Restoration of meanings. What is money? part 6

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

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Under the capitalist system, the employer (owner) completely withdraws from the working people all the product produced again, as was the case under the slave system. But, unlike the slave system, under capitalism the nature of the relationship between the employer and the employee changes. If the slave was considered the property of the slave owner and was on his full material support, then under capitalism the employee is no longer the property of the employer, who is not responsible for the full material support of the employee. The only obligation of the employer is that he must in one way or another pay for the employee's work in accordance with the contract that is concluded when the employee is hired. By the way, this does not have to be exactly the monetary form of payment, just with a developed system of monetary circulation and trade for money, the monetary form of payments becomes the most convenient for both the employer and the employee.

Taking away from the employee all the product he produced, the employer gives him money in return, that is, a certain amount of rights to receive the goods or services he needs in the general redistribution system, which provides him with goods and services for the money issued. At the same time, it does not really matter for the employee what this money is in its form. These can be coins made of gold, silver or some other metal. These can be paper or even plastic banknotes. It can simply be a number in the computer's memory that indicates the amount of money the account holder possesses. But it can just as well be wooden sticks or shells of mollusks, planted on a string, the main thing is that the rights taken into account with the help of the money used to potentially receive goods or services can be freely exchanged for goods or services necessary for the owner of this money.

Thus, for money, in general, it does not matter in what material or even intangible form they will be expressed. The main thing for money is that it can be freely exchanged at any time for the necessary goods and services (liquidity). If this requirement is not met, for example, you cannot get the food you need when you are hungry, then even pure gold coins will lose value and significance to you.

Speaking about the capitalist model of production, distribution and consumption, it is necessary to note one more important point, which is not always indicated. The formation and development of capitalism is directly related to the development and complication of the technogenic economy and the deepening of the division of labor. In all previous production models, the division of labor was minimal. Even under feudalism, most consumer goods were produced by artisans mainly in a full cycle, starting from the primary processing of raw materials and ending with the receipt of the final product. But, with the development and complication of technologies, when the number of technological stages in the production of certain products, machines and mechanisms began to include dozens and even hundreds of different operations, for example, the production of various units, from which one or another complex mechanism was ultimately assembled, it became obvious that in order to improve the quality and productivity, and therefore the efficiency of production as a whole, it is necessary to put a separate person for each specific operation, who will be specially trained to perform this particular operation well. It is too time-consuming and expensive to train all employees to perform all available operations. And not all people are able to learn a lot of skills well. In addition, for the quality performance of his work, the employee must develop appropriate practical experience and skills, which also takes time.

Such complex production models with a deep division of labor inevitably require the introduction of one or another model of accounting for who and how much labor invested in the production of the final product, since the final product, which can become a commodity and be sold on the market, appears only at the end of the production chain. Therefore, even if by the time of the emergence of complex technological industries with a deep division of labor we do not have a monetary system for accounting and turnover of goods, it must inevitably appear. Otherwise, the process of exchanging goods becomes much more complicated, or even becomes impossible due to the fact that it is not a consumer product that is produced, but an industrial product, machine or mechanism that cannot be directly exchanged for other consumer products. In the early 1990s, the Russian population could be convinced by their own experience that a barter exchange system is possible, but very inconvenient, when, due to the factual destruction of the financial system and deprivation of working capital for enterprises, the management of enterprises was forced to switch to barter. As a result, production was maintained for some time, but there was no need to talk about any production efficiency, since the costs of the barter exchange system and the intermediaries participating in this exchange turned out to be very high.

For the same reason, during the transition to complex technological production with a deep division of labor, the transition to capitalism is inevitable, in which the exchange of produced resources and products is based on the monetary accounting system. A capitalist who produces some kind of machines or mechanisms for industry is simply not able to pay off a part of the output produced by this worker, since, as I noted above, it is not suitable for final human consumption. He must somehow transfer to his employee the right to receive that part of consumer products that, directly or indirectly, after some time will be produced using the machines and mechanisms that this employee produces.

Accordingly, when the owner of a sewing factory, where they will sew clothes, acquires sewing machines for his production for money, then with the help of the money paid for these machines he transfers a part of the rights to the owner of the sewing machine production to receive the sewing machines sewn at his factory in the future. clothes. In turn, the owner of a sewing machine factory, by paying his employees wages with money received from the owner of a sewing factory, transfers with them the right to receive a part of these clothes corresponding to the wages that the employee agreed with the employer.

Thus, through the monetary system, through the transfer of money, there is a constant redistribution of rights to receive certain goods or services. And the more money you were able to save, the more potential rights to receive goods or services in the future you secured to yourself.

The possession of money gives a person a certain power, since he has the right to dispose at his own discretion of a certain amount of resources, products or services (services do not have to be provided exactly to the one who pays for them). Including transferring part of the money, and therefore the rights to dispose of resources, to someone else, forcing him to perform the actions necessary for the owner of the money.

It should also be noted that money by itself does not give absolute power, since there are also other rights, such as property rights. Even if you have a lot of money, you cannot dispose of someone else's enterprise. First, you must acquire ownership of this enterprise, spending part of the money on it, provided that the owners of this enterprise agree to sell it to you. In addition, there are other forms of restrictions that cannot be overcome with the help of money, for example, on the purchase of certain types of weapons, which, at least for now, can only be owned by states.

Several important conclusions follow from the above.

Firstly, the development of science should inevitably lead to the emergence of new technologies for the production of both necessary already existing products, and to the emergence of new high-tech products (their own for each technological era), which did not exist before, and which, over time, gradually move from luxury goods to products of regular and even necessary consumption. Especially as people plunge deeper into the man-made artificial habitat, breaking away from the primary natural habitat. The introduction of new production technologies will inevitably require the creation of a high-tech economy with a deep division of labor.

Secondly, the transition to a high-tech economy with a deep division of labor is impossible without the emergence of a universal accounting system for the labor invested in the production of a complex product, especially when such production has many stages, a long production cycle, and even geographically distributed, when different stages are performed in different places. In other words, the emergence of a universal monetary system for accounting and redistribution of goods on its basis is mandatory for the normal functioning of such a complex multistage economy.

Thirdly, the transition to a high-tech economy with a deep division of labor, based on a monetary system of accounting for the invested labor and the redistribution of goods, should inevitably lead to a transition from feudalism, in which the collection of taxes, as well as the withdrawal of part of the surplus of manufactured products from the population, is carried out mainly in kind, to capitalism, in which all the product produced by them is withdrawn from workers, and in exchange they are given the right, in the amount of money received as wages, to receive part of the goods or services from the general system of redistribution based on money circulation.

At the same time, the following point is interesting. If the feudal lord exercised control over the collected surplus resources directly, since these surpluses ended up in his depositories (hence the term "treasury", which among others means "storeroom, storehouse"), then the capitalist exercises control over the withdrawn products and generated in ultimately in the form of surplus resources profit through the system of legal relations and monetary circulation. Certain stocks under capitalism undoubtedly exist, but in general, the entire produced product for the most part is constantly in motion. An industrial product moves from the point of its production to the point of subsequent use at the next stage of the technological cycle for the production of another product, until, ultimately, a product of direct human consumption is produced. Products of direct consumption (goods), for the most part, are on the way from the place of their production to the place of their sale to the final consumer. The capitalist exercises control over the resources belonging to him indirectly, through the system of law and monetary circulation.

As long as the commodity moves to the final consumer, the right to this commodity belongs either to the capitalist-producer or to the capitalist-merchant, who acquired the right to this commodity from the capitalist-producer, transferring to him in return the corresponding amount of money. At the moment when the product is purchased by the final consumer in the store, the right to this product passes from the capitalist-owner to the final consumer, and in return the capitalist receives money from the consumer, that is, the potential right to acquire the resources he needs on the market, including the labor of his employees. …

But the main thing for the capitalist is not actually the possession of money directly, no matter how much it is expressed, since any, even the largest amount will end sooner or later. The main thing for the capitalist is control over this or that process, which will constantly bring him more and more money. And this control is expressed in the right of ownership of the means of production, which allows the capitalist in the end to arrogate to himself the right to the entire product produced with the help of these means of production.

It is for this reason that for the normal functioning of the capitalist system, the guarantee of the capitalists' rights to the goods, resources and means of production belonging to them acquires such high importance. At the same time, it should be understood that in this case it is not at all that the capitalist elite is interested in creating a fair and fair legal system that will protect the rights of the entire population. They are interested in the protection and protection, first of all, of their own rights, to the means of production, resources and money belonging to them. They deeply do not care about the interests of the rest of the population, including the interests of other capitalists who are below them in the hierarchy. That is why we have legislation and the judicial system that strictly punish ordinary people for stealing a sack of potatoes in a store, but at the same time, conditional or minimum terms for stealing millions and even billions of rubles from the state budget. For the same reason, a system of raider seizures and property seizures flourishes, when richer and more influential clans, through the judicial system under their control in one way or another, have the opportunity to take away and re-register the property of poorer and less influential (less connected) clans or single capitalists. …

By the way, exactly the same mechanism with the recognition or non-recognition of property rights is now used in the process of the conflict between part of the Russian elite and the ruling clans of Western countries. How will “sanctions” be implemented against those people who were included in the last published list if they refuse to comply with the requirements of the “owners”? It's very simple. They will cease to recognize their ownership rights to their property, funds in bank accounts, shares of foreign companies and other securities. All of this will be formalized at the legislative level through their own courts. And if they currently lack some laws for the implementation of these procedures, then these laws will be adopted rather quickly, since the legislative bodies are also under the full control of these ruling clans.

Summing up all of the above, I will briefly repeat once again the general essence of the functioning of the capitalist system from the point of view of the resource method.

Under the capitalist system of production, the capitalist withdraws the entire produced product, that is, both necessary and surplus. This product ultimately, in one way or another, falls into a distributed system of redistribution of goods and services, in which goods and services are provided for money, where money is a universal system of accounting for the right to receive a part of goods or services in proportion to the amount of money available.

Control over the redistribution and consumption of goods and services under the capitalist system is carried out through the financial system. Including through the lending system, but we will consider this topic in detail in the next part.