The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson & His New Book The Collapse of Antiquity. Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4
invite response
2019 Apr 2, 6:39am 990 views 7 comments
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1
Ceffer
2019 Apr 2, 11:19am
Ceffer
2019 Apr 2, 11:19am
This means that everything that people borrowed to buy is now free shit! Gimme that fleet of Hummers!
2
anonymous
2019 Apr 2, 2:03pm
Hudson is overlooked by MSM and too many others supposedly hailed as "wizards' etc. - seriously have my doubts that the likes of Kudlow, , Mnuchin, Geithner and similar could go into a head to head debate with the man and win the debate.
3
anonymous
2019 Apr 3, 5:27am
The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos:
A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: Mixed Economies Today, Compared To Those Of Antiquity
Part 2 How mixed economies have mixed it up over time.
John Siman: Could you define what you mean by a mixed economy?
Michael Hudson: There are many degrees of how “mixed” an economy will be — meaning in practice, how active its government sector will be in regulating markets, prices and credit, and investing in public infrastructure.
In the 20thcentury’s Progressive Era a century ago, a “mixed economy” meant keeping natural monopolies in the public sector: transportation, the post office, education, health care, and so forth. The aim was to save the economy from monopoly rent by a either direct public ownership or government regulation to prevent price gouging by monopolies.
The kind of “mixed economy” envisioned by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical 19thcentury free market economists aimed at saving the economy from land rent paid to Europe’s hereditary landlord class. Either the government would tax away the land’s rent, or would nationalize it by taking land out of the hands of landlords. The idea was to free markets from economic rent (“unearned income”) in general, including monopoly rents, and also to subsidize basic needs to create a price-competitive national economy.
Long before that, in the Bronze Age — which I describe in …and forgive them their debts— the palace reversed the buildup of personal and agrarian debts by annulling them on a more or less regular basis. This freed the economy from the overgrowth of debt that tended to build up chronically from the mathematical dynamics of compound interest, and from crop failures or other normal “market” phenomenon.
In all these cases a mixed economy was designed to maintain stability and avoid exploitation that otherwise would lead to economic polarization.
JS: So a mixed economy is still a market economy?
MH: Yes. All these degrees of “mixed economy” were market economies. But their markets were regulated and subordinated to broad social and political objectives rather than to personal rent-seeking or creditor gains. Their economic philosophy was long-term, not short-term, and aimed at preventing economic imbalance from debt and land monopoly.
All of Part Two: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-mixed-economies-today-compared-to-those-of-antiquity-part-2.html
A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: Mixed Economies Today, Compared To Those Of Antiquity
Part 2 How mixed economies have mixed it up over time.
John Siman: Could you define what you mean by a mixed economy?
Michael Hudson: There are many degrees of how “mixed” an economy will be — meaning in practice, how active its government sector will be in regulating markets, prices and credit, and investing in public infrastructure.
In the 20thcentury’s Progressive Era a century ago, a “mixed economy” meant keeping natural monopolies in the public sector: transportation, the post office, education, health care, and so forth. The aim was to save the economy from monopoly rent by a either direct public ownership or government regulation to prevent price gouging by monopolies.
The kind of “mixed economy” envisioned by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical 19thcentury free market economists aimed at saving the economy from land rent paid to Europe’s hereditary landlord class. Either the government would tax away the land’s rent, or would nationalize it by taking land out of the hands of landlords. The idea was to free markets from economic rent (“unearned income”) in general, including monopoly rents, and also to subsidize basic needs to create a price-competitive national economy.
Long before that, in the Bronze Age — which I describe in …and forgive them their debts— the palace reversed the buildup of personal and agrarian debts by annulling them on a more or less regular basis. This freed the economy from the overgrowth of debt that tended to build up chronically from the mathematical dynamics of compound interest, and from crop failures or other normal “market” phenomenon.
In all these cases a mixed economy was designed to maintain stability and avoid exploitation that otherwise would lead to economic polarization.
JS: So a mixed economy is still a market economy?
MH: Yes. All these degrees of “mixed economy” were market economies. But their markets were regulated and subordinated to broad social and political objectives rather than to personal rent-seeking or creditor gains. Their economic philosophy was long-term, not short-term, and aimed at preventing economic imbalance from debt and land monopoly.
All of Part Two: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-mixed-economies-today-compared-to-those-of-antiquity-part-2.html
4
Patrick
2019 Apr 3, 6:50am
Patrick
2019 Apr 3, 6:50am
One nice thing about inflation is that it cuts both ways. It reduces the value of cash savings, but also reduces the value of debt.
So it's a limit on how much the Fed can fuck over the masses. If the fed causes great inflation, they also wipe out all the assets held by banks.
So it's a limit on how much the Fed can fuck over the masses. If the fed causes great inflation, they also wipe out all the assets held by banks.
5
HeadSet
2019 Apr 3, 8:30am
HeadSet
2019 Apr 3, 8:30am
Patrick says
It is not "fuck over the masses," it is "fuck over the savers." The irresponsible debt accumulators benefit. Also, inflation is accompanied by increased interest rates, which offsets the losses by banks and really puts a burden on the national debt. Besides, banks will be bailed out if it looks like the rich folks will become less rich.
One nice thing about inflation is that it cuts both ways. It reduces the value of cash savings, but also reduces the value of debt.
So it's a limit on how much the Fed can fuck over the masses. If the fed causes great inflation, they also wipe out all the assets held by banks.
It is not "fuck over the masses," it is "fuck over the savers." The irresponsible debt accumulators benefit. Also, inflation is accompanied by increased interest rates, which offsets the losses by banks and really puts a burden on the national debt. Besides, banks will be bailed out if it looks like the rich folks will become less rich.
6
anonymous
2019 Apr 4, 4:21am
Part 3 The Inherent Financial Instability in Western Civilization’s DNA
John Siman: It seems that unless there’s a Hammurabi-style “divine king” or some elected civic regulatory authority, oligarchies will arise and exploit their societies as much as they can, while trying to prevent the victimized economy from defending itself.
Michael Hudson: Near Eastern rulers kept credit and land ownership subordinate to the aim of maintaining overall growth and balance. They prevented creditors from turning citizens into indebted clients obliged to work off their debts instead of serving in the military, providing corvée labor and paying crop rents or other fees to the palatial sector.
JS: So looking at history going back to 2000 or 3000 BC, once we no longer have the powerful Near Eastern “divine kings,” there seems not to have been a stable and free economy. Debts kept mounting up to cause political revolts. In Rome, this started with the Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC, a century after Solon’s debt cancellation resolved a similar Athenian crisis.
MH: Near Eastern debt cancellations continued into the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires in the first millennium BC, and also into the Persian Empire. Debt amnesties and laws protecting debtors prevented the debt slavery that is found in Greece and Rome. What modern language would call the Near Eastern “economic model” recognized that economies tended to become unbalanced, largely as a result of buildup of debt and various arrears on payments. Economic survival in fact required an ethic of growth and rights for the citizenry (who manned the army) to be self-supporting without running into debt and losing their economic liberty and personal freedom. Instead of the West’s ultimate drastic solution of banning interest, rulers cancelled the buildup of personal debts to restore an idealized order “as it was in the beginning.”
All of Part Three: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-the-inherent-financial-instability-in-western-civilizations-dna-part-3.html
Coming in Part 4. The most relevant point of studying history today should be how the economic conflict between creditors and debtors affected the distribution of land and money. Indeed, the tendency of a wealthy overclass to pursue self-destructive policies that impoverish society should be what economic theory is all about.
John Siman: It seems that unless there’s a Hammurabi-style “divine king” or some elected civic regulatory authority, oligarchies will arise and exploit their societies as much as they can, while trying to prevent the victimized economy from defending itself.
Michael Hudson: Near Eastern rulers kept credit and land ownership subordinate to the aim of maintaining overall growth and balance. They prevented creditors from turning citizens into indebted clients obliged to work off their debts instead of serving in the military, providing corvée labor and paying crop rents or other fees to the palatial sector.
JS: So looking at history going back to 2000 or 3000 BC, once we no longer have the powerful Near Eastern “divine kings,” there seems not to have been a stable and free economy. Debts kept mounting up to cause political revolts. In Rome, this started with the Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC, a century after Solon’s debt cancellation resolved a similar Athenian crisis.
MH: Near Eastern debt cancellations continued into the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires in the first millennium BC, and also into the Persian Empire. Debt amnesties and laws protecting debtors prevented the debt slavery that is found in Greece and Rome. What modern language would call the Near Eastern “economic model” recognized that economies tended to become unbalanced, largely as a result of buildup of debt and various arrears on payments. Economic survival in fact required an ethic of growth and rights for the citizenry (who manned the army) to be self-supporting without running into debt and losing their economic liberty and personal freedom. Instead of the West’s ultimate drastic solution of banning interest, rulers cancelled the buildup of personal debts to restore an idealized order “as it was in the beginning.”
All of Part Three: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-the-inherent-financial-instability-in-western-civilizations-dna-part-3.html
Coming in Part 4. The most relevant point of studying history today should be how the economic conflict between creditors and debtors affected the distribution of land and money. Indeed, the tendency of a wealthy overclass to pursue self-destructive policies that impoverish society should be what economic theory is all about.
7
anonymous
2019 Apr 5, 6:01am
>b>Part 4 A New “Reality Economics” Curriculum Is Needed
John Siman: I want to spell out the implications of the points that Socrates brought up, and with which you and I agree. That leaves the question facing us today: Is the American oligarchy and state as rapacious as that of Rome? Or is it universally the nature of oligarchy in any historical setting to be rapacious? And if so, where is it all leading?
Michael Hudson: If Antiquity had followed the “free market” policies of modern neoliberal economics, the Near East, Greece and Rome would never have gained momentum. Any such “free market” avoiding mutual aid and permitting a wealthy class to emerge and enslave the bulk of the population by getting it into debt and taking its land would have shrunk, or been conquered from without or by revolution from within. That’s why the revolutions of the 7thcentury BC, led to reformers subsequently called “tyrants” in Greece (and “kings” in Rome) were necessary to attract populations rather than reduce them to bondage.
So of course it is hard for mainstream economists to acknowledge that Classical Antiquity fell because it failed to regulate and tax the wealthy financial and landowning classes, and failed to respond to popular demands to cancel personal debts and redistribute the land that had been monopolized by the wealthy.
The wealth of the Greek and Roman oligarchies was the ancient counterpart to today’s Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, and their extractive and predatory behavior is what destroyed Antiquity. The perpetuation of this problem even today, two thousand years later, should establish that the debt/credit dynamic and polarization of wealth is a central problem of Western civilization.
JS: So what were — and are — the political and social dynamic at work?
All of Part Four: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-a-new-reality-economics-curriculum-is-needed-part-4.html
John Siman: I want to spell out the implications of the points that Socrates brought up, and with which you and I agree. That leaves the question facing us today: Is the American oligarchy and state as rapacious as that of Rome? Or is it universally the nature of oligarchy in any historical setting to be rapacious? And if so, where is it all leading?
Michael Hudson: If Antiquity had followed the “free market” policies of modern neoliberal economics, the Near East, Greece and Rome would never have gained momentum. Any such “free market” avoiding mutual aid and permitting a wealthy class to emerge and enslave the bulk of the population by getting it into debt and taking its land would have shrunk, or been conquered from without or by revolution from within. That’s why the revolutions of the 7thcentury BC, led to reformers subsequently called “tyrants” in Greece (and “kings” in Rome) were necessary to attract populations rather than reduce them to bondage.
So of course it is hard for mainstream economists to acknowledge that Classical Antiquity fell because it failed to regulate and tax the wealthy financial and landowning classes, and failed to respond to popular demands to cancel personal debts and redistribute the land that had been monopolized by the wealthy.
The wealth of the Greek and Roman oligarchies was the ancient counterpart to today’s Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, and their extractive and predatory behavior is what destroyed Antiquity. The perpetuation of this problem even today, two thousand years later, should establish that the debt/credit dynamic and polarization of wealth is a central problem of Western civilization.
JS: So what were — and are — the political and social dynamic at work?
All of Part Four: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-a-new-reality-economics-curriculum-is-needed-part-4.html
Note: Michael Hudson published … and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year in November of last year. It is the first volume in what will be a trilogy on the long history of the tyranny of debt. I have interviewed him extensively as he writes the second volume, The Collapse of Antiquity.
Part 1
John Siman: Michael, in the first volume of your history of debt and forgive them their debts, dealing with the Bronze Age Near East, Judaism and early Christianity — you showed how over thousands of years, going back to the invention of interest-bearing loans in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, many kings from a variety of Mesopotamian civilizations proclaimed Clean Slate debt cancellations on a more or less regular basis. And you showed that these royal proclamations of debt amnesty rescued the lower classes from debt bondage, maintaining a workable economic balance over many centuries. Because these kings were so powerful — and, let’s say, enlightened — they were able to prevent the social and economic polarization that is inevitable when there is no check on an oligarchic creditor class extracting exponentially increasing interest from debtors.
But now, as you write the second volume, your theme gets turned upside down. You are showing how the Greeks and the Romans learned about interest-bearing debt from their contacts with Middle Eastern civilizations, but tragically failed to institute programs of Clean Slate debt amnesty. Their failure has been a kind of albatross around the neck of Western economies ever since.
So I’d like to start this conversation in the late 500s BC, because we can see at that time the beginnings of both the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic, plus of two more important civilizations. First was the Athens of Cleisthenes, who had led the overthrow the “tyrant” Hippias and became the father of Athenian democracy. Second, there was the Roman Republic of Lucius Junius Brutus, who overthrew the last of Rome’s legendary kings, the “tyrant” Tarquinius Superbus.Third was the Persian civilization of Cyrus the Great. He was a “divine king,” in many ways in the ancient tradition of Hammurabi. Fourth were the post-exilic Jews of Ezra and Nehemiah, who returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple and redacted the Bible. They were the inventors of the Jubilee years of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, even though they depicted the teaching as coming from Moses.
So, beginning with the late 500s BC, to what extent was the notion of Clean Slate debt amnesty remembered, and to what extent was it rejected?
Full Interview: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-about-his-forthcoming-book-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-1.html
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