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To: Progressive Economics <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Pen-l] -l] Roemer & Capitalism [Was: Conventional Wisdom on Oil] From: Ted Winslow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:24:23 -0400 Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=rogers.com; h=Received:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:Message-Id:From:To:In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Mime-Version:Subject:Date:References:X-Mailer; b=ajZZWqjjHtRB50OVexLfE96eNV4WIqM43W9mrvnZvUSfUkE2SiMEMDz+C1w07BvZgm1cqWFZ6nej6vu7tE8G+lUIXWynTnGFa3MJtbARYtqHZCteQi6un6E/z6ufwHekUuOBjrsm10SzHPFvyIu6fL9hfj2o2H6OaWz03loYezY= ; -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles Brown wrote: How about spelling out the inconsistencies more specifically ? There are contradictions in capitalism, no ? Perhaps you are discussing a contradiction in capitalism reflected in Marx's theory of it. The fact that the proportion of productive capacity devoted to producing the commodities consumed by wage-labour is relatively small isn't sufficient itself to cause "overproduction." ^^ CB; I'm not sure if we are understanding each other. I'm talking about "realization" crisis. The workers don't have enough money to buy all the personal consumption commodities that they produce, because they aren't paid for a major fraction of those commodities that they produce because the boss takes the surplus value. ^^^ Marx assumes the motivation, the "passions," dominant in capitalism make the accumulation of capital, i.e. use of productive capacity beyond that required to produce the products consumed by wage-labour to produce new capital, an end-in-itself. So it's insatiable. Demand for new capital can never be less than the capacity to produce it. ^^^ CB; That, and, by definition, the workers are not paid for the commodities corresponding to the surplus value they produce. The workers are not paid enough to buy all they produce. So, the capitalists can't sell all the workers produce, in the "end". So, there is "over" production, "too much" produced from the standpoint of realization by the capitalist. No realization means less capital had. ^^^^^ "Moreover," according to Marx, competitive pressure leaves capitalists with no choice but to devote the productive capacity beyond that used to produce consumption goods for wage-labour to the production of additional capital. ^^^^ CB: Production of capital occurs as M-C-M1. In M-C-M1, the capitalist can't get a full realization of M1 ( M1 > M), because he can't sell all the commodities made with the variable and constant C ,because the mass of workers don't have enough money to buy all those commodities. They don't have enough money to buy all the commodities because they aren't paid for all the commodities they produce. ^^^^^ Inconsistent with this, he also claims they do have some choice because the altered "passions" dominant in mature capitalism lead capitalists to divert some productive capacity away from production of new capital to luxury consumption (though of a kind behind which "avarice" still lurks). But this would just be a diversion of demand away from capital accumulation to luxury consumption. It wouldn't lead to "overproduction." ^^^^ CB: My issue doesn't have to do with luxury production, production of consumption commodities. for the capitalists. It has to do with production of consumption commodities for the mass of workers, non-luxury commodities. ^^^^ CB: I'll take a look at what you say below, which is of interest, but doesn't have to do with "realization" crisis. ^^^^^ This particular question, however, needs to be placed in the larger context of what ultimately Marx means by the "crisis" that initiates the transformation of capitalism into the higher penultimate historical stage. The ultimate meaning is the creation by the capitalist labour process of the human powers and will required to accomplish this transformation. Marx claims capitalism does this in two main ways. First, it develops "productive forces" understood as "the power of knowledge, objectified." Second, it develops an "individuality," a "subject," with the developed powers and will required to initiate the "revolutionary praxis" that then further develops these "powers" to the degree required to "fit" the individuals involved to "appropriate" the "knowledge" objectified in the productive forces and use it to create the social arrangements from which all barriers to full human development have been removed. This ultimate meaning has largely disappeared from "Marxism." For instance, recently there was a discussion both on this list and on LBO of a text from the Grundrisse concerned with "crisis." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm> To see the meaning of the text in question, start from: "The development of fixed capital indicates in still another respect the degree of development of wealth generally, or of capital. ... " and read say to the the following paragraph: "Real economy - saving - consists of the saving of labour time (minimum (and minimization) of production costs); but this saving identical with development of the productive force. Hence in no way abstinence from consumption, but rather the development of power, of capabilities of production, and hence both of the capabilities as well as the means of consumption. The capability to consume is a condition of consumption, hence its primary means, and this capability is the development of an individual potential, a force of production. The saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts back upon the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive power. From the standpoint of the direct production process it can be regarded as the production of fixed capital, this fixed capital being man himself. It goes without saying, by the way, that direct labour time itself cannot remain in the abstract antithesis to free time in which it appears from the perspective of bourgeois economy. Labour cannot become play, as Fourier would like, [5] although it remains his great contribution to have expressed the suspension not of distribution, but of the mode of production itself, in a higher form, as the ultimate object. Free time - which is both idle time and time for higher activity - has naturally transformed its possessor into a different subject, and he then enters into the direct production process as this different subject. This process is then both discipline, as regards the human being in the process of becoming; and, at the same time, practice [Ausübung], experimental science, materially creative and objectifying science, as regards the human being who has become, in whose head exists the accumulated knowledge of society. For both, in so far as labour requires practical use of the hands and free bodily movement, as in agriculture, at the same time exercise." The focus is on the development of "crisis" in the sense of a "development of the human mind" within capitalism finding expression in the developed "productive forces" and developed "individuality" required to "appropriate" these forces and use them to create the conditions, including the "free time," necessary for the "full development of the individual." Much of the account found here of the relation of the capitalist labour process to the "development of the human mind" in these two senses is repeated in chaps. 14 and 15 of Capital, vol. I. e.g. "Modern Industry, on the other hand, through its catastrophes imposes the necessity of recognising, as a fundamental law of production, variation of work, consequently fitness of the labourer for varied work, consequently the greatest possible development of his varied aptitudes. It becomes a question of life and death for society to adapt the mode of production to the normal functioning of this law. Modern Industry, indeed, compels society, under penalty of death, to replace the detail-worker of to-day, grappled by life-long repetition of one and the same trivial operation, and thus reduced to the mere fragment of a man, by the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours, ready to face any change of production, and to whom the different social functions he performs, are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural and acquired powers." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm> The basic idea with respect to the effect of the "automatic workshop" on the development of the "individuality" of those doing wage-labour is found in the passage from The Poverty of Philosophy. "What characterizes the division of labor inside modern society is that it engenders specialized functions, specialists, and with them craft-idiocy. 'We are struck with admiration," says Lemontey, "when we see among the Ancients the same person distinguishing himself to a high degree as philosopher, poet, orator, historian, priest, administrator, general of an army. Our souls are appalled at the sight of so vast a domain. Each one of us plants his hedge and shuts himself up in his enclosure. I do not know whether by this parcellation the field is enlarged, but I do know that man is belittled.' "What characterizes the division of labor in the automatic workshop is that labor has there completely lost its specialized character. But the moment every special development stops, the need for universality, the tendency towards an integral development of the individual begins to be felt. The automatic workshop wipes out specialists and craft- idiocy." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02b.htm Marx's treatment of these aspects of the capitalist labour process is a sublation of Hegel sublating Adam Smith. This can be discovered by reading Lukacs on Hegel's early writings on economics. <http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/youngheg/lukacs35.htm> One significant inadequacy of Marx's understanding of "the development of the human mind" is revealed when "minds" that can't accept the meanings found in these texts when such meanings conflict with their own misreadings resort to a variety of irrational defenses to avoid having to change their minds. Misreadings, e.g. Althusser's, are often unconsciously motived and consequently immune to rational critique. This is one of the reasons capitalism has failed to produce the "crisis" Marx anticipated. There are much more serious obstacles in the way of "the development of the human mind" than he himself imagined. Ted This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
