was: RE: [PEN-L:27695] Re: RE: Re: e: Imperialism in decline?
I wrote: <I disagree. Marx showed very clearly that capitalism need not suffer from chronic realization problems, i.e., that it was _possible_ for
surplus-value to be realized internal to the system. >
RK responds: - But Marx did not succeed in passing from the "simple reproduction" to the expanded one. Even in the 48th chapter of vol.3, after having previously claimed that the question did not matter, he continued looking for the realization of surplus value within the circulation process. -
so say you, but I don't think that pen-l needs a debate on this. I'll refer people to Sweezy's discussion of the topic instead.
- Only dogmatism and devotion or reverence can explain that most Marxists still believe that Marx has solved the problem of accumulation process. -
Keynes & Kalecki also showed that this problem can be solved. I am sorry to appeal to authority, but I don't want to extend the discussion of this topic.
BTW, assertions that "Only dogmatism or devotion or reverence" would lead people to disagree with the revered Luxemburg or with Kroes do not encourage me to be confident in your opinions. It is better to present your argument logically or empirically or philosophically.
- Rosa Luxemburg did it. But her solution did not fit Lenin's theory of "proletariat diktatorship", nor Stalin's permanent terror, assassinations and internments this theory justified.-
As a non-Leninist (and, BTW, as an anti-Stalinist), I don't see why the above is relevant. I'm hoping that you're not assuming that my disagreement with your "party line" arises because I have a different party line, especially one associated with Lenin or Stalin. I have no "line" but my own.
< (...) in some eras (such as our own) wages are pushed down relative to
labor productivity, so that realization problems due to under-consumption
are always in the wings. >
- Wages pushed down are in not any case source of underconsumption (if
not temporily in a frictionnal unbalance), as it is a transfer from the
labor cost to the capital one, that is a transfer of consumption. As Marx
mentioned it: a transfer to luxurious production and consumption.-
yeah, I'm familiar with that. Accumulation and the government deficit can also allow the realization of surplus-value. That doesn't mean that these are non-problematical.
- As for the overproduction tendency, it is related to the rise in prices with respect to the global distributed monetary purchasing power, as Juglar's works have demonstrated it.-
I don't value appeals to authority. BTW, underconsumption is not the same as overproduction. Overproduction could be (partly) due to underconsumption, but there are other reasons for it.
< (...) Lenin's theory (though somewhat crude, as one might expect from
a pamphlet that he himself saw as inferior to Bukharin's contribution) is
one of a structural tension, one of capitalists continuously being _pushed_ by circumstances to struggle with each other to attain monopoly. As with Marx, Lenin's vision of capitalism doesn't start with human-nature metaphysics (the maximizing consumer, etc.) but with the structure of the system. >
- But what is the mysterious force that through the circumstances
continuously pushes capitalists to struggle with each other to attain
monopoly, if not the nature of capitalists? Where is then the relation
to the system, if not in the propensity to accumulate ever more profit?-
Marx clearly saw the individual capitalists' aggressive accumulation as reflecting the nature of capital as a whole.
< A full Marxian analysis would include both the structural tensions
that push individual capitalists to expand _and_ the conditions that allow
the "organic" whole to engage in relatively harmonious expanded
reproduction. >
- Which are the "structural tensions that push individual capitalist to
expand"? Were they not pulsions?-
I don't know what a "pulsion" is. The structural tensions that I refer to in my theories are (1) class antagonism and (2) capitalist competition. These are the source of constant threats to individual profits but cannot be abolished via the actions of individual capitalists alone, so they persist as long as capitalism persists.
< When these clash -- as they regularly do -- we see economic (and
sometimes social and political) crises. One solution to this kind of mess is geographical expansion, though that kind of solution (like others)
doesn't solve the structural problems that produce capitalist crises. >
- What are "these" clashing?-
I thought I mentioned that: "the structural tensions that push individual capitalists to expand _and_ the conditions that allow the "organic" whole to engage in relatively harmonious expanded reproduction."
- Why do they regularly do? -
because capitalism is an unplanned system. Also, the expansion of credit helps the system expand too far.
- Expansion indeed does not solve the structural problems, it only shifts them. But it increases accumulation. Did not colonialism do it ? -
colonialism can do "it," it also shifts the problem and increases accumulation.
< (...) I wouldn't call it "censored." It might be out of print, but
that's because of low demand. I know that I have several of her books. -
-I do not know about the USA, but I can tell you that in France Rosa
Luxemburg and her master work "Die Akkumulation des Kapitals" are
mentioned in not any education program among the authors and works to be studied. And for having written a thesis prolonging [?] Luxemburg's works, I am still barred from defending it. Barred by Marxists! -
that's hardly censorship. It's just standard silly academic behavior, assuming that your thesis makes sense.
< (...) we don't need Luxemburg's analysis to understand that capitalism
often faced limits that cause profitability problems that are often
solved via geographical expansion. >
- May be you do not need, but it is Rosa Luxemburg who first wrote it.
Additionally, geographical expansion does not often but always solve
crises. Is not imperialist war the recurrent mean of escaping a crisis? -
Though her desciptions of colonialism are first-rate, I didn't find her theory of accumulation to be robust. I would rather try to synthesize the valid parts of _all_ intelligent Marxists (and some intelligent non-Marxists) than to dwell on a single individual's contribution.
JD
