Capital-Image needs a master image to inspire circulation. It is best if such master images -- those obsessional phantasies -- reside in some faraway and slightly poetic place, like Mississippi, El Dorado, China, or Louisiana.
Mais la vassalité de ce système à l'État français, en lui demandant de prendre à sa charge les dettes des finances françaises, et la spéculation qui se joue sur les actions de la compagnie de Law vont finalement en ruiner le système.
John Law, the great poetic genius of modern finance, to help the wise and progressive Regent renegotiate an onerous war debt, bypasses and camouflages the paltry capital-image of the Sovereign and creates this incredible fiction, an economic machine infernale, based on a shiny future that never could be -- that stupefies nearly everyone. For a brief moment, in this frenzy of credit and new liquidity, Law is master of France. He simply didn't have the time to buy everyone off, and tie it all into Le Système. No one ever does. Its economic viability notwithstanding, Law's system served a defining purpose in the spectacular realm, when it became the visible and enigmatic "soul" to the vanishing body of the Sovereign (which was undoubtedly strengthened after its' collapse, and Law's exile...) a lesson in diffusion and legerdemain, that all states now have internalized without question.
Price manipulation is not out of character for Law. His writings from during and after the System are replete with justifications of coercion in the better interest of people, such as the statement that "it was necessary to use authority and induce the people to contribute to their own welfare" and a commentary on John 5:6 to the effect that "some sick men refuse to heal". Although he is commenting on the coercive measures taken in early 1720 against gold and silver, he probably saw price manipulation as a way of helping people help themselves in spite of themselves.
The question, when there are angry mobs on the streets, is inevitably what to burn. The answer, then and now, is always: oneself.
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