வணிகம் மற்றும் பொருளாதார இதழ்

Italo Calvino and "Finance": The Invisible, Infinite and Illogical City without a Future

Abstract

Fabrizio Pezzani

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the non-appearance of the external enemy that instrumentally but unscientifically held everyone together threw open the doors of knowledge and the Academy to rational markets, to huge volumes of paper money whose value is no longer understood, only its power, and we endure it all in silence. Yet the deception is obvious because the infinite money supply is inconsistent with the finite dimension in which the human and natural dimension resides. Money operates in a negative infinity that destroys the common good, as Tommaso d’Aquino stated in the "Summa Theologiae" when he spoke of usury. An illogical hypothesis ensues, if due to its fundamental nature the infinite and ungovernable production of money loses its ability to be measured - a set of infinite assets or things cannot be subject to quantification - its value is uncertain if determined by unrealistic elements in a context of power ensuring acceptance of a principle functional to dominance but without a scientific basis. It would seem that a strong dollar creates problems for the economy but strangely not for money that is magically sustained through endless speculations made with derivatives. Ezra Pound affirmed that creating money to continually create more money destroys all social order, decency and beauty. It becomes a logical contradiction without end even when confronted with the evidence; the malignant endlessness of the unlimited increase in money at the expense of the community destroys the "common good". Neoliberalism imposed deregulation and in finance this generated a concentration of wealth that is ungovernable by individual states, enduring its dominion while the process accelerated by globalization facilitated the invasion of this limitless supply of money. Infinite and immeasurable money cannot co-exist with the finiteness of real assets that should be its counterpart. The concentration and lack of rules favouring the "rational" diffusion of instruments measuring the financial equilibria - far from the social dimension of human life - of countries and societies are determining our lives - spread, ratings, etc. - and the trends are governable according to the case.