Book Reviews: ‘The 1% and the Rest of Us’, & ‘A Rebel’s Guide to Eleanor Marx’
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Reaction from author Tim Di Muzio:
Quote:I wish I could say thank you for your review. But I can say thanks for bothering to read the book. So thanks.I'm sorry, however, that your are extremely misguided and it is people like you who fail to do proper research that keeps up the confusion around money and the problems faced by the working classes of this world.How we produce money in our society and how it is allocated is of incredible consequence for inequality and the future of the planet (e.g. what we invest in like energy/food/shelter etc).Your review gives me little hope that this one day might be addressed based on evidence rather than conjecture.Not only does Martin Wolf of the Financial Times recognize that banks create money out of thin air but so too does Positive Money (I wonder whether you even visited their site or read their literature) among many others who have bothered to actually do research rather than pontificate out of conjecture on the web.Moreover, I wrote my book in late 2013 early 2014, which Zed's production team did not get out until this year. What we have known for a while thanks to various statements, leaks and logic, has now been empirically confirmed and published in the peer reviewed journal: the International Review of Financial Analysis in late 2014 (when my book was already in press, hence it is not cited).It is written by Richard A. Werner from the London School of Economics which you may or may not be familiar with. As it turns out, banks do indeed create money out of thin air when they make a loan. It appears as an asset on their balance sheet and a (deposit) liability for the borrower. No reserves are checked with the central bank and money does not move from a saver to a borrower.I doubt you have seen or heard of the article or probably care given your penchant for Biblical Marxism and love of this 19th century economic religion.So Robert, given the evidence (of which you martial absolutely none) the bad news is that your review is bad…really bad.In an honest world, after you've actually considered the evidence you'd retract your review, or at least amend it. But following the Church of Marx and blind faith might be easier for you.I just wish you'd stop spreading confusion. Cheers mate,TimFollowing is a discussion on the page titled: Book Reviews: 'The 1% and the Rest of Us', & 'A Rebel’s Guide to Eleanor Marx'.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!Does he offer an explanation that, given there ability to create money out of thin air, banks choose not to utilise this when facing collapse? The books have to balance in the end, even if there is not an instantanious drawing from reserves the moment a loan is issued….
Tim Di Muzio wrote:…proper research…based on evidence rather than conjecture…actually do research rather than pontificate out of conjecture…empirically confirmed…given the evidence…In an honest world, after you've actually considered the evidence…Tim doesn't seem to know anything whatsoever about 'scientific method' or our openly expressed method, of 'theory and practice'.He doesn't mention which political ideology he's using to do 'his research', which political ideology determines his parameters of selection for 'his evidence', which political ideology he uses to 'empirically confirm', or which political ideology gives him his views of 'honest'.Scientific method follows Marx: theory and practice.It's incumbent upon any 'scientist/research/gatherer of empirical evidence' to openly state their standpoint, from the outset. This applies to physics as much as economics.So, Tim's fundamental scientific failure is to omit his perspective, and then to pretend that he doesn't have one. He appears to believe that a he's being 'honest', when in fact he's actually pulling the wool over his readers' eyes, and perhaps even his own.From his mythical 'objective/honest/empirical' position, he then precedes to condemn socialists for openly stating their ideological starting point for research, whilst hiding his.At least our 'Biblical Marxism' and 'Church of Marx' warns workers of the 'faith' inherent in any human activity, including research in physics. So, we don't hide our perspective, unlike Tim.If anyone's 'spreading confusion', it's those, like Tim, who believe in the bourgeois myth of 'objective research', conducted from a position outside of human society, and its theory and practice.Tim embodies the outdated scientific method, pre-Einstein, of pretending to produce 'The View From Nowhere'.We're always 'Somewhere', comrades, and we should openly admit it to other workers, and help to disperse the 'confusion' sown by the bourgeoisie for 300 hundred years, that they (and Tim, apparently) have a objective, politically neutral method, for understanding our world, physical and social.
Quote:Not only does Martin Wolf of the Financial Times recognize that banks create money out of thin air but so too does Positive Money (I wonder whether you even visited their site or read their literature) among many others who have bothered to actually do research rather than pontificate out of conjecture on the web.Actually we go one better, we invite them to express their views and we debate with them directly. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/video/debate-banking-reform-or-abolition-capitalismWe have indeed heard of your expert Richard Werner http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/100-reserve-banking?page=4http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2012/no-1298-october-2012/guardian-haven-cranksAnd i am personally aware of his experiment of following the paper trail inside a bank of a loan.
The underlying "ideology" of Richard Werner is to save capitalism from itself and assist the recovery with a policy that credit should be extended and directed to the productive economy – businesses which create goods and services. Since credit according to him can be created by banks, the solution is pain and cost free for the system. no inflationary effect, for instance, by central bank money printing….or have i got his reasoning wrong?Personally. i'll let the financial princes and industrial barons fight it out…if such a separation really exists now with the obverlap of corporation wealth.
alanjjohnstone wrote:The bank testhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001070It's laughable, isn't it?The paper's title:'Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence'should of course be titled:'Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The bourgeois theories and their respective empirical evidence'if there was any pretence whatsoever of 'social objectivity' (the only 'objectivity' that humans can produce), and scientific research.As we all know, 'data' is 'theory-laden', and so a theory provides parameters of what that theory considers to be 'honest' and 'empirical' evidence. Hence, 'respective empirical evidence', situated within one 'theory' amongst others, rather than the mythical 'empirical evidence', supposedly outside of any theoretical considerations (the conservative 'real world' falls into this fairytale category).And, of course, no mention of any non-bourgeois theories, like Marxism.And I think Mandy Rice-Davies' famous method tells us much more here.That is, assume that the author is a liar, with good reason to lie: he's a bourgeois ideologist.Bourgeois academics, eh? They're either liars or just pig-ignorant of science.
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