on 2002.02.23 05:20 PM, Rakesh Bhandari at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> In response to Doug's (tongue-in-cheek?) comment >> >>> Never. It was a ruse devised by the bourgeoisie to occupy the >>> attention of otherwise smart and knowledgeable Marxian economists on >>> something addictively divisive but politically irrelevant. >> >> Charles writes >> >>> Charles: Isn't it worse than that ? Marx asserts as principle the >>> insolubility of the transformation problem. The unsystematic relationship >>> between value and prices is symptomatic of the basic anarchy of capitalist >>> production. If the problem were "solved" , Marx would be refuted. >> >> Depends on what you think the "transformation problem" refers to. As I >> read Marx, the "problem," as he posed it in Chapter 9 of Volume III, lies >> in showing that aggregate prices equal aggregate values and aggregate >> surplus value equals aggregate profits even if commodities exchange at >> prices of production which are disproportional to their values (which is >> the general case). Issues have been raised with the logic of Marx's >> original demonstration, and interpretations of his value theory have been >> offered that get around these issues at the cost of raising others. But >> the real question, it seems to me, is whether anything at all that is >> critical to Marxist political economy hinges on this demonstration. And I >> agree with Doug's negative response to this question. >> >> Gil > > > Does the Sraffa model which presumably makes Marx's demonstration > redundant explain the source of profit any better the Quesnay model > to which as Heilbroner notes it bears a family resemblance explains > the origin of the produit net? > > rb > MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL JOHBUSHI,1-20 KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre JAPAN 0568-76-4131 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
There is not "necessity of socialism" Rather, there is only possibility of socialism. Marx firstly expected revolution when economic panic happened, but later In Capital, Marx depended upon growing social movements themselves. BELOW is From Capital "Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." "It is one of the civilising aspects of capital that it enforces this surplus-labour in a manner and under conditions which are more advantageous to the development of the productive forces, social relations, and the creation of the elements for a new and higher form than under the preceding forms of slavery, serfdom, etc. Thus it gives rise to a stage, on the one hand, in which coercion and monopolisation of social development (including its material and intellectual advantages) by one portion of society at the expense of the other are eliminated; on the other hand, it creates the material means and embryonic conditions, making it possible in a higher form of society to combine this surplus-labour with a greater reduction of time devoted to material labour in general. For, depending on the development of labour productivity, surplus-labour may be large in a small total working-day, and relatively small in a large total working-day. If the necessary labour-time=3 and the surplus-labour=3, then the total working-day=6 and the rate of surplus-labour=100%. If the necessary labour=9 and the surplus-labour=3, then the total working-day=12 and the rate of surplus-labour only=33 1/3 %. In that case, it depends upon the labour productivity how much use-value shall be produced in a definite time, hence also in a definite surplus labour-time. The actual wealth of society, and the possibility of constantly expanding its reproduction process, therefore, do not depend upon the duration of surplus-labour, but upon its productivity and the more or less copious conditions of production under which it is performed. In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite." Thus, Marx abandoned economic or political crisis as a base of revolutionary movement and became to expect emerging international movement from within as the base of revolution. But Lenin adopted political crisis as chance of revolution and later his judgment became dogma as " crisis theory". So Stalin's strategy focused how and when economic&political crisis happened. Now we has large number of social movements, such as anti-globalizaition, anti-racism, feminism, left-ecology, worker's & consumers cooperatives, local community using LETS and local banking which does not create fictitious capital(For example Mondragon) . If crisis theory can't explain these movements, it is simply because these movements occurs from contradictory capitalist society. Most important is that Marx tried firstly to prove ability of working class to destroy civil society, not tried to explain economical phenomena from without. In Japan, from pre-war to 1960', Marxists focused mainly market analysis modeled after Stalin's dogma. Its objectivist tendency was destroyed by new left movement.
