Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

What We Are Reading (Patreon)

Published:
2020-02-10 18:27:28
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

This week I wanted to share an important piece by Daniel Bessner & David Adler on the role of the US dollar in the global system. It has been argued against, very weakly in my opinion, by another piece in TNR, the link is here if you are interested.  

In addition to an informative piece on the left victory in Ireland, I returned to a piece by Lukacs on class consciousness in Marxist theory. Not only does this piece serve as a great example of historical materialism, it addresses the problem of class consciousness, especially the very misleading (but the overly popular idea) that class consciousness is something inherent in the working class. It is something that must be built and the challenge is not easy. It is a key part of what separates Marxism from more individual and bourgeois philosophy. 

- David Griscom    

What We Are Reading: 

To End Forever Wars, End The Dollar's Global Dominance - Daniel Bessner & David Adler, 2020

Ireland's Left Breakthrough - Oisis Coulter, 2020

Class Consciousness - Georg Lukacs, 1920 

Comments

Bijou Smith

Joshua Zoffner is wrong about the US dollar hegemony in his response to Adler and Bessner. He says the USA cannot stop borrowing because it will cause a global recession. That's ridiculous, (a) because the USA cannot borrow It's own currency of issue, and yet that's what he means, he thinks the US Fed/Treasury borrows US dollars (aka. sell US Treasury bonds). They cannot, ever, borrow their own currency, because they are the sole issuer of USD. Every Fed reserve drain is accompanied by a reserve add, all this does is control inter-bank interest rates, to call it "borrowing" as most people do is a crime against language. (b) Retiring all US treasury debt amounts merely to a retirement of savings accounts at the Fed, shifting the money from bonds into non-interest bearing cash accounts (cheque accounts), it is a spreadsheet operation, shifting digits from one column to another. This cannot ever cause a recession. Bessner and Adler also do not understand the money system, but their basic argument against USD hegemony is absolutely correct. The entire US balance of payments is military spending. On non-military spending the accounts have been in almost exact balance for decades upon decades. So this is where the Federal deficit goes --- almost all to military contractors, and on purchasing assets overseas for military bases and the spending from the wages of the overseas troops into the foreign economy. If the USA maintains the fiscal deficit (which is the net injection of money INTO the economy, i.e, spending less taxes) but cuts out the military spending component by a few 100 billion, then unprecedented prosperity is in store for USA citizens, if the deficit is all spent domestically on health, schools, roads, etc, rather than the war machine. No recession can result from that, in fact the exact opposite.

Bijou Smith
>>32347842

My main reference is Michael Hudson's work "Superimperialism", which was first published in 1972, it is now more relevant than ever, what Hudson described --- financialized economic imperialism rather than military imperialism --- has only become more dominant. Modern warfare is financial, to be quite blunt. The Left are losing this war because we have refused to unite in solidarity to seize control of the power of the public purse, and have instead splintered into identity politic movements that are weak and utterly ineffectual except in provoking performative disgust at clowns like Trump and Clinton. Time to get real and elect someone who understands all of this, Bernard frickin Sanders.