Korunk 2012 (III. folyam 23.)
2012 / 1. szám = A hitel vására - ABSTRACTS
m 2012/1 tinue to differ in essential terms. The dominant patterns of public opinion reflect conflicting identity structures and competing ethnopolitical strategies, raising the intriguing question whether Hungarians in Romania can be considered at all part of the Romanian political community. Seeking an answer to this question, the first part of the paper explores the way in which the term political community is conceptualized in the recent literature, paying special attention to the means by which the stability and coherence of a political community can be safeguarded in cases when it is internally divided along ethnic or linguistic fault-lines. G. M. Tamás ■ Trust I Authenticity | Sincerity Keywords: legitimacy, natural law, elections, marketing, branding, state debt, deficit, real income The legitimacy of political power is partially hidden (the source for the legitimacy of the rule of law and the constitutional state consists in the theory of the law, which has its origins in natural law theories, i.e. just like in the case of “real-socialist” regimes, in philosophy), and partially located in electoral rivalry and competition (researches pertaining to consumer preferences, as well as their modification, stimulation and neutralization, just as in the case of marketing and commercials, which also organically include the mobilization of moral and aesthetic, and not utilitarian, identity or self-image, in order to choose the “right” brand). It is symptomatic that the underlying theses are not being questioned, as the elites of the day are in total agreement regarding the radical reduction of state debt and budgetary deficit (in other words, and from the other class perspective: the reduction of real income, in order to solve the paradox caused by the reduction of the productive population, as a result of the concomitent stagnation of productivity and the booming technological development, which decreases profits and, as a result, also the level of new investments). As a consequence, this (substantial) identity of content can only be expressed by way of subjective differentiation, as it is the case, for instance, with the fictional contrast between the “corrupt, debauched and buffoonish Berlusconi” and Mario Monti, the “dignified and cool professional”. Samuel Weber ■ Money, Profit, Salvation Keywords: finances, reserve currency, God, Creation, salvageability, guilt, debt, measure The entire system of financial speculation that dominates the politics of nation-states today depends on a measure of value that is relatively stable, and this is the “reserve currency” of the US dollar. I would suggest that this dependency in particular - and the more general need of a single “reserve currency” - in the absence of any other common standard (i.e. gold) - may well be the continuation of the monotheistic tradition in which the Creator-God is the immeasurable measure of all value of the Creation. The “content” of that mono theological “measure” would be the “savability” of the sinful-guilty creation, just as the content of today’s theologicalpolitical economy is the salvageability of indebted sovereignties. As Nietzsche first observed and Benjamin elaborated, the relation between “guilt” and “debt” is measured in terms of salvation - which economically equates with a profitable return on investment. Only so can “investment” fulfill the promise of the “incarnation” and mortal bodies become immortal spirits. But this system has never been internally stable, even if it has survived in different forms for over a millennium. For “money” requires a credible “universal equivalent” - or rather a credible standard on which such equivalence can be based. This amounts to appealing to a transcendent “substance” - in the sense of a self-identical entity - that could serve as the nonchanging standard upon which variations of value can be reliably calculated. But as the German poet Hölderlin wrote, in a long poem “Is there on earth a measure? There is none.” 128