tools and signs again..
Jones, Peter-Cultural Studies (P.E.Jones who-is-at shu.ac.uk)
Thu, 23 Jul 1998 16:13:00 +0100
23 july
from peter jones, sheffield hallam university, UK
I see we're on the topic of tools and signs again...! if anybody would like
to look at my Aarhus ISCRAT paper on tools, symbols and ideality in
ilyenkov i would be happy to send them an electronic copy.
in response to issues raised in the last few days on this list: money is
indeed an interesting case, dealt with of course at length by marx whose
treatment was used and explored by ilyenkov as the paradigm case of the
'genesis' of ideality (from a thing to a symbol and from a symbol to a
token). ideality, eg money, is not a psychological phenomenon or category
primarily or directly but a social category: the 'symbolisation' process
eg in the case of money is a function of the workings of the entire social
organism independently of the will and consciousness of individuals and is
subject to its own laws. Furthermore, the way the system works may be (in
fact must be) quite different from the way it appears to the individuals
who live and act in the system - ie whatever they 'internalise' from their
own experiences and use of money is not the same as the way money works as
an ideal phenomenon. nor is it the case then that money - eg paper money or
tokens or 'cash-less' transactions' - is just about paper tokens (or
electronic transfers) without connection to 'real' economic processes and
value. the law of value still operates throughout capitalist economies (and
the global economic system) 'with the force of a law of nature' and this
makes itself felt in currency crises, inflation, devaluation etc. when
money was gold, gold was a symbol of the value of all other commodities,
but it itself was a commodity with exchange value and so the relationship
between the symbol (gold) and what it stood for (commodities) was
determined directly and organically by the law of value itself. when tokens
(paper money etc) replace gold in circulation the law of value now operates
in mediated fashion through the relationship between the amount of paper
money and the gold it stands for, ie the link with gold cannot be broken
but the whole system works in a much more complex fashion and is subject to
different kinds of internal dysfunction and crisis. but i must confess i
don't have a very good grasp of this economic stuff - maybe there is
somebody out there who can help out??
yours slighly confusedly
peter