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factory buildings, machinery, etc., for the production of which bank
drafts can be obtained, or else
be
production for export.
For Douglas, the impetus for capital improvement comes from the
banks. By causing a need for capitalists to expand, they are exploiting
their favorable position "in the nature of things ."
When Douglas says "in order to keep A and the goods purchased
with A at a constant value, A+B must expand with every improvement
of process," he merely reports backwards. A+B does not expand when
productivity is increased, rather, A diminishes with respect to B; labor
costs represent less of the full value of the commodity. Because Douglas
reports backwards, he is mystified as to the source of the downward
pressure on the value of labor power. He assumes that because banks
make money from loans for " improvement of process," banks must be
the culprits.
But why do Pound and Douglas consistently blame finance for the
problems created by capitalism as a whole? How did they arrive at a
picture of financiers and industrialists constantly at each others'
throats? To further his argument, Douglas quotes a colleague saying:
In highly developed countries such as ours practically all purchasing
power commences life as credit created by the banks. These credits
are created at the instance of manufacturers and dealers; are distri–
buted by them in the shape of wages, salaries, and profits, and spent.
This statement is simply false. No financier will remain solvent very
long who makes loans to industrialists who do not already own some
means of production and at least potentially have a labor force at their
disposal. Once again we are back to Engels's point that those who do
not see the connection between production and distribution do not
understand that men dominate other men through the things they
control. "Purchasing power" does not commence "life as credit created
by the banks," it commences as ownership of the means of production.
Pound and Douglas did not follow the source of their problem back to
production because they did not want to see ownership, the condition
which precedes and enables exploitation, as an evil.
The inability of Pound and Douglas to see the chronology of the
exploitative relationship is really a general blindness to chronology,
which reflects the fascist's resentment of history.
If
capitalism contains
"the seeds of its own destruction," then the fascist's enemy is history
inasmuch as the development of capitalism signals the demise of class
privilege.
The anti-Semite is the victim of a similar resentment and blind-
