File spoon-archives/marxism-intro.archive/marxism-intro_2000/marxism-intro.0010, message 6


Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 02:50:43 +0100
From: DavidWelch-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: progression of capitalism


On Sun, Oct 01, 2000 at 11:40:39PM +0000, Psbs-AT-pseud.pseud wrote:
> the general progression of capitalism would be
> 0.  the commodification of labor
> 1.  the surplus value accrues to the "exploiters" of wage earners.
> 2.  the surplus value is reinvested into the production of commodities.
> 3.  the surplus value once reinvested, let say in machinery, is profitable 
> for a short time and becomes capital.
> 4.  the value of a commodity is its congelation of human labor power, so 
> machinery does nothing but lessen the value of the commodity (spreading 
> value out over a greater number of commodities).
> 5.  the capitalist then lays off excess laborers thus creating a class of 
> paupers which depresses the wages of the currently employed.
> 6.  eventually the "social necessary time" will become so brutal that 
> capitalists will not be able to pay the labor a reproductive level of wage.
> 7.  the labor will rise up and take power at that synthesis, i.e. capitalism 
> has the seeds of its own destruction sown itself.
> 8.  use value will be traded for use value in the new social economy.
> I would like to know if I have the basics correct.
> 
The steps you described are similar to one theory of capitalist crisis
that Marx described (for example in 'Value, Price and Profit'), it
might be described as 'underconsumptionist'. 
	The theory in 'Capital' is different, essentially the capital
employed in an enterprise can be divided into fixed and variable capital,
the former is used to buy machinery and raw materials and the latter is
used to employ labour. Only variable capital produces surplus value. If,
in a given industry, the available market isn't fully covered by the
existing amount of production then a capitalist can expand the amount of
surplus value (s)he receives by increasing production, which means
increasing the amount of fixed and variable capital at the same rate, in
other words employing more workers and for each extra worker buying
proportionally more raw materials and machinery. 
	However if the market is fully covered then increasing production
would only depress the price of the particular commodity, so the
capitalist can only increase the amount of surplus value by either
decreasing the wages of workers or by reducing the time necessary to
produce the commodity, in other words by raising productivity. If we
assume that the extent to which the capitalist can do the former is
limited in the short term then the only alternative is to raise
productivity. The capitalist may be able to do this by working the
existing workforce harder (for example by speeding up assembly lines) but
again the extent this can be done is limited, if only by the physical
abilities of an average worker. The other way to raise productivity is to
increase the amount of fixed capital, for example by replacing existing
machinery or by using different raw materials.
	So the general tendency is for the amount of fixed capital to
expand faster than the amount of variable capital. But only variable
capital produces surplus value so this process also tends to reduce the
rate of profit (which equals the amount of surplus value over the total
amount of capital invested). Because capitalists will only produce and
accumulate if they expect to make a profit, the tendency for the rate of
profit to fall causes a slowdown in the reinvestement of capital and an
eventual crisis. Capitalists can escape from this crisis in a number of
ways, by depressing working class living standards (and hence increasing
surplus value) or by getting markets overseas in colonies.
	The importance for Marx of this theory was not that he expected
an apocalyptic crisis which would provoke a final showdown between
bourgeoise and the proletariat (your step 7) but that it demonstrated an
inbuilt limit to how humanity could progress under capitalism, to go
further a new social system was needed. But to achieve this is required
not only the objective conditions created by capitalism (recessions, wars,
etc) but a subjective one, the consciousness of the proletariat. Perhaps
I'm misinterpreting you, but to go from step 7 to step 8 without
mentioning this runs the risk of reducing Marxism to predestination.

HTH,
David Welch


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