Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism

2009-01-20 Thread Waistline2


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. 
 

Comment 
 
Capital can never employed all the proletarians, all the time or most of  the 
time, and this is a built in restriction on consumption, even during period  
of expanding consumption. This mass of non-producing consumers allows the  
capitalist to set wages. (Non-producing classes is what Marx calls it is the 
top  
portion of the material quoted above). 

Lets try and get behind under consumption as an ism. 
 
Under consumption as an ism is a distinct body of politics. The calling  
card of every Social Democrat has always been and remains the battle cry of  
raise the consuming capacity of the masses. It is the ideology of under  
consumption of the masses, as an ism, that establishes the political unity  
between capital and its various production units being strangled by a break in  
circulation; the social democrats and their efforts to win the masses to  
preservation of capitalism. 
 
The social democrats American brand, are neatly lining up behind President  
Obama, demanding to raise the consuming capacity of the masses, with an $800  
million spending package promising jobs. Under consumption as an ism is  
actually a coherent thought and ideology.  Under consumption as an ism is  
pure 
social democratic ideology and politics. One ought not raise concession  
battles to the level of an ism. 
 
For one to say for instance, the financial crisis of 2008 is ultimately  
related to restricted consumption of the masses is just silly. Capital can  
never continuously employed all the proletarians and this is a built in  
restriction on consumption, even during boom times or during periods of  
expanding 
consumption. 
 
Society faces a permanent, unrelenting crisis in/of fixed  capital, which can 
no longer be mitigated by market expansion or deepening  by credit extension. 
Unlike during the time of Marx the falling rate of profit  cannot today be 
overcome on the basis of quantitative market expansion. During  Marx crisis 
could be mitigated through market expansion and the creation of a  real world 
market with colonies. Marx use of the term world market meant an  outline of 
a 
world market. Today there is a for real world market. In 1850 and  1860 there 
was not.  
 
Dead labor consumes living labor in the absolute sense. During the time of  
Marx dead labor consumption of living labor was mitigated through conversion of 
 a sea of humanity from serfs to modern proletarians and the employed working 
 class expanded in absolute terms. The entire system expanded. Advanced 
robotics  and computerized production process introduces a new quality in to 
the 
game.  Capital is hitting the historical wall
 
Permanent overcapacity in virtually every industry and not just  
overproduction or under consumption is the new reality and this did not exist 
in  1870. 
Permanent overcapacity finds capital feeding on itself in search of  profits. 
Not surplus value but profits or valueless wealth. Valueless wealth is  
impossible and cannot stand for long.  
 

WL. 
 

Let us suppose that the whole of society is composed only of  industrial 
capitalists and wage-workers. Let us furthermore disregard price  fluctuations, 
which prevent large portions of the total capital from replacing  themselves in 
their average proportions and which, owing to the general  interrelations of 
the entire reproduction process as developed in particular by  credit, must 
always call forth general stoppages of a transient nature. Let us  also 
disregard the sham transactions and speculations, which the credit system  
favours. 
Then, a crisis could only be explained as the result of a disproportion  of 
production in various branches of the economy, and as a result of a  
disproportion 
between the consumption of the capitalists and their accumulation.  But as 
matters stand, the replacement of the capital invested in production  depends 
largely upon the consuming power of the non-producing classes; while the  
consuming power of the workers is limited partly by the laws of wages, partly 
by  
the fact that they are used only as long as they can be profitably employed by  
the capitalist class. The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains 
the  poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive 
of  capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the  
absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit. 
 
_http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch30.htm_ 
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch30.htm)   Vol 3 Chapter 
30. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism

2009-01-20 Thread Charles Brown


 waistli...@aol.com 01/20/2009 6:32 AM 


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. 
 

Comment 
 
Capital can never employed all the proletarians, all the time or most of  the 
time, and this is a built in restriction on consumption, even during period  
of expanding consumption. This mass of non-producing consumers allows the  
capitalist to set wages. (Non-producing classes is what Marx calls it is the 
top  
portion of the material quoted above). 

Lets try and get behind under consumption as an ism. 
 
Under consumption as an ism is a distinct body of politics. The calling  
card of every Social Democrat has always been and remains the battle cry of  
raise the consuming capacity of the masses. It is the ideology of under  
consumption of the masses, as an ism, that establishes the political unity  
between capital and its various production units being strangled by a break in  
circulation; the social democrats and their efforts to win the masses to  
preservation of capitalism. 

^^^
CB: Agree. The Keynesian Social Democrats, who come to dominate Social 
Democracy after the Russian Revolution ( Before the Russian Revolution, the 
Social Democrats were the Marxists, in Germany in the first place, where the 
Kautsky led Social Democratic Labor Party had had Engels as a member, had lots 
of members of Parlianment. Then most Social Dems became renegades from Marxism 
around WWI.  After the Russian Revolution,  the next wave of Social Democracy 
was based on Keynes' theory which was based on the part of the truth of 
capitalism which is expressed in the Marxist theory of under-consumptionism, or 
literally from the quote from Marx, restricted consumptionism.


 
The social democrats American brand, are neatly lining up behind President  
Obama, demanding to raise the consuming capacity of the masses, with an $800  
million spending package promising jobs. Under consumption as an ism is  
actually a coherent thought and ideology.  Under consumption as an ism is  
pure 
social democratic ideology and politics. One ought not raise concession  
battles to the level of an ism. 
 
For one to say for instance, the financial crisis of 2008 is ultimately  
related to restricted consumption of the masses is just silly. Capital can  
never continuously employed all the proletarians and this is a built in  
restriction on consumption, even during boom times or during periods of  
expanding 
consumption. 
 
Society faces a permanent, unrelenting crisis in/of fixed  capital, which can 
no longer be mitigated by market expansion or deepening  by credit extension. 
Unlike during the time of Marx the falling rate of profit  cannot today be 
overcome on the basis of quantitative market expansion. During  Marx crisis 
could be mitigated through market expansion and the creation of a  real world 
market with colonies. Marx use of the term world market meant an  outline of 
a 
world market. Today there is a for real world market. In 1850 and  1860 there 
was not.  
 
Dead labor consumes living labor in the absolute sense. During the time of  
Marx dead labor consumption of living labor was mitigated through conversion of 
 a sea of humanity from serfs to modern proletarians and the employed working 
 class expanded in absolute terms. The entire system expanded. Advanced 
robotics  and computerized production process introduces a new quality in to 
the 
game.  Capital is hitting the historical wall
 
Permanent overcapacity in virtually every industry and not just  
overproduction or under consumption is the new reality and this did not exist 
in  1870. 
Permanent overcapacity finds capital feeding on itself in search of  profits. 
Not surplus value but profits or valueless wealth. Valueless wealth is  
impossible and cannot stand for long.  
 

WL. 
 

Let us suppose that the whole of society is composed only of  industrial 
capitalists and wage-workers. Let us furthermore disregard price  fluctuations, 
which prevent large portions of the total capital from replacing  themselves in 
their average proportions and which, owing to the general  interrelations of 
the entire reproduction process as developed in particular by  credit, must 
always call forth general stoppages of a transient nature. Let us  also 
disregard the sham transactions and speculations, which the credit system  
favours. 
Then, a crisis could only be explained as the result of a disproportion  of 
production in various branches of the economy, and as a result of a  
disproportion 
between the consumption of the capitalists and their accumulation.  But as 
matters stand, the replacement of the capital invested in 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism (not the ultimate cause of crisis)

2009-01-20 Thread Waistline2
In a message dated 1/20/2009 11:02:19 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ (mailto:charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us)   
writes: 
 
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. 
 
 
 
WL Capital can never employed all the proletarians, all the time or (ALL OF  
THE PROLETARIAN) most of  the time, and this is a built in restriction on  
consumption, even during period of expanding consumption. This mass of  
non-producing consumers allows the capitalist to set wages. (Non-producing  
classes is 
what Marx calls it is the top portion of the material quoted above). 
 
Reply 
 
Sorry, but the first sentence needed correction. 
 
Why can the capitalists (bourgeois property) NOT  employ all the  
proletarians all of the time or all of the proletarian most of the time? The  
answer 
cannot be because of the restricted consumption of the masses. What  brings our 
society to revolution (the ultimate crisis of all crisis) is not the  
restricted 
consumption of the masses, but rather bourgeois private property, or  rather 
revolution in the mode of production, beginning with a revolution in the  
productive forces of society. 
 
New classes are formed by the introduction of new productive equipment,  that 
compels society to reorganize itself around the expanding new means of  
production. The productive forces come into conflict with the existing social  
relations of production, then a period of revolution unfolds. Here is the  
ultimate source of all crisis, in all societies founded on the private property 
 
form. 
 
Stated another way, crisis of overproduction or the crisis embodied in the  
falling rate of production as a tendency of capitalist production are simply 
the  face - an expression of something else. That something else is the meaning 
of  bourgeois private property. All crisis have as their ultimate source 
property;  private ownership of the means of production, not the restricted 
consumption of  the masses. This statement runs counter to the quote above. 
 
Anyone familiar with Marx knows that his outline of the science of society  
states in no uncertain terms that revolution is always the result of change -  
qualitative changes, in the means of production. However, one cannot explain 
any  crisis on the basic changes in the means of production. 
 
One has to study the peculiar crisis one is addressing. 
 
The ultimate cause of crisis is not the restricted consumption of the  
masses. Is this statement proof of anti-communism and anti-Marxism? 
 
Of course not. 
 
WL
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 
**A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy 
steps! 
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De
cemailfooterNO62)

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis


Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism (not the ultimate cause ofcrisis)

2009-01-20 Thread Charles Brown
In this quote, Marx is not talking 
about revolutionary transformation 
necessarily, but rather about the 
regular crises within
capitalism still.

Such crises may be involved in a 
revolutionary transformation as
 a sort of trigger, but Marx is not
claiming that underconsumption is the ultimate
cause of revolution.

Of course, poverty does contribute to
revolution, but that's not the point
 in this particular quote.

 waistli...@aol.com 01/20/2009 4:45 PM 
In a message dated 1/20/2009 11:02:19 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ (mailto:charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us)   
writes: 
 
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. 
 
 
 
WL Capital can never employed all the proletarians, all the time or (ALL OF  
THE PROLETARIAN) most of  the time, and this is a built in restriction on  
consumption, even during period of expanding consumption. This mass of  
non-producing consumers allows the capitalist to set wages. (Non-producing  
classes is 
what Marx calls it is the top portion of the material quoted above). 
 
Reply 
 
Sorry, but the first sentence needed correction. 
 
Why can the capitalists (bourgeois property) NOT  employ all the  
proletarians all of the time or all of the proletarian most of the time? The  
answer 
cannot be because of the restricted consumption of the masses. What  brings our 
society to revolution (the ultimate crisis of all crisis) is not the  
restricted 
consumption of the masses, but rather bourgeois private property, or  rather 
revolution in the mode of production, beginning with a revolution in the  
productive forces of society. 
 
New classes are formed by the introduction of new productive equipment,  that 
compels society to reorganize itself around the expanding new means of  
production. The productive forces come into conflict with the existing social  
relations of production, then a period of revolution unfolds. Here is the  
ultimate source of all crisis, in all societies founded on the private property 
 
form. 
 
Stated another way, crisis of overproduction or the crisis embodied in the  
falling rate of production as a tendency of capitalist production are simply 
the  face - an expression of something else. That something else is the meaning 
of  bourgeois private property. All crisis have as their ultimate source 
property;  private ownership of the means of production, not the restricted 
consumption of  the masses. This statement runs counter to the quote above. 
 
Anyone familiar with Marx knows that his outline of the science of society  
states in no uncertain terms that revolution is always the result of change -  
qualitative changes, in the means of production. However, one cannot explain 
any  crisis on the basic changes in the means of production. 
 
One has to study the peculiar crisis one is addressing. 
 
The ultimate cause of crisis is not the restricted consumption of the  
masses. Is this statement proof of anti-communism and anti-Marxism? 
 
Of course not. 
 
WL
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 
**A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy 
steps! 
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De
 
cemailfooterNO62)

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu 
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis



This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. 
www.surfcontrol.com

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis


Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism (not the ultimate cause ofcrisis)

2009-01-20 Thread Waistline2
Every single regular crisis of capital, in particular, is the direct result  
of the bourgeois property form. Allow me to emphasize regular as meaning  
cyclical - not the revolutionary transformation (more accurately transition)  
from one mode of production to anther.  
 
Actually, regular crisis or cyclical crisis of capital means bourgeois  
property as the mode of producing commodities. The appearance of crisis in the  
financial, agricultural or industrial sectors, at any given point in time,  
always have its peculiar cause, which in the first and last instance is a break 
 
in circulation or in laypersons terms, crisis due to the character of 
bourgeois  production. Bourgeois property is the cause of crisis in a system of 
capitalist  commodity production. 
 
Sorry if I wrote in a manner to lead one to believe I was not speaking of  
crisis. Adding not the ultimate cause of crisis to the thread was meant to  
indicate I was speaking of crisis. 
 
I am not talking of revolutionary transformation but the source of  crisis. 
Under consumption is not the source, root cause or taproot, of the  crisis of 
bourgeois property or the bourgeois mode of production or commodity  
production on the basis of bourgeois property relations. 
 
The conflict immanent in the bourgeois form of property is expressed in the  
commodity form, with all its implications, and the commodity form of bourgeois 
 mode of producing is the cause - direct and ultimate, source of all crisis  
expressed as breach in circulation and most certainly regular crisis.  
 
In my reading of Chapter 30 in Vol. 3, I take Marx to be speaking in a  
specific context. If Marx means that the ultimate source of all crisis -  
regular 
and cyclical, in the bourgeois mode of commodity production or the  conflict 
inherent to the bourgeois property form, is under consumption of the  masses, 
then I disagree with Marx. Marx is not God. Or to be treated as a God  whose 
every utterances is to be clung to, or quoted out of context. . 
 
Its no big thing. 
 
WL. 
 
 
 

In a message dated 1/20/2009 5:09:24 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ (mailto:charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us)   
writes: 
 

In this quote, Marx is not talking about revolutionary transformation  
necessarily, but rather about the regular crises within capitalism still. 
 
Such crises may be involved in a revolutionary transformation as a sort of  
trigger, but Marx is not claiming that underconsumption is the ultimate cause 
of  revolution. 
 
Of course, poverty does contribute to revolution, but that's not the point  
in this particular quote. 
_http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis_ 
(http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis) 
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) 
**A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy 
steps! 
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De
cemailfooterNO62)

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis


Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism; (refutation by Marx and Lenin)

2009-01-20 Thread Waistline2
Apologies for the length of this, but I was challenged to produce some  
quotes ... 
 
--- On Tue, 1/20/09, Charles Brown _charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ 
(mailto:charl...@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us)   wrote: 
 
You quoted the quote from Lenin. If you'd turned the page and read on, you  
would have found the following: 
 
'These propositions all speak of the contradiction we have mentioned,  
namely, the contradiction between the unrestricted drive to expand production  
and 
limited consumption—and of nothing else. Nothing could be more senseless  than 
to conclude from these passages in Capital that Marx did not admit the  
possibility of surplus-value being realised in capitalist society, that he  
attributed crises to under-consumption, and so forth.' 
 
This should serve as an alert on this issue. 
 
Here is Marx in Book 2, Chapter 20: 
 
'It is sheer tautology to say that crises are caused by the scarcity of  
effective consumption, or of effective consumers. The capitalist system does 
not  
know any other modes of consumption than effective ones, except that of sub  
forma pauperis or of the swindler. That commodities are unsaleable means only  
that no effective purchasers have been found for them, i.e., consumers (since  
commodities are bought in the final analysis for productive or individual  
consumption). But if one were to attempt to give this tautology the semblance 
of 
 a profounder justification by saying that the working-class receives too 
small a  portion of its own product and the evil would be remedied as soon as 
it 
receives  a larger share of it and its wages increase in consequence, one 
could only  remark that crises are always prepared by precisely a period in 
which 
wages rise  generally and the working-class actually gets a larger share of 
that part of the  annual product which is intended for consumption. From the 
point of view of  these advocates of sound and “simple” (!) common sense, such 
a 
period should  rather remove the crisis. It appears, then, that capitalist 
production comprises  conditions independent of good or bad will, conditions 
which permit the  working-class to enjoy that relative prosperity only 
momentarily, and at that  always only as the harbinger of a coming crisis.' 
 
In a footnote to this passage, Engels remarked: 'Ad notam for possible  
followers of the Rodbertian theory of crises'. Rodbertus had argued that:  
'capital 
accumulates and production increases without there being a sufficient  number 
of purchasers for the products, for the capitalists do not wish to  consume 
more and the workmen are not able to do so.' 
 
In Anti-Duhring: 'unfortunately the under-consumption of the masses, the  
restriction of the consumption of the masses to what is necessary for their  
maintenance and reproduction, is not a new phenomenon. It has existed as long 
as  
there have been exploiting and exploited classes. Even in those periods of  
history when the situation of the masses was particularly favourable, as for  
example in England in the fifteenth century, they under-consumed. They were 
very 
 far from having their own annual total product at their disposal to be 
consumed  by them. Therefore, while under-consumption has been a constant 
feature 
in  history for thousands of years, the general shrinkage of the market which 
breaks  out in crises as the result of a surplus of production is a phenomenon 
only of  the last fifty years; and so Herr Dühring's whole superficial vulgar 
economics  is necessary in order to explain the new collision not by the new 
phenomenon of  over-production but by the thousand-year-old phenomenon of 
under-consumption.  ... The under-consumption of the masses is a necessary 
condition of all forms of  society based on exploitation, consequently also of 
the 
capitalist form; but it  is the capitalist form of production which first gives 
rise to crises. The  under-consumption of the masses is therefore also a 
prerequisite condition of  crises, and plays in them a role which has long been 
recognised. But it tells us  just as little why crises exist today as why they 
did 
not exist before.' 
 
The problem which devotees of underconsumptionism have is explaining how  
capitalism works at all, since the workers can NEVER buy back the full value of 
 
what they produce. The entire system should die at birth because the workers  
won't be able to buy everything. The trick for getting out of this problem is 
to  postulate 'third parties' who manage to buy the unsold goods. Luxemburg, 
Baran  and Sweezy etc take this route. Malthus gives this kind of explanation, 
which  Marx discusses in Theories of Surplus Value 
 
Let's look at the quote in context. Here is the whole paragraph: 
 
'Let us suppose that the whole of society is composed only of industrial  
capitalists and wage-workers. Let us furthermore disregard price fluctuations,  
which prevent large portions of the total capital from replacing themselves in  
their 

[Marxism-Thaxis] underconsumptionism

2009-01-16 Thread Charles Brown
M-TH: underconsumptionism
Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us 
Thu Oct 1 10:26:53 MDT 1998 

Previous message: M-TH: Re: LI-CRG: money imbroglio 
Next message: M-TH: underconsumptionism 
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] 



James,

Once again you cut off part of the quote.
The aspect in which Lenin most directly
contradicts
the point of your argument, compounding
my suspicion of your dishonesty.

Here is the original exchange again with
the fuller quote from Lenin, which
you cut short a second time below:

___

James Heartfield wrote the folloiwng in response to my 
statement:

Charles:
Why would the bourgeois
always be seeking new markets and yet 
discouraging consumption ? This is not 
Marxist logic.


James H.
'On the problem of interest to us, that the home market, the main
conclusion from Marx's theory of realisation is the following:
capitalist production, and consequently, the home market, grow not so
much on account of articles of consumption as on account of means of
production. In other words, the increase in means of production outstrips
the increase in articles of consumption.'

Lenin, Development of Capitalism in Russia, p 54
_

Charles : 
But in the same passage Lenin went on to say:

For capitalism, therefore, the growth of the home
market is to a certain extent independent of the
growth of personal consumption, and takes place
mostly on account of productive consumption.
BUT IT WOULD BE A MISTAKE TO UNDERSTAND
THIS INDEPENDENCE AS MEANING  THAT
PRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION IS ENTIRELY
DIVORCED FROM PERSONAL CONSUMPTION:
THE FORMER CAN AND MUST INCREASE
FASTER THAN THE LATTER (AND THERE
ITS INDEPENDENCE ENDS), BUT IT GOES
WITHOUT SAYING THAT, IN THE LAST
ANALYSIS, PRDUCTIVE CONSUMPTION IS
ALWAYS BOUND UP WITH PERSONAL
CONSUMPTION. MARX SAYS IN THIS
CONNECTION: ...WE HAVE SEEN
(BOOK II, PART III) THAT CONTINUOUS
CIRCULATION TAKES PLACE BETWEEN
CONSTANT CAPITAL AND CONSTANT 
CAPITAL...(MARX  HAS IN MIND
CONSTANT CAPITAL IN MEANS
OF PRODUCTION , WHICH IS REALISED
BY EXCHANGE AMONG CAPITALISTS
IN THE SAME DEPARTMENT). IT IS AT
FIRST INDEPENDENT OF INDIVIDUAL
CONSUMPTION BECAUSE IT NEVER
ENTERS THE LATTER. BUT THIS 
CONSUMPTION DEFINITELY LIMITS IT
NEVERTHELESS, SINCE CONSTANT
CAPITAL IS NEVER PRODUCED FOR ITS
OWN SAKE BUT SOLELY BECAUSE MORE OF 
IT IS NEEDED IN SPHERES OF PRODUCTION
WHOSE PRODUCTS GO INTO INDIVIDUAL
CONSUMPTION   (DAS KAPITAL, III,
1, 289, RUSS. TRANS., P242; OR MOSCOW
1959 P.299-300)
emphasis added by Charles.

So, when we read the whole passage
we see that Lenin and Marx agree with us
not James H. in this thread.
 (end of original exchange)
___

You may be insulted, but you are the
one who did something that would
raise reasonably suspicions in
anybody's mind. Why
did you leave out the portion of 
the quote from Lenin that immediately
follows what you quoted and 
very much contradicts what 
you were quoting Lenin for ?
Either you did it on purpose or
it is a big oversight (in a daze).
Why did you do it again in
your post below ? Cutting off
the portion of the quote of Marx
by Lenin that cuts against your
argument the strongest.


As for you being insulted
by my posts and not reading
them, that would be like
a wrongdoer being insulted
when their wrong is pointed out.
It is a further fraudulence,
fraudulent posturing. Perhaps
others will read my posts 
exposing your half-quoting
and discount your arguments
accordingly.

It is not a matter of you being
insulted. It is a matter of you
cleaning up your act.



In the quote from Mattick below
first I point out that neither
you nor Mattick claim that
Marx did not say it. Secondly,you act 
as if Mattick is somekind
of authority who can reverse
the plain meaning of Marx's words in
the quote: The ultimate
reason for all real crises always 
remains the poverty and
restricted consumption of the 
masses... You and Mattick
can try to twist that all you want, 
but it's meaning is clear.  Ultimate
reason means ultimate cause.
So when you try to say Marx
didn't make this part of whatever
theory of crisis he putforth, you
just can't do it. As has already been
said about 50 times on this thread,
the well known fact that Marx is
always analyzing contradictions means
that the law of the tendency of the
rate of profit to fall is also part of his
analysis of the cause. You keep
dishonestly portraying what others and
I are saying as if we don't include
the latter. That is more evidence
of your dishonesty. You blatantly
half quote your opponents as well
as Lenin.
 


Charles Brown

From the market to the Marxit





Then Charles quotes

 Lenin went on to say:

For capitalism, therefore, the growth of the home
market is to a certain extent independent of the
growth of personal consumption, and takes place
mostly on account of productive consumption.
BUT IT WOULD BE A MISTAKE TO UNDERSTAND
THIS