Charles quoted:
>"The ultimate reason for all
>real crises always remains the
>poverty and restricted consumption
>of the masses as opposed to the
>drive of captialist production to develop
>the productive forces as though only
>the absolute consuming power of
>society constituted their outer limit "
>(Capital vol. III, Moscow, 1959, pp.
>472-73) ; quoted in The Development
>of Capitalism in Russia.
I thought I had remembered the argument correctly. Could anyone give the
page reference for the 1974 Lawrence and Wishart edition of Captial Vol 3,
or the chapter and section number?
But
>>>> Jim heartfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 07/25/99 12:31PM >>>
> Lenin's purpose was to show
>that the barrier to capital accumulation was not on the market, but
>rather in the relative displacement of variable capital by constant,
>leading to a falling rate of profit.
The protagonists may not want to revisit an argument which for them ran its
course, but it seems to me that Jim's formulation here is not correct and
perpetuates one sidedness about a dynamic process. The argument must have
been undialectical for it to be still unresolved.
Without specific references from Lenin, I am surprised that he should
counterpose the contradiction in this way. Of course with the inescapable
tendency for capitalism to accumulate there is an increase in the
proportion of constant capital. (But in certain circumstances for a time a
capitalist might see the opportunity to accumulate more surplus value by
exploiting a larger mass of labour, variable capital, that has been
neglected by competitors.)
But the total mass of social value, provides a glass ceiling above which
production cannot rise. Perhaps a plastic ceiling because under certain
conditions there may be some elasticity, probably at the expense of a more
violent rebound. The barrier to capital accumulation is this, not "the
market", so Jim H is suggesting a false antithesis in Lenin's argument.
Ultimately the division of social value is a zero sum game and the tendency
for capital always to accumulate will run into periodic collision with the
limited purchasing power of the sellers of labour power. Marx and Lenin's
dialectical description of the economic process exactly fits a limit cycle.
If we do not dialectically see the unity between these two aspects as well
as the struggle, this leaves an endless unresolved argument, however
technical, between the relative importance of different aspects of the same
process.
Chris Burford
London
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