| This thesis analyses the current financial crisis with the Marxist monetary theory as the research subject, and tries to explore the special connotation and realistic directive significance of Marxist monetary theory. The thesis surrounds the Marxist monetary theory on money functions and essence, fetishism of money and money ethics, virtual currency and virtual economy to illustrate. Marx studies the philosophical perspective of monetary affairs as the perspective of labor of abstract humanism in his early stage, while the monetary affairs are just mentioned as an issue of compressibility. The establishment of historical materialism provides him with a brand new practical perspective, and money is back on a real relationship with the world in a clear way. Money is the result of the development of commodity production and commodity exchange, and the result of the development of form of value. The commodity's form of value has experienced four periods:individual accidental form of value, expanded form of value, general form of value, and money form of value. Money has four functions, that is, measure of value, means of circulation, means of payment, means of hoarding and universal money. As a measure of value, it mainly marks goods with a price tag or as a money of account. Money diffuses in an unbalanced and ill-proportioned way between the owners of goods, and what it executes is the means of circulation of money. As a commodity, it can absolutely let the transitional formation or just as an ephemeral form of money be "shielded" temporarily and money serves as a means of hoarding, which is an absolute social form of authority. As the actual simulation of credit transaction, money acts as the means of payment when paying a debt or as an indirect payment. When money is out of the national circulation, it acts as a universal equivalent and executes the function of universal money. Function reflects the essence. According to the history of the emergence of money, the essence of money acted as an universal equivalent; according to the relationship between commodity value and human labor that money manifests, the essence of money is the objectification and materialization of human labor; according to the function of money in circulation, the essence of money is a specified structural relationship; according to the relationship between money and people, the essence of money is a kind of relations of production. The most crucial essence of money is universal equivalent, which reflects a kind of relations of production or social relations. In capitalist society, money embodies a kind of class relation, which is characterized by the distribution of wealth. Capital is an enhanced monetary form arid an expansion of the meaning and the essence of money. The "exclusive right" of money is filled with halo, becomes the equivalent of the absolute expression form and all values, overflows with infinite energy and gets high, which causes the alienation of currency symbol and the emergence of fetishism of money and monetary illusion. Currency symbol is alienated and the embedded currency symbol becomes a subject, money seems to be the creator of the real market; monetary approaches became a purpose, which is characterized basically by the monetary arrogation over value; currency symbol is greedy, and money becomes the pure desire of money. The bureaucrats estrange themselves from the public, but are closer to money. Currency symbol is alienated to the overall judgment logic in capitalist society—fetishism. Fetishism is a counter measure to the human beings. The conversion of money into capital is not simply a postulated deduction which caused by the fetishism of money. The historical and economic meaning that the private ownership independently expressed is the origin of the emergence of fetishism of money. The mental experience and the imagination of money values, that is, monetary illusion, is an ultimate expression of the human being's greed for money. What flows in the blood vassal of capitalists is not necessarily the blood of morality. The validity and legitimacy of profits pursuit must be adhered to the objective norms of code of ethics, which is the ethical nature of a money economy. Virtual currency is a purely value symbol not related with the precious metals reserves, and a virtual, abstract value form. If virtual currency invests or speculates for the purpose of pursuing profits, it will turn into fictitious capital. According to the distance to the actual value, the fictitious capital can be divided into four categories including fictitious capital of tradition, of non-production, of securitization, and of leveraged, which has the characteristics of instability, high-risk, social attributes and nature property. Virtual economy is the economy where money begets money and currency makes currency. Its functions are mainly reflected in the energy of the modern currency. Virtual economy is derived from real economy and served to real economy. Virtual economy and real economy have a relation of ebb and flow in quantity, and they have an essential difference in wealth nature.There exists an internal logic among money, economic freedom and financial liberalization. Freedom is an elevated word with mystery, and is what we are longing for. With the modernization of recent European society, the focus of freedom researches has shifted from the abstract level to the economic level. Economic freedom is the autonomous active state of people in the socio-economic relations, including the production and consumption freedom, competition freedom, contract freedom and labor freedom and so on. The will autonomy of production process and production effect manifests in the independence and the freedom of actions and development of the producers. Consumption freedom enables the consumers to return to their own even more strongly. The freedom of production and consumption are based on the freedom of property rights. Competition freedom is a confirmation or supplement which extends outward from the self-centered actually and constantly, and is an unknown kind of merger and exclusion so far, which leads to similar and different impetus. The relationship between contract and freedom is just like the relationship "heart" and "physical". Labor freedom means the personal liberty and freedom of career choice to the employments. In capitalist society, economic freedom is essentially the currency freedom and the capital freedom. Capital has constructed an objective world with effective social activities, which is beyond the private world of a society. It has restricted and regulated the freedom of those who wage labor power in the invisible network, and constraints them in a full precision, pre-identified good performance form. What we study next is where the strength of economic freedom comes from? It comes from money, which born with a free tension, encouraging the expansion of inner strength of capital. Money is the object mediators of economic freedom, and with which they enter into a mutual balance in their own stages to prove each other. Market economy is the currency economy. Money is the thrust of workers' freedom, which makes labors to buy their own from the bondage relations. Money is the carrier of capital expansion and where are all possible investments and activities. And finally they form a world market and a global relationship. Money is the "free will" of virtual economy, while the virtual economy is a romantic expression form of "free will". So, how much free space does the economy freedom have? It has to consider how the functional relationship between government and market combined, and from which we penetrate into the past and present lives of the economic liberalism. Classical ideas of economic liberalism claims laissez-faire and the state only plays a role as "night watchman", but the "invisible hand" is not sustained to ensure the order and harmony foreseen. The forms of state intervention need both economic liberalism and state intervention. With the successive expansion of general trend of the historical conditions of capitalism, Keynesian is confronted with the impact and test of fading away. The theories of new economic liberalism or neo-liberalism ultimately concentrate on the "Washington consensus", which can be shortened for liberalization, privatization and marketization. The financial liberalization is the financing liberalization and the core of neo-liberalism, which is determined by the historical position of financial capitalism. The financial freedom is a top-of-the-line schema of modern economic freedom. The value of financial liberalization manifests in the resolution of "financial repression". Excessive financial liberalization will lead to "financial terrorist acts", which is disastrous to the developing country.Backing to the Marxist monetary theory to analyze the current financial crisis will be more correct, deconstructive and persuasive. From the early 2007 to the present, the financial crisis has gone through a series of evolution, that is--the vague early signs, the localized noise, the systematic outbreak, the worldwide spreading. During the early stage of the crisis, that is, from 2007 February to 2008 February, the U.S. Government's disposition is mainly on observation and control, that is, "not a panacea for poverty." March to August of 2008 is the rising period of crisis. To JP Morgan Chase, Bear Stearns, the "two rooms" and other financial institutions with specific issues, the U.S. government deal with them as special cases. From October 2008 to the end of January 2009, while Lehman was bankrupt, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were forced to restructure, and AIG reported an emergency, the crisis got into madness. The U.S. government correspondingly conducts a comprehensive systematic disposition. From February 2009 to the present is the post-crisis era. The United States' disposition is focused on the following:term assets credit schemes (TALF), public-private co-investment plan (PPIP), stress testing (ST) and a blueprint for regulatory reform. Recently the current financial system is stabile and the world economy steadily rises. Causes of the crisis have their own logic. The first cause is the pauperized monetary class relations. Wealth is transferred rapidly to the minority with the disastrous effect that the huge difference make the low-income earners continue to ignite the desire for wealth, and make the people in pursuing the dream of "the highest economic unity of the universe". The root of the growing rich-poor divide is the neo-liberalism. The second cause is the "Wall Street greed" reckless monetary ethics. Greed goes hand in hand with high leverage. Greed makes Wall Street rating agencies unknown to "advance and retreat." Greed is also reflected in that the banks offer the senior managements with whopping salaries and bonuses. Wall Street's biggest greed is from power and money, which is the greed of capital. Marx's sharply criticism may be used to point today's Wall Street. The third cause is that the financial virtual instruments blow explosion of virtual economy. MBS, ABS, CDO, CDS and other financial derivatives has led to excessive expansion of the virtual economy, which is a departure from what Marx elaborated as the original value of the virtual economy. The fourth cause is that the loose financial supervision leads financial excessive liberalization. Separate financial regulatory system results in the blind monitoring spot, coordination difficulties and regulatory arbitrage. The profound impact of the crisis is the most important and determinate perception, which is the real meaning and the center of the crisis. The U.S. economic adjustment period will be extended. The world economy will be with characteristics of a structural change."Shearing" approach will be more and more unfeasible. The one who monopolize the world's currency issue will come to have excess profits. The U.S. dollar hegemony should be cast aside. The world need to reserve currency diversificationally and should strive to create a new Breton Woods system. The world is an interdependent world. The problem originated in a place will not confine to one place, but spread to the entire system. China's economy has been deeply implanted into the global economy and has got involved in it. The crisis impacts the China's financial system and foreign trade, but the effect is limited. China's "crisis" is with "challenges" which is bigger than "crisis".A turbulent period is the most dangerous period, but at the same time it is a period which is full of opportunities. Based on the perspective of historical materialism, people should make efforts to explore the contemporary value of Marxist monetary theory. First, we must strive to enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy. The core of the monetary policy is referring to monetary demand to control the money supply, so as to adjust the total social demand and supply. Say's Law and the old quantity theory of money, Keynesian monetary theory with "insufficient demand" principle, Friedman's "single plan" and other Western monetary policies and theories which are about the various variables and their mutual relations research are worth learning. Monetary policy should pay attention to the operational status of the virtual economy. It needs a clear balanced attitude which shows up through the economic concepts and their logical relationship. The inherent nature of credit relations and liquidity is a lending relationship. When the monetary policy is vague or uncertain, investors will be confused by the uncertainty and opacity of the financial order psychology. Therefore, the logic of enhancing the transparency of monetary policy is simple. For the "lost money", taking preventive monetary policy will slow the impact caused by the "blowout" of the lost money. Second, we must strive for "perfection" of the currency ethics. Re-thinking sages'and philosophers' penetrating view on monetary ethics to find out its value, internality and instantiation features. For the measures to expand domestic demand for lifting the economy, it needs to promote moderate consumption of monetary ethics, make moral in the middle, put the interests beside, pursuit the ethical qualities on social responsibility which contains the sense of responsibility, rationality and tactility. Circulation of monetary will bring moral hazard. Train moral management to prevent risks. To overcome the Levia than model, we should make efforts on the mechanisms. The third is to explore the possibility of RMB internationalization and reality. Evolution of the currencies of a country requires more than support the international monetary factors. "One main pluralistic" pattern, meaning to strive to achieve the amplification of RMB functions, in the challenges and opportunities in line with the needs of our world as a whole, the specific strategy is to steadily promote the convertibility of RMB under the capital process, on a reciprocal opening up of the actively and steadily carry out offshore financial business, to support the Yuan gold. Revaluation of the Yuan winded. Trade-offs, the current modest appreciation of the advantages outweighs the disadvantages. The country should strengthen the RMB exchange rate at reasonable and balanced level fluctuations in the exchange rate flexibility in a rational, to avoid devaluation of the Yuan revaluation syndrome or SARS trap. Fourth, the virtual economy and real economy develop in association. To adhere to a truth-like possibility, the virtual economy should sever the real economy, or else the unipolar expansion will result in asset bubbles; and the real economy should make foundation for the virtual economy, or it will be a castle in the air. Specifically, setting virtual economy degrees to monitor virtual economy; simultaneously going with financial innovation, financial regulation and integration of financial freedom to eliminate excessive tendency of financial liberalization; promoting the real economic development by changing the economic growth ways, so as to make technology innovation economy and new types of real economy objectively and subjectively become an extrapolated relation and rational economy in the content. Realizing the contemporary value of Marx will confirm the infinite vitality of Marxist monetary theory.
|
PDF Full Text Request