A B C of modern socialism

IX

FUNCTIONAL FINANCE AND CREDIT

Tue banking system of this country has obtained such a grip upon capital, finance and currency, it is hardly surprising that men think we cannot get on without it.

What is this thing, whose market value is about £225,000,000, that has its tentacles on nearly every activity in the world?

Its mere capital values does not explain it. It would be easy to pick out twenty or twenty-five manufacturing and trading concerns with a larger aggregate of capital. Yet, paradoxical though it seems, the larger and more prosperous the business the greater the store it sets upon banking.

As is usual, the simple explanation is the true one. Just as law is said to be the palladium of liberty, so banking is the citadel of capitalism. We may go further and declare that the functional value, if any, of modern capital is expressed in banking. It is the banks that guard the interests of capital—by political pressure if hard put to it: maintain the market value of capital, largely by means of the Joint Stock Acts: raise or depress prices as best suits the book of the large investor: