Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Question of Debt in Our Lives

[S5.5 E07] The Question of Debt in Our Lives
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Last week Professor Harvey pointed out that the basic means by which consumerism is developed in such a way is to be consistent with the growth of an economy based upon profit seeking was to expand indebtedness. But it turns out that the credit system and the circulation of interest-bearing capital on the development of indebtedness has another very strong role. And therefore there is a double force which is concentrating upon the credit system. And that double force is related to the fact that increasingly in the history of capital, capital has required more and more fixed capital, fixed capital within the factory in the form of machines and plant and all the rest of it, but also fixed capital of what Marx called fixed capital of an independent kind - that is fixed capital that would be used in common. Professor Harvey traces the development of fixed capital and the credit system to understand the financialization of our economy today.
David Harvey's Anti-Capitalist Chronicles is co-produced by Politics in Motion. Politics In Motion is a nonprofit organization founded in May 2023 by Prof. David Harvey and Prof. Miguel Robles-Durán, along with Dr. Chris Caruso, instructional technologist, and noted writer and art curator Laura Raicovich. Our anti-capitalist media platform offers piercing insights and thought-provoking analyses on political, social, spatial, cultural, environmental and economic issues through a range of engaging mediums, including KZbin streams, podcasts, and live events.
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David Harvey's lastest book "A Companion to Marx's Grundrisse" (Verso 2023):
www.versobooks...
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#profit #capital #finance #consumerism

[@diagorasofmel0s]

Prof Harvey always rocking in red lol

[@thirdcreed]

All the moments of the metamorphosis of capital being the sites of existential threats to capital if they fail to grow exponentially. This seems like a core insight of your work. One of my favorite set of paragraphs of your writing is from the Right To The City, where you demonstrate why each must grow, what crises will ensue if they do not, and what capital does to solve these problems. It's not always clear to me what I should be looking at to empirically verify the growth profile of each of these moments. What data can I show to demonstrate the growth in the masses of inputs/labor power/markets/waste along with the fall in profit rate? You mentioned global indebtedness as a measure and I'm having trouble finding that data. What data have you used in the past? Very grateful for you and your work, it's been life-changing for me, and it is used often in our local organizing work. Thank you all very much for this.

[@danielyounker5371]

You’re not following the data, you’re rationalizing.

[@kaiplaygame6808]

David Harvey the goat 🐐

[@lukeolson5177]

Harvey vs everybody 💪

[@olekjasiak5698]

Very interesting point

[@normalizedaudio2481]

Look, free money. Fixed capital is frowned on at the corporation now. ie "the cloud"

[@olekjasiak5698]

Aren't the server farms, on which the cloud "sits", the fixed capital here?

[@T_Dot94]

You really make it sound insane. What will they do us when it all collapses?

[@KznnyL]

There is a quote that" it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism". The origin is disputed, but man is it true.

[@nazzenpoppel886]

" A ponzi economy ". Well said.

[@MrDayinthepark]

Borrowing money to invest is a win win. Inflation makes dollars worth less over time, while making assets worth more over time. So few understand this.

[@SvalbardSleeperDistrict]

The actual lack of "understanding" in this "analysis" is one that ignores how borrowing under neoliberal capitalism's internal contradictions leads to recurrent, and accelerating, collapses and crises that ruin people's lives and livelihoods while financial speculators in asset manager companies, banks and other such parasitic entities are the only ones eventually left to benefit from that "win win".