[PEN-L:3030] Re: Ernest Mandel on long waves

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

     I want to thank Louis for bringing up Parvus's 
priority to van Gelderin in hypothesizing the existence of 
long waves.  I had read of Parvus's work but had not seen 
the reference, even though I actually dug through Mandel 
once upon a time.  It is also not surprising that he got 
the idea from Marx.
     Indeed, most mainstream US economists do not buy long 
waves.  You won't find them in Mankiw's Principles text or 
most others, although once upon a time Samuelson noted them 
in footnotes.  They are mainstream in the Netherlands, but 
viewed as vaguely cranky or antique in most other places, 
especially in the US where most macroeconomists don't 
believe in any kinds of regular cycles.
Barkley Rosser
On Fri, 05 Feb 1999 19:24:32 -0500 Louis Proyect 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> (From "Late Capitalism)
> 
> The history of capitalism on the international plane thus appears not only
> as a succession of cyclical movements every 7 or 10 years, but also as a
> succession of longer periods, of approximately 50 years, of which we have
> experienced four up till now:
> 
> -- the long period from the end of the 18th century up to the crisis of
> 1847, characterized basically by the gradual spread of the handicraft-made
> or manufacture-made steam engine to all the most important branches of
> industry and industrial countries; this was the long wave of the industrial
> revolution itself.
> 
> -- the long period, lasting from the crisis of 1847 until the beginning of
> the 1890s, characterized by the generalization of the machine-made steam
> engine as the principal motive machine. This was the long wave of the first
> technological revolution.
> 
> -- the long period, lasting from the 1890s to the Second World War,
> characterized by the generalized application of electric and combustion
> engines in all branches of industry. This was the long wave of the second
> technological revolution.
> 
> -- the long period, beginning in North America in 1940 and in the other
> imperialist countries in 1945-48, characterized by the generalized control
> of machines by means of electronic apparatuses (as well as by the gradual
> introduction of nuclear energy). This is the long wave of the third
> technological revolution.
> 
> Each of these long periods can be subdivided into two parts: an initial
> phase, in which the technology actually undergoes a revolution, and when
> such things as the production sites for the new means of production have
> first to be created. This phase is distinguished by an increased rate of
> profit, accelerated accumulation, accelerated growth, accelerated
> self-expansion of previously idle capital and the accelerated
> devalorization of capital previously invested in Department I but now
> technically obsolescent. This first phase is followed by a second, in which
> the actual transformation in productive technology has already taken place,
> i.e., the new production sites for new means of production are for the most
> part already in existence and can only be further extended or improved in a
> quantitative sense. It is now a matter of getting the means of production
> made in these new production sites generally adopted in all branches of
> industry and economy. The force that determined the sudden extension by
> leaps and bounds of capital accumulation in Department I thus falls away,
> and accordingly this phase becomes one of retreating profits, gradually
> decelerating accumulation, decelerating economic growth, gradually
> increasing difficulties in the valorization of the total accumulated
> capital, and particularly of new additionally accumulated capital, and the
> gradual, self-reproducing increase in capital being laid idle.
> 
> According to this scheme, which covers the successive phases of accelerated
> growth until 1823, of decelerated growth 1824-47, of accelerated growth
> 1848-73, of decelerated growth 1874-93, of accelerated growth 1894-1913, of
> decelerated growth 1914-39, of accelerated growth 1940-45 and 1948-66, we
> should today have entered into the second phase of the 'long wave' which
> began with the Second World War, characterized by decelerated capital
> accumulation. The more rapid succession of recessions in the most important
> imperialist economies (France 1962; Italy 1963; Japan 1964; West Germany
> 1966-67; USA 1969-71; Great Britain 1970-71; Italy 1971 and the world-wide
> recession of 1974-75) seems to confirm this hypothesis.
> 
> Obviously these 'long waves' do not assert themselves in a mechanical
> fashion, but function through the articulation of the 'classical cycles'.
> In a phase of expansion the cyclical periods of boom will be longer and
> more intensive, the cyclical crises of overproduction shorter and more
> superficial. Conversely, in those phases of the long wave where a tendency
> to stagnation is prevalent the periods of boom will prove less feverish and
> more transitory, while the periods of cyclical crisis of over-production
> will, by contrast, be longer and profounder. The 'long wave' is conceivable
> only as the result of these cyclical fluctuations and never as some kind of
> metaphysical superimposition upon them.
> 
> The first writer who seems to have discerned these 'long waves' in the
> history of capitalism was the Russian Marxist, Alexander Helphand (Parvus).
> Though a study of agricultural crises he came to the conclusion, in the
> mid-1890s, that the long depression which began in 1878 and to which
> Friedrich Engels had attached such great importance ought soon to be
> replaced by a new long-term upswing. He expressed this idea for the first
> time in an article which appeared in the Sachsische Arbeiterzeitung in
> 1896, and then further elaborated it in his 1901 brochure, Die Handelskrise
> und die Gewerkschaften. Basing himself on a well-known passage from Marx,
> Parvus used the notion of a Sturm und Drang period of capital to provide a
> conceptual framework for 'long waves' of expansion followed by long waves
> of 'economic depression'. The determinant of this long-term wave-movement
> was for Parvus the extension of the world market by changes which were
> 'under way in all areas of the capitalist economy -- in technology, the
> money market, trade, the colonies' -- and were lifting 'the whole of world
> production onto a new and much more comprehensive basis'. He did not give
> statistical data in support of his thesis; and he committed grave errors in
> his periodization. Despite this, however, his sketch remains the brilliant
> attempt of a Marxist thinker possessed of a mind which was uncommonly
> acute, even if also undisciplined and inconsequent.
> 
> COMMENT: Mandel is a very smart guy, but I question once again whether
> "long waves" are any thing different than the evolution of the modern
> capitalist economy in Western Europe and the United States. Mandel seems to
> understand that "long waves" can be interpreted as effects, since he does
> raise a number of points in response to the claim that "Kondratieff’s own
> retort to his critics applies equally well to the five causal relations
> listed by him: he has by no means proved that these are causes and not
> effects. The increased gap between supply and demand for agricultural goods
> in the expansive ‘long waves’ up to the First World War might well be
> regarded more as an effect than as a cause of general expansion: growing
> unemployment and increasing industrial output in fact create a demand of
> this kind, while agrarian production is less elastic than industrial."
> 
> Apparently, I was not the first person to raise the issue of cause versus
> effect.
> 
> 
> 
> Louis Proyect
> (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]