File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9706, message 37


Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 03:17:19 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Crisis-free accumulation


Rakesh wrote:

>There are no deeper attacks on Marx than those at the foundations of value
>theory; however, more pressing problems may remain the reconciliation of
>what seems to be Marx's model of crisis free accumulation in the
>reproduction schemes with his theory of crisis and breakdown  and may now
>include the value-theoretic analysis of global capitalism (to which
>Carchedi has made a most important contribution).

Haven't we been through this business about the point of Marx's
reproduction schemes before?

They *aren't* a model -- Rakesh's *seems* here is too weak by far. We
should say: "the illusory use made of Marx's reproduction schemes to
suggest the possibility of a model of crisis-free accumulation."

What the schemes do is provide a point at which the figures balance out --
a fleeting moment of "equilibrium" in the churning tornado of capitalist
development. Marx himself stresses the fact that the figures are averages
that can only be fixed after the event, and all the weight of his arguments
are for crisis and disequilibrium.

As for Doug's question about the use of value theory that can't be provided
by bourgeois statistics, the obvious answer is that it provides an answer
to the question of the centre of gravity of prices, around which they
fluctuate. No statistics can do this, unless mere superficial observation
satisfies our need for explanation. Prices have a stability to them over
time that wouldn't be there if their fluctuations were arbitrary and
subjective. Value theory not only explains what it is that gives firmness
to prices in all their fluidity, but (as developed in Capital) also shows
how all the phenomena of modern capitalist society -- overproduction
crises, centralization and concentration of capital, the falling rate of
profit and the relentless pressures of competition -- combine to socialize
the mode of production behind the backs of the capitalists and shake the
grip of the bourgeoisie on political and economic power in as much as the
simplest democratic needs of the people producing value are more and more
openly violated in the interests of the profit-greedy few. In other words
it explains imperialism as a natural development of capitalism, and October
as its natural solution.

All vulgar economics, bourgeois and "Marxite" alike, has its roots in the
removal of objective criteria of value formation and their replacement by
subjective desire and marginalist superficiality. The cohesion of
production and distribution is then removed from conscious theory to a
consensus of praxis external to the study of economics. It becomes
personalized and fetishized in the big capitalists. Economics becomes a
mere decoration, like the belly-dancer's seven veils. Only the
belly-dancer's a blood-drenched werewolf and the veils are desperately
needed as covers for deceit and brutality rather than falling off to reveal
beauty. No wonder it's called the dismal science -- dispiriting and
demeaning and demoralizing don't begin to do it justice.

Cheers,

Hugh




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