic democracies are in reality oligarchies which are becoming more and more monopolies. This is why we have the 1 per cent versus the 99 percent. But this system is not sustainable. And everything now is speculation and gambling through more and more based on super complex new generation of derivatives which lead us to the inevitable explosion of all the bubbles together : the explosion of all speculative and manipulates bubbles. When all bubbles will explode all together there will be nothing to do and capitalism will end killing itself.

[@clarestucki5151]

Capital " constitutes a claim on future labor"! What does that even mean? Capital is simply somebody's savings, is it not???

[@austintillman8297]

One example to explain this would be our way of funding social security in the United States. We don’t fund it with money we currently possess, hence the large government deficit. We fund it through the expectation that future capital accumulation, and the potential for surplus, will be enough. But there never is enough to pay for government programs because, as capital continues to increase, so does the expenses which go along with running a capitalist economy. Capital involves much more than just liquid assets.

[@anarchimedes7]

Money-capital constitutes a claim on future labor in that the surplus value derived from the circulation process that is represented in the form of money will be used by capitalists as capital to be reinjected into the circulatory process to buy labor power.

[@clarestucki5151]

@@austintillman8297 Not true, we do "fund 'it' with what we currently possess". The people who receive 'it' promptly consume 'it' (as in meat and potatoes), so 'it' must be something we do possess!!

[@clarestucki5151]

@@anarchimedes7 Whatthehell does that even mean??

[@anarchimedes7]

@@clarestucki5151 that money in a capitalist system isn’t just money but also capital and seeing as capital goes through a circulatory process it is also capital on future labor.

[@normalizedaudio2481]

I hope you are all enjoying your "capital accumulation."

[@jason8077]

The capitalism today is not even a capitalism. That is the biggest problem

[@chadmarx7718]

What are you talking about

[@theageofgoddess]

It's always been predatory but it is out of control now due to lack of regulations, no one in power has any ethics anymore either.

[@abe8435]

It is capitalism. Marx and others who learned from his work predicted the internal contradictions we face, starting over 150 years ago, as a result of the process of development of capitalism.

[@serriajohn]

oligarchy capitalism, lobby system, corruption between deep state and politicians, gun crime, capitol occupation, homeless tents, freedom of speech ( to ban Trump on Twitter), 60% people are living under pay cheque, with less than 400 bucks in saving account.----- what is this called ?

[@kevinschmidt2210]

It's definitely Fascism. But is it also Ponzism?

[@marcionphilologos5367]

NNONONONON. WAGE LABOR IN A MARXIST SENSE DOES NOT EXIST. FICTITIOUS CAPITAL DOES NOT EXIST. WORK UNDER THE ARISTOCRACY IS NOT A PRECURSOR OF WAGE LABOR. WAGE LABOR IS AN ABSTRACTION REMOVING ALL CONTENT. THE VALUE OF WORK, CAPITAL, SERVICES ARE DETERMINED BY SOCIETY AND HUMANITY.

[@Googlag]

@@marcionphilologos5367 I suggest you read - The Poverty of Philosophy. Karl Marx. Judging by your answer, you still have a long time to comprehend the meaning of logic.

[@theageofgoddess]

It is all based on humanity, if we all stopped working, the capitalists lose their wealth which is based on the exploitation of human labor.

[@Googlag]

@@marcionphilologos5367 I still don’t understand what you are doing among the Marxists. You are an opportunist, after all. It’s scary to ask if you have read Lenin?)

[@Googlag]

@@marcionphilologos5367 You're a fool who refers to the fictional hero of an idiotic action movie.

[@anarchimedes7]

Well you said it in all caps which must make it true. 😂