ABSTRACT
The argument in chapter 12 can be summarized as follows. The essential signature of capital as a form of information is the process M → C → M ′ in which money expands exponentially. We have argued that this was inhibited so long as the technology of record supporting money was the use of gold or silver coin. This constraint was removed through the development of the banking system in which the technology of record was first replaced by paper and ink and then by computer disks. But a complex social phenomenon like profit has multiple levels of causality. The ability of the monetary technology to support it is only one such level. One can look at the causes of profit in several ways:
(1) From the standpoint of the social architecture of capitalism as in chapter 13. In this case the occurrence of profit is seen as being caused by the property relations according to which the product belongs to capitalists, whose employees have no property claim on it. The use of computer simulation indicates that these assumptions alone will suffice to generate realistic functional forms for the structure of incomes in society.
