File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-12-10.211, message 1


Date: 08 Dec 96 05:23:11 EST
From: Chris Burford <100423.2040-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Secular trends in western capitalism


I too have found the exchanges between Hugh and Adam very interesting.
I lean more to Adam on this in that the period of rising capital accumulation in 
Western Europe for several decades from 1945 did permit concessions to the 
working class, leading to an adjustment in the set standard of living.

There are several reasons for this trend. One of them I submit is that
in the technological competition associated with capital accumulation, there
are advantages in having a more educated workforce with a more sophisticated
culture. This coincides with a weakness in the bourgeois democratic system
that encourages a compromise whereby capitalism can continue to flourish 
but with economic concessions where possible to the working class, especially 
if the working class can be divided into working and middle, and brought to 
a state of compliance.

I would side with Adam that the national health service, if not a permanent 
reform was a structural reform. A major concession in the social wage. 
One of the odd things now is that the middle classes benefited by the national
health service, and as the British conservative party goes into a hopeless 
election, it is trying to polish its image on health and education.

Now the sense of the argument that the French ruling class cannot afford to 
make further concessions. All right in one sense it is all voluntary. 
Marx's essay on wages price and profit argues that with well judged 
industrial action trade unions can redistribute the surplus temporarily in 
their fabour, with a shift in production to the new wider consumer market.

But there is no longer the margin in the system for the French ruling class to 
do this without running into turbulent waters. I think the secular trend is that
for several decades after 1945 western european capital was able to accumulate
so that the peaks were longer, the troughs shorter, by conquering new markets and 
by expanding the workforce, which is the most important factor. Workers were taken
off the land and from the colonies or semi-colonial neighbouring countries.
A related hypothesis is that the falling terms of trade for the less 
industrialised countries in effect transferred further exchange value 
each year to the metropolitan countries.

Now the rise of the far eastern centres of capital accumulation are putting 
western european (as well as US) capital under some real pressure. It cannot 
easily subsidize a uniform internal market, and needs to impose financial 
stringency. to cut the social wage. and permitting a wider range of income
distribution. 

Unless the French ruling class can force substantial cuts on the French working 
class their next crisis will not be a routine fluctuation in the trade cycle
but will produce structural changes, in a situation outside their managerial 
control. That is the sense in which I understand them to be unable to 
afford further concessions.

Criticisms appreciated, especially on the inflow of labour hypothesis.
Can anyone refute this?

Chris Burford
London.




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