[was: Re: [PEN-L:7657] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: recent economic trends]
Barkley wrote:
> Not clear to me that "accumulation" is clearly tied to either the
> supply side or the demand side. I fully agree that Marx made much of the
> demand side ("failure to realize surplus value" etc.) in his discussions
> of macro fluctuations. He also did have a replacement wave theory of
> endogenous cycles, although I forget exactly where he presented that right now.
the replacement cycle appears in volume II of CAPITAL, I believe in chapter
9. His emphasis in that volume is on changes in the turnover time of
commodities and of fixed capital. In CAPITAL, this is where he gets closest
to the details of modern Keynesian discussions of aggregate demand. A
stretching out of the turnover time of circulating capital (which reduces
the realized rate of profit) is similar to the modern unplanned piling up
of inventories. A stretching out of the turnover time of fixed capital
(which also reduces the realized rate of profit) is similar in some ways to
the modern fall in capacity utilization rates.
> But, as you well know, "accumulation" according to Marx can take a
> variety of forms. In the case of "primitive accumulation" this is often
> simply in the form of highway robbery, somebody seizing something that
> belongs to somebody else. Is the supply or demand?
you're right. But once capitalism is established, it doesn't just involve
the expanded reproduction of class relations. It also represents the
accumulation of fixed and circulating capital within existing capitalism,
as you say below.
> It also includes the case where a capitalists pays for the building
> of produced means of production, aka "real capital stock." He may be
> induced to do so by demand factors, but the act of doing so also changes
> aggregate supply. Not such a simple matter.
right, but Marx doesn't posit a simple relationship between a expanded
stock of fixed capital and aggregate supply. He clearly avoided positing an
aggregate production function (and he was right to do so). I _guess_ that
his vision is similar to Nicholas Kaldor's idea of a "technical progress
function" (which later showed up, seemingly without attribution, in an
article by Brad deLong & Lawrence Summers). That is, increases in the rate
of capital accumulation (perhaps measured by net I/K) lead to increases in
the growth rate of labor productivity (though these increases may not be
realized). Crucially, changes in I/K would affect labor productivity growth
only with a lag.
BTW, deLong & Summers emphasize the role of investment in producers'
durable equipment, which is only one part of aggregate nonresidential fixed
investment. Is it possible that the recent surge in this kind of investment
in PDE (seen in the Vatter/Walker article in the current issue of
CHALLENGE) is part of the story of the surge in labor productivity growth
that may have happened during the last 4 years or so? Of course, as Michael
Perelman points out, it's possible that this connection is undermined by
increased depreciation rates of PDE. It's also quite possible that the lag
would prevent this kind of explanation from working.
(References:
De Long, J. Bradford and Lawrence H. Summers. 1991. Equipment Investment
and Economic Growth. QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS. 104(3) August. 445-502.
_____. 1992. Equipment Spending and Economic Growth: How Strong is the
Nexus? BROOKINGS PAPERS ON ECONOMIC ACTIVITY. 157-99.)
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
