The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(02-22-2021, 05:02 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-22-2021, 04:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: With one of Engize’s recent posts, once again he brought everything back to capitol.  That got me thinking.  His perspective is that one thing, capitol, drives everything else.  This seems simplistic.  I came to wonder how many other one thing perspectives are there.  I came up with military balance of power, racism, industrial development, and my own triplet of turnings, civilizations and ages.  You can come up, perhaps, with ways of looking at history and human development as if that one thing is so prominent as to case shade on each of the others.

History is complex.  If you focus on one thing to the exclusion of all others you are ignoring much.  It doesn’t matter what the one thing is, you are limiting yourself.

Capitol is more than money. It is a *social relation which vaporizes itself and reproduces itself*. Once this is understood, the role it plays in underlying all other social relationships becomes far clearer.

This is money, but it is worthless except for its value as scrap paper.

 

Money is a way of valuing other things from what used to be penny candies to military aircraft, tracts of valuable real estate, and of course going-concern businesses in buy-outs. Rarely valuable in itself (as in coin collecting or note collecting), money simply represents value. Roughly speaking, its value is what one can get with it. North Korean currency isn't worth much.   A report by defectors from North Korea claimed that the black market rate was ₩570 to the Chinese yuan (or about ₩4,000 per U.S. dollar) in June 2009. The BBC reported in 2009 that in some department stores in Pyongyang, the North Korean won is not accepted; the stores only take Japanese yen and U.S. dollars.[46]

Quote:More recent official rates have shown the North Korean won (as of 27 August 2020) to be ₩900.015 to the US dollar.[9] However, rampant inflation has been eroding the North Korean won value. A report by defectors from North Korea claimed that the black market rate was ₩570 to the Chinese yuan (or about ₩4,000 per U.S. dollar) in June 2009

As of 2018, most stores in North Korea take U.S. dollars, euros and Chinese yuan/renminbi. Since more renminbi and U.S. dollars are brought into the country than euros, change from transactions is primarily returned in renminbi or U.S. dollars.

The North Korean won is a prime example of a soft currency. North Korea doesn't have much to offer that people outside of that Hell want. North Korea does print counterfeit US currency that is valuable for a short time in the local black market.

....Money is a valuation. It can value something desirable, like an original Picasso, or something questionable as a commodity such as slaves or street heroin. North Korea  deals heavily in sleazy commodities; South Korea doesn't. The People's Republic of China, which arguably more capitalist than most countries in Europe, is going to great lengths to suppress drugs and other such questionable commodities. South Korea is one of the biggest trading partners with the PRC, and North Korea isn't. 


Capital, except as unusual skill, is not human  (the exception being slaves, and few people recognize the validity of such "capital"). It is what can make something more valuable. Whether one is in a capitalist or a socialist economy, the production of desirable objects and many services depends upon capital, whether infrastructure, machinery, or human skill. The fault that you see in our capitalist system is not with the non-human machinery; it is with the owners and bosses.