From: mim3-AT-mim.org
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 22:45:27 -0500 (EST)
Subject: M-G: Re: surplus-value


Justin wrote:

> I don't see that HM has much at all to do with the LTV. The main claims
> are that the economy has some sort of explanatory priority over politics,
> ideology, and culture and that modes of production in class societies 
tend
> to be internally unstable for reasons related to the economy and this
> instability promotes revolutionary transitions to other modes of
production.
 > Of course in capitalism in particular, Marx argues that the kind of
economic
> instabilities that _this_ mode of production is prey to has a good deal
tio
> with the LTV. But insofar as the claim is one about crisis theory in
> capitalism, (a) Marx never developed an adequate theory of crisis even
> using the LTV; rather, he was able to locate certain broad tendencies
> which are real but don't require the LTV to explicate, and he certainly
> failed to prove taht the fall of capitalism is inevitable. (b) The
> theories of crisis he did develop don't connect with the class struggle
> and the political tendencies necessary for a transition to socialism. 
> 

MIM3 replies: I would have to suspect that the above author
rather like Doug Henwood does not understand what surplus-value is.

While it may be possibile to pontificate on a  world
where Marx's theory of surplus-value had no relevance to crisis
theory and class struggle, the facts more than justify it.

Today, as we see the service sectors and white-collar 
professions skyrocket in the imperialist countries, we see
that the imperialists are slitting their own throats when it
comes to production of surplus-value. While the labor aristocracy
composes a group for political stability, it's existence
cuts into the available surplus-value and speeds up crisis.
In contrast, we have bourgeois economics which predicts that
anything demanded in the economy may be improved with white-collar
work and productivity increased--hence no need for a profit 
crisis necessarily.

Of course, that is to leave aside the whole fact that the theory
of surplus-value is necessary for understanding the appropriation of
labor--a more popular and well-known aspect of the theory.





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