Grover, not saying you are wrong. I do have a different perspective, and it’s neither right nor wrong, it’s just a different way of looking at the same problem. As to solutions, I think this is a little unrealistic, no?
We have rapidly disappearing natural resources, pending climate catastrophes, a sham of a two party government system, and crumbling mainstream economic theories unable to explain what happened yesterday let alone predict what will happen tomorrow, and you want solutions?
It took us nearly 400 years to get where we are today, it is not going to be solved in a blog post, and there is growing realization that it will never be solved at all. In the meantime, I would propose that we can help ourselves by not incessantly claiming that we can reverse the negative effects of our political economy by simply changing currency attributes- again the tail does not wag the dog.
Hrunner, Keen’s description of the dialectic theory is 180 degrees opposite from Greek or Hegelian dialectic. The 15 min band I mentioned in the video does a good job of outlining these differences.
Regarding commodities, we have to broaden the definition to move past mainstream understanding of things like pork bellies and soy beans, past the vision of factory workers chained to machinery engaged in mass production. The definition of commodities is both abstract and concrete, and both must be discussed.
To the concrete, virtually all objects are commodities, the computer I type on, the desk I sit at, the car I drive, and the IT infrastructure and software used to write this post. Entertainment is a commodity. The most important commodity however, is the commodity of labor power. Labor power is the most ubiquitous of all commodities (followed by money-also a commodity).
While so-called knowledge workers in technology vocations tend to exclude themselves from the hoi polloi of collective labor, the laws of commodity exchange are not suspended just because one produces software or provides a labor based service. It still reduces to an individual selling a commodity (labor power) for money- which is used to purchase other commodities.
In the abstract, commodities can be defined as any object or service that can be reproduced using socially necessary labor power. Money represents remuneration for labor power, and is used as a contrivance for universal purchase of other commodities (as well as a store of wealth).
Everyone in a wage labor economy participates in the exchange of commodities, factory workers, knowledge workers, consultants, software producers- everyone. This concept, far from being outdated or obsolete, is even more relevant today than it ever was. In fact, it would not be overreaching to suggest that the core activity of our economy-perhaps even our civilization- is the exchange of commodities- to the exclusion of virtually everything else.
Our interaction with other people is predominantly through the exchange of commodities. Whether buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks, grocery shopping, or going to work, the vast majority of our human interactions are centered around, and enabled by, the exchange of commodities.
Again in the abstract, one of the more interesting attributes of commodity exchange is that the process of exchange obscures the social relations. This is a very important principle. Is it not strange that an act so central to our human interaction, in and of itself obscures the true nature of ourselves? When you buy a undershirt at Walmart (or wherever) the social relations used to produce that shirt are completely transparent to you- you don’t know who produced it (a 14 year old girl in Bangladesh?) and she does not know who bought it.
These characteristics of disconnect produce side effects like alienation, which have profound consequences for our society.
In turns out that this obfuscation is essential to the function of our economy. It turns out there is not much of a market for goods produced by slave or child labor- even in faraway countries. It turns out there is not much of market for goods produced by knowingly destroying the environment, or depleting natural resources en masse.
So the beat goes on.