And this is freedom

As has been explained on these pages, capitalism has certain inherent and insoluble contradictions. One cause of the repeated crises is that workers are paid less in wages than what we produce in value. A buyer of Labor power, the use of a human being's life activity for a period of time, does not hire someone for the pleasure of it. It is obvious then that we cannot buy back all we produce, and we have to buy it back as what we produce through labor belongs not to the maker of the product but the owner of the means of producing it, the capitalist. They own the use of the worker over a certain time period and, the machinery, the raw materials etc. in total.

The problem then is that capitalism overproduces, we cannot purchase all we make. The capitalist overcomes this problem through various means, credit being one of them. The surplus value that we create is sold back to us in the form of credit so we can buy what we make. For the capitalist too this is crucial as the surplus value we create is contained within the object of our Labor, the car, the shoes, the shirts, the house etc. Until the product is sold, the capitalist cannot "realize" or get in to his or her hands if you like, the actual added is created by this process. An unsold commodity is like a bank vault with money in it that you can't get in to. For the capitalist then, it is not the use of the object that we create that is his the motivation for their life activity in this process, it is the surpus value contained within it; what is called its exchange value. So they could be producing shoes or toothpaste, it doesn't matter to them.

The more productive capitalism is, the more of a problem this becomes, especially as technology advances and fewer workers produce more and more products for sale. Fewer workers means means less wages and increases the inability to buy back what we produce. Driving down wages has the same effect.

What made me think more about this was the FICO number. The FICO number is your credit number. When I was growing up, credit had virtually no impact on our lives. My dad, like most of our dads, used to say that if you couldn't buy it, don't get it. But we are ruled by the moneylender.

The FICO number is a number that determines how good a borrow you are. It is a sort of moneylender's list of who they can best extract interest from; a usery chart.

The FICO determines whether you can own a home, what interest rate you might pay. Landlords can reject your application for an apartment, auto dealers for a car, if your FICO number is low. An employer will reject you if your FICO is low. And what is someone with bad credit? It is people who have been bled dry by userers, even in the bible this is condemned.

As I write, my daughter in law who is sitting beside me and knows more about FICO than I do, tells me that another aspect of the FICO is that if you have a last name that points to you being an ethnic minority, this can also effect you FICO score. In other words, this number, developed by moneylenders can, as she says, rule your life.

And this is freedom?