Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 09:41:40 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:

<snip>> 
> However, of the many important  objections Harry made I find this to be
> the most important and indeed damaging to my argument.  
> 
> > . On the contrary because I see
> > captialist crisis as a crisis of class relations brought on by workers
> > struggles, I think that waiting around of "objective" conditions won't
> > help much, better to get on with producing those conditions through our
> > struggles. 
> 
> Yet  then in the absence of militant working class struggles you are
> predicting that crises will never break out? 

Rakesh: I think that most of the classic theories of crisis
--underconsumption, falling rate of profit, profit squeeze,,  etc.-- can
be understood in class terms, which is to say in terms of working class
struggle. If we go looking for mechanisms of crisis which seem detached
from class struggle --things like speculative financial crisis-- I think
we find two things. First, there ARE certain mechanisms --which Marx
analysed at some length and Kindleberger and Minsky later took up-- which
operate to generate boom-bust cycles, second, as in the case of the
international debt crisis which I have analyzed at some length (and
published in CAPITAL & CLASS) probing such crises generally reveals class
struggle at their heart if not in their immediate dynamics. We use the
term "crisis" loosely today, to indicate just about every tremor that
ripples through the capitalist system. I think Marx tended to use it more
strictly to refer to ruptures in the class relations --which are always
derived from workers struggle.

> I think we should be
> absolutely clear  that capital cannot promise us peace or employment  
> even for our silence and cooperation and generally good
> behavior.  
> 

Rakesh: I think the issue is moot, because they are never going to get it.

> Some simple value theoretic analysis based indeed on the capital labor
> relation in abstraction from competition  would reveal 
> that capital will find itself in the midst of crises it cannot understand
> even if the industrial working class remains passive.              
> 
Rakesh: Just what "value theoretic analysis" do you have in mind? Don't be
coy. :-)

> I guess my difference is simple: many autonomists brilliantly attempt to
> focus attention away from the anarchy of capitalism (where Brenner's eyes 
> are) and on to the capital-labor dynamic. As Angela said, those who
> focused on the anarchy of capitalism were basically see bourgeois society
> from the eyes of future technocratic planners. 
> 

Rakesh: I wouldn't put it this way, because autonomist work --at least
recent work of the last 40 years-- has emphasized the absence of "anarchy"
within capitalism and the spread of capitalist planning, not just in
socialist countries but in the capitalist West --to the point where the
dichotomy between anarchy & planning has been largely abandoned.

> I think the mistake here is that in abstracting from capitalist
> competition, there has been a tendency to imagine capital as a unified
> power which actually has the power to plan society on its behalf as long
> as the working class does not interfere.  
> 
Rakesh: I don't think this is an accurate caracterization. Many of us HAVE
dealt with "competition" at many levels --in large part demonstrating that
it concerns the form of capitalist organization of command. I wrote a
tiny piece in Common Sense some years back on this subject and Werner's
more recent offering in response to Brenner makes similar arguments
--although our way of dealing with the issue differs. Recently, in these
discussions of the last couple of weeks I have had occasion to highlight
some points on this issue. As for the power of capital to plan --at the
level of the shopfloor, the industry, the nationstate or the global level,
people have been showing for sometime now that the only real limit to such
planning is our resistance. Everything else, all "dead labor" CAN be
planned. Of course, planning does not equal perfect realization of the
plans by any means and the most politically important obstacle to
realization for many of us is our struggles.


> I just don't think we have to move from a correct subordination of
> capitalist competition to the belief that capital can control or
> decides upon the outbreak of economic crises  in order to discipline the
> working class. This is doubtless true in some cases, but in other cases
> all capitalist plans to control society on its behalf come to nought
> even as the working class stands remains relatively passive. 
> 
Rakesh: Perhaps you'd like to illustrate this last point. "Relatively
passive" sounds a bit slippery but perhaps some examples would clarify
what you have in mind.

> Harry, I am trying to bend the stick in the other direction; I do the goal
> should be to transcend (!) the subjective/objective duality.
> 
> best, rakesh
> 
Rakesh: Well, we agree about that at least. Let's see what else we might
agree upon.

Harry
............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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