Date: 	Mon, 14 Sep 1998 11:07:38 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: AUT: More on Brenner



Angela, this is how I read Brenner's logic:

Fraticidal competition->cost cutting technical change->overcapacity of
high cost producers->lower average rate of profit->slower rate of
accumulation->devaluation of high cost capacity (possibly delayed
by real wage cuts, currency manipulations and debt)->higher rate of
profit and accumulation on total social capital following upon
devaluation. 

This is how I read Marx's argument:

upward pressure on OCC->shortage of surplus value vis a vis accumulation
requirements->reduced effective demand for growing commodity
output->crisis of general overproduction and excess capacity->outbreak of
fraticidal competition-> acceleration in the concentration and
centralization of capital on a global scale along with growth of world  
reserve army of labor, boosting the rate of profit of the surviving
capitalists. 

So Brenner takes as given what must be explained: breakdown of Marx's
capitalist fraternity or what Schumpeter called correspective competition
and the outbreak of fraticidal competition. Competition is not always
fraticidal even between national capitals on the world market.  
Competition is invoked to explain everything  when fraticidal competition
itself is what needs to be explained. Grossmann and Mattick are very clear
about  this. 

In short,  it is the shortage of surplus value, rooted in the very
capital-labor dynamic which Brenner self-consciously wants to subordinate
to intra- capitalist competition esp at the international level, which has
explanatory primacy in Marx's crisis theory.

I don't think  Brenner's theory is a continuation of Marx's project.

However,  if the rate of exploitation is always growing sufficiently and
great capital savings innovations are always available and new low OCC
branches are being continuously introduced then the mass of surplus value
may never  fall short of the requirements for capital accumulation. It may
simply be a question of the maldistribution of surplus value due to 
disproportionality or  underconsumptionism. The competitive process can
solve the former; reform the latter. And none of the unpleasantries
of Marx's analysis need be faced. 

best, rakesh




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