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| ...a mezzotint of a female écorché torso revealing the muscles of the back, shows the extraordinary talent of Jacques-Fabien Gautier d’Agoty who made this print after observing a dissection carried out by J. F. Duverney, a Parisian surgeon and anatomist. The print is approximately life-size, (measuring 60.6cm x 45.6 cm) as are many of the other works by the same artist held by the Wellcome Library. - See more at: publicdomainreview |
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hmm...
now what we gonna do about that one?
"As free-floating abstract capital, finance is popularly seen as speculative, parasitic, and at odds with “real” production. Much of this is true enough, but it’s worth asking why, if finance is so especially counterproductive and has done so much damage — especially during the latest crisis — have other capitalists not joined attacks on finance? Why has there been no split within capital?
The answer is only partially that many of those other capitalists have also been financialized. More important is the fact that even where this is not the case, capitalists outside of finance have come to understand that finance is an essential part of their own success. Finance has not only provided business and the consumers they need with low interest rates; it also stands at the center of neoliberal restructuring. Finance reallocates capital to where it is most profitable, enforces the closure of plants the market deems inefficient, facilitates mergers, and through venture capital supports the development of new high-tech companies.
Especially important, though derivatives have added to the systematic risk of capitalism as a whole, the markets they are part of have served as mechanisms for companies to cope with the international uncertainties of exchange rates, interest rates, and global political developments. Without the capacity for such hedging — just as without cheap transportation — the scale of current globalization would not be possible. Finally, financial markets have played a crucial imperial function. Finance brings global savings to the US and thereby further enables the US state’s role in overseeing global capitalism.
The point is obviously not to defend finance, but rather to emphasize that it is not something separate from capitalism. The irrationalities of finance are the irrationalities of capitalism. That capitalism has made such an ultimately antisocial institution so essential to its functioning is part of what makes capitalism such an objectionable social system.
The contradiction that finance embodies is not its dysfunctionality within capitalism, but rather that along with the essential services it provides to capitalism comes extreme volatility. While there is a general concern to reduce that volatility, it is muted by a concern on the part of state and corporate elites to not go so far that any regulation might undercut what finance brings to capitalism."
source:
unmaking global capitalism (jacobinmag, 3/6/14)
series: me, reading long pieces for you
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hmmm, long time no music...
mission of burma - mica/weatherbox (1982)
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