Carrol Cox wrote: > ... It is disputable > whether there is such a thing as "Marxian economics." Marx wrote a Critique > of capitalism (political economy) at its highest level of abstraction, a > level which _never_ exists in practice.
Just as with "bourgeois economics," there is no single "Marxian economics." Instead, there is a variety. Any Marxian political economist who tells you that there's only one view (e.g., the falling rate of profit theory), he or she is wrong. Marx never finished his crisis theory and never fully explained his value theory, so we have no choice but to "let a thousand flowers bloom" (to quote the old bait-and-switch slogan out of context). CAPITAL volume I is at an extremely high level of abstraction. It's not merely a critique of capitalism or of political economists' views, but (after chapter 3) it presents a coherent theory of how relations between abstract capital and abstract labor struggle with each other. (Accumulation is part of that struggle.) That can set the context for a more concrete theory. Marx himself develops a more concrete -- but incomplete -- theory in volume II and one that's even more concrete -- but again incomplete -- theory in volume III. But these can only be raw materials for people to develop _their own_ theories. We have no choice but to take ownership of our own ideas instead of saying that we're speaking for Marx in some way. > Fredy Perlman argues that Marx simply does > not ask and answer the same questions (e.g., how are prices determined?) > that "economists" try to answer. ... That's right. Marx didn't approach the question "how are prices determined" until volume III and then never finished his answer. In volume I, he assumed that prices were determined by supply and demand on the concrete level but then for his analysis assumed that prices = values (when measured in the same units). He made this assumption because he was trying to understand capitalism as a whole (the context) by abstracting from differences among capitalists and among workers before he could turn to markets (which only operate within some social mode of production, not always capitalism). > ... Marx's _Capital_ has one or two paragraphs > referring to a future "socialism," but he give absolutely no details of that > future, merely indicating that the worker will know the meaning of the > product she/he produces (i.e. the meaning of labor will not be beyond the > control or knowledge of the producer). My impression -- from Hal Draper's monumental KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (Monthly Review, various volumes) -- is that Marx believed it was the working class's job to figure out what socialism was rather than having some theorist do it for them. > So probably the question you ask about productive/unproductive labor is > unanswerable. That question is only "unanswerable" if you restrict your reading to "holy" texts like CAPITAL and Talmudic interpretations of them. In any event, the meaning of "unproductive labor" is pretty clear in Marx. (Unproductive labor does not produce surplus-value directly.) The key question is that whether or not the concept is relevant in some way to understanding capitalism (as opposed to merely criticizing political economy). I don't think that the concept helps much at all (though I'm willing to be convinced otherwise). Nathan Tankus had written: > This has been one of my longstanding questions about Marxian analysis (I > only just recently got back to a more intensive study of Marx.... > > Based on the above Doug seems to be arguing that profit to enterprise is > what really matters when analyzing trends in a capitalist economy. This > leads to an obvious question in my mind. Let's assume for hypothetical > example's sake that there is a relatively radical political party that has > gained... Could > this party restore profitability to enterprise, shrink inflation and lower > unemployment by shrinking other sectors such as unproductive labor and rent? > It seems to me that this is a logical conclusion from anything I've read > from Marxists and Marx. Yet I've almost never seen it discussed. Good question. In theory, reducing the role of unproductive labor would raise the rate of profit (the relevant one, measured net of unproductive labor costs). That would make the economy less prone to stagflation, all else constant. The problem is that most of the unproductive labor costs are (from the perspective of capitalism as a whole) necessary overhead. Capitalism doesn't do well without sales staffs, supervisors, managers, etc. In theory, the government could make the system -- including the necessary overhead -- more efficient, thus raising profitability. I guess that's what social democracy is about. -- Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, you should at least know the nature of that evil. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
